לך לך תשפ״ד

00:08 Speaker 1 A good tovoch. Welcome to tonight's Shir, Motzei Shabbos Lech Lecha. On Friday, after I sent out the Shir, the li- the list of, uh, questions, I got a question about Bris Mila, um, connected to the Parshah. It's also my father's Yahrzeit this Thursday, this coming Thursday. So I'm going to address first a, uh, question about... So someone called me up, and he says that his mohel was a reformed Jew, and he's asking whether there's a need for him to have anything done. So here we have on the screen, you have from Shulchan Aruch Yoreh De'ah, reish samech daled. Talks about whether-- who, who is eligible to do a bris. And then, whether a woman can be... And then we have, uh, oyer ke'chavim. Even if you're circumcised, cannot be a mohel. And if he did, however, there's nothing to be done. Ein soch la'azve lamal pam sheinis. There's nothing to be done afterwards. That's the Shulchan Aruch. The Rama, as in the green writing, "V'yesh omer ninchayovim la'azve ha'at efim meinu dam bris." If a bris was done by a goy, so then there's necessary when, at a later stage, to have a prick and to cause some bleeding to make up for, it should be l'shem mitzvas mila. Ve'chein iker. So first f-- so here we have first the machloket, Mechaber and Rama, whether if a person who's ineligible to make a bris did one, does that, does it warrant chatafas dam bris? Mechaber says not necessary. Rama says it is necessary. Next thing

02:13 Speaker 1 he says, "Mumer le'chola Torah kulah, oysher hu mumer le'arelus, dina iker oyer ke'chavim." A person who has... An apostate has gone away from... A heretic has dropped the whole Torah. So then he's got a dina ve'chavim. So as you read the Rama, so you see here that he, you should have to do chatafas dam bris. So it's, it's good to know, first of all, that you have your machloket, um, hapaskim. The question also, when you say a reformed Jew, how, how, um, how, uh, do you know exactly where he was in his mind as far as Torah Meshirak, et cetera? But he went to Reform Temple. Doesn't nec- doesn't necessarily mean that he doesn't believe in Torah Meshirak, et cetera. We don't know. We don't know where, where his position was on this. So it's perhaps a safek moment. But then there's another very interesting thing. Now, listen, listen carefully. We have a lashon, and when it comes to shlichus, "Ma atem b'nei bris, af shluchachem b'nei bris." Just like you are b'nei bris, people of the covenant, your shliach is also has to be a person of the covenant, and if not, he cannot be a shliach. So here's the following dilemma. If you're going to say that a person has dropped Yiddishkeit totally, is not a ben bris, then he cannot be a shliach, and he cannot appoint a shliach, for that matter. So on the margin, you see at the bottom, on the left bottom, there's a reference to a cheerfully Yada

03:55 Speaker 1 Eliahu, which I used a f- few moments before to check, look up. So his story was a person s- a, a get was sent with a shliach, and that shliach decided to drop Yiddishkeit. He became G'shmotzer. Now, can he still be a shliach? If you say that he's not a ben bris, then he can't be a shliach. He can't deliver the get. The ca- the, the scenario's even w- worse. Whenever you have, unfortunately, a person who's gone away from Yiddishkeit totally, and he's left a Yiddish wife, and she's stuck. So she asks, you know, and you plead with him to give a get. And if he, uh, cooperates, "Okay, I'll give a get," he doesn't write the get. He's appointed the sofer. Sofer is a shliach. But if he is not a ben bris, he can't appoint the sofer to be a shliach. He can't, he can't write a get. So that's a really, you know... And that's not followed, yeah. It's, it, it is... We, we would do the get in such a case. What's very, very interesting is that this, at the bottom here, is from the Alter Rebbe's Shulchan Aruch in Siman Kuf Peh Tes. I don't know whether we once discussed this on this, on the, this Shir. In benching, we say, "Ken yevarchech Hashem u'kolono yachad." If there's a goy present, so then we say, "Ken yevarchech Hashem u'lemrei bis kolono yachad" to exclude the goy from the bracha. So then the Magen Avraham says, "What happens if you have

05:23 Speaker 1 a mumer, apikoros, is in the room?" So he says you should say, "Bnei, bnei bris" to exclude him. The Even HaOzer, was a later the Magen Avraham before the Alter Rebbe, he really goes to town in Siman Kuf Peh Tes. Says, "No, you... He's a, a, af al pi sh'chata Yisroel hu, and he is called a ben bris." That a person who's dropped Yiddishkeit is still called a ben bris, and therefore, there's no point in excluding him. He's part of, he's part of Klal Yisroel regardless. And this is what the Alter Rebbe is paskening over here. Vechein ha'mumer b'chlal b'nei bris. The person who's dropped Yiddishkeit is still called a ben bris. Sha af al pi sh'chata Yisroel hu. Well, again, therefore, when there's a mummer in the house, we should not exclude him by saying, "Kol haYad haB'ne Beris," to exclude him from the bracha. Even if he's a mummer, we will still... he still remains part of B'ne Beris. And as a result, as a result, the, the mummer is a Ben Beris, and therefore, this reformed Jew is still called a Ben Beris. And as a result, he is a Shachas haShlichas, and if he may perform the Beris, the B- Beris would be kosher. Um, this is the Aven HaOzer. There's also others who disagree with the Ramoh. In this over here, the Shachas Aria disagrees with the Ramoh. The Rabbe Ki VaEgia has a long comment on this. So we have numerous poskim who say that a, a, a mummer,

06:52 Speaker 1 at least, never mind about a, a, a goy, but if there's a mummer, one would not need to do the, um, Hatofas Dam Beris. And so I was, um, you know, able to tell this fellow that the, the, uh... he does not need to do anything. There are a minority of poskim who say that you do have to, but there's this ample grounds. The Mechaber says it's not necessary, and who says it's a mummer bechalal, et cetera. All right. Um, this, this Alpsack of the Aven HaOzer, followed by the Alter Rebbe against the Magen Avram, became very useful for me in the following scenario. There was someone who became Frum, and his pa-parents ca- still kept nothing. At some stage, he realizes, he's about 30, he realizes he never had a Pidyon HaBen. So we make an... It happens to be his father's in town, and so we're making a Pidyon HaBen for the, for this 30-year-old ingimar. The question, the dilemma we have is: who does the mitzvah apply to? We know a baby, of course, the father has a mitzvah to be p- to, to redeem his son. But is that because the baby can't do it himself, or does it remain the father's privilege, even if the son, son is now a bar mitzvah himself? So this is a debate in poskim, whether, whether, whether the fact that the son has to be Pidyon himself is only in the absence of the father, or even if the father's present. So what we

08:37 Speaker 1 did was, this is the advice given in poskim, that this son gives the father the five Sluim. And he says, "Tati, I'm giving you this money. If it's my mitzvah to be Pidyon, so I'm appointing you as my Shliach to be Pidyon. If it's your mitzvah, I'm giving you the money and you'll be Pidyon." In this way, the father, the, the, the father gives the money to the Kohen, either as his own mitzvah to be Pidyon or as a Shliach of his son. So this is what we did. But then afterwards, I realized, hang on a second, the father doesn't keep anything, so he's not, uh, he's not Shachas haShlichas. So then he hasn't been able to be a Shliach, to be Pidyon this fellow. He has to do it again. But having now seen the Aven HaOzer and et cetera, et cetera, who say that a mummer is able to appoint a Shliach, is able to be a Shliach, therefore, the Pidyon HaBen remains valid. We don't have to start doing it again. Okay. So that's just... That was the, the bonus question for today. The Keshet, the, um, Parshah Shasavuah and the Yortset, et cetera. Let's move on. So one of our listeners asked me about this idea of Komot Alef O, that way and manner of, of teaching Aleph Beis. So for sources, someone had told him it's Halacha L'Moshe MiSinai, and that it's... He was told that it's, it, it is crucial, it's important for Emunah, to the, to, to im-im-imbu-i-i-imbu

10:14 Speaker 1 Emunah in the child. So he's asking for some, some, uh, sources for these ideas. So the first thing we have on the screen here to the left is a cutout from Sefer HaMinhagim, which towards the end of the volume, there are-- There's a bit of, like we would call, a miscellaneous section. So here's a Sikha of the previous Rebbe in Yud Beis Tammuz, Chaf Shin Daled, in 1944. He says, "When we learn with a child Aleph Beis with the Nekudus, that imbues in the child Kedushah. The Taamim Nekudus, Tag and Oseus, the, the tunes, the, the vowels, the crowns, and the letters were given L'Moshe MiSinai when he said, "Oneich Ya'hashem Elokeicha, Oneich Ya'hashem Elokeicha." So when you learn this with a child, that gives him the Koach HaMesirus Nefesh. But if you learn the child without Tanto, without the spelling out the names, the, the, the, the Tor, the Nekudus, the, the, the et cetera, and the letters, so then it's without Kedushah. And he gives another reference here. So this is-- So we have here two, two things here. One is, he says that this is L'Moshe MiSinai, that the, the, uh, should we say, the accompanying information, together with written Torah of the vowels and, and this, uh, this, this tunes and, uh, and the, and letters have got names. That's not written in the t- the written Torah. But these are also-- These accompanying details are Halacha L'Moshe MiSinai. That's one thing which we need to corroborate. The other thing is

12:11 Speaker 1 about that it being got to do with Emunah, Mesirat Nefesh, and this is something which is a recurring, uh, idea in letters of the Friediker Rebbe or the Rebbe, uh, one can find that. I just want to throw in here also that my father, alav hashalom, when he, uh, in the early years when he was here in the ni- in the early '50s, besides being a shochet, he was also a melamed. There was a, um, there was a... some kind of cheder on some manor road here in Stamford Hill, and he was part-time teacher, and he got... There's a letter printed in Niglas Kodesh to my father about the, the Malachim, which are related. The, the, the nekudos, the names of the nekudos are-- have a, a connection to Malachim and the, the kedushah of the letters. So just to explain a little bit more what's the whole discussion here. There's-- There is the traditional way of teaching a child Aleph Beis. And to read, you'll tell the child that this is an Aleph, and then separately you'll t-try to teach the child this is a Kamatz. And then you'll teach the child when the Kamatz and the Aleph come together, it's Kamatz Aleph, Oh. The modern way was trying to streamline things. Why do you have to do that? Just do O BeO. There's no name of Aleph, no name of Kamatz. Just, uh, c- make it shorter. And this is where the Friediker Rebbe battled to, to, um, not allow that, that, that

13:39 Speaker 1 inno- that innovation, and it should be teaching Dafka Aleph, Kamatz Aleph, Oh, et cetera. But meanwhile, let's, let's look for where is it Halacha l'Moshe miSinai. Now, the challenge here is that the names of the nekudos, as in Serei, Segol, Kamatz, are not, uh, not mentioned, as far as I know, not a single time in the Shas, which is very interesting. So... And there's, well, there's a whole dis-discussion about, um, Shuyov gotten c-confused between Zecher, Molech, and et cetera. So did they have nekudos? And there were those who came... There was particularly someone called a Medakdek called Rabbi Eliyahu Bachur, and he came up with an idea that the nekudos were actually a later innovation by Chachmei Tveria. And he, uh, this is, as you can see here, he wrote a Sefer called Masoret HaMassoret. And in the introduction of the, of the newly published edition, they have a quote from the Chiddah, and it's a critique on this point. He says, "I saw in the Sefer Tov Tam in Masoret HaMassoret." He says that the time nekudos were made after the Talmud by the sages in Tveria, and he should be forgiven for his mistake because they are Halacha l'Moshe miSinai, and they are, as we'll see in Gemara Nedarim, Daf Lamed Zayin. We also know that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the Rab-- the f- the teacher of Rebbe, the compiler of the Mishnah in Tikkunei Zohar, talks wonderful things, amazing stuff about the nekudos and the Taynim. And the Arizal, many years later

15:31 Speaker 1 in the Jerusalem of TanTO, which is Taynim, nekudos, Tagin, Osios. He refers us to the Zohar, et cetera. VeEin LeCharye. So this is a debate, and we've got here the Mas-- the, um, Rabbi Eliyahu Bachur had one view, but the, uh... So now we're gonna look at the Gemara in Nedarim. Now, how did it come into the Gemara Nedarim? Someone's made a vow not to benefit someone. Okay? So you're not allowed to do a favor for them, but you're allowed to teach Torah. So then the question is, can he teach that person or their child, can he teach them the Torah, the shiurim? So, S'cha P'suk Taynim. KaSova P'suk Taynim DeRa'isihu. And he says, "You can't teach the chi-- Um, sorry, I think you can, and that is because it's part of Torah. Because Rabbi Ika, on the name of Rabbi Odin, says that the name of Rabbi Hananel, the name of Rav, we have a pasuk. Uh, I think it's in, in, um, in Ezra or somewhere like that. "VaYikra Hu BeSefer Torah Se Likhim M'foirosh VeSoim Sechel VaYovinu BaMikrah. VaYikra Hu BeSefer Torah Se Likhim." They read in the scroll of Hashem's Torah. "Ze Mikrah." That's the, the simple... the pesukim. "M'foirosh." That they read it. "M'foirosh," explained. "Ze Targum." That's the translation of Onkelos, et cetera. "VeSoim Sechel." And a logical kind of placement. "Eilu Hapsukim." This is where we got breaks in the text between one verse and the next. "VaYovinu BaMikrah." And they understood, and they explained the understanding of

17:13 Speaker 1 the Mikrah. "Ze P'suk Taynim." This is their annotations. "Veyom'ru Lo Elu HaMassoret." There's a whole... Massoret is like the, um, the, the tradition how each word is, is, uh, Chaser, Molech, et cetera, et cetera. "Amar Rav Yitzchak. Rav Yitzchak. Mikra Sofrim Ve'Eiter Sofrim VeKaryon VeLo Chivon." Well, you got Kri Chiv. So this is written one way, it's written, read, and not the way it's written. "Chivon VeKaryon." That's the way it's written, you read it. "Halacha L'Moshe MiSinai." So here you have very clearly is saying that Mikra Sofrim is Halacha L'Moshe MiSinai. What is an example of Mikra Sofrim? Eretz or Oretz. Rashi. SheSheYesh BeHasnachta. When there's a pause in the pasuk, it's read Oretz. If there's no Hasnachta, it's the middle of a pasuk, it's read Eretz. So the vowel, whether it's a Segol or a Kamatz, is Halacha L'Moshe MiSinai. So this is-- we see here there's one, there's one basis in the Gemara that the, the how to vowelize words is already Halakha Memsh Chaminai. On Shemayim, Shemayim Rashi says, um, you, you, that you pronounce them as if they have, yeah, an aleph inside, but that's a separate thing. Meanwhile, we're seeing here, when it says here that it's Halakha Memsh Chaminai. So here you have it. It's the Dorim Davlamad Zayin Omed Beis. In the, the Hidar, he referred to the Tikunei Zohar. And if you want to dabble in that, open up Tikunei Zohar in the Hakdama, and you see there's a lot of discussion about the gematria, the, about

18:59 Speaker 1 the, the names of the vowels. Yeah? So in the Gemara, which we saw, it doesn't say the vowels have names. It just says that there's, there were vowels which were already from, uh, Memsh Chaminai. Here we're seeing in the Tikunei Zohar, he actually goes to the names of vowels, and he... The interesting way, I have to show you, that each of the vowels has a-- amounts to numbers, to the, to six. The Gematria of six somehow or other. The only which I may remember now is the word Sheva. Sheva written Shin, Beis, Aleph. The Shin is three, three hundred and three. Beis, and, is two, and Aleph is one. So spelling Sheva, Shin, Beis, Aleph, brings it to the Gematria of six, and he shows the other Tikunis also. But that's why, you know, according to Kabbalah, the word, the na- the vowel called Sheva should be spelled with a Beis. According to the Baali Nishah, it's spelled with a Vav. Okay. So that's, that's a little bit of background for the Halakha Memsh Chaminai stuff. Okay. I see there's a few points over here in the chat. So let's see if I can deal with that. Otherwise, we'll just move on. Um, is there a difference between, going back to the previous thing, previous thing, Mum La'laches and Mum Le'tiyovoin? Y-- There, there are those who wanted to make that difference between Mum La'laches and Mum Le'tiyovoin, when we say a heretic is eligible, not eligible. But, um, the, the Arian Oizer clearly says

20:27 Speaker 1 it in this respect. And as I said, you've got a Mum La'laches who's, who's, who's left his wife. He-- Does he not give her a get? So we, we do allow a, a get to be given, even though he's a total Mum. Right. So Naftali is mentioning Gemara often writes, "Yesh Eim Lemaasoides." That would be a tradition. Do you, how do you pronounce this? Basukas or Basukois? Yes, but it, it still doesn't necessarily say that there is a vowel system other than just a... All right. Yeah, it does support it. Yes, I would accept that. Yeah. Um, but here in the Gemara is a little bit more explicit. Right. Um, right. There, there is a discussion about whether the Zohar, uh, was... Some, some took the view that it was put together by someone called Remosh Avlion, but generally that's not accepted, and it's, it is attributed to Rashbi. And, uh, yeah. Let's move on. So what do we have? Our next question. A very straightforward question, but I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't know the answer. I had to look it up. And therefore, I thought I'd share it with you also. So, a fellow, it was, I don't know, Monday, Tuesday, I, I, uh, I look at my WhatsApp, and it's, uh, someone from Europe. Uh, and he's come to shul. He doesn't have his tefillin. I guess he'd given them to be checked, and they would only come in later. And he's... There is a minyan in shul, and he's, he

22:02 Speaker 1 wants to daven with a minyan without... So should he daven with a minyan without tefillin, or should he not daven now and wait till his tefillin come later? That was his dilemma. So I, I did look it up on the, on, um, what I had to hand, and then later looked it up a bit further. In the Magen Avrohom, in Siman Samech Vav, he has a, quite a discussion about this, and he has some very interesting proofs to come to the conclusion which we see here. And that is, a tallit is one thing, but daven without a tallit, um, uh, and daven with a minyan. But with tefillin, you should not daven with a minyan, and rather wait till you go get your tefillin. So this is what we have in the Alter Rebbe: "Misheiynu tefillin." For you, you don't have tefillin. "Va'tsibur mitbatalim." And the, the minyan is davening. "Mutav sheyisakeiv ad hachatzat tzibur." You should wait till after the, the tzibur have davened, if you can, um, and to borrow tefillin from someone else, in order that you should read Shema and daven wearing tefillin, and to have, to accept up-upon you the Ohel Moed Shomayim Sh-Sh-Shlemo, in a total way, rather than davening with the tzibur without tefillin, "Veyoid eidus Shehecheyanu itzmi." So this is, this is the Psak Halakha, that he should, he should, uh, wait till after davening, when he'll be able to borrow a pair of tefillin. Um, right. So it's, it's straightforward. Um, let's mo-move on to the

23:26 Speaker 1 next thing. Someone asks about challah baking. Now, I've been getting lots of shailas about challah baking. Um, Baruch Hashem, lots of you, you know, groups are coming together to bake challahs, uh, and as a zechus for, uh, Chein of Bnei Yisrael in Eretz HaKodesh. So yeah, everything's a zechus. So now, the question here, this is... But it's not necessarily because of... This is a question. At what stage should challah be taken? Should you take challah, wait till the dough has risen, or is that irrelevant? So first of all, we have here, this is from She'ech Naruch, Yerideyah, the, um, Siman Shin Chaf Zayin. At what stage is a dough called a dough? So as soon as water meets flour, that's the beginning of a dough. And so even at that stage, water meets flour, you could already be mafrish challah, provided that y- there's not going to be unwetted flour. There's gonna be dry flour in the, in, in the bowl, which is more than the shear. The shear is whatever, uh, uh, twelve hundred grams, whatever it may be. Um, so, so long as there isn't that amount of l-loose flour, so then you can be mafrish challah. Then he says further, there's another option. You can take challah, even though there is lots of flour in the bowl which hasn't been kind of, um, incorporated into the dough, and you say, "This is challah for also for that which will be, uh, later become part of this dough." That would also be val-valid.

25:10 Speaker 1 And he says also, for the flour which is mixed in when you, when you roll out the challahs. So when you want to make... when you want to shape the loaves, so often you're gonna put... you're gonna work on a counter or on a table, and you'll scatter flour so that the dough shouldn't stick to the table. So that flour, you want that flour also to be part of the mitzvah, a, a part of the... Yeah. So is that also included? Or usually it's a minimal amount. So, so he says it's, "Toiv l'alam et l'noshim." You should, you should, uh, teach the women to have in mind the flour which will be added later. But here the Ramah says, really, that's not much of a concern, only if there will be a shir challah of extra flour mixed in during the shaping of the loaves. But Tzemach Tzedek, one, one thing you have to be careful. If you're going to take challah now and have in mind the future flour which is gonna be added later, but if you pop the challah straight into the fire, it won't be able to cover for any later dough because it's already been destroyed. Finally, we have here, well, he says, "Ad id nottoiv lehafrish, lahamtim lehafrish challah ad gamar halishah." The Ramah, the Mishnah says, "Better to wait. Instead of having this whole business with the flour and having in mind, wait till you've put the whole thing together and then you take challah." Now, meanwhile, this

26:37 Speaker 1 hasn't said that you have to, um, wait till it rises. It says you just, you just take, um, wait, wait till you're finished, uh, um, kneading it. I did see in one source, a contemporary source about a minute to wait till it rises, but I, I didn't, um, he doesn't give a source for that. But I want to share with you something which I find very, very interesting. And that is from the Kisvei HaArizal. And now you got from the Ari... Arizal, you can see it's from the Sharha Mat-- Sharha Mitzvah, sorry. And so here is something we should hardly expect to be in Kisvei HaArizal. So when you're making a dough, if it's a very soft dough, and you're sh-shaping it, and you add flour when you're shaping it so that it shouldn't get stuck to the, to the board and to your hands. So you add flour. Therefore, when you mafrish challah, you ha- should have in mind for the flour which will be, um, joined later. "Ba'ofen sheyoseh tov shelo yafish challah ad sheyarch halechem al haluach." Very, very interesting. The Arizal is, uh, giving advice here to be mafrish challah after you've shaped the loaves. And then, "Acharch yisrev haChallah." Um, very, very strange. Because if you mafrish before and you burnt it, it's no, no good. That's, I explained already. But here he's saying you should wait till after the shaping of the challahs. I, um, Lapon people don't do that, yeah. Women are mafrish challah before the shaping. I'm

28:14 Speaker 1 just wondering whether instead of tov, should... not shelo yafish haChallah. Perha- perhaps it should have been shelo yisrev haChallah. And that would make things much more sensible, that you don't destroy the challah piece until after you've shaped, and therefore you've... any added flour has been added. And then you, you burn the challah, they burn the piece of challah. That, that might be. Because I mean, as I say, this is written in Kisvei HaArizal, but it's, it's, uh, the way it's written here is, is not followed as what, you know, in, in Eretz Israel. On the side we have here also from Bekur HaAga. Anyway, so do you have to wait till the dough rises? I, I don't thi- I don't see it as, as, uh, as so necessary. What we do see is don't burn the piece of challah until you're finished shaping the challahs. We have a... We've... I've, I've had several times a, a dilemma. A woman has called up. She had her little, uh, four-year-old helping her shaping the loaves, and then the piece she'd already separated for challah has disappeared, and obviously it's mixed into the dough and then becomes a whole parshah. So a tip, which I picked up in this house, is when you mafrish challah, you put it in a bag. A paper bag with... the way you empty it of flour. So you put your piece of dough there, and then, you know, then, then, then it stays safe. It's, it's not the place where you normally

29:47 Speaker 1 have dough, and that clearly that dough is going to be, uh, burned. It's, it's, it... Using the paper bag is a better idea than putting in silver foil, because silver foil im- it impedes the burning, whereas the paper bag will actually help the burning. Okay, let's move on. Let's move on. So again here, another challah question, but not necessarily a challah bakes. But this is really... with the challah, with these groups, one of the big issues is that you, uh, even if you make a large batch of dough, it's in... for in order to make a beracha, it would have to be that a shir challah remains the, in the ownership of one woman. So where you have here in the Mishnah, this is a similar issue. "Avel shar odon oisey iso lechal kobotzek." If I am making a batch of dough with the intention to distribute it to different owners, to divide it whilst it's still dough, then that's part... It's as if it doesn't have a shir, even though it ha- it's a large bowl with several kilos of flour. But because I'm giving each woman just one kilo- So then each one, it's as if there's only... That, that's, that, it's a separate batch. A kilo is too small to be mafrish challah. So that's, that's a challenge with these, um, groups. Either you give each woman a shia challah, which means they're gonna leave, produce about three or four loaves at least, or, um, or just one woman makes a beracha

31:25 Speaker 1 on a larger amount of dough, which she's gonna keep, and the other women w- will just listen. Right. So this woman now, what was her question? Her question was, "At home I'm making a large batch of dough. I don't need so much for this Shabbos, so I want to make a large batch of dough, bemafrish challah, put half of it into the freezer and, uh, next, uh, the end of next week for Thursday, Friday, I'll let it defrost and I'll make it into, into loaves and bake it then." So i- this is her question. Can she make a beracha today if half of the dough is going to go into the freezer? So there is an opinion, um... Now, here we have the Piskei Teshuva. He brings here that when it says l'chalak. L'chalak means to numerous people. But if you're dividing it for yourself, that's not called l'chalak. That's not in- that's not considered you're dividing it, because it's gonna remain yours. The Maadanei Melech, contrary on the Rosh, he actually says, "No. If you are dividing it, even from one, from the morning to the evening, that's also called l'chalak." And he says that the Tiferet Yisrael disagrees. So we have... This is where I was a little bit hesitant. I know that there is this opinion which says if you're dividing it and for two sessions, it's also called dividing. Now, here from the Semak Sedeck. So the Semak Sedeck in, you have it in, in the Resh Lament Hay, he talks

32:58 Speaker 1 about this wh- whole topic of a dough which is made to divide, and he goes through the various shitas. And he says there's a machloket indeed between the Lavush and the Lechem Hamudos. The Lechem Hamudos and the Maadanei, Maadanei Melech is the same thing. Nero livsoyk halavush, that dividing to have two sessions, so you're gonna have some of it now, some of it, some of it gonna bake later, is not an issue because the Rav Yechiel disagrees with this whole din if it's in, about l'chalak being an exemption for challah. So the Semak Sedeck, uh, he rejects this opinion of the Lechem Hamudos, the Maadanei Melech. And consequently, we go back to say that l'chalak, when it says in Shulchan Aruch, l'chalak means l'chalak to separate people, separate owners. When one person who's taking the, her own dough and dividing it into two sessions, some for now, some for later, that would not be a problem. Okay. And that next she can make a beracha today even though half is gonna go into the freezer. Okay, let's move on. A typical Chabad house type of question. On the first day of Sukkot, which was on Shabbos, someone came into the Chabad house and he says, "I'm traveling tonight." That's Motzei Shabbos, which is the second night of Yom Tov. Now, this could have happened in Eretz Yisrael, would it be a more innocent question. It actually happened in Chutz Laretz, and therefore he shouldn't have been traveling. But he's, he's come in and he says,

34:29 Speaker 1 "I'm not going to be able to do lulav for the rest of Sukkot because I'm traveling tonight. So therefore, I want to take it on Shabbos." Can you allow him to take it? Do you, do you stop him, et cetera, et cetera? So here, this type of question, don't expect to find in, in classics for him. But what we do have is, the fellow got up in the morning, benched lulav with everything, with the berachot, the shehecheyanu and everything. And then he realized, "Oops, it's Shabbos. I shouldn't have done it." Next morning, does he have to say shehecheyanu? Or can he say shehecheyanu like everyone else? Or do we say, "No, you've done it already yesterday"? So if there is the... So we know that min haTorah he should have been benching lulav. With Rabbonon, they say you don't. So here's the question. If you, if you benched lulav... Oh, who was it? Um, my son in Wyoming, he, uh, I think I told you this, that he, o- on Rosh Hashanah, he went looking for Yidden to hear shofar. And so this was obviously on the Sunday. And he met someone and, and the fellow had said, "I heard it yesterday," you know, in the Reform Temple or something. So is a Biryat Orach, i- is that considered that they have done a mitzvah, although the Rabbonon say not to? This is the question. And so we have here sources. You can see in the... So what he says over here, "If someone..." This

35:52 Speaker 1 is from Piskei Teshuva, and he says, "If someone by mistake did bench lulav on the first day, which was on Shabbos, and said shehecheyanu, should not say shehecheyanu the following day." And he gives a reference here to Mikroy Kodesh, and that is a, it's a work which is based upon the writings of Ribs, Ribs, Zvi Pesach Frank. So his own sefarim are called HaZvi, and this is like Talmidim kind of took some of his writings and developed it a bit. Um, at any rate, he says, "Yesh lomar min haTorah yotzu lechivatsah." That although the Rabbonon said not to take lulav on the first day of Sukkot, or shofar on the first... Oh, my sorry, on the first day o- of Rosh Hashanah, if it's on Shabbos. But min haTorah, he did do the mitzvah, therefore you wouldn't be able to say shehecheyanu because he's already done the mitzvah min haTorah. On, so on that basis, there is room to say that the person shouldn't be doing what he's doing, but if he does it, he is doing a mitzvah. So that's, allows our tolerance level to be a little bit wider. Um, now, someone asked me this question about a m- metal sink which has two bowls. It was some while ago. I don't remember even who it was. I don't remember whether I had answered And then it came up in, in school in a lesson, and then I realized I owe someone out there an answer. So here we have from a... Well,

37:19 Speaker 1 I found this in a sefer called Piskei Teshuves, and he gives a reference to the sefer called Bayaen Yoisef, which is the Teshuves of the Poporot, the late Poporot. And he talks about the sink, and he says if the sink had a single wall which is separating between the fleishig side and the milchig side, that would be more of a problem. But he says our sinks, actually they have separate walls. It's made from one piece of metal, but they, they are, they, they are s- the, the, the metal which is on the milchig side and not the metal which is on the fleishig side, there's a gap in between. The only issue is does the heat go up to the top and then does the fleishige taste go into the wall and go up the top and then go down to the other side? So he says that even though y- we have a concept of , sometimes we say that the heat does spread from one part to the other, but that doesn't mean that the taste is going to also spread from one to the other. And basically he says it, it is okay. He says it's better to try to avoid using water which is yotzer leetz, but, uh, all right, it's, it might be consider... So l’chatchila, to install such a thing l’chatchila I think, uh, well certainly he's saying that's not a l’chatchila. If you're installing a sink, it should be separate both totally. But if- Ask if people can

38:42 Speaker 1 hear you. Excuse me, it's cut off on me. Can you hear? Just, just raise your hand. Um, uh, uh, can you hear yes or no? Yes. Iffy. Okay. Um, sorry, that's the best I can do. Um, okay. So the bottom line is that it's not so mehudar, but it is kosher. Okay. Let's move on. So someone wrote to me this week that one of her children t- told her that if you get non-Jewish bread, obviously with kosher ingredients, but it's not pas Yisrael. But if you pop it into the toaster, then it becomes pas Yisrael. So is that true or is it not true? So the answer is it's not true, and here we have some sources. Now, the first we have a Maharil who lived about six hundred years ago, and he talks about if you had bread which was, which was baked by a goy, and then you cooked it, so you made it into a mush. That doesn't take away the Yisrael. Once it become... It has a stigma of, of, of, of Yisrael, the fact that you cooked it doesn't take it away. And so that's, that's the, um, Maharil, and this is in the, the bottom quote is from the sefer called Toras Chatos. Now, Toras Chatos is written by the Ramah. There's a commentary on that called Mirchas Yaakov, Yaakov Reishe. And so this is from the commentary, not, not from the Ramah, it's from Yaakov Reishe. And he, he refers to a sefer called Nachlas Shiva, who says

40:29 Speaker 1 that if you took goyische bread and soaked it and, and then it's no longer called pass because it's been cooked. And he says it's wrong because it's against the shas, and this svora was actually mentioned in the Maharil, and he rejects it totally because once it's got the stigma of, of a pas, a pas akum, then cooking is not going to kasher it. So no, it, it, once it's got that, that title of pas akum, um, even if you cooked it, and certainly if you just toasted it, that's not going to solve the problem. If it was not totally, um, baked, it was like, uh, not totally ready, it was like partly still needed to have like, uh, for finishing, we've gone through that before, that would be a basis for a hatara. Okay. This question I got from a couple of places, and that's why I want to a-address it carefully. And that was, I got a question from a fellow who was driving up to Manchester on a Friday, and there was abnormal traffic, and he was worried he won't be able to get to town, get home in time. So his svora was to park, to get off the motorway or whatever it was, and get an Uber to get him home. So this was his question. And what happens, so... So, and th-this was one, one, one question. The other question was, this is from somewhere in the United States, and there's a yeshiva, a Lubavitch yeshiva, and the boys went

42:13 Speaker 1 on Mivtzoim, and they took an Uber to get back to the yeshiva. But again, it was stuck in terrible traffic, and what they did was they stopped off at a nearby shliach, took off all their tefillin, their tefillin bags, and left them at the shliach's house. And then they started, well, perhaps they made kiddush, but then they started marching towards the yeshiva, which they thought was two and a half hours away, and it was raining. And the route is along like what we'd call a motorway or highway, which is illegal for pedestrians to walk along. And actually, it didn't take them two and a half hours, it took them four hours. And they had police coming in and seeing these fif- well, a m- a minyan of lads walking in the rain, um, along the highway and Whatever. It was a whole Parsha. And so the Shliach was asking, where the host of the Tefillin is asking, was it right what they did, or should they... Perhaps they should have stayed in the Uber and until he d-d- brings them home. So Mechayal traveling on a Friday is, is, is something which is, uh, you know, it is something which is que- very questionable letting yourself into such a risky situation. And certainly, that should be avoided. But if you... Now, this is now again from the Piskei Teshuvas. So he says here, if it is a case of Pikuchach Nefesh, of, of your... If your life is at risk, if it's, you know, in

43:55 Speaker 1 a, a place where you're likely to get into trouble with, with the local people, then of course you'd stay in the car. And, um, what happens if it's, if you, if it was more than a Tumah Shabbos because it was open country which you, which you, uh, traveled. So then you'd be stuck. You wouldn't be allowed to l-leave the Dalet Amas where you are, where you were, where you were delivered to. And he brings a very interesting story that the Gerrer Rebbe, the Imrei Emes, this is back in, in, in, in Poland. The late Reb Pinchas Menachem remembered the story. So it was a case that there was a, a g- a group of Hasidim who were traveling to the Rebbe for Shabbos, and they got stuck. Uh, they got stuck in the forest, and they were exposed to danger. And somehow word got to Gerrer, to the... And, and they sent a goy with a wagon to fetch them. But when they came to the town, to Gerrer, they were told they have to stay in their accommodation. They're not allowed to leave the accommodation. They wouldn't be allowed to come to the Tish or anything because they had, um... So i-i-it looks like the Rebbe, the Imrei Emes, had felt that they had acted irresponsibly by traveling so close. And since it was an irresponsible thing, therefore, they are penalized that they're not... They're stuck in the Dalet Amas till the rest of Shabbos. So the Dalet Amas being their accommodation, they wouldn't,

45:36 Speaker 1 weren't allowed to come in. So all right. So when there's a case of Pikuchach Nefesh, then the answer is you ke- you stay in. You stay in the car. If it's not Pikuchach Nefesh, so then you do have that the goy... You can have a goy doing work for you, uh, L'torech Gadol in Bein HaShmashot. So there is benefit. Now, the case, in the Manchester case, he was able to get... He was already in the built-up area of Manchester. The goy could drive him till, what, 18 minutes, whatever, after... 18, 20 minutes after Licht Zinden. Sorry, after, after Shkiah is Bein HaShmashot. So he has another, another 20 odd minutes where he could still benefit from a goy doing work for him, a Melacha for him, Bein HaShmashot. At that point, he would have to, if it's not dangerous to walk from there to his home, he would have to get out of the car. And now, now going back to this group of boys. They, i-it loo- They had, they had an option of staying where they were, but the, the... It wasn't Pikuchach Nefesh, and therefore they wouldn't be allowed to stay in the car beyond Bein HaShmashot. That's my understanding of it. And therefore, I think they were right in, in what they did. Uh, they were ... That they, that they walked rather than, uh, allow themselves to be driven, uh, into Shabbos. They could have perhaps gained another 20 minutes with Bein HaShmashot, but, but beyond that, they would have

47:05 Speaker 1 to tackle it and walk. Right. Let's move on. There's a famous story of two people who came... It was in, it was in the papers, I think also Rabbi Gorelik and also the late, um, also, um, Evardas Razga, alav ha-shalom. They, in the '50s, how they had arrived at, um... What was the name of JFK before it became JFK? At any rate, so they, uh, they, they, they came so late that they had to walk from the airport into Crown Heights, and they had police, uh, escort without, you know. But it was also an item which got into the papers. Okay. Now, next thing here we have is a Shliach is sitting with a group of students and discussing. So there came up the question whether a person is allowed to put his own life at risk, there's, to, in order to save someone else. Not, not only a sofer. We're talking here, there's a g- The, the way they described it, there's a grenade was thrown, and it's, it's heading towards someone, and he jumps in and gets the grenade rather than someone else. I'm sure you, some of you remember. About 10 years ago, there was a case of a certain, uh, Jim boy who was... He had been, I think, by Keva Yosef, and when it looks like he was a big troublemaker. And then about a year later, he was with a group of soldiers, and a grenade was thrown, and this boy jumped to... And got the, took the grenade

48:38 Speaker 1 and, and he was dis- he was killed, and he saved everyone else. So this is, uh, this is the question. Is that legitimate or not? And unfortunately, this is, um, can be a very real question. Putting ourselves, one's own life, um, risking one's own, own life, or more than that, losing or forfeiting one's own life in order to save someone else. Now, what you have on the screen is from the Sefer Encyclopedia Talmudis, and this is in volume Lamed Ches under the heading of Maavi Atzmo Ladas, which is the Hebrew term for suicide. And so the earlier entry was talking about a person forfeiting his life to, in order to save a community, to, to save numerous people. What about forfeiting his own life in order to save another single person? So we have the famous idea, which is mentioned in Tanya, that you, if there's two people traveling in the desert, and they have-- and one of them has a bottle of water. And if both of them will drink, neither of them will survive. And so you have the idea of Chayecha Kochmin, look after your life before someone else. So some Acharonim write, "So therefore, to forfeit your own life to save someone else's life, it would not be allowed." Others disagree, and they say it, it would be allowed. And they say, um, that although it says Chayecha Kochmin, that means that you're allowed to put your own life before someone else's life. But a personhas the right to choose

50:17 Speaker 1 to, to do the other way around. So, uh, we should have Suras tables and not have this, uh, dilemma. But there, there is... If you... If someone, uh, uh, you know, uh, there is, there is room for that opinion too. One last question for tonight, and that is a Schlia had asked me about using, you can see on the screen, this kind of hot cupboard. And could it be used before Shabbos, to put food in before Shabbos, or to put food in it on Shabbos? So he was-- he told me that the temperature, uh, can be from eighty degrees Fahrenheit till a hundred and eighty-five Fahrenheit. Now, there is a term called Yad Soledet Bo, which means that your hand would touch it, you'd recoil. That's the idea of Yad Soledet Bo. What temperature is Yad Soledet Bo? So generally, it's assumed to be around a hundred and fifteen, a hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit would be Yad Soledet Bo. So, so what-- Let's, let's deal with the one thing about putting stuff in before Shabbos and taking it out on Shabbos. I don't see... And I looked at the specifications, but I didn't see the detail, but I'm sure this works on a thermostat, and that's how it's able to keep a reasonably even temperature because it goes on and off periodically. So now what's gonna happen is when you open the door, there's going to be a rush of room temperature air into the chamber, and so it's gonna drop in temperature. The,

52:02 Speaker 1 the thermostat is gonna wake up and say, "It's getting too cool in here." It's gonna switch on the element. So that would be... That, that would be a problem. If you'd know that the, the element is on now, then you would be allowed to open it, even though it's going to cause the element to, to, um, burn for longer. That's not such a problem. But to, to, to i-ignite, to wake it up, that wouldn't be okay. So that's, that's about putting it in before Shabbos. So you'd only be allowed to open it when the-- when you can hear or see, sometimes there can be a light, when you know that it's on. When you know that the element is now currently on, then you would be allowed to open it. Now, after Shabbos, I opened my email. I saw he asked if he's allowed to ask if they have a Goisha worker, a waitress, whatever, a helper, would be allowed to ask them to open it. And the answer is yes. I answered, "That definitely is okay." And that is because as far as Amiril and Achri goes, if there's... You ask them to do A, and as a c-consequence, B is going to happen. That's what we've idea, the idea of Sikreisha. That's not a problem with Amiril and Achri. It's only the thing which you've... The duty... The, the mission which you ask, ask them to do. The other things which happen by the way are, are, you can ignore. So to ask

53:23 Speaker 1 a guy to open this, that's not a problem. To put stuff in on Shabbos, that's gonna be more of a problem if it's beyond Yad Soledet Bo, because we have the idea of Chazorah. You're only allowed to put food back to this, to the Blech, et cetera, only if it was there before Shabbos and you took it off and you're holding it and it's still hot. But to take cold food from a, uh, from the fridge or whatever, or whatever, from storage. To take cold food and put it into a source of heat, which is more than Yad Soledet Bo, would be a violation of the laws of Chazorah, which as far as you understand, it would not be okay. If they would-- If it would be less than Yad Soledet Bo, let's say a hundred degrees or whatever, possibly then it would be permitted to put it, to put food in and it's gonna warm it up. Not-- It's not gonna be very hot, but it's, uh, if that's what we're looking for, that, that might be okay. All right. I'm going to stop there. Um, we have another couple of minutes. Um, I think it's appropriate that we say a chapter of Tehillim for the Eden and the, uh, in Eretz HaKodesh, both the hostages and the, uh, the soldiers, that they should all be safe and return home safely, um, to their families. So if you can share with me, join with me, we're gonna say Kapitul Chof and then put in

54:51 Speaker 1 Stalker. Uh, I mentioned last time, it's... Although it's by night, but there's a-- We're talking about... As, as we're talking, we're talking about people's lives are in danger, and so it's appropriate to say Tehillim. And about Stalker, putting Stalker by night. We're putting in a po- in a Pushka is, is not a problem, as discussed in the Rebbe's, um, Secres letters, et cetera. Not... Now is not time to discuss it. So let's do together Kapitul Chof and then, um, put in, each one put in Stalker. Lamnatzeach Mizmor L'David. Yancha Adonai Bem Yom Tsorah. Yesagevcha Shem Elehei Yaakov. Yishlach Ezricha Mikodesh. Omitziyon Yesodecha. Yizkor Kol Min Chasecha. V'eilosecha Yadach Neselo. Yiten Lecha Chil Uvevecha. V'chol Atzotecha Yimale. Neranenah Bishueashecha. Uveshem Elehenu Nidgeil. Yimale Adonai Kol Neshechecha. Ata Yodati Ki Heshia Adonai Meshicho. Yaaneihu Mishmei Kodesho. Ligvurot Yesho Yemino. Ele Ve'recheb. Ele Ve'ele Basusim. Vanachnu Beshem Adonai Elehenu Nazkir. Heim Ukoru Venoflu. Vanachnu Kamnu Vanis Odod. Adonai Heshio HaMelech Yaaneinu Yom Kareinu. Hagut Havach Hamishir Besuras Tevis. Golt.

56:08 Speaker 2 Amen. Amen.