וישלח תשפ״ד

00:09 A good evening. Welcome to tonight's shiur. We're celebrating Zos Kislev. We might finish a little early to be able to go. We have a big fabric in here in Stamford Hill, um, Inspire Conference, um, which is local, so it makes it easier. So we might finish a few minutes early. But meanwhile, let's start the shiur. Sorry, I'm just trying to manage this. So common, uh, situation where you have a larger crowd, and it's quite common, I think, in the United Synagogue, et cetera, these kind of communities where they will have, uh, lots of, uh, prepare in advance small cups, and everyone has a cup. So just tell them about it and let them- I'm already on. Okay. You are on. So, so someone's asking is that, is that something which he could do? 'Cause usually the, the more familiar way is that you have a, uh, you have a... Either you drink from your becher then you pour to everyone's, um, uh, for everyone, or you share the becher, or you pour before you drink. But generally, you share from our own becher, our own cup. Uh, so how important is that? That's the really the question. So now what we have here, two sources. One is in Siman Kuf Tzadik. That's about the Kos Shel Bracha. The default term Kos Shel Bracha refers to the Kos of benching, of, of, of Birkat Hamazon. So that's Kuf Tzadik. That's the first source. The second source is from Siman Reish Ayin Aleph, which is the Dinim

02:24 of Kiddush. So we'll go through those carefully. "Af Al Pi SheMitzvah Min Hamuvchar SheKol Hamusvim Yit'amu Mikos Shel Bracha." It is a preference that each of the participants should themselves have a taste of the Kos Shel Bracha, of the cup of blessing. "Ein Tzorich Lit'ot MiKos HaMevorach." It's not imperative that they drink from that specific cup. "U'Lyochel Kol Echad L'hit'en Koseh Lefano." There's an alternative. Everyone has their own cup. And the Bracha, which is said by the leader, is for everyone's cup also. Uh-huh. Let's try again. Um, so that, then that he says is actually preferable. "SheFi SheKos HaMevorach Hu Pogum Le'ach Ashé Sa HaMevorach" because once you've drunk from your cup, so then your cup is somehow blemished, and therefore there's a preference that actually that every-everyone has their own cup. Now, so that's in, in, uh, Birkat Hamazon, the cup for benching. He says actually there's a pro... an advantage that everyone has their own cup. And now going into the Dinim of Kiddush. So he says here, um, you don't have to pour from the, the leader of... who makes Kiddush doesn't have to pour to everyone else's cups unless their cup's already pogum. And then he has to top it up, um, because it's preferable that they should drink from cups which aren't pogum. Then he writes in Seif Lamed, the lo- the people who are, um, the, uh, musvim wa- who are sitting, you know, joining in a meal, they shouldn't drink before the leader drinks if they need to

04:25 rely on his cup, because he's pouring to their cups. So if he's pouring to their cups, I guess before he's drunk himself, so then they should wait be- for him to drink before he himself be- before they should wait for the leader to drink before they drink when they've been waiting for him to pour to their cups. But if they have their own cups, then they can drink before the leader drinks, as discussed in Siman Kuf Tzadik. So what we're seeing here, it seems to be quite okay to have, um, everyone drinking their, um, from a separate cup. And, and that's called a Kos Shel Bracha 'cause a Bracha applies to every, every, all those cups. The only... To, yeah, and then you ask the question: Why don't we do this LeChatchilah? Well, the, the, the question is: If everyone's cup is a Kos Shel Bracha, then everyone should have to have a Revias, and everyone should have to drink Rav Koy, and all, you know, all the requirements. If their individual cups are gonna qualify as Kos Shel Bracha, then it should go, have, have to fulfill the criteria of Kos Shel Bracha. That's a little bit impractical that everyone should have a cup of Revias. Uh, and therefore, that's what we normally don't do that way, and we give everyone from the, from the, uh, literal Kos Shel Bracha. And then, uh, and so then they don't have to have a, a shiur in what they... when they... in the little bit which

05:50 they sip. Now, what we've said, it's not Achiyav to drink. When you hear Kiddush, you are yotzei even by just by listening. And therefore- Either way is okay because what, what we've said here, even though you're gonna say, uh, it's not a proper kidduš habrachah because it's less than a shir. You know, we're saying again, g- the question was if it's a big crowd, it's gonna take him a long time to pour for everyone. Perhaps to pour it like they do in the synagogues to, to prepare little cups for everyone. So all right, there's one to rely on that it's called kidduš habrachah. And even if not, it's okay. It's only a mitzvah m'deoraita. Therefore, it's, uh... let it pass. I just wanna share with you, I just got tonight, um, don't know who it was, a bacher probably, um, called up. Someone, someone had... I forget if, uh, he, he was listening to Havdalah, and he said the berakhah of Havdalah at the same time as the one who's reading, leading the Havdalah. So instead of being yoetz from the one who's saying Havdalah, he is making his... he's saying his own berakhah. Don't ask me why. Um, but that's what he did. So he's a yoetz. So I said, "Really? A yoetz." You know, he, he said a berakhah on a cup of wine. It happens to be that someone else was holding the wine, someone else was, uh, drinking the wine, but he did say his berakhah was said over a cup

07:18 of wine. So he is a yoetz of Havdalah. Yeah. Okay. So that's the, um, question number one. Let's go on to question number two. So here's a, a, uh, a woman who's a geirus and her- The right expression. Is it recording? The... She's a geirus and her mother is coming for a, for a visit. And so mother's gonna stay for a month, and probably her mother will want to do a bit of... fry herself an egg. I don't know, uh, do some cooking, and how to handle that. So of course you can say every... Only, only cook when the mother... when, when I'm going to light the fire. I mean, if a, if a goy cooks food, uh, kosher food obviously, but in a, in a... So then it becomes bishul. If it's, uh, subject to the dinim of a bishul Akum. A fried egg would be subject to bishul Akum. So then the frying pan would have a problem of status of, of bishul Akum. You have to kasher it. So it, it is complicated. So how to avoid this? In other words, what this mother will cook will be bishul Yisrael. So what I told her in a eitzah, to, uh, prepare a yahrtzeit candle in the kitchen during the daytime hours, and whenever mom wants to, to cook something, so she'd put a match and put it to the fire in the yahrtzeit candle, and then light... with that to light the fire. And, uh, in that way it's considered bishul Yisrael.

08:45 So this you have here in Siman Kuf Yod Gimel in Yoreh De'ah. That's the, uh, the, uh, dinim of bishul Akum. And it talks there about if a Yid stokes the fire. The goy has put the fire... the, the food on the, on the flame, on the, on the boil, and the Yid stokes the fire. That's also called bishul Yisrael. Then the Yesh Oimrim that even if a Yid did not stoke the fire itself, and he didn't even throw a piece of wood into the fire, but the goy lit the fire from a fire which belongs to a Yid, which was lit by a Yid, that's also okay. So eish me-esh. To lit-light a, a fi... That the goy who lights the, the gas has taken the fire from, from, uh, a f- a flame which was lit by a Yid. So Yesh Oimrim that that's enough. So certainly in these circumstances, we would rely on the Yesh Oimrim to say that that's adequate. Is it... Not... It looks like not everyone agrees with that, but okay. Uh, it's certainly a, a valid, uh, heter. The Ramah brings it. You can rely on it if necessary. Let's move on. So now a Hanukkah question. Yeah. If it would be electric hob or if it'd be, um, uh, induction, all kind... All those kind of stuff, it'd be much more difficult to, to solve this problem. It happens, happily, this one was a gas hob, so we were able to solve it. Right. Um, with the

10:13 very modern ones, they can make a phone call and start to do a rem-remote, uh, lighting the hob from, from 100 miles away. Okay, let's move on. So here, a shliach in somewhere in Eu- in Europe, um, encourages... He, he lives in one town. There's a... He's also active in a second community in another town. And, uh, they, they encourage them to get a menorah made. Big menorah. So they did get a menorah made, and to his dismay, the menorah's branches are in, what should we say, called this pyramid form. I have to find a way to explain for people who are gonna be listening to the recording without, um, without the picture. So it's, as the lowest, the, the furthest ones are lower, and then they go higher and higher till they come to the center, go down again. So a pyramid form. So he's asking, uh, can he use this menorah? It's, uh... The, the, uh, idea that the men- the lamps of the menorah have to be all in the same line, you know it probably from the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch in Siman Kuf Lamed Tes. And I've mentioned nev- several times that the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, in addition to drawing from, obviously, from the Shulchan Aruch, but it also has got three main sources, uh, which he almost quotes verbatim. And they are the Alter Rebbe, the Chayei Adam, and the Siddur HaChaim. These are his three main sources. It's interesting, if you, uh, the beginning of Kuf Lamed Tes, a

11:44 way you remember which siman is for Hanukkah because Kuf Lamed Tes is cold. So, uh, so you remember that Hanukkah is when it's cold. So he starts off with the history of the Beit Ha... The Gezeiros, the Yom HaMechasvei Noim, Yehudis, et cetera. That's pretty much word for word from Chayei Adam in Klal Kuf Nun Daled. But anyway, so the Chayei Adam is the source who says that the lights of the menorah should be in a straight line, not one higher, one, one, not one, one higher, one lower. So that's the earliest source which I could find- Although, yes, around the table yesterday at Sha- the Shabbos table, we discussed this, and one of the children said, "Well, uh, the menorah in the Beis Hamikdash was obviously the straight line." The line... That's all the pictures say so, and, uh, the chanukiah, that's the poshtup shot in the pasuk also. So what-- We don't find a halakha earlier. Well, I did suggest to the shliach, what you could do is to use this menorah with candles and use taller candles on the outer branches, and use shorter candles as you get towards the middle. And that way, the flames will all be in the same, in the same, on the same level. That's o- o- one way of s-solving it. I, I wasn't keen to, to say it's okay bediaved the way it is. Particularly because some twenty years ago, I was... During this time of the year, I was in Sweden, and I saw

13:09 in most, um, houses in their front window, they had a, a pyramid of lights, which you see on the, uh, right side of the screen. And I did a little bit of research, and it's, uh, it's got to do with Kratzberg, it's got to do with this season. What exactly is the deep meaning of it? Don't worry about it. It's some pagan stuff. But it is a goyishe, a custom to have that. And that's probably why the smith in this, uh, shtetl somewhere in Europe, he's silver... made, made candles. He made it like the goyishe style. And, um, that's why I'm, I'm not keen to just say, "Don't worry about it," because it's actually gonna be, um, misleading that this is, that this is the way you'd make a menorah. Um, so that's, so that's-- That was one suggestion to, to use different sizes of candles to overcome the, the problem, or to put pipes over the, the, uh, candles and in that way to be able to raise them all to the same level. Don't use plastic pipes because plastic is flammable. Uh, unfortunately, there was a shliach who had a, what they call these little squares, um, a menorah made of those little squares. And, um, I forgot what the word is. And yeah, it, it, it, the, the, the, it melted and cr-created a fire, and, uh, the Chabad house, uh, was destroyed because of a plastic menorah. So, chacham ein habarisoi. Right. Let's move on. So here's a young couple, recently

14:50 got married, and they got married in Europe and moved to, uh, to Israel, where he will be learning in Kollel. He's learning in Kollel, and he's happily settled in with havrutas and with, uh, teachers, et cetera, uh, tutors. And then his wife's grandfather passed away, um, and so she feels very, uh... it's important for her to go back to, to Europe to join her family for a few days. So he's asking, there's a din of Shona Reshona. And he's asking, "Am I obliged also to go with her? Because really, I'm really not keen to disrupt the stability which I have at the moment." So this is very interesting. The, the mitzvah of Shona Reshona is a Pasuk Kechumish. It says that, um, that the-- f-for the first year, he doesn't le- lo yenze ba'tzuavo. V'simcha chas ishta yasha lo kar. Um, so there is a mitzvah. And, and it's interesting, it's not anywhere. There's no siman in Shulchan Aruch. There's-- It's not brought in the Shulchan Aruch, this, this, uh, din of Shona Reshona. So it is mentioned in Piskei Teshuva in, uh, as a siman samach daled. So when talking about the Sheva Berachos, so in the, in the note, it talks about the union of Shona Reshona. All right, so a couple of... Let's, let's go through this carefully. Now, as I mentioned, the Shona Reshona in the pasuk talks about going to the army, to the military. Does it mean also that you're not allowed to travel for business or for pleasure?

16:36 So the Radvaz actually was under the... Well, he mentions this point, that the Issur Min Hatorah is only if he goes out for battle. But, uh, if he's going for other things, then that's not included in the Issur Min Hatorah. The Piskei Teshuva says, he quotes from Chayei of Chochmas Adam, who writes that the Radvaz did not re-notice that, that in the Pardes, uh, which is attributed to Rashi, and in the Chinuch, they say that the issue of leaving his wife during the Shona Reshona also includes going for a business trip. And then he says, "Nira demahani michilas ifshe mochel." Now, let's now look at the Chinuch. So we have the mitzvah is brought in the Chinuch number tof kuf pei beis, that's five hundred and eighty-two. And he says, this is, uh, just the last piece of a long, um, discussion. If the husband leaves the wife during the first year, yomim rabim, for, for a long period, s- or many days, even w- if she's mochel, that doesn't... That, that he's, he's violated the asei. He's got a mitzvah of v'simcha chas ishta. There's lo yeitzei, and there's a mitzvah asei. V'simcha chas ishta. If he d- If he goes away for yomim rabim, he's violated that mitzvah. He's, he's, and, and he's missed out on that mitzvah. If he does want to go out, d'var mitzvah, sorry, for yomim me'atim, for just a, for few, a few days, then min hadoime, it makes sense that the aim was a bit of mitzvah.

18:15 See, first of all, he makes a distinction between yomim rabim and yomim me'atim. Second distinction. And then, then he says, "Although I've said that Mechilah won't help, that there are those who say that Mechilah does help." So now we've got here several factors. Number one, does Mechilah help? Well, it's a Machloket Sorai Sheinu. Does it apply to other situations other than military? It's also not so clear. On top of this, actually... Uh, and another, another factor is it's not Yomim Rabbim, it's Yomim Me'ot. To go for, for four days to, there and back, I think is definitely under the category of Yomim Me'ot. And on top of all of this, it's her initiative. She wants to go. Um, and therefore, it, it, it's... On the contrary, him letting her go without him having to sleep, perhaps and that is also fulfilling the Inyan of a Seem HaKeshehtai in some way. So anyway, um, I said it's okay. Okay. So just interesting that why is this, uh, um, not mentioned in Shechinat Hashem Halacha. Very interesting. Um, I have seen, years ago, I saw a full Sefer on the Mitzvah of Shana Rashaina. Um, let's move on. So here's a question which I got this past week that someone, he sells some kind of goods and there's a fair. This time of the year, a lot of people are spending money preparing for parties, et cetera. Um, and so there's a fair of this kind of stuff, and it's for five days starting on Thursday till

19:58 Monday. And he bought a-- he rented a stall there and is concerned that if he closes for Shabbos, he can get into trouble with the organizers. They will take it very, uh... They would not, not be happy that there's a stall closed for Shabbos. So he's asking whether he could-- He has a Goyshe worker. Could he somehow have the Goyshe worker run the stall? He's not interested in the, in the takings of Shabbos. He just doesn't want to get into the hassle with the, um, upset, uh, with the, with the organizers for being closed on Shabbos. So very interesting. We have here a letter of the Alter Rebbe. Now, this is-- I'm sorry, I've only got the Rashi writing on the screen. It's-- This is from the-- It's printed in the back of the Shuk Hanaruch. And in the newer edition, this is in the back of Heilik Bas. And what's... It's-- This is-- It's also in the Chalos of Chovas of the Alter Rebbe in that volume. But again, it's interesting. It's not a letter in response to a specific question. It's more like a Mikhtav Klali, like a general letter to, um, to the Jewish community, which, which just, you know, especially since it's, um, Hem Shacht Yitis Kislev. It struck me as an interesting aspect of the Alter Rebbe's leadership. In addition to being a leader of Hasidim, he, as a leader of, of Klal Yisroel, and there's a, there's a problem in, in Yiddishkeit. So he's writing a, a, a general

21:27 letter to Yidden Kol Mokim Shehem, at least in his country, in his, his region, about this in- Inyan. Which I don't know whether I've mentioned this, um, on the, uh, Anash.org, which also hosts this year, they have regular, um, regular podcasts, um, done by Rabbi Berel Levin. Very, very interesting. Uh, he's talking about the history of the library and it's very interesting. So he had once a whole, a whole talk about the printing of the Shas in Slavita, and he presents it that the Alter Rebbe was actually the main promoter of this Shas. It wasn't as if there was some, you know, businessman who wanted to print a Shas and the Alter Rebbe gave him the support. It was the other way around. It was the Alter Rebbe took the initiative. He saw the need to print a Shas, and he actually paid in advance for the Maggihim to get it done quickly and, and, and properly. And so this whole project of the printing of Shas in Slavita was actually the Alter Rebbe's project. So it's another, uh, not very, uh, well-known, uh, detail of the Alter Rebbe's taking responsibility for Klal Yisroel. Yidden don't, you know, need to have Gemaras, they need to have a Shas. Um, so... And then later there was a whole, whole ma- massive Machlokes with the Vilna Print, and, and I'm not gonna go into that de-- in that, uh, history now. Now, so let's come back. Here's the letter, which you see the opening of a letter.

22:55 <Hebrew to, to all Yidden, the ho- holy congregation and ho- holy people, how is, is the, the issue of <Hebrew holding, uh, having a, a, an, and many Yidden had what they call in Yiddish, Krechmors. They had these inns. And the Goy, the Goyshe customers obviously would not miss having their drink of vodka over Shabbos. So the, they had to be open on Shabbos somehow. And how would they be open and be able to sell d-, um, drinks to the Goyim without violating Shabbos? So this was a very common problem. And even if you have just a Goyshe worker, that doesn't solve your problem. And the Alter Rebbe sa- says, "Really, we should take some very strong steps to, to, to b- block the whole thing. But for sure, Yisroel Am Kadosh V'Tohar, they don't need to have draconian steps. And there's-- Because we've got a, we've got a way of solving it in a permitted way. And if there'll be someone who nevertheless doesn't take heed of this permitted way and does it in a forbidden way, so then it's a Chirug Gamo that he should be embarrassed, Berabim, to stop, stop this mis- misconduct. But those who listen, Tovar Alei Am Birkas Toy. So what is exactly the Alter Rebbe's solution? So he says like this: "You find a Goy and you tell him the following. If I would be hiring you as a worker for me, so then let's say for one keg of beer..." Don't ask me what, how big a

24:32 keg is, but okay. "One keg of beer, I would have to pay you, let's say, fifty Kopkus for the effort in selling, for the time and effort of selling that keg of beer. So now, instead of me s-- um, paying you fifty Kopkus for the sale, for the s- your selling a keg of beer, I'm selling you the whole keg of beer for whatever the, the, the retail price is, minus the fifty Kopkus. So you will get those fifty Kopkus as your profit. Instead of saying I'm selling it to you for ten rubles, and I'll pay you fifty, uh, Kopkus for your efforts in this sale, I'm selling it to you for, um, for n- for nineteen rubles plus, and the fifty kopiks you'll keep as your, your profit. And so, and this is... And he, he says, and he, "Yitro yakne lo beleiv shalem." And I'm giving it to you. He says, "I'm selling it to you, this mashke, and I'm being machni it to you beleiv shalem, wholeheartedly, for the amount which we have agreed." That means the retail price minus, let's say five percent or something, which is the, uh, the, uh, to pay for the worker's, uh, takings. And then he says, "The Yisroel, the Jew, the J- Jewish owner is allowed to be present when the goy is taking from the warehouse or the storage to bring to the retail area." To stand there by the actual retail, no, but to, to monitor how much is being brought from the

26:06 storage into the retail area, that's, that's permissible. So I found this very, very interesting that there's no... He doesn't say a single word of a physical kinyan. He says, uh, he says verbally, "Ani mokel ocha." He says, "Is machni beleiv shalem" w- for the money, et cetera, which will be paid after Shabbos. And so there's no kinyan in the formal sense, and yet that's the Alter Rebbe's solution. And so then I said the same thing over here. You can do the same method with this, uh, fair. You say to the, your goyishe worker that, "Instead of me hiring you for the day, you will... Whatever you retail, whatever you sell in retail, five percent of the sa- You... The, it, it's, it's yours. You have bought it, you have bought the item from me, and five percent of your takings will be, uh, your, your income." Whatever, whatever percent you can agree, um, what's reasonable, you know, et cetera. I, I, I, I said I, I found this surprising that there's no f- no technical kinyan done before Shabbos. So I wrote to Rabbi Berel Levin, who in addition to the so many things which he's written about and, you know... But he, particularly in HaMeor L'Nodachi, this area he has published and written a lot. And, uh, and I asked him, and he says he himself has also been struggling with that. But yeah. So all right. So the Alter Rebbe says it's okay, and that's good. Okay. So let's go on to the

27:40 next thing. Here is a, a question from a shliach somewhere in France. And they have a... Their house is near the Chabad house. But here they want to have a kiddush. They have a kiddush in the Chabad house, and they want to use some kind of crockpot for cholent. Um, I asked them, "Why don't you have a plug-in, um, hot plate?" But, but anyway, this is, this is what they're asking. So, so what's the shailah? So I asked them, "Is the food edible before Shabbos?" Let's, let's explain something. To be able to leave food to cook on Shabbos, can you put up raw food before Shabbos? So if you have a blech, which is the equivalent of what it says in the Gemara about gorer v'kakot, of raking out the coals or covering the coals with ash. So the, the equivalent would be we, we have a, a... The fire is covered, and the more modern equivalent is this plug-in plate, which is the equivalent of the, a blech. So, okay. So that equi- That, that, that would, that would solve the problem. But in this slow cooker, I don't see, um, an easy solution with a blech. Incidentally, on Friday I was in a conver- a conversation with someone where about a crockpot. In the... You know, the regular crockpots have got like a, uh, a metal housing, and then you have a ceramic b- uh, pot which sits inside the outer housing. And so they want to be able to take it out,

29:21 take out the ceramic, take... Give some of the younger children some hot potatoes from the cholent, and then to be able to put it back. So I said, "In order to be able to put it back, you need to have the, uh, the equivalent of a blech, that the source of heat should be covered." So it's, it's well, well known. So you put a l- a, a sheet of, of silver foil, of aluminum foil inside the base. And so then when you want to put it back so the fire is... The, the con- the normal source of heat is covered. Somehow though my impression is that some of these which we have on the screen, that that idea of a separate insert is not so practical. So where's the blech? So again, to put up food that you should cook on Shabbos, either you have a blech or the food is m- past marak b'der or soi, which means either third cooked or half cooked. But she's putting up the cholent raw at the beginning of Shabbos. So how do you get the... How do you solve the problem of, of, uh, of the blech, the need for a blech? So she says, rightly, she puts in a piece of raw meat and switches on just before Shabbos. And here, this what you have here in simulation, in Gimel, where you have the... That, uh, that if you put in a raw piece of meat, then... The, the whole reason for having to have a

30:52 blech and all of that is because the style of cooking in those days was you kept on poking the fire. It was stoking the flames. It was... That was the normal procedure. But if it's something which you could eat tonight, then there's a temptation to, to stir up the flames to, to get it ready for, for, for a evening meal. But if it's, if it's clearly not gonna be ready for tonight, and it's supposed to... By tomorrow, it'll be ready in any case without, without tampering with the fire. So that's okay. So by-- because that's what she does. She puts in a piece of raw meat, and there's no way it's gonna be ready for tonight. And as a result, doesn't need to have a blech under it. Okay. That solves one problem. The second, second-- the other problem is, are you allowed to ladle out from this pot whilst it's sitting, uh, wh-whilst it's still sitting on the fire effectively? Normally... Normally, uh, we, we... When we s-serve the cholent, et cetera, we take the pot away from the fire, and then, and then we, uh, serve. But here, if it's not practical, how-- can you ladle out from this electric pot? Uh, that's the other problem. So looking at what Rav Farkash, in his volume on, on Shabbos, he's got four volumes Shabbos Halacha. So he says, "BeShahas Achak," if you cannot... Now, I'll, I'll tell you what the, what the Shahas Achak is. You are bocher in seven forty-nine or in fourteen

32:26 fourteen, and you want to have some cholent. It's dine- it's, uh, it's whatever, around ten clock, and this massive pot, it's too heavy for you to take off the fire, and you want to have your cholent, it's Shahas Achak. Are you allowed to ladle out a little bit from whilst it's still on the, on the fire? So he says, "BeShahas Achak," that you cannot take the pot off the fire because it's too heavy or that you won't be able to fulfill the criteria of Chazara. So he says, "If it's fully cooked, then you would be allowed to ladle out." So that's that BeShahas Achak. I don't like to rely on Shahas Achak, uh, on a regular basis, and therefore it's recommended that they have this pot plugged into a timer. And so by the time they come ready to serve, it's switched off. And in that way, you could say it's no longer on the fire, although it's a clearish, so I'm not fully confident with that. But it, it is. There, there's no longer a fire, um, there. And therefore, but since BeShahas Achak, you can take it out in any case, so we'll call it a switched. Uh, uh, that is as, as if it's off the fire, and they can use it that way. All right. Let's, um... So that's six. Okay. So the, the... that number shouldn't be there. Okay. USB-powered heated jacket. You thought you've seen it all, yeah? So this is a new invention ev-ev-evidently. It's a jacket. Looks

33:59 like any other jacket, uh, Blair, whatever. And it's got a wires in it, and you have a USB, um, power unit like people have to charge their phones, you know, when they run down of... run out of power. So you're keeping it in one of the pockets. And then, um, so they're asking you, can you wear it on Shabbos? This is the picture which you can see is there's a button. Where the finger is, there's a button to press to get it on, to get on a higher, lower, different levels of temperature. Now, I'm sure some of the... you remember these electric blankets. I haven't seen them for years in, in, you know, advertised, but there used to be these plug-in electric blankets. And I remember seeing someone... it being d- being discussed whether you can use them on Shabbos. But coming back to our point, so th-this question actually came from a, a town where they do have an eruv, where they rely on the eruv. So the first... my first question was, what about the, the battery pack, the power pack? Is... You're carrying the power pack. They said they've got an eruv, they rely on the eruv. Um, so then if that's the case, then the, the question is about wearing it on Shabbos. You certainly wouldn't be allowed to switch it on on Shabbos. So if it's already switched on before Shabbos. So, uh, the only thing I, I'd, I'd be concerned that you might come to press the button, and

35:29 they'd have to cover the button. Uh, I don't have any... It's not written anywhere in Shulchan Aruch, what I'm saying, but it, it, it's logical that you should cover the button, that you shouldn't by mistake, um, come to switch it on or off on Shabbos. But the fact that it's electronically heated, that in itself is... should not be a problem. Okay. Let's move on. Again, Yitris Kislev, so a, a Halacha a-about the Alta... from the Alta Rebbe. So we have here two Halachas. The question was, if someone's tallis fell off totally, do you, do you make a bracha when you put it back on? So here we have a similar case. One who's wearing his tallis and it fell off. When he puts it back on, he has to make a new bracha because it fell off without his awareness. And therefore, uh, "Ein Moach Klum," Mashal Dai, the fact that he, uh, had in mind that he... to put it back on. I'm not sure what he mean he had it back... he had in mind. Perhaps it means because it fell off involuntarily, therefore his having in mind doesn't help. That's if it fell off totally. But if part of it's remained on his body, then, then he doesn't need to make a bracha. Okay. That is in the Alta Rebbe's Shulchan Aruch. In the Siddur, we have an interesting situation. Um, and just this past Rosh Chodesh, we had a, a call that someone had, uh, Davened Shacharis- And he forgot his,

37:08 he forgot his rashadeish, and he's got the kids in the car, and he's driving the kids to school, and then he's, then, uh, then he's going off to work. And then he realized he hasn't da-- he didn't, um, daven Musaf. Does he have to drive back home to pick up his talus to daven Musaf? By the way, he has to daven Shacharit on Shmini Atzeret again also. So, um, do you have to go out of your way to get a talus to daven Musaf? The chore, yes. Uh, uh, it's the, it's, uh, um, Shas Atchak, of course, you go it's without a talus, but, uh, but certainly as a Lechatchilah one should be using a talus for Musaf. Um, well he has to daven Shmini Atzeret Shacharit also again. So, all right. Um, but he wouldn't have to make a new brocha on the talus. And that's the point which I want to share with you now. He doesn't need to make a new brocha on the talus, which he took off with the intent... He folded it, put it away till tomorrow. He doesn't have to make a new brocha on the talus. So let's read the, um, what Altre Rebbe writes here. "One who takes off his talus temporarily with the intention to put it back on doesn't need to make a new brocha. Even if he took it off, al daas, with the intention not to put it back on later, um, um, right away, and then he changes his mind and

38:24 he wants to put it back on right away. So he took it off, it l'chaye is, it, it withdrawn. But if he's wearing a talus kotten, then he doesn't have to make a new brochaaa." So here he says that the batoska... The presence of the talus kotten on your body acts as a bridge that the taking off of the talus with the intention of not wearing it again till tomorrow is, st- is, is, you don't have to make a new brocha. So therefore, you ask the question: Should falling off of a talus be worse than taking off the talus with the intention of, of, of deliberately, of conscious not intending to put it back on? That, that's, that's the dilemma here. So you could argue that it, it, no worse, and he shouldn't have to make a new brocha. On the other hand, you could say no. When you take off the talus and you put it away, but you're also thinking of your talus kotten and, and that you haven't withdrawn from the mitzvah. When the talus falls off, you're not thinking altogether, and therefore the presence of the talus kotten doesn't help. You could argue both ways. I'm more inclined to say it doesn't help, but I... The Maise told a fellow that you don't... The Minig, as far, so far as I know, you don't make a new brocha because of the Sufik, possibly because he's wearing a talus kotten, therefore you wouldn't make another brocha and we always say, "Sufik brocha

39:46 is l'hakel." Okay, let's move on. So now someone's asking about giving an Aliyah to someone that's just in shirtsleeves. Chabad house sometimes, certainly in hotter climates, sometimes they come in wearing shorts and the, uh, Chabad house welcomes everyone the way they come. Question is, when giving them an Aliyah, should you offer them a talus? Now, uh, et cetera. So I mean, in other shuls that someone has an Aliyah, whatever they're wearing, but they're offered a talus. In Chabad, it's, it's not so standard. And the simple reason is, as we all remember in the Till Tof Shem Mem Hez, so the Rebbe came out for ta-- for Shacharis... Sorry, no, came out for Krias HaTorah on Mondays and Thursdays, and the Rebbe was just wearing his, uh, kapot. He wasn't wearing a talus. The Rebbe, whatever, whatever he davened, well, that was his business. But he didn't, he wasn't wearing a talus, and he had an Aliyah. And so we're not particular about having a talus when you have an Aliyah. My uncle, David Raskin, alav hashalom, he wore a talus. By the way, he didn't wear his tefillin for some reason. But, um, he was, he was, also wasn't davening. He put on a talus. But the Rebbe would have an Aliyah just with a ha- kapot and a, and a hat. All right. So on the bottom of the page we have from the Sharia Fry, which is a Sefer dedicated to the Dinim of Krias HaTorah, and he says, "When he has a,

41:21 um, uh, the person has an Aliyah, shouldn't just have the mitznefes," which is like the yarmulke, which he would walk around at home. Rather, he should put on, on his head, should wear a hat, which he would, um, when he would go to greet someone respectable, so then you'd put on a hat. Of course, that has changed in contemporary society. Uh, but in, uh, certainly, um, going back, uh, fifty years ago, et cetera, it would be res- you'd... Out of respect, you'd be wearing a hat. And so that's where when someone has an Aliyah and they're just wearing a yarmulke, we would offer them a hat. Then he says, "If there is a talus with tzitzit available, so then he should also wear the talus, kavod hatzeber, even for Shabbos, um, Mincha." I guess it's not wearing a talus automatically, and use a borrowed talus and not make a brocha. Okay, so he's talking about wearing a talus. So the... Now, what we're gonna see here is two places. One in Hilchas Tefilah, where you have that derich hachacham ve'tamideim, shlis palulu el ke'shen atufim, that when we daven, we are wrapped. Wrapped with, so either with a talus or with a jacket, as we're gonna see in the second quote, which is from the Dinim of Brokes Brocha. It's in the Kuf Peh Beis, is it? Um, ituf, which says that's, they... Brokes Brocha has ten requirements, and one of them is ituf. Yesh mishihoy misata vetalis, so there were those who would wear

42:51 a talus for benching, for leading the benching at least. And there were those who'd put a sudar, that extra cloth, on their head. We don't have ituf in the, in that sense. But Yirei Shamayim should bench, should make sure, make sure to bench with wearing a- Not just the mitznefes, which is the yarmulke, but to wear a hat for benching. And there are also those who are particular to wear a beged elyon, to wear a jacket. So that's where it comes from, the idea of wearing hat and jacket as an alternative to wearing a tallis. So coming back to davening, so that's why we are particular. Of course, a married person wears a tallis for Shacharis, but for other tefillahs, we are particular to wear a hat and jacket because of this derachha chadas as the equivalent of a- of ituv. And so the same thing for Aliyah L'Torah. So it would be appropriate to encourage, uh, the person to wear a jacket. And the, my pr- the, the practical dilemma is, would that work in a Chabad house setting? That you have a jacket or some shmata jacket that's in there for everyone to put on. I, I just don't see that working. Um, and therefore, the off- the option of offering a tallis may be an idea. Uh, it's, it's something which to, to, to be considered if it will be a darah miskabal. Because... And that's where the likelihood of the, the, that person has been, uh, to, you know, to other

44:19 shuls before, that's the expected thing to wear something more than just a shirt when having Aliyah. So then why should the Chabad house be, uh, uh, be less than that? Okay. Finally, the last thing which we have on our sheet is about a mezuzah question. And that is that the mezuzah needs to be on the right side, and it needs to be a tefach, uh, within the tefach of the opening. So normally, we put the mezuzah at mamash in the doorframe, within the doorframe. If not, so at least within a tefach of the doorframe. Okay. Here we have a little situ-- the question was, which I was r- asked on Friday, when you have like accordion doors and, uh, and, and the accordion doors open to the right, so then the accordion doors themselves are a coup- the, th- they are a couple of tfachim thick. Therefore, the mezuzah is more than a tefach away from the where you can walk through. Imagine also you had a very thick door, like a safe, uh, and the door itself is more than a tefach thick. So then inevitably, you're, you're not going to have the mezuzah within a tefach of walking space, although it's the, it's, uh, the edge of the doorframe. So this is in this, this sefer called, uh, Piskei Shiurim, an American sefer, about twenty, thirty years old, contemporary sefer, and he talks about this folding door. And when it's, um, folded towards the, uh, the, the mezuzah is more than a tefach

46:04 away. So he says, so here whether you can make a berachah on, on such a door, on, on such a mezuzah, because possibly you're not fulfilling, but we don't have another alternative. So he says he seems to be advising to put up a mezuzah, but without a berachah. Okay. That's-- I've gone through the list of questions today. Um, I'll share with you one more, which came in on Friday, and that was about someone who's going to from... It was a question I got just before Shabbos from New York. Someone's traveling from the United States to Singapore during Hanukkah, and he's going to, uh, miss a day. He'll have a seven-day Hanukkah. And his question would be, is what's... When he arrives there, and it comes day lighting the fourth candle, and for him, he sh- well, last night he did two candles, so tonight he should do three candles. So d- does he do like them, or does he, does he, uh, or does he follow his own, his own speed? Now, there's two opinions in the Gemara why we add an extra candle each night. Is it k'neged yomim ha'nichnosim? In other words, like a calendar ticking off the days which we have passed so far, according to Beth Hil, obviously. Or is it ma'alin b'chodesh, a personal idea of, of striving e- every day doing something extra. And in this context, in this, in this, uh, situation, we'll have a difference between the two. If you say it's got to do with yom

47:30 ha'nichnosim, then he should just follow the minhag of, of Singapore. If he's, if it's got to do with moisf v'hoilech, then he should be moisf on where he's from two to go to, go to three and so on. I said, "Well, that's obvious to me that at the end of Hanukkah in Singapore, he's not gonna have an extra day to, to light in the day after Hanukkah, to light a eight- an eighth candle. This, this is nonsense. If it's not Hanukkah, then it's a brachah l'vatala to light." And therefore, I, I was more inclined to say take the, follow the calendar, um, feature. So despite the Chabad minhag, or the Rebbe's thing about crossing the date line during Sefirat HaOmer. Sefirat HaOmer is a different thing. That's a din ma'atana that you build up to the shvu'at through your counting. That's a different story. Here, Hanukkah, it's totally, uh, it's quite a different halacha. And therefore, m- m- my, um, conclusion was he should just adap- um, follow what the local, uh, people are doing. And if they're doing the fourth light, he'll light the fourth one. He'll have missed out on lighting the third time. Okay. That's, that's part of the, uh... That doesn't mean he's not allowed to travel. Okay. He's, he's gonna miss out one night of Hanukkah. That's inevitable. Yeah. Okay. I wish you a, uh, a and a and, uh, should see, um, we should see that Amen.