בלק תשפ״ד

00:29 Speaker 1 Not hearing anything. Thank you. I'll try again. So welcome to tonight's shiur. Today is Thursday, Parshas, Parshas Balak, Yud Beis Tammuz, Hag HaGeulah. And today's shiur is dedicated by Mr. and Mrs. Pinchas Rabin in honor of their newborn einikel. Parents, Dovid and Ethel Hurvitz, waited twenty-four years for Baruch Hashem, this moment of having their own child. Baruch Hashem, Ken Yehi Ratzon, we should have lots of nachas from him and from future siblings. Let's go on to today's questions. But before that, we have here... I mentioned to you last, last week, a year, week before about a son of mine who does rendering. So for those like me who don't know what rendering really means, this is a artificial picture put together by him to help architects and balabatim understand what a future project will look like. Another example in a moment. So there we are, another example. And Baruch Hashem, if someone needs such a service, so be in touch with me, and we'll be, uh, help you make the contact. Baruch Hashem. Okay. So someone asked me a question about the pesukim in Hallel, and in a later pa-pa-chapter in Tehillim. Seems to be the same pasuk. There's a change of wording. Here in Hallel, it says, "Oznayim lohem velo yaazinu," they have ears, and they will not, velo yaazinu. And here, that's in, that's in, uh, kuf lamed he. And in Hallel, it says, "Oznayim lohem velo yishmeu." So why is there a difference here, lo yishmeu, and here is it velo yaazinu?

03:10 Speaker 1 So I did look around, and I did not find anyone, any of the meforshim who addressed this straight. What I do know is that there's a difference between... another difference which discussed in the past and published how we have a difference between the, the, uh, style of presentation in Hallel and in later. So in Hallel, we have Yisroel betach bashem, beit Aharon betuch bashem, and yirei Hashem betuch bashem. So we've got three categories, Yisroel, beit Aharon, and yirei Hashem. Those three titles come up another two times in Hallel. Like, yemenal Yisroel, you know, beit Aharon, yemenal yirei Hashem. We look in chapter kuf lamed he, we have another category. Beit Yisroel baruch Hashem, beit Aharon baruch Hashem, beit Levi baruch Hashem, Hashem yirei Hashem baruch Hashem. So we have now a fourth category, which is Beit Levi. And so the meforshim do explain and say that the Hallel, which is, which we say, uh, on Yom Tov, et cetera, that's called Hallel Hamitzri. It's celebrating Yetiasu Mitzrayim, Yetiasu Mitzrayim. And at that point, the hidden-- the, the Shevet Levi hasn't been identified as a separate entity. Therefore, there's no Beit Levi betuch bashem. In the later, in kuf lamed he, this was composed at a later stage once the Le- Shevet Levi is identified as the, um, servants in the Beit HaMikdash and the Mishkan. Therefore, they're identified as a separate category. Having said that, possibly we can then go back to the two phrases, if it's oznayim lohem velo yishmeu, oznayim lohem velo yaazinu.

04:58 Speaker 1 Both of the-- The meaning of both of them is to negate a Avodah Zarah. The difference between shmia and haazinu we know from, um, Chazal, shmia, ha-ha-haazinu shamayim hadebei, avis ishma aretz, et cetera. The haazinu is from close by, to listen from close, and shmia is from a distance. So possibly the earlier form is saying Avodah Zarah velo yishmeu, that they don't, they don't, they don't hear and from a distance. By contrast, the Aibishter does listen. It's contrasting to the Aibishter, lahavdil. In the second, um, in the later chapter, when-- where it's already after Matan Torah, so then we have that the, the Aibishter is not only he listens from a distance, but listen from close by. Therefore, oznayim lohem velo yaazinu saying Avodah Zarah doesn't have this kind of re- uh, listening in from close by, whereas the Aibishter listens even from close by. If someone has a better Pshat, of course, always happy to listen. Let's move on. Now- I unfortunately do not have the piece of paper. I'm here at the... Perhaps I won't be able to find it. I am here at the, uh, the Simcha of Mishpachas, Mishpachas Dubov. Sorry, I'm, I'm... Sorry, I'm, I'm bringing it up on my, my phone. So I'm giving the Shiar from the, from the grandstand. I can look over and see where the horses would run here in Isher. Okay, so the first shial that I have for today is that last Friday, close to Shabbos, a Shliaf from somewhere in Central Europe

06:53 Speaker 1 calls me that there's a large ship, a cruise ship, which is, uh, docked, which seems to be a, it's a com-- it's a popular resort. And the way it works out is that the ship, there, there's a limited amount of space for all of these cruise liners to, uh, be moored at the port, and therefore it's common for them to have one next to the other, next to the other. And so the people in-- the passengers in the third ship or second ship, if they want to walk onto land, they would go through the clo-- the ship closest to land and then use that as a bridge to get to land. So he's asking those on the fourth ship, in this case, there was a-- there were about twenty Yidden, and they wanted to come off the ship, go onto the other three ships and come onto land, and then go back on Shabbos. Just to make it a little bit com-more complicated that during Shabbos, ship number three would make its way onwards, and therefore ship number four would be released and tugged out a little bit further to allow ship number three to move on. And then it would be moored back and it become-- it take position number three. So the question was, are they allowed to get on and off the boats, these ships, on Shabbos? So at the m- time, I got a little bit confused between two dinim, and I wanted to clarify this. Afterwards, I... At that, at

08:22 Speaker 1 that moment, I didn't have the clarity, and that's why the benefit of the Shiar, I to sit down and look it through. And that is, there's two separate dinim. One is about whether you're allowed to stay on a boat or go onto a boat, which is going to travel onwards on Shabbos. There's a second dinim where they're allowed to enter a boat altogether on Shabbos. And so one is in Siman Shin mem-- Shin Lamed Tes, and the other one is in Siman Reish Mem Ches. We're gonna first look at the Shin Lamed Tes, um, Halakha, and that reads the following. The Alter Rebbe says that a boat, you're not allowed to swim on Shabbos. You're not allowed to enter a boat on Shabbos. What about if the boat is grounded? Then you are allowed to enter because it's not floating. Then he says, if the boat is kashura, if the boat is tied, moored to the, to the harbor, k'minei ha-sfinot ha-zem, as be normal, as is normal for ships which are in the harbor, that they are, um, they are tied to the harbor, to a post in the harbor. Af al pi she-hi shota up'ney amayim, although this ship is actually bobbing on the water, mutar likanes bo. So a ship which is tied, you're allowed to enter. So that's very useful to know that you are allowed to enter... No, we're not talking about going go anywhere else. On the contrary, it's staying put. So although it's floating, but because it's tied

09:56 Speaker 1 to the port, that's okay. So coming back to our question, so long as the boats are tied to the port, there's no shial there at all. Then that brings us to the other question, and at the time, that triggered my memory of a story which I had several years ago about a certain wealthy balabos who has a idea that he likes to daven at least Shabbos with a minyan. He has a private yacht, and wherever he goes, he makes sure to get a, a minyan to come on to, uh, to, to, to join him. So he was going to m- park the yacht somewhere, some, some, uh, re-- some city, whatever, and he wanted to arrange that some bochurim should be able to come onto the yacht on Shabbos. Now, that was a bit more complicated because the yacht was not, uh, moored to the harbor. On the contrary, it was perhaps, uh, a hundred yards, two hundred yards out in the sea. And to get there, you have to get onto a little boat to get out to the yacht. So that was a-another parasha, whether the boys would be able to go and join them on Shabbos. So now let's now look at the second quote. It says here, "Not allowed to enter a boat on Shabbos, even if you're traveling for a bar mitzvah. If you enter the boat before Shabbos and you're still on the boat, so then if the boat moves on Shabbos, that's okay. Because you entered the boat

11:32 Speaker 1 before Shabbos, so then you can stay on the boat as it moves on. However, if you left the boat, you would not be allowed to go back and travel on Shabbos." There's a more lenient opinion which says, that's the bottom of the page of the screen, "Yesh matirin if you were koinesh visa. If you entered the boat before Shabbos and you were there during bein hashmashot, for those three-quarters of an hour, then you went back to the-- spent the night at home, you could come back and get onto the boat and travel on Shabbos." So if you had a... For whatever reason, your journey is on Shabbos. So if you were able to be koinesh visa on the boat before Shabbos, you'd be able to come back to the boat on Shabbos. In the, in the, uh, Kuntres Achron, you can see this little daled. We said if a person is on a boat, he's allowed to stay on the boat on Shabbos. What about going to another boat? This the Alter Rebbe says in the Kuntres Achron. Let's see if I can get it over. Yeah. He says you would be allowed to go even from one boat to the other, so long as you have gone onto dry land. And this, the Mishnah Berurah refers to this in, in, uh, Siman... I think it's in Shim Lamates. He refers to the Alter Rebbe who said that if he hasn't gone into dry land, he'd even go to one boat to another. But that's

12:52 Speaker 1 not our discussion. Our discussion is whether there is a heter to get onto a boat in order to make up a minyan. Yeah. So in Shim Lamates, in the Sharat Shiva, he quotes from the Sha- Shvus Ya- Shvus Yankiv. He has allows you to get onto a boat on Shabbos within the tehum to make up a minyan, l'ovel to daven with a minyan if the boat isn't traveling four yds. So let's say, um, we know there's a place in, in London called the... by Woolwich, and there's a ferry which goes across from one side of the Thames to the other. So would you be allowed to go onto the Woolwich ferry to be able to go onto the other side and to daven with a minyan on the other side of the Thames? So according to the Shvus Yankiv, he says you would be allowed to, and apparently this was quite a common thing, where they had the, the city would provide a ferry for people to cross the river, and so you would be allowed to go in to go across the river to make up a minyan. Then the Noam Elimelech addresses this, and he says that, um, if the ship is traveling four yds alone, that wouldn't be okay. It's difficult to be matir. Later on, I know this is a little bit of a tangent. The Noam Elimelech asked the following. He was asked the following. There's a, a, there's a boat which is crossing the river. In order for me

14:25 Speaker 1 to get onto the boat, I need to be kohein shvisa. Going back to what we said before. Assuming again, you'd be kohein shvisa. But when I cross the river, I want to be able to go another three thousand ammas. So I need to lay in place an eiruv tehumin. So what's the... How does the eiruv tehumin work? I put down a box of mats, and I say, "If kehillah, I spent the night, I'm, I, I was, I'm living there for Shabbos." So I want to get onto the boat because I was kohein shvisa on the boat. I want to put an eiruv tehumin to be able to go another two... uh, another kilometer. So how can... How... Ca- Is it not a contradiction? So he says it's not, that's not a problem. It's, it's okay to have that contradiction. But on the idea of getting onto a boat in order to make up a minyan, that he says he doesn't want to give a psak one way or the other. Now, coming back to our, our situation, which I had these few years ago, all this discussion is talking about getting onto a boat, a rowing boat, which is going to... No melacha involved with a rowing boat is not a melacha. It's the issue of derabbanan, uh, of rowing and perhaps floating. And there you could say possibly, "Hey momre," you could say this, the mitzvah of daven with a minyan is through the issue of going onto a boat. Yeah, that's, that's a,

15:46 Speaker 1 a possible argument. But, uh, I, I believe this travel was five years ago, whatever, and I believe that the boat which would take them from the coast, from the harbor to the yacht would have been a motorboat. And motorboat means already there's an engine and it's a melachas, and therefore, I don't see any heter. Even the ma- the matir, only matir is derabbanan. No one will be matir is derabbai to allow you to take a boat, a motorboat, and especially for you to make up a minyan. And bichal, the Mishnah Berurah in two places, in a couple of places, talks about this getting onto a boat. And he's in Toff Rashud Gimel in Hilchot Yom Kippur, he says to get onto a boat in order to make it to daven with a minyan, he doesn't allow. In Hilchot Rosh Hashanah, in Hilchot Chag Sukkot, he talks about getting onto a boat to hear shofar or to bench nullev. That's a mitzvot derabbai. There he is more, um, lenient to allow you to get onto the boat in order to, um, fulfill a mitzvah be'inato. We're going on to the next, uh, question, one which came up, which was a surprise for me, and that was about tefillah sadere. So now, tefillah sadere is when you're traveling out of town, and we have a special tefillah which is mentioned in, in, in Gemara. Um, there was a time that Reb Menachem Galitsky was driving to Montreal, and he was... He informed the Rebbe of his journey,

17:32 Speaker 1 but he got from the Rebbe a whole settel, which has been published since. How the Rebbe encourages him to remember to say tefillah sadere and then also to encourage others to say tefillah sadere. And the Rebbe says he has the impression that people are not so careful about it. And, uh, so he encourages, the Rebbe encourages an awareness of tefillah sadere. Okay. So the shortest journey to warrant tefillah sadere is a journey of what's called a parsa, which is the equivalent of four kilometers. Now, hilchot mil, dalet milim. So traditionally, we un- understand it takes a person to walk a mil, it takes a person eighteen minutes. So to, to walk four milin takes you seventy-two minutes. So it's a journey of seventy-two minutes. So some, um, um, poskim have- Taking this further and said that now if you're traveling by car and you're traveling a distance of more than daled milin, but you're traveling in less than seventy-two minutes, so that doesn't require Tefillat Haderech. There are those who say that. So here I've got from the Piske Teshuvas, the Siman kuf yod. He quotes from Yabia Omer from Rabbi Ovadia, Ovadia Yosef, and he quotes from a Sefer, the Sefer Ha-Sivhei HaAm, that the minhag in Eretz Yisrael mi-kadma haz'man. The, the historic minhag is not to say Tefillat Haderech unless you're spending seventy-two minutes on the journey. I'm, you know, touched by the humility of Rabbi Hagah and Rabbi Ovadia, where he is quoting a Sefer Ha-Sivhei Ha-Am, which is a very

19:16 Speaker 1 much a contemporary, uh, writer, certainly, um, probably, um, certainly, um, very likely far from the, uh, tremendous knowledge of Rabbi Ovadia himself. And he's saying that the minhag in Eretz Yisrael mi-kadma haz'man, that if you're traveling by car, you wouldn't say Tefillat Haderech unless you're traveling for seventy-two minutes. I, I, I, I, I question how long before, uh, did they have, did they have cars in Eretz Yisrael. Is it a common thing to say that the minhag mi-kadma haz'man. At any rate, so there is-- There are those who say, he's not the only one, who want to say that, uh, possibly a, a journey of less than seventy-two minutes doesn't require Tefillat Haderech. However, others say on the contrary that because now our form of travel with cars, we're not worried about highwaymen, et cetera. On the contrary-- on the other hand, we are worried about safety of driving, and that is, uh, even there would be an argument even in town to say Tefillat Haderech. Certainly, there's not a... One shouldn't, one shouldn't be, how you say, uh, diminishing the need for Tefillat Haderech. On the contrary, it's more important. Having said all that, so this, it was all, this whole discussion of seventy-two minutes for Tefillat Haderech was all news to me. And then I thought to myself about the time that the Rebbe travels to Gan Yisroel. Three times the Rebbe travels to Gan Yisroel. There's a volume called Binoy Deshe which documents those three visits of the Rebbe. And the Rebbe's

20:50 Speaker 1 journey was, if you know the, uh, map of Greater New York, the Rebbe would travel from Brooklyn up through Manhattan, up through the Bronx. North of the Bronx, there's an area called Yonkers, um, et cetera. And somewhere over there, there's a river. There, there's a sh-- This is all on the coast of the Hudson. And then there's a, a, a bridge across the Hudson called the Tappan Zee Bridge. And so the Rebbe, the Rebbe's car drives across the Tappan Zee Bridge. And then there's a, what they call in America, a gas station, the petrol station, and the car, the car stopped there. The Rebbe got out of the car and said Tefillat Haderech. So the Tappan Zee Bridge is five kilometers. So until, until the bridge, it's all built up. There's no... It's not chutz la'ir. The only chutz la'ir is once you've crossed the bridge to, uh, the other side of the Hudson. And the Rebbe said Tefillat Haderech. How long does it take to drive across the Hudson? Um, five-kilometer stretch. If it's a five-mile stretch, it's, uh, normally it's just at least ten minutes, whatever. Certainly not seventy-two minute crossing. And so the Rebbe did say Tefillat Haderech. So obviously, that this idea of seventy-two minutes is something which we would not follow la'alochah. And if it's a journey of more than four kilometers out of the built-up area, we would say Tefillat Haderech. We move on to the next point on our, on our list, and that is, um, another something

22:33 Speaker 1 which was quite a surprise for me. That is about the definition of carrying something, moving something kilay chayad. Okay, so the story is the following, that someone receives a delivery into his apartment building. He lives in an apartment building. Let's say there is a neighbor, but he is worried that if the package is left in the foyer downstairs, it won't be there at the end of Shabbos. So he wants to be able to carry this box, and it's-- he knows that it muktze in the box. I gave an example. It's a box of, of paints. Muktze ma'as gufa. If it was, uh, clothing or dishes, that would be... It wouldn't be muktze. But here he knows that inside it's, it's a box of paints. So it's muktze, it's, uh, muktze, so it's-- he can't pick it up in the normal way because he's carrying muktze. So the question is, is he able to lift the box with the back of his hands and bring it to a safe place? And so we know that there's a general ruling that you are allowed to move muktze kilay chayad in an unusual way. What is the definition of unusual? So in many places, it talks about moving with your back and moving with your foot and moving with your body. It's not so clear that moving with the back of your hands qualifies as kilay chayad. So I looked around. For example, I took the Sefer Orchos Shabbos, all examples of kilay chayad. It doesn't mention that,

24:20 Speaker 1 uh, using the back of the hands. I took out... Then I looked in the encyclopedia Talmudis under muktze, under the subheading of kilay chayad, and he refers to the Alter Rebbe as being one of those who say clearly that using the back of your hands qualifies as kilay chayad. So let's read that inside. This is in similar Reish Ayin Vov. Ava loim l'nochri. Now here he's talking about... It's not his muktze. He's talking about nimir l'nochri. Are you allowed to ask a Goy to carry a, a, a lit lamp from one place to the other? So let's read that inside. Loim l'nochri sheyovli neir hadoluk. To carry a lit lantern. Klal. Mimakom acher acher. To-- You want to ask the Goy to bring the lam-- the lantern, which is a burning flame, from B to A. YeshThere are those who said that you are allowed to ask a goy to carry this lantern for you. Even if you can manage without it, whether it is a ner shel shaiv or whether it's a wax candle, whether it's an oil can-- an oil lamp, and he says, why are you allowed to ask the goy to move it? Moving a lantern, a lit lantern is muktze. You are allowed to move muktze in an indirect way. Something which I could do even in an unusual way. With the back of his hands on his elbows or et cetera. Since the Yisroel himself could do the same act, albeit in an unusual way, therefore, when he

26:17 Speaker 1 asks the goy to produce so, and he does it in a normal way, that doesn't matter. Because you can only not ask a goy to do something if you have... There's no way you would be allowed to do it. But if there's a way you could do it, you are allowed to ask a goy to do. This has defined that carrying, what he means here, means. I know elsewhere the Alter Rebbe does discuss carefully the difference between and but I believe here is, is he means in an unusual way. And he says what he says, with the back of your hands or with your elbows. That's just not a normal way of carrying things. And later on this next, the next sip, the same phrase comes up. So therefore, what we're seeing here is the Alter Rebbe does recognize carrying muktze with the back of your hand also as. Rabbi Levin in his commentary. On this place, he shows all the other places, but he doesn't say the back of your hands count. What can we do here? It says it does count, so I believe that's good enough. So and this also-- this whole as far as to say the back of your hands doesn't count as a enough to allow you to move muktze. But that would also have a bearing on so many other things. For example, for you're allowed to do. So what does it mean ? Does it mean, does it mean with your... I mean, let's say if you

27:55 Speaker 1 needed to, um, use a telephone on Shabbos for a. So you're allowed to do it. So what does that mean? You can't use your knuckles. You have to use, uh... I don't know. You can have use your toes. I don't think so. I think that this is enough of a, enough of a departure from the norm to say that it is called. Okay. Let's go on to the next question, and that is whether it's okay to... So they have a cleaner and about washing the dishes after, after Sh-after Shabbos. By then the re-re-remains of food have become dried and stuck to the dishes, and they're complaining it gets a much more of a, much more of an effort to clean the dishes because they were left to dry out. So is there a heter on Shabbos to put the dishes in a, in a, uh, bucket of water, in a bowl of water with perhaps with a bit of soap? Not because you want to prepare, but you want to prevent them from getting, well, I won't use the word ruined, but becoming more of a to, to, uh, to, to wash after Shabbos. So let's read here from and this is in, um, chapter twelve, chapter Yud Beis, and he's talking about preparing on Shabbos for after Shabbos. So normally, we wouldn't wash dishes on Shabbos. But after Shabbos, he writes the following. Number one, that's in Yud Beis. If you have dirty dishes and you're worried if you leave them as they are,

29:34 Speaker 1 they will attract bugs, et cetera. And for that matter, if you've got silver dishes and the contents may be acid, have acid content will ruin the silver if you don't remove those, those contents. So you are allowed to soak them on Shabbos in water, even though you don't have any int-intent to use them on Shabbos, because you're not doing this to prepare. You're not putting the dishes to pre-- in the water to prepare them for after Shabbos. Rather, you are doing so to prevent the gathering of bugs. Then he goes to Gimmel. He says another, um, similar situation that kaleim, which after taking the food out, the remains, the remnants will get stuck to the walls of the kaleim, and that's gonna make it difficult to wash the dishes after Shabbos. So you are allowed to soak them in water because this soaking is just to prevent a degeneration, so to speak. It's not-- You're not doing it to prepare. You're doing it to prevent the drying out. If it's already dried out, that's a different story because then you're doing it to make it easier to wash afterwards. But if it's not dried out, you just want to preserve the, um, the current state. He says that is okay, and he doesn't see this as preparing for after Shabbos. He sees this as preventing a damage. And we're preventing a nuisance for after Shabbos. It is for after Shabbos, but it's not, it's not preparing to preventing a nuisance. It's preventive rather than, than

31:16 Speaker 1 a proactive. Okay. What I find even more surprising, though, is that in Os-- in the Note Chess, he writes, "When you want to clean up the kitchen because you have guests or a guest who's coming, and you're embarrassed to have the dirty dishes present, that's also called Seudat Shalom, and you would be allowed to wash the dishes to get them out of the, um, view of your guests." And he quotes the Sefer Shu"l Han Shleimer, um, who was, I believe, a contemporary of the Alter Rebbe. I did not get around to looking it up. I found this very surprising. And generally, generally in, um, Chabad Hasidut, the dishes are not washed, uh, during Shabbos, and they're left in the sink or whatever and covered over if necessary. So, uh, yeah, but those who are makil, that you have there a source to be lenient. Right. We go on to the next question, which is about using a holiday time. You think a, uh, renting a cottage somewhere, and there's a microwave. So are you allowed to... Is there a way you can use the microwave? So one thing is if the food is wrapped. So generally, that's accepted that the double wrapping is enough even, uh, to, eh, to, to put food in a tray for oven. But what about could you kasher it? Can you kasher a microwave with putting in a cup of water, and then it's gonna be full of, um, for ten minutes, it's gonna be full of steam, and that

33:00 Speaker 1 steam will kasher the microwave, the oven. So the... I'm gonna say first palpe, and then we'll read inside. My general take on this is the following. Lechatchilah, you don't buy a tray for microwave and rely on kashering. You can buy, uh, other ovens you can buy and rely on kashering, but for sure there's a locker. But in the microwave, the kashering is a bit of a schwache kashering. If you already have a microwave and somehow you took some chicken soup, you didn't realize, took it out of the freezer, and you warmed it up in your milk in your microwave oven, and now it's a bedieved. Do you throw away the microwave or do you kasher it? Here we will say, bedieved, you could rely on kashering, but don't rely on lechatchilah. So now back to our question. You're going on holidays. Are you allowed to use the microwave there by kashering with hot, hot water? So a few, few points here. In the microwave, there's a, also a... The fleishig kashering only works for, for, um, just for blia, for absorbed taste. If there's a tangible presence, kashering doesn't work. The microwave generally has a vent behind, and the gunk, a lot of sh-- a lot of, um, fats, et cetera, will accumulate there, and usually it's very difficult to have access to that part of the oven, and as a result, you can't really clean it. So all right, so you're gonna say you got to spray it with oven cleaner. It's, it's, it's

34:38 Speaker 1 not so far. Then I have another question. Someone actually asked me just this morning, "Can you kasher a pressure cooker with regular boiling water?" The word, the question is, the pressure cooker, regular water reaches a hundred degrees Celsius. In a pressure cooker, it can reach, let's say a hundred and fifty degrees. I don't know the details. If something became treif to a hundred and fifty degrees, can you kasher it with a, with a hundred degrees? So the truth is that you can then, then say a, a deep fryer. Oil becomes much hotter than, than, than water. So can you kasher a fryer with water? Then I saw someone raising another point. Can you kasher something which was used at a lower altitude at a higher altitude? Because at a higher altitude, it's going to boil at, at a lower temperature. So that's more of a far-fetched, uh, scenario. But, eh, eh, it's for sure that there are foods which cook and become hotter than, than, than, than water does. And still, we learn from the Posuk. That's in, uh, two weeks' time, et cetera, that you can kasher with hot water. So we have a, uh, Halakha that you can kasher with hot water, even though the pot is actually be-- has absorbed non-kosher at a higher temperature. That's okay. That's all very well if you're kashering with water. Here with a microwave, you're not kashering with water, you're kashering with steam. That's a Chiddush. So to say that the steam is gonna match the

36:24 Speaker 1 temperature of the steam, Kabbalat HaPatil, okay, I can go along with that. But I'm not so confident because it could be the steam of the water is not gonna be as strong as the steam which should be for the pizza or whatever, whatever was used in the oven before. So it's not such a reliable kashering. So again, so let's read what he writes here. Now, I did a bit of a search on this and, um, came up to a Sefer called Geyonei HaParsha. I've heard of the Sefer before. It's more a Sefer on the Parashat HaShavua, but it's Halakha essays on the Parashat HaShavua. Got so just one, one little paragraph out of an essay of about ten pages goes through all the different opinions about this. And he says in the summation that some Poskim say- That you can kasher with steam only for basar ve'chalav. Now, but not for isur ve'heter. There's a very important concept in Halakha to dif-differentiate between what's called isur abola or heter abola. If it is, if it was absorbed, uh, kosher food, it just happens to be that meat and milk are not compatible, that kashering is a much more lenient form of kashering vis-à-vis kashering for mamish treif. So that was what we see here that is saying that although we can be make them with kashering with steam from fleishigs to milk, it's that, that kind of iksar. But if it was mamish treif yesterday, it was used for pork chops, whatever, um, this kazefets,

38:05 Speaker 1 you know, absorbed in the, uh, oven. Other some say that kashering with steam is not good enough because here from the Shem MiShmuel, kasher a micro wave, micro wave from isur from Pesach, you shouldn't rely on, uh, zeyor. You shouldn't rely on s-steam, and not even a yede'i, not even with a stream of, of boiling water. So that's even a s-- a even stronger type of kashering, and also that it wasn't happening. So just back to our question, you kashering a m- a microwave while you're on holiday, not really, and it's not really adequate to kasher it with, with steam. So you're better off sticking to warming stuff up inside bags, and they will, uh, double, double wrapped, et cetera, and then they will warm up inside. It's not the same, but that's, that's what's more straightforward. Okay, um, now next question, someone asked me about having a shower, or for a man, having a shower after mikvah. So I told him, uh, if a person has a medical need for this, beseder, but otherwise, it's not, it's not really a Hasidic shita. He said, yeah, he'd like to have a bit more, a bit more, uh, explanation. It wasn't for himself, it was for someone else, doesn't matter. Actually, Rabbi Kivman from Liverpool sent me a message today that he had heard from Rabbi Marlo, the name of Rabbi Marlo, if someone does need to have a shower after mikvah, they should wipe themselves and then go back to the shower after wiping themselves.

39:48 Speaker 1 Okay. But let's, let's explore this a little bit. So there's a famous opinion in the Gemara in Shabbos where there was the concern that people would say, "Lo eil umatar v'elo eil umatar." That people would say, "It's not the mikvah which make it tahor, but it's the shower after mikvah makes it tahor." And therefore, Chachomim in the Yud Bet Dovor, back in the times of Shamai and Hillel, decreed that if you have a sh- a shower of, uh, X amount of Maim Sheuvim, you become tahor again. So that's in, in the Yanum of Tumah Matarah. In the end of Hilchot Mikvaot, you know, De'at Zkenim Alef, we read the following. It's first a discussion bechalal about having a heated mikvah. As you know the story, the Alter Rebbe, the Alter Rebbe counted one of his zekhut, one of his merits, is that he introduced warm mikvahs. It wasn't such a positive thing because the earlier poskim are really not keen on having warm mikvahs because they didn't want people to see the mikvah as being an alternative to a bath. And what it means, the Alter Rebbe introduced, he saw the need in his climate that people were being discouraged from using mikvah because they were shivering, worrying about the cold. So the Alter Rebbe introduced it's, it's good, it's okay. You sh- you should have a mikvah warm, lechatchilah, and not to worry about this concern of it being domem lemerchat. So let's read that in the last seif in Zkenim Reish Alef. "Yesh

41:21 Speaker 1 misha'ois," said, "Are those who forbid pouring a, a kettle of hot water into a mikvah to warm it up or to have a mikvah filled with hot water and connect it with a pipe to the mik-- to, to the river. And there are those, there are mosers, those who do allow it, but you should be machmir unless bemahus she'ino agla chokal ei lihiot beya'ad." So you see, there's a reluctance to allow the warming of a mikvah because of its resemblance to a bath, to a merchat, and the confusion because of that. And the Alter Rebbe introduces, and what make... Very, very kitza, what does the Alter Rebbe introduce? That people were already, in his time, pouring kettles of water into the pool of the, um, of the mikvah, which was, let's say, a diversion, water diverted from the river, but it was in s- in the l- in the, in the earth. So it became cold. You pour in a few kettles of water, five minutes later, it's cold again. The Alter Rebbe made a whole patent, a whole, uh, idea of creating a wooden box, and, uh, you make your same... You d- you dig the same ditch, but instead of the water being poured directly in, in the walls, the earthen walls, you have a wooden box sitting inside the earthen pit, and the water of the river finds its way through cracks in the walls into this wooden box, and it's got a big hole at the bottom, therefore it's neveir keili.

42:53 Speaker 1 And then you pour the kettles of water into the wooden box. And because the water is in the wooden box, not in the, uh, not in the ground, therefore it will, uh, retain the warmth, um, that much longer. That's, that's the Alter Rebbe's Takana mikvah, which is published in the Shulchan Aruch. So it was Takana that it's allowed, and then also a practical Takana how to do it. Having said all that, then we have here Sorry. You're allowed to go back now to the merchatz to warm yourself up. To go back and bathe after the mikveh. Now, those who forbid bathing oneself after mikveh. The, the . So for the reason, although the Gemara ostensibly is talking about cases of tumah betarah, which is unfortunately obsolete now, but many Poskim brought that also, applied that also for tevilas ish ula bala also that, uh, not to have... not to bathe right after having gone to mikveh. That's all in halachah. Now we're talking about men going to mikveh, and that's not a halachah. That's on the level of, of the lifnim mishuras hadin. And therefore is the question in lifnim mishuras hadin, is it a... Do you, you also have to insist on not having a shower afterwards? Or because it's only lifnim mishuras hadin, therefore it doesn't matter to have a shower afterwards. That's the question. So what I have on the second quote on the page is from Rabbi Berel Levin's volume, uh, on called Shiurei, Shiurei Halakhah leMaiseh or Shiurei Halakhah leMaiseh.

45:01 Speaker 1 In the second volume, in Yoreh Deah, he goes through this topic, and he shows the various, you know, about the mikveh, tevilah for taharah. And he brings from Alter Rebbe in Hilchos Yom Kippur, Erev Yom Kippur. The impression is that for a tevilah, not for tevilas ezra, but for a tevilah for like a Erev, Erev Yom Kippur to be elevated, like a tevilah for Erev, Erev Yom Tov, that for that kind of a tevilah, it wouldn't be okay to have a shower afterwards. He then he go-- brings from the Tzitz Eliezer who is lenient on that. Now, if you remember a few weeks ago, I quoted the Gemara in Yoma, I think it was daf lamed gimel. There's a discussion when you do something as a, as a nedava, is that reason to be more lenient or more strict? And I mentioned there also the example of eating on a fast day, um, the, the, um, the, the three hour, the Alter Rebbe says about three hours before net. And does that apply to a, to a, uh, talmid chacham? And the vort which I brought out there is, there is a strong sevarah to say that something which you're doing, not mitzvah di'oraita, but you're doing mitzvah dehidorah, therefore that you shouldn't cut points. So I think that remains the maskana. That it's not recommended, and you can see the Maaseh. Generally, people who use the mikveh would not have a shower afterwards unless they have a medical need. Um, they may have a,

46:37 Speaker 1 a skin problem, and there's too much chlorine in the mikveh. All right, I can understand sometimes there are situations that's a, a, a, a yoitzin min haklal. But, uh... And if you see someone, a tziddushid, who's doing so, all right, so he has possibly a yoitzin min haklal situation. That's not a raya for the general, uh, hanhaga. The general hanhaga is that one doesn't take a shower right after mikveh. Um, what do we have else here? We have another two last points, and that is, I got into a whole perushah about the fellow who had eaten bread and later had lokshen, made a berakhah acharonah on the lokshen and realized, "Oops, I didn't make a berakhah. I didn't bench for the bread." And I went to whole pilpul. Does berakhah me'in shalesh b'dieved cover for birkas hamazon? That was a few weeks ago, and I wrote about it, published in Har Tzvi. In Har Tzvi. Okay, so this week someone sent me, uh, a, uh, page of comments on that discussion and something very interesting. The... He says the question whether me'in shalesh covers for birkas hamazon is a good question, but that's only if you knew about it. If you're aware of it. But if you benched and you had forgotten about it, so there, there's a need for a focus. There's a need. Just like when you make a berakhah on a food, you should have intention which food you're making the berakhah for. So similarly, the... When you bench, you have to

48:07 Speaker 1 have an awareness of which bra-- which food you're making the berakh, berakh acharonah for. And if not, you're, you're not yoitzin. Which for me, that was a surprise. But he brings me a couple of proofs, and, um, I'm going to have to accept that. That is, it has here in the Alter Rebbe's, uh, saying the birkas ha'neri says if someone ate grapes and he had wine, and he said after berakh al ha'gefen ve'al pri ha'gefen. So then the grapes are also covered with the al ha'gefen ve'pri ha'gefen because grapes are also pri ha'gefen. Ever b'medvor mamurim, if he had in mind, and he said al ha'gefen, he had in mind the grapes, al ha'bista. But if he didn't think about the grapes, he just made al ha'gefen for the wine, forgot about the grapes, then he doesn't-- he still has to go another b'ala et or pri et because by, by, um, by default, it does not cover the, the grapes. You perhaps pick, pick on that, but it, it... In fact, it's quite a strong proof. And then later on in the same page, the Alter Rebbe says the person had, let's say, cream cakes before the meal, and then he then he washed, has bread, and then he benched. So then he does not need to make a berakh acharonah on the cream cakes, which he had before wash. Tchila, if in middle of the meal, he said, "Oops, I forgot to make alam ikhila for the cream cakes, which I had before."

49:35 Speaker 1 So he should make alam ikhila now. Now, if he does alam ikhila now, isn't that going to create a problem for his benching for the bread which he's eaten? Uh, it looks like no. It looks like this alam ikhila will only be for the cream cakes, and it will not create the bread. Therefore, he'll have no hesitation to make a berakh, a full benching on the bread which he'll have presently. Okay, one more thing for today, and that is we had this discussion about a, a staff member in a camp, and he's standing... He's on duty when the ch-- when the talmidim go, uh, swimming. And the talmidim they're just wearing bathing suit in American. In England, we call them swimming trunks. And so they, their chests are bare. Is it okay for him to stand there? He's not the lifeguard. He's there in case something needs to be done. He's there available. So he wants to do his tefillahs, he wants to do his Shema Rambam, whatever, uh, halachic zachen. Is he allowed to do that, um, whilst these boys are, uh, not fully dressed? So I mentioned in passing that really you're allowed to say a bracha. But if you're bare-chested, you're allowed to say a bracha. I said it is a grubazar, but it's min ha-din, it's okay. So one of our listeners, a shochet, and there is a mincha... There's a, a, uh, tacona that a shochet should continually revise the halachas of shechita on a very regular basis, on a

51:10 Speaker 1 monthly basis. There's a safer, specialist sefer on shechita called Simlach Hadosha. And so the shochtim revise it, review it on a regular basis. So he sends me from the Simlach Hadosha. It's talking there about the shochet, and he says that he shouldn't make... Of course, if he's not dressed, he shouldn't be doing, uh, making a bracha. Then he says also he should be wearing a belt because there's a concept of liboy, hefsik bein liboy le'erba. There should be... If you're having a, um, a tunic, which your, your chest and your lower parts are not separated, that's also not appropriate to say a bracha in such a state. To be hefsik bein liboy le'erba. And then he says, this is quite interesting. He says, "Even if he's wearing michnasayim, also he should also wear a belt." Okay, I did not look up this further, but what the point, point was relevant to us is the following. Gam heichod yefsha lo sagi im hu mechusa ve-mimos noval matol malo orim. Where possible, don't rely on just, uh, if you're covered from your waist downwards and you're bare-chested above. Ki im yichasa kol gufo at savur yokhtiv v'yakbir et habracha. Out of respect for the bracha, make sure you're covered, um, your, the upper part of your body through to your neck. So all right. It, it doesn't say it's muster. It just says, heichod yefsha. And absolutely, it's more respectable, and I believe those who go mitzvot tefillin and, and they find people who are just wearing

52:45 Speaker 1 bathing, um, uh, bathing suits and they're agreed to put on tefillin, they will offer them a shirt or something out of respect. But min ha-din, um, that would be, it, it'd be kosher to make a bracha even without that. Um, that's the last message we have for tonight. At the beginning of the show, I shared with you, uh, something called rendering, which is where someone with a computer to create pictures of how a, uh, building project will look in its finished form. And so, uh, if you need such a thing, I've got a contact for that. And here you can see one picture and another picture. And so, um, if that's of interest to you, get back to me. And meanwhile, I wish you a, a freileche Chag HaGeula and yisgaddus pe'ilos, we should see a geula shleima, or veshav Hashem sivos amoy, especially the shvu'im. And we should see a vesachzen eineinu beshuvcho. Nitzion berachmin v'moshiach tzidkeinu na mamash. Al til.

53:51 Speaker 2 Great. Thank you very much.

53:53 Speaker 1 Al til.