אמור תשפ״ד

00:05 Good evening. Shalom aleichem. Welcome to tonight's shiur. We're, uh, S- Thursday evening of Parshas Emor. Let's go straight to our first question, and that is, um... Oh, before that, the Sefer, uh, Nesiv HaHaloch Minuch. For those who are in the United States, it will be there hopefully before Shavuos. Um, those who are in Eu- Europe or England, it's available, um, locally. Okay. So someone's asking me about Hagba'at HaTorah. When we lift the Sefer Torah, what exactly... how exactly do we move? Do we rotate? And so we have here a Halachah of the Shulchan Aruch. As you can see, this... on the screen, Kuf Lamed Daled. Nesiv Kuf Lamed Daled. It's, uh, per- perhaps worth, worth pointing out that by the Sefardim, the Hagbah is done before Kriyat HaTorah. And indeed, Kuf Lamed Daled is the beginning of Ichud Kriyat HaTorah. So the Shulchan Aruch written by Rabbi Yosef Karo has the dinim of Hagbah at the beginning of Ichud Kriyat HaTorah. We Ashkenazim do it after Kriyat HaTorah, with the exception of, I think, Beyala Hasidim. I don't... I was once in one shul, um, I think it was Beyala Shul, and they did Kri- Hagbah before Kriyat HaTorah, and I thought, "Oops, I missed Kriyat HaTorah." Um, okay. So now Hagbah, it says in the... This is from the Sefer Sofrim. This is a Braisa. We... And this is now brought to Shulchan Aruch. Mareh pnei ktivas Sefer Torah. You show the, the face, the writing of the Sefer Torah. La'am ha'omdim. You show

01:53 it to the people. Li yeminoy v'lis mol. You show it to the people to your right, to the people to your left. Mazir el fon avad achor. And you rotate it. You mo- show it to forward, backwards. She mitzvah al kol ho anashim v'nashim. It's a mitzvah on all the men and the women. Lir'ot haksav. To see the script. V'lichroya. And to bow in respect. And to say, "V'zot HaTorah." And it has also, "Torat Hashem temima." By the Sefardim, they say, "Torat Hashem temima." That's not in our Nusach. Okay. But this is the Halachah of the Shulchan Aruch. Fine. So it says in Shulchan Aruch to show it to your, the people to your right, and to show it to the people to your left. So the Bach understands this, that the Sefer Torah is shown. The one who holds the Hagbah, holds the Sefer Torah, holds it with the script away from himself, as is done in some shuls, Ashkenazi shuls, on Simchat Torah. Uh, it is, it's a whole skill to be able to lift the Sefer Torah and then to switch around that the script should be shown facing the congregation rather than the person holding it himself. By the Sefardim who have the Sefer Torah in these large, uh, boxes, so then they take it, that's how they do Hagbah. They lift the box, and perhaps it's even easier that way, that they hold it. Their grip is... They hold it, and they show the ktav, the script, to the people.

03:32 So the Bach wants to suggest that that's the pshat in the Braisa, that mareh, you show it to the people to your right, and you're actually rotating to your right. Then you rotate to your left, and you're show- you're showing it to the people to your left. About three hundred years ago, or later perhaps, there was a Rav called the Rav Karmi, who lived in a town in France called Carpentras, and he wrote a Sefer called Mayim Mordechai. Mordechai Karmi, Karami, however you pronounce it, and he doesn't like the pshat of the Bach. And he, he says that it means like you just lift it the way we do. He insists, however, that we have a rule that whenever you have an option to go to the right or to the left, you should go to the right first. So he says, "Although the Braisa says you show it to the people to your right and show it to the people to your left, but actually you rotate to your right, and therefore the people to your left can see it first. And then you rotate to your left, and the people to your right can see it first," which is a little bit difficult. Okay. Now, I think we have discussed this in the past about the procedure of how we turn around by Bor Yu et Sholom. So although there is this rule of turning to your right, so as the Chazan, for example, takes the Sefer Torah towards the Bima. So you

05:01 can... Which way does he go around the Bima? So he takes a right, and then if... Well, therefore, he moves towards the Bima anti-clockwise, and that's how we also we are... The minhag is by Hakafot and by Hoshana that we do, we go around the Bima in the anti-clock- clockwise motion. When rotating on the spot, then turning to your right would mean clockwise. This is also brought in Shulchan Aruch in the dinim of Birkat Kohanim in Siman Kuf Chaf Ches. Now, the Kohanim go up to the Aron Kodesh, and they stand at Yoreh Modim, and they're facing the Aron Kodesh. Then at a given moment, they're going to do a 180-degree turnaround to face the people because, Chayai v'Halachu, they should be blessing facing the people. So which way should they rotate? So the way it's written in Shulchan Aruch, and the Alter Rebbe also, they should rotate Turning to their right because of this rule, to turn to the right. But this time, it's tu- turning to the right is in a clockwise motion. Yeah. So although when you are approaching an article, a block, and you want to go around, is, is gonna be anti-clockwise. But if you're rotating right to the right when you're standing on one spot, so then it would be a clockwise motion. Now, I think I'm sure I've told this before, that in the earlier years, the Rebbe by the Chabad was turning to his right, and that's how Rabbi Alexander writes in his book. And then... But

06:48 I remember very clearly, and I wrote to him, and this is going back more than twenty years ago, "How can you say that? I remember the Rebbe rotating to his left towards from his sta- place in the, uh, southeast corner of the shul, and the Rebbe would turn towards the urine drainage, which is, which is turning to his left, which is anti-clockwise." So he, he acknowledged that indeed there was a change, and the round of the Rebbe consulted with the Alter Rebbe, uh, how it was done in Lubavitch. Bear in mind that the Friediker Rebbe, uh, was paralyzed, and therefore he wasn't relevant. Uh, he was wheelchair-bound. Well, and then now at that point, the Rebbe changed his own hog. Instead of rotating to the right, he rotated to the left. Now, this question of rotating, and this also relevant, by the way, for the Ashkenazim, who when it comes to the do a full circle. It's only gonna be-- There's also gonna be the question, to rotate clockwise or anti-clockwise. And I'm sure I've just shared this before. And for those who want to read this more carefully, in the Siddur, in Rabbeinu Azokei, which I published some twenty years ago. Bes Hashem, the new edition should come out shortly. So in the Melurim, there's a whole chapter about this, uh, discussing as what I'm gonna share with you briefly now. And that is that in Semach Zedek, in one place, he seems to be saying that you should rotate to the right. And

08:20 in another place, in the, in the Kidush Hashem, Semach Zedek says that if you rotate to the right, that means you have to r- move your right foot backwards. If you move to the left, then you're gonna use your right foot to go forwards. So you have here the choice between moving r-- to the right backwards or to the for- to, or the to the left forwards. There's a preference to go forward to the left over going backwards to the right, and that's the basis of rotating to your left when you are... But here, although probably you normally should turn to the right, but here, but when you are rotating on the spot, to turn left. Therefore, I can say the Pshat of the Braisa and the that you show you turn to your left, and you show the Sefer Torah to the people to your right. And then you turn to the, your right, and then you'll show the Sefer Torah to the people to your left. That could be. Now then, in the Hiskashus journal, vo-- in, in issue number two hundred and seventy-four, Eder, Rabbi Leibel Bistritzki, alav hashalom, tells us that the Rebbe, before the Rebbe became Rebbe, taught the, the, uh, young people in seven seventy how to do Hagbah. And it was to turn to the left a quarter turn, and then just to put it down on the bim. Very, very interesting. You have here a Braisa, show it to the left, to the right. Everyone should be

10:03 able to see. And here, he is saying the Rebbe told him to turn just to the left and... Okay. Now, I was intrigued to see, to check in what was done in seven seventy by the Rebbe. Now, usually, the Rebbe had the Aliyah just before Hagbah. And the Rebbe, especially Mondays and Thursdays, so the Rebbe is standing. If I'm standing at the bimah, I'm about to do Hagbah, the Rebbe is to my right. And say, if I would do a rotate to the left, so then I would be showing the kisab to the Rebbe. So I went online. There's a, uh, a website, whatever, called Rebbe Drive, and I looked up various videos of how Hagbah was done by the Rebbe, um, on... Particularly, I looked for Taanis Esther there. I must tell you, it was not-- there wasn't a consistent pattern. There was one fellow, Taka, just does a rotates to the left, and one rotates to the right. Now, what's more significant is that we have Rabbi Zalman Gurari, alav hashalom, who would annually buy the zechus of Hagbah. And Rabbi Zalman... So when there was the small Sefer Torah, he was, even in his older age, he, he did the Hagbah on the small Sefer Torah. So when they use the small Sefer Torah- Mm-hmm ... Rabbi Zalman would usually have a Hagbah. And he lifts the Sefer Torah, rotates to his right. And in the sense that the, the back of the s- the parchment is to the Rebbe. He rotates

11:36 all the way round till the northwest. At that point, the, the Rebbe can see the kisab of the Sefer Torah. And then he rotates back, and he does a little bit of a turn to his left, and then he puts the Sefer Torah down. And I saw that so a few times. So what I'm seeing is that there's, as I say, an inconsistency. And I don't know whether Rabbi Zalman asked, but I find it strange that Rabbi Leibel Bistritzki says that before Tov Shenud the Rebbe had given guidance, and that clearly was not being followed. By, by, uh, Rab Zalman who had a chazakah to be doing Hagbah. So it all makes, it makes, it all very strange to me. The kitzur, what I would, I would, um, well, what I would say, for lack of proper mesorah in this, to take a do this of, as it says in the braisa, showing, rotating first to your left, showing to the people on the right, and then moving around to the forward and to all the way around to the back. In that way, you've enabled the people to the, your left and the people to the front, and everyone should be able to see the sifrei Torah. That seems to be the, uh, correct fulfillment of the braisa. Of the braisa, the halakha, and, uh, yeah. I see there's a couple of comments in the chat. Right. So I'm gonna read this. Would appear that one should just fo-follow minhag hamokom. Um, yes. Fair

13:10 enough. Maybe Rab Zalman in this way saw that the Rebbe would see it first. Yes. No, no, and sorry. No, that wasn't true because Rab Zalman, the way he rotated, if he wanted the Rebbe to see it first, he should have rotated to the left, and then the Rebbe would see it first. He didn't. He moved... You can check it yourself. He moves to the right, so he's blocking the kisaf because the Rebbe sees the back of the, the klah. And then he rotates all the way round, and that's when the Rebbe could see it. So yeah. And I, a-and the other ones who did it the other way was because they wanted the Rebbe to receive the kisaf, um, without delay. Okay. So that's-- So it's, it's not a very clear, uh, picture. I-I just explored this a little bit. Okay. Now, here, uh, question number two is, um, relevant. Many, many families, I'm sure, about girls singing and their brothers, um, possibly objecting. Now, it's not always purely out of frumkeit. Sibling rivalry ha- is, you know, "I don't, I don't wanna hear it," whatever, you know. They, they, they can sometimes have excuses to not tolerate the other one singing and to, to cause them whatever, yeah. We've been there. So coming back, question is, is there a halakha guidance about this? And then is there lifnim, is there, is there din, lifnim meshuras hadin? And then there will become the question about imposing your lifnim meshuras hadin on someone else around

14:48 the Shabbos table. So let's go step by step. Where do you find these halakhas? So we have in the Dinim of Kriyas Shema in Siman ayin hei. Very important. It says in the Torah, "Veho yo machanecha kodesh," your camp shall be sacred. "Ve'layiray Hashem bechol ervah et-dovo Hashem should not see any shameful exposure, ve'shov maacharecha, and he will as if to retract from, from before you." So we have this idea that where a brocha is said, where prayer is said, it has to be in a pure place and not in a place where there's exposure of ervah. That is one issue. Therefore, there's an issue of if there is, let's say, before dealing with a voice, let's say a, a woman, a married woman's hair is uncovered. There's one issue whether she is allowed to go with her hair uncovered or not. There's another issue whether you are allowed to me, you are allowed to say a brocha or Shema in the, that presence. These are two separate issues. One is whether the person's allowed to do what they're doing. The other one is whether I'm allowed to say a brocha in that presence. So now let's read first of all the Shulchan Aruch. "Yesh lizohar mikmi as kol zemer isho b'shaas kriat shema." We should be careful not to hear the sound, the voice of a woman singing when you are saying Shema. Then it adds, "Ve'afilu ishto," even if this woman happens to be your wife. Also, it's okay for your-- W-well, if

16:39 she's tahorah, it's okay for her to be singing, and you can hear her, her singing. But it's an exposure, which is not a, uh, not, not co- not compatible with your saying a brocha, saying Hashem's name. "Avel kol harogel bo eiyno ervah." But the regular, a regular voice, that's not a problem. And so when you hear a woman speaking, it's okay. Well, like, like I just translated this and, um, all right. Let's take a look on the left on the screen. We have here from the Sefer Even Yisroel from the late, uh, um, I think it's Rav Fisher, who was the, the Rav in the Eida Haredis in Yerushalayim. So his, his comments on that piece of Shulchan Aruch, and he says a very interesting c-- uh, explanation. When it says, "Kol harogel bo eiyno ervah," a voice which you're used to hearing is not a problem. So he says it doesn't mean-- It can mean even a, a, a, a kol shalzemar, even if it's a singing voice, because you're used to it, that's okay. And therefore, it's okay on Shabbos that the girls will join in in singing the zemirot because they've been singing from-- zemirot when they were little girls, and therefore you're used to hearing that voice. And then he says another aspect which, um, makes a lot of sense, that a chinuch for the girls, it's, it- it's valuable that they should also enjoy the Shabbos table and singing the zemirot with the at-- That atmosphere is, is, is, uh,

18:16 valuable for them too. So he's, he's, he's okayed it. Um, what, what I find strange when he says, "Kol harogel" can mean a singing voice because you read the Ramoh. He says you're listening to your, your wife singing, you're not allowed to say Shema. So kol harogel means your, your, your, uh, sister singing. You are allowed to... Doesn't, doesn't fit. At any rate, it certainly doesn't fit with the Alter Rebbe. 'Cause the Alter Rebbe we're reading at the top of the screen. Kol zemer shel isha, the voice of a... The singing voice of a woman, whether she's married or unmarried, even your wife, is ervah. Therefore, you're not allowed to read Shema in the presence. And so, so too for davening, to say the Berachot. However, kol diburah, when she's speaking. So the Alter Rebbe has taken the words kol harogel, and he's explained it. Kol diburah, when she's speaking. Ki im she'rogel bo ei노 ervah. So even a, uh, your wife, et cetera, a close relative, even though you're rogel, by the... That's not the heter. The heter is the kol hadibur rather than kol of shirah. That seems to be pashut pshat. I'm so very surprised at Rav Fisher taking that out of context. Now, why is this so, um, unclear? I'll tell you why. We all know that there's a issur of yichud. A man with a, a, um, another woman unrelated, they're not allowed to be secluded together. With your sister, you are allowed to be secluded. With your daughter, et

19:54 cetera. There's no issue of yichud. And therefore, there's a certain blurriness. What is this, uh... What is the story about when it comes to singing? Is it going to be compared to, um, like yichud, where that's okay? Or do you say, "No, it's, it's, uh..." Well, so let's read this. This is now from the Kleizenberger Rebbe, where he talks about kol isha. And he says kol isha is a little bit less strict than exposure of a tefach, et cetera. And he says that to listen, to hear the voice of your daughter, her, until she's eleven years old, it's okay. Then he goes on, even if she's, uh, older. So when it comes to embracing affectionate contact. So the Prisha, who is a commentary on the Tur, and Simon Kof Ali, we'll see it in a moment, says that affectionate contact is allowed even with an older sister. Not, not only if she's under, under bas mitzvah, et cetera. And so says the Beit Shmuel. On this basis, he is saying just like affectionate contact, physical contact is, is permitted, so too to hear, hear her singing is also permitted. So this is the Kleizenberger Rebbe. He later says perhaps on, on the level of, of chumra, et cetera, it's not midas chasidus, but min hadin, he says it's okay. So what really is... W-what we're left with so far is that min hadin, it's okay for the girls to be singing in the presence of their brothers. Uh, if it's a midas chasidus, it's a

21:37 midas chasidus. They, they, it's not necessarily that you can impose it on others. What I find very, very strange, and I don't have a, I don't have an answer to this. In the Rambam's commentary on the Mishnah, in Sanhedrin, Perek Zayin, he has a whole, a whole treatise on the inyanim of our lawyers, of, of, uh, all of this, this area. And he says that the kissing of relatives, even though it's not as if there will be a, a lewd kind of passion there, like your sister, aunt, granddaughter. Mechuer hu mo'id ve'aser. Although there's no, there's no mouth, he says it's very in-inappropriate and it's forbidden. And he says... A-again, he repeats himself because of aser. And he brings the story of Ula, where it says in the Gemara that he would kiss his, uh, sister's, uh, hands when he came back from the Beit HaMidrash. And later, he retracted from this because he saw there's no heter for it. And there's, uh... And then he says, the Rambam says further, "The permit-- The per-per-permission is applies only a mother with her son, father with the daughter." And that's until the mother is allowed to kiss her son till he's twelve years old, and the father, his daughter, until she's nine years old. And after that, it's aser. So the Rambam's extremely machmir. It's just the opposite of what we've seen of the Prisha who says, "Afilu shehi gedola." And I saw someone says, "Even if she's married." So you've got here from one extreme

23:18 to the other. And certainly the minhag haolam, as far as I know, is to take the lenient position. All right. So therefore, coming back to the singing, there is the... According to the lenient position of hibaq venishuq, of, of, um, of affectionate contact, singing shouldn't be any worse. There is a minhag chasidim, et cetera, to be machmir, and that's something which if the boys have a problem with it because of their being... They want to be machmir, okay, then that's... They have to find a diplomatic way of, of, of managing, managing the situation. Let's move on. Um, so now gearing up to Shavuot. So the Rebbe encouraged that children should be brought to shul to hear Krias HaTorah, to hear Aseres... The reading of Aseres Hadibros. This has developed into a whole, a whole, uh, a whole movement of making a Krias HaTorah in the afternoon so the children should be able, able to come. All right. And, uh, Baruch Hashem, it's... A lot of good things are happening through this. At the same time, there's, uh... To make a Krias HaTorah, you have to have six people that haven't heard Krias HaTorah. So where are you gonna get those six people? So some, some, some, sometimes you have a bar mitzvah. He'll say, "You know what? I'll be... I'm, I'm gonna be in shul, but I will ch- I will choose not to be yoitzer Krias HaTorah. And then I'll be available to make up your minyan in the afternoon." Very noble. So now

25:04 one of the... Well, more than one of the Chachmei Chabad have objected to this het and said, "There's no chiyuv to hear Krias HaTorah, therefore you cannot say I'm not going to be yoitzer." He says, "You have to be The mitzvah of Krias HaTorah is that when there's a Kehillah, when they, they, they are together, there's a chiyuv of the Kehillah to have Krias HaTorah. But who says there's a chiyuv on the yachid to hear Krias HaTorah? Now, how can you kind of abdicate if it's not a chiyuv in the first place? That was his argument. And in, in the Nesiv Be-Sefas Shlichos, volume three, there's a ten-- there's a chapter with ten pa-- ten, ten, uh, paragraphs. I call it the Aseres Hadibros about Aseres Hadibros. Um, ten paragraphs about guidelines for Aseres, um, this, the Minyan of Aseres Hadibros. So there, this point is brought up in the notes, and I have there a note from Reb Berel Korff, who re-- he, uh, refutes this argument, and he shows that there is a chiyuv to hear Krias HaTorah. So you've got Reb Yosef Engel, who ca-- asks this question, is the chiyuv of Krias HaTorah on the individual to hear, or is it in a mitzvah on the tzibbur to provide? And so we've got there sort of several proofs which you can look up. But I want to share with you another, I think, original proof that Krias HaTorah is a chiyuv on the individual to hear, not just on the Kehillah

26:29 to have as a Kehillah. And this is from the Mishne Taanis. And Mishne Taanis tells us how, um, that the-- there were twenty-four groups called Mishmaros, and they had a one week where they were, uh, they were, like, doing davka the Kohen and the Leviyim. And then you had also Yisraelim, they were called Anshei Ma'amad. Those in Yerushalayim, they would be standing, coming to the Beis Hamikdash to be representing Klal Yisroel, uh, uh, in the Beis Hamikdash. And there were, there were Anshei Ma'amad who didn't come to, to Yerushalayim, and in their back-- in their cities, they would also have a Seder or special extra davening, et cetera, for that week where they were on duty. So again, there were those Yisraelim who were on duty in the Beis Hamikdash, and then you got those Yisraelim who were on duty remotely. And they would do Krias HaTorah every day. They would take Breishis, and they'd go through the Sheishes Yemei Breishis. That's the Krias HaTorah as they did. And it goes into a lot of detail in the Mishnah. You see, But then it says, In the afternoon, they would reassemble. They would come to the central point, the central shul, whatever they-- where they would meet. This time, they did not take out a Sefer Torah. They would recite the reading orally. as we would read the Shema. So hang on a second. There's a chiyuv of Krias HaTorah, and instead of a Krias HaTorah in the formal way where the Sefer Torah being

28:23 out, each one says the Parshah on his own. What does that tell you? It tells you that you have a chiyuv of Krias HaTorah. And if you can't do Krias HaTorah by listening in a formal way, so then you're going to sit and look in your corner, and you're gonna use-- you're gonna say your-- the-- recite the same, the same pesukim. So it tells you there's a personal chiyuv. So just an interesting makor which I haven't seen anyone bring to, to show that Krias HaTorah is a chiyuv on the yachid to listen, not just on the Kehillah to provide, which actually makes a lot of sense in any case. Um, we saw by the Rebbe, Krias HaTorah, even though he was-- it didn't daven Shacharis with a Minyan, but Krias HaTorah, he was always there, there to Krias HaTorah. So as if Krias HaTorah was the greater chiyuv to, to hear Krias HaTorah. Okay, you can say it. All right, whatever. Okay, let's go on to the next point. I, um, yeah, I give over this shiur also occasionally in the Yeshiva Ketana in the Bechina. So on Sunday, I told over our discussion from last week on the, the Shevonoh and the Shevonach and the Kudsha and the Kudsha. And, uh, so afterwards, a, a fifteen-year-old boy comes over to me, and he says that actually the Rebbe in a couple of places, uh, talks about Dikduk and about Mil'el Milra and about, um, Shevonoh, Shevonach. And he then he shows me the two

30:03 Se-- two seforim, and one is in Taf Shin Mem-- One is Taf Shin, uh, Yud Beis, I think. Taf Yud Gimel. The other one, Taf Shin Mem Beis. And I was really, uh, very impressed that a fifteen-year-old boy should have this, uh, knowledge of where these, uh, like small points are written. And he comes over to me quietly, and I wanted to share them with you. So the number-- The first one is, um, where the Rebbe says there's a vort of the Friediker Rebbe that Eden are not particular in davening and the rules of Dikduk of Mil'el and Milra. Just to explain to you what's Mil'el and Milra, whether you put the emphasis on the earlier syllable or on the later syllable. So for example, if I would say in English, it was raining, so I took an umbrella, uh, in the street. So you don't understand what I'm talk-- What do you say? Umbrella. Yeah. You don't understand what I'm talking about. Umbrella. Now you know what I'm talking about. Yeah. And there's a machloket between Americans and England. Is it advertisement or advertisement? Okay. So we have here rules of where the emphasis is put. And the Rebbe, that's-- So malei is on the penultimate syllable, and then melra is in the ultimate, the last syllable. So there are rules, and the Rebbe is saying here from the Pshane Finkel Rebbe that even though not so particular about the malei or melra, of Avodas HaMalachim, it's the job of the Malachim to sort

31:32 out, the Tzirufi Osis Bediuk to sort out. So I guess, um, by Ashkenazim, we need no more Ma-Malachim employed, and by Sephardim who are more, uh, more accurate in, in the rules of malei and melra. Okay, so that's one. And that's just for sure, we could see the way we can hear the Rebbe davening, et cetera, that we're, well, we're not so particular about malei and melra. Then in Tof Shin Mem Beis, the Rebbe is talking about occasion where the Tzemach Tzedek's Rebbetzin would say Tehillim, and the sons would hear the mother saying Tehillim, and she made a lot of mistakes. And it wasn't as if you could correct the mistakes, because the next time would be other mistakes. But, um, so the Tzemach Tzedek said how... That they shouldn't be, uh, disrespectful about it. And you should know that when he went to Peterburg, he was, he had a Yeshua. He, he was helped largely because of the merit of the Rebbetzin saying Tehillim. So in that, that context, the Rebbe says the following: "Learning of Dikduk in order to know how to be careful in saying the words of davening, especially in Shema and in the first three brochos of Shemoneh Esreh, that's important for males, for men davka, because they have to know the rules of Dikduk to be able to say the words proper, correctly. For example, Shevona or Shevonach, et cetera." It looks like the ones who published this didn't know that in Al Pi Kabbalah, the word Shevo is

33:12 spelled with a Shin. Beis Alef, not Shin. Vov, Alef. The Rebbe adds here, further, it looks like some people don't know, know the difference between Shevona or Shevonach. And even if they do, they're not so particular when they're davening. But for Nashim, we don't find such a chiyuv that they should have to be so knowledgeable, et cetera. Uh, if they say it accurately, it won't do any harm, but not such an emphasis. Okay. So this is the second quote. The Rebbe is saying that one should be careful about Shevona or Shevonach, although he was more dismissive about the emphasis on malei and melra. Now, um, what I want to just ask you, um, what's this business of having to be medayek or medakdek in the first three brochos of Shemoneh Esreh. There is something about Kavana is Ma'akev in the first brocha of Shemoneh Esreh. That I know about. But I'm, I, I've tried to find something, any source or something that the Dikduk HaKria to be more, to be articulating the words. There's a special emphasis in the first three brochos of She- of, of Shemoneh Esreh. If someone can, uh, tell me where that is, I'd be grateful. Okay, let's go on. Um, one more point about that is, if you remember last week, we had a discussion about the asterisks on the word Nekudas Ha and the inconsistency in the particular siddur which we discussed. So I was told by the editors that in the newer editions, all those asterisks have been

34:45 removed. So I mean, not just on the word Nekuda, not on the rest of the siddur here. Okay, let's move on. So one of our listeners called me up, uh, last night or two nights ago, and this individual had, had eaten bread for supper, and then had other foods, and then now had some lokshen, and then had, uh, finished eating this lokshen, had forgotten that he had bread earlier, and he said, "Baruch," he said Al Hamichya on the lokshen. Then he realizes, oops, I had bread. What do I do? Do I have to make a brocha? Do-does Al Hamichya count B'di'eved for, for bread? That's the question. So this is not addressed clearly in Shulchan Aruch at all. And there's a discussion where the Minyan Brochos is d'oraisa or not d'oraisa. Which, what's the difference between Al Hamichya and the full benching? This has got three, four brochos. In Al Hamichya, is what's called Me'ein Shelesh. They all condense into one brocha. So is the fact that you should have three brochos, is that a Din min HaTorah, or is it not Din min HaTorah? So there's a discussion about that. And the Halakha seems to follow that Minyan Brochos is Lav d'oraisa, which means it says in the Torah, , there's a mitzvah to say a brocha after eating, yes. But it doesn't say you have to say three brochos. Say if you said Al Hamichya, so you've fulfilled the mitzvah. All right? Midrabonon, you should have said three brochos, but y-y-you could say

36:37 that you're, you're yotza because Minyan Brochos is Lav d'oraisa. Here, there's a... In, in, in the Ateret Ezba Shulchan Aruch, he seems to follow this. And however, in the Siddur, there's the following. I-in the Chof Sameches, in the Shulchan Aruch, the Ateret Ezba has-- talks about this relationship between the full benching and the, and Brocha Me'ein Shelesh, the sh- the abbreviated benching. And then he has a Kuntres Acharon, and at the end he says, "According to the reasoning I've given in the Siddur, then the picture is different." And I just wanna share with you, I don't wanna go into the whole pilpul. Here, towards the end of Peirush Base, he says like this, "Af sheminyan habrochot hume divrei sefrim." Although the fact that you need to say three brochos after bread is a din rabonon. It's called okay, however, mi'ach asher Moshe Rabbeinu al avoshalom tikin birchas hazon bivrachah bifnei atzmo. Since Moshe Rabbeinu instituted hazon as a freestanding bracha. Liftoi ach beboruch v'lach timbeboruch. This is achana Moshe Rabbeinu to say the bracha tilazon es hakeil. Roy l'chach mebisvei cocaine sofik shel Torah. So although normally you say sofik brochos l'chochiel, but if it's a sofik, whether you have to say hazon or not, you should take the stricter view. What's the context there? The context is the person had a certain type of lenses, whatever it was, and a sofik, whether it's, whether, uh... So the main weight is to say that they are mezonos and alam echad. The author of this says,

38:31 but if you ate k'rei se'ur, you ate a larger amount of these, whatever they are, some kind of lenses. I, uh, I'm just using that loosely because I don't remember exactly. It's some kind of food which is kind of debatable whether it's mezonos or hamotzi. If you ate a larger amount, and therefore, hu sofik shel Torah, then you should be machmir to eat b'teichah sudar or something. So here is... Th-th-that's what this apology, the brackets, is about. What's the difference? Why, why is there a sofik shel Torah? If I say alam echad, I'm also yoetzim min ha'torah. So the answer is, yeah, you're yoetzim min ha'torah if you say alam echad, but you're missing out on tachanas Moshe Rabbeinu, and therefore, don't rely on that alone. So we have here a kind of interesting, uh, balance that for, for the, um, benching, even though I, I... It follows in sechel that alam echad should be enough bedieved, but because you're missing out on tachanas Moshe, then perhaps you should be machmir. But then on the other hand, you're going to have a question of brocha, brocha safek brocha levatalon. So listen, listen, listen to what it says over here in the Piskei Shuus where he addresses this. He brings from earlier sources. L'maaseh, how are you going to deal with this? You already said alam echad. You can't say benching again because we're perhaps already yoetzit. He says the recommendation is wash me'et moshenut el sidaim and have a kazais, and then you'll bench, and

40:04 this way, you're yoetz, uh, your, your, uh, chiyuv of benching. So that was the recommendation. It's not always so convenient, but that's, that's, that would be the recommendation. So again, let's summarize that. A person who had bread and in error said, "Al hamichya." So what should he do now? Sh-he should be machmir to wash again, have a kazais of bread, and then, um, say benching, and then that way it's covered. Okay. So again, the point with the Alter Rebbe is saying it's not... When Moshe Rabbeinu institutes something, it's not a chiyuv min haTorah. But because it's Moshe Rabbeinu, therefore, roy l'chachmir b'sfek harachaman ein sofik shel Torah. It's, it's, uh... I'm not sure where the Alter Rebbe's source is, but it's, uh, this is an interesting chidush. Let's go for one more thing. So also, this is, uh, perhaps Monday night, someone calls me up, and it was his... He-- The night before, Sunday night, he forgot to count Sefirah time. He's now in shul on Monday evening. And in his town, they only have an early Ma'ariv. So he is Lovavitcher, so he'll have Ma'ariv later. But he was in shul, he was there for Mincha, and he stays for Ma'ariv. Okay. He answered Borchu. As he answers Borchu, oops, I didn't count Sefirah last night. So now, when you answer Borchu, it's as if now you've, you've confirmed it's now layla, it's n-night. So now, could you now... You know, if you forgot to say Sefirah the night before, so then there is

41:45 a solution that if you say it during the day, then the following night, you can say it with a brocha. So this is his question. I already answered Borchu, so I've already kind of artificially made it night. Can I now switch back to say it's still day and count Sefirah without a brocha for the past day, and then an hour later, it'll be night. I'll say Sefirah for tonight with a brocha. That was his dilemma. Now, in a, in a, in a related d-debate. So someone like a, uh, relative of mine, very into mitzvot tefillin. He's made a practice to go to shiva houses for Mincha-Ma'ariv. Mm-hmm. His area of ishlifis. And he finds people there, and he says, "Have you put on tefillin today?" Puts on tefillin with them. Now, they've just davened Mincha, or they've answered Borchu. They did or they didn't, but, you know, let's say they did. So can you, can you put on tefillin after you already davened Ma'ariv? Same question. You know, once you've made it night, can you now switch it back to day again? So over there, as I've also written about on one of the seforim. Over there, the psak is, the Alter Rebbe talks about it, put on tefillin without a brocha. Because you've already made it into night by saying Borchu, by answering Borchu. So then you put on tefillin because night time is still day. The fact is it's still day. But because you've made it artificially by night, halacha, so therefore, you

43:23 put on tefillin without a berachah. So now we're back to our quest with, with the bizchiya. So, um, can you do... Is-- Can you say, "Well, it's not night yet because the night is still, it's still day," although I answered Borchu. So the answer is, and what you, you can see over here, that they are saying in the Pisquet Shulchan in Siman Taf Peh Tes, if it's before the shkiya, even, let's say, if a woman already bench licht, and then she realized, "Oops, last night I didn't count Sefirah," she can still now say last-- yesterday's Sefirah, the, the morning Sefirah or last night's Sefirah, and con-continue saying it with a berachah. And the reason for this is the following. There is an opinion which says if you miss the day, you can still count with a berachah. That's a safek. If you count it by day, then there's a-- there are those who say that it makes no difference, and some say it does help. So when you have a safek safekah, that could be that you did not lose your sequence. So then you'd have to continue to count with a berachah because there's those, those who say even if you don't have a sequence, you can count with a berachah. So when there's a safek that perhaps I have a sequence, then you can-- may continue counting with a berachah. So now, lo b'zog ein yeah, granted, there's a machloket, and there's a sevarah to say that it was already, uh, once I

44:47 said Borchu, it's too late. But then the sevarah is not too late. Therefore, enough there's a margin of safek, of doubt, and therefore, that allows you to, to continue counting with a berachah. In other words, it's not clear that I missed. It's debatable. Okay. So I'm allowed to continue counting with a berachah. So that remains the halacha, that this person who answered Borchu and then counted last night's Sefirah, an hour later he can con-continue counting tonight's Sefirah with a berachah. Yes. Let's... Now, I just want to finish off, although this is not on your sheets. Last week, we were speaking about the Shabbos belt, and, um, I did get a fair amount of feedback about this. If you want to see, this is... I mentioned last week there's a, a specially made Shabbos belt, which the key actually becomes the tongue of the buckle. So you can see that on the screen. They got the options for one key or for two keys. Um, now, whilst that is better, and perhaps it wasn't so clear last week, what about if you don't have such a belt and you just wanna have... The m-main point last week was, I hope that was clear, that it's important that the combination of key with belt should be before Shabbos. But that the key should serve mamash as the tongue of the buckle, although that seemed to be preference, certainly that's not the, the general view of Poskim. As I mentioned last week, Reb Dovid Feldman has this in

46:28 his kitsa, where you have the key, not a buckle. The key is being used as a shtick to connect, uh, the two sides of the belt, but it's not a buckle. So someone writes that Mr. Rabbi Dovid Waxer writes to me the following. Yehuda Klapman, the sofer, to- once told me that he fashioned a belt by drilling holes in the two ends of his glasses, and he used a string or elastic to wear them on Shabbos. Once Reb Zalman Shimon Dworkin saw that and says, "In this way, you can even carry a pot of cholent." Um, so that's, that's what he's quoting Reb Zalman Shimon. Okay. So I, I... He doesn't, he don-- What's not clear in this little anecdote, whether the glasses were joined to this belt before Shabbos, in which case, yes, I would have to, um, accept that just like Reb Dovid Feldman allows you to use, to use a key to connect a belt, not as a buckle. So if you use a ke-- if you connect it before Shabbos, so then that would sh- with a pair of glasses, it would be the same thing, and that's what Reb Zalman Shimon is saying about cholent. By the way, but the pot of cholent mustn't have cholent in it because although the, uh, the pot might become part of the belt, but the cholent inside is not part of your belt. So, for example, people have got these, um, pendants, like a, uh, with a locket. So the pendant itself with

48:01 a little box is taka a piece of jewelry. But the fact that inside you keep there your HaMesibot or you keep there a picture of your eineklach, so that you should be able to, um, you know, b'ais rotsen to look at your eineklach. The, the picture is being carried. It's not, it's not part of the jewelry. So the same thing, even if you had a, a pot of cholent as part of your belt, um, I hope it's comfortable. But, um, the cholent itself would, would not be allowed to be carried that way. One last point about that, people are asking about the Rebbe using a, a, a belt for carrying it, for transporting a key. And I, I think I did mention that the Rebbe did in... After he felt that his room was not being, uh, not secure, uh, with, um, having hidden the keys somewhere in seven-seventy. But, um, I don't know exactly the details, whether it was a, a, a, uh, elastic, whether it was a, a gartel, whether it was tied before Shabbos, how it was tied with clips. I don't know. I don't know the detail about that, and therefore, I'm going to, uh, decline to give any more details. Um, if someone knows and shares, so then we'll know. Okay. With this, I will, uh, close tonight's shiur. Wish you all a wonderful Shabbos, and we should hear besuras tovos, good news from Eden BeChlal, especially from Eretz HaKodesh, um, to see a geulah, and we should be zocheh

49:29 to geulah shlema, moShiach tzidkeinu, b'hayel yameinu, amen. Amen. Geier, thank you.