וירא תשפ״ה

00:07 Speaker 1 Welcome to tonight's Shir. Motzei Shabbos Vayeira. I anticipate we'll have a few less participants tonight because of the shiva of the late Reb Ber Paivel Shogel, alav hashalom. Some of our regulars are there, and, uh, zol zayn a ilel nishmosai. So last week-- we discussed in the previous weeks about the shape of a tallis, of the opening, the neck hole for a tallis katan. So I wanna share with you something which is not going to directly impact that, but it is related to this. About ten years ago, I met Reb Gedalia Korff, alav hashalom, and he told me the following, and he... The following, which I'm gonna share with you. And he felt, he felt guilty that he hadn't made more of a fuss about it. And what you have on the screen is what I wrote down at the time. And bezrat Hashem, in the new edition of the siddur, this will be in the addendum. It'll be, uh, addenda. It'll be number, I think, peh-- siman tes or something. So he, he told me the following. It was several months after the Friediker Rebbe had passed away. This is in Taf Shin Yud, in nineteen, uh, fifty. And, uh, the Rebbe called him and my uncle, David Raskin. They were of the very few of the, the Russian refugees who had managed to get to New York before the passing of the Friediker Rebbe. There was only four or six. Shalom Arzo, and et cetera. I don't remember exactly who else. But there

01:56 Speaker 1 was-- So he called in those two talmidim. They were bochurim, and the Rebbe was standing by his table. And on his table, in his room, was laid out the tallis katan of the Friediker Rebbe. The Rebbe took a ruler, centimeter he calls it, perhaps a tape measure. And he, in front-- Now, in our presence, he measured the Friediker Rebbe's tallis katan, and he showed how the width of the tallis katan was sixty-three centimeter. To say that the Rebbe, as in the Friediker Rebbe, did not rely on the smaller shir of Reb Chaim Noah, who says an ama is forty-nine centimeters. And for himself, he was machmir to have a width of sixty-three centimeters. Fair, fair bit bigger. The Rebbe then measured the length of the garment, and he showed us how it's, has twice sixty-three centimeters. This overall length included the opening for the neck. He then m-measured from the bottom of the front, um, lower end until the neck hole, and that was forty-nine- Akiv would not hold back. Therefore, Hashem put- Um, so he, he measured again from the bottom till the neck, and that was forty-nine centimeters. So because-- And so the way he's explaining this, there's a discussion in Poskim, does the neck hole include-- is it included in the shir or not? And so the overall measurements was the larger shir, sixty-three times two is a hundred and twenty-six. But, uh, as far as the measurement from the front till the neck hole, he relied on the smaller shir of

03:55 Speaker 1 forty-nine centimeters. This doesn't address whether the hole is a shape, is round or T-shaped. He doesn't go into that detail. I hope to meet a tallis manufacturer, a tallis katan manufacturer in the coming week and, uh, to discuss whether we could do something about making, uh, the tallis, tallit, tallis katan for Chabad should be able to close closer to the neck, as we discussed the previous weeks. Um, that, that's how the Alter Rebbe describes in the siddur. Let's go on to something totally different, and that is that I got a request from somewhere, s-s- someone's in a different continent altogether. But someone's traveling to Tromsø. If you want to know where Tromsø is, you can see on the screen. It's near the north of Norway, just to help you get your, uh, bearings. So there you can see in the second, uh, map. You can see... So Norway is the one which is facing the North Sea, and the town Tromsø is that much tor higher, uh, further north than, than the Arctic Circles. No, further, much further north than Reykjavik. Uh, it's sixty-nine degrees north of the, uh, equator. Uh, the person's decided to visit there during Kislev. Now, at that time, there is no daylight in Tromsø, so... But there are other interesting things, northern lights. So they, they've decided to go there. And, and there's no, there's no, there's no daylight. So what do you do about working out for Shabbos? What do you do about to fill in Shacharis, et cetera?

05:57 Speaker 1 Just to add an interesting point that my Google search tells me that Tromsø is surrounded by, by mountains. What that means is that in addition to it being so far north of the Arctic Circle, and that causes it to be dark, but even if there would be a stickle bit of light, it's going to be also compromised because of the mountains surrounding it. There is a, uh, place called Palm Springs in California, I believe, and it's at the foot of a mountain range. It gets dark there half an hour before sunset because there's the, the mountains stop. But if you get on a bike, go down the road fifteen minutes, it gets light again. So interesting. Right. So I've wanted to discuss that about working out for Shabbos there. It seems to be strange to be makah to where it's really dark to say it's not Shabbos yet. Okay. But let's come to keep to our point. How do we work for Shabbos in a place which it doesn't get, uh, doesn't have-- there's no daylight at all? And the same thing would be the other way around. In, in summer, there's going to be the fun and games with the midnight sun. So it's gonna be the same type of question. When does the date switch? And also, what do you do for things like, um, Krishna Shalo Arvis, et cetera? So let's go back to our screen. And we got here then a letter of the Rebbe. Now, this letter is written, it's

07:26 Speaker 1 in Yiddish. It's the early years be-be-it's not, uh, be-before the Neseus. It's a letter to Rebbe Avrom Hecht, or Shalom. And it's a le- one of a list of questions. And he'd asked about what do you do in a place where daylight or nightlight, no, or night is, stretches for more than tw-twenty-four hours. The Rebbe points to Zohar, which says there are places where it's just day, and there's no light at all bes- besides a tiny bit. And so this concept exi- is mentioned in the Zohar in, in, in passing. And the question, what do you do about Shabbos? Does it go according to the amount of hours? Or do you go according to this, uh, another place, uh, or according to sunset? And the Rebbe says, "I don't understand what you're asking. How could you work according to the sunset when it's not going to s- it's not going to shine for the next, it could be next few days or next few months, and, uh, et cetera. So that doesn't make sense to follow sunrise and sunset. And to, this, uh, um, to say that the day should last for, for a month, that doesn't make sense. To say that you're going to follow, um, the timing of another place, well, which other place? How are you going-- Which-- Are you going to choose which place? What, what, what's, what's the logic of that?" And therefore, in the fourth paragraph, is it the fifth paragraph, the Rebbe writes, "Well, Poshe Taldofar, of course,

08:53 Speaker 1 in these places, you're gonna have to work on a twenty-four-hour basis. Where does Shabbos start?" Now, the, the next line, perhaps I don't understand the Hebrew well enough. I don't fully understand. He says, "The beginning of Shabbos is the same in all places which have the same longitude." And then he says, "Han'soim be'ofek echad." I'm not sure what he means by those words, be'ofek echad. But I'm going to take the liberty of saying what, the way I understand. Take a look at this place called Tromso, yeah, where I've got the arrow there. Now, um, I th- I worked out also the, its, its, um, how do you say, the, the, if it's the long-longitude, but also the latitude, how far it is from Greenwich. So Greenwich is, London's over here, so that's Greenwich. And now I worked out that chatzos there will be eleven forty-four. Now, just to explain what, what I think what the Rebbe is saying here. Now, let's say Tromso is the same, um, same, uh, as, as... Well, not the same latitude, but the same longitude as Berlin, same as Prague, same as Zagreb, et cetera. So it's the same line. So it's true that in, uh, I mean, Prague, there's going to be a longer day in the win- in s- in winter, and you go to Berlin, it's gonna be shorter, and you go to Oslo, it's gonna be shorter. Yes. But the shorter is gonna be symmetrical. The, the, uh, night is gonna go longer in the morning,

10:36 Speaker 1 and it's going to... And the night is gonna start longer, earlier in the after- in the evening. So chatzos, midday is gonna be the same. So midday in Tromso and midday in, in, uh, Prague, Prague, let's say, is gonna be the same time. So although I don't see a sunset, I don't see a sunrise, but I can still, by knowing the longitude, I will say, "Listen, this is where... This is, this is the moment of chatzos. This is the m- uh, midday." As I said, I worked it out, it's eleven forty-four. And therefore, when the, it's, when it's dark the whole time, I'd say the Friday finishes at eleven forty-four, and Shabbos begins at eleven forty-four. That's going to be the chatzo- that, the chatzos of that place is going to be, is going to be the, uh, marker between one date and the next. Uh, of course, we're gonna take a precaution, a little bit more time, so to s- to light candles, let's say, uh, eleven thir- eleven thirty or quarter past eleven, however, to be Machmir. And then, um, Motzei Shabbos, wait a little till twelve o'clock or something to be able to give a, give a margin of error to be Machmir on both sides a little bit. But basically, that's, that's your guideline. That helps for Shabbos. Now, the same, what would happen in the summer, we'd use midnight as being the switchover from one day to the next. And so- If in Stockholm, Motzei Shabbos is going to be

12:18 Speaker 1 eleven thirty, let's say. So the chumash will be eleven forty-four, let's say. It's g- that's gonna be the latest. It's gonna be going to midnight. And then after that, it's going to be, uh, beginning of Sunday. That's the... Now, that's, that helps us for this, the switching the date. What do you do about tefillin? So it, it, it's, it's not mamash pitch black in this place. In chumash, uh, and at, at eleven-ish, it's not mamash pitch black. There is like a little bit of twilight. In which case, you'll daven Shacharit in that twilight, um, time. And the same thing would be for Mincha. Although lechatchilah, we daven Mincha before the shkiyah, but that place doesn't have a shkiyah. So, but you will have a bein hashmoshos. You'll have a little bit of, of, uh, daylight. And so in that, in that period, that's when you'd daven Mincha. You daven Shacharit before chatzos and daven Mincha after the chat-- the local chatzos. Okay, let's move, move on. So here I got a question that someone had made a... Not a pledge, but he'd said, he declared, "I'm gonna give twelve thousand dollars to this shul." And then as, as, as he puts up, they got into a bregas. And, um, so now he says, "I'm not giving money to that shul. No way." Okay. So now what happens though, he, he made a, a declaration he's gonna give twelve thousand dollars. Um, I must share with you something, uh, even more ridiculous. A guy came to

14:01 Speaker 1 me about two weeks ago, and he said over Yom Tov, he bought aliyot in a certain shul. And, uh, and he gave the money to a different shul. He was, he was... Because he has, he had something. He had wanted to spite them because they didn't treat him nicely. So he says, "Did I do anything wrong?" So I says, "Well, well, that's crooked. You know, you, you... It's like you went into, uh, Sainsbury's, you took some food, and you paid Boots." Uh, well, the, the shul was selling of aliyot, and that's the way they have an income to cover their costs. You go and buy an aliyah here, and you pay to another. This is ridiculous. All right. But here, this fella did not buy anything. He just had made a, a statement he's gonna give twelve thousand dollars. And now he is not so keen about it. So what can he do? So there's, there's two issues here. One is, uh, the commitment to this shul, and the other one is to the commitment to give tzedakah biklat. So here we have this from this specialist sefer on, on, on nedarim, on vows. So he writes, "If you made a vow to give tzedakah to a particular poor person, some poskim say you do have the prerogative to give it to a different person." So you've got a mitzvah tzedakah. There's two issues here. One is bein adam lechaverei, and one is that you made a commitment to give tzedakah. So some poskim say

15:24 Speaker 1 you are allowed to change to a different beneficiary. Some say, no, you have to give it to the same, to the, to the only, to whom you... The, the poor person to whom you had, um, committed to give. But then he goes further. He says, "If you dafka want to change, then there are... The poskim, some poskim say you could do haToras Nedarim." So back to this case. He made a, a, a declaration. He's gonna give twelve thousand dollars to this shul. He could do haToras Nedarim, but he should still respect... Honor his, his word of giving the, that donation, but, um, to a different shul. I don't know who it is, so don't ask me for his name and address. Okay. Um, let's move on. Right. So now, so this is, uh, this is question number four. So now, someone asked me recently, when you wash negel vasser, is it imperative that your hands are totally dry? And my answer was that if you're gonna say a bracha on that netilat, it is imperative that they should be dry. If it's not, uh, got to do with a bracha, we only say a bracha on netilat yadayim besides for food, yeah? Only, only in the morning. So other times you wash negel vasser, so if it's... The hands are not totally dry, it's nisht gefarlich. Meanwhile, I saw something which I, I was very surprised. And we know that in Likutey Dibburim, the Friediker Rebbe says there are three differences between netilat yadayim for

17:06 Speaker 1 a meal and netilat yadayim in the morning. One is that in the morning, that's what you have here, the quote from Sefer HaMinhagim. In the morning, netilat yadayim is said once the hands are dried, whereas netilat yadayim for a meal, we make the bracha before drying. The second point is that the hands are raised... In the morning, we raise them, uh, to the level of the peyot, whereas in the, in, by netilat yadayim, kept lower down, as far as I remember. And the other one is, the third one is that in the morning, we make the bracha with the hands apart, fernandeh gishpret, whereas netilat yadayim al suda, we have the hands are held together, rubbing your hands with one another, et cetera. So meanwhile, so here it's very clear that our minhag is the bracha netilat yadayim in the morning is after you've dried your hands. So I didn't realize until looking around that there's a whole debate about this. So in the Bier Heitev, in Siman Dalet, so he brings two opinions, and this is the Shach et Shulchan, which is on the same page as the Bier Heitev. And he says... He quotes the Machzik Bracha From the Hiddah, who quotes the Otzar Yikrim from Rav Meir Paparis, who quotes Ram Nigrim, that the Ruach Ro, the evil spirit, which is why we wash Negavah in the first place, that doesn't completely get out of your way until you have dried your hands. And therefore, you should only say your bracha once

18:43 Speaker 1 you've dried the hands because you've gotten-- by then, you've gotten rid of the Ruach Ro. Unlike what's written, quoting from the Sefer Seder Hayom in, in, in quote, uh, quoted in the Nachkeness HaKaday. So you're seeing here there's two opinions whether the wa-- drying of their hand, the bracha of neg-- of netilat yadayim in the morning is before drying, after drying. The Hiddah is taking the view, as we-- that's what we're following, to, to say the bracha after drying. In the Piskei Choshev, as I've mentioned so many times, he, in his text, main text, he says to make the bracha before drying, and he's-- he quotes Mishne Berura in Kaf HaChaim, et cetera. Now, let's just now understand what's going on here. Why is it by netilat yadayim for a meal, why there you say the bracha before drying your hands? So there is a klal that a birkas hamitzvas, a bracha and a mitzvah, should be oiver al ha'aseh yoseim prior to the act. My Shveral of Al Shalom would say, Rabbi Sudak, he would say, "Machshava dibur meister." You think about what you're gonna do, then you say the bracha, then you do the act. So that's the sequence. And so the Gemara talks, talks about birkas hamitzvas oiver al ha'aseh. When it comes to netilat yadayim, it's one of the exceptions to this rule, as is another exception is the hadlakas neris for Shabbos according to Ashkenazim. Um, tevilah, again, um, by Ashkenazim, the Sephardim say the bracha before tevilah and before

20:22 Speaker 1 n-benching licht. Okay, but by, by Sephard-- by Ashkenazim, those are a few exceptions. Why is netilat yadayim an exception? If you've just scratched your head, you know, you've just touched your shoes, et cetera, you can't make a bracha until you've washed your hands. So it doesn't make sense to say the bracha before whi-washing your hands because your hands are still, uh, impure. Therefore, you wash your hands, and then you say the bracha. Okay, I understand that. But then we s-- in order to gain the benefit that you are saying it before the act, so the drying of the hands is seen as part of the shlemus of the mitzvah of netilat yadayim. And therefore, we say the bracha before drying the hands so that you have-- you gained oiver al ha'aseh, and the bracha is before the act is completed. Why is drying the hands important for netilat yadayim? So it says in Gemara, "Kol ha'ochel lechem, lechem v'lo nigba yadayim k'ilo ochel lechem tameh sh'ne'emar al ken yeichlu bnei Yisrael Lachmom tameh." There's a passage in Yechezkel of eating Lachmom tameh. And Lachmom, some meforshim say Lachmom can mean, can be read Lachmaim, that your... If your hands are wet, and you eat your bread with wet hands, it's, it's tameh. Okay. What... And the meforshim, some meforshim go further and say it's more a derech eretz, it's more an etiquette thing. Bread is a dry food. To take wet hands and pick up a piece of bread, which making it soggy, is, uh,

22:04 Speaker 1 inappropriate. It's, uh, it's crude, whatever, whatever word you want to use. So therefore, there's an emphasis in Afka that you should dry your hands before having your bread. Ah, if drying your hands is, i-is, is, uh, is kind of important for the bread, for eating the bread, so then your netilat yadayim, which is enab-enabling you to eat the bread, is not finished until you've dried your hands. Okay, so that's why when we wash for bread, we say the bracha before drying. In that way, we've gained oiver al ha'aseh. Clear. Comes along in the morning. Why do you have to dry your hands? What, what for? What, what need is there to dry your hands? W-in other words, what do you gain by making the bracha before drying? The drying, there's, there's, there's no mitzvah to dry your hands. What would happen if you just, you know, just pretend to be a helicopter and your hands dry out? So what? There's no... So therefore, what do you gain by making the bracha before, before drying your hands? It's not oiver al ha'aseh in any case. And if you're going to tell me, "Ah, yeah, that there is still a residue of ruach hatumah," and therefore you want to make the bracha before wiping your hands so that you're making a bracha before wiping away the last residue of tumah. Ah, so then you're saying there's still a residue of tumah. That's the very reason why I'm leaving the bracha for afterwards. If you say that there's

23:32 Speaker 1 a need, if you say that wi-wiping your hands is, is the shlemus of getting rid of the tumah, well, for that very reason, you want to say the bracha once the tumah is completely gone. That's, uh, according... This is the way I understand the, our minhag. Um, I, uh, I have not seen anyone who explains why they say make the bracha before drying. Is it just because it should be as close as possible? Could be. What I did see, he quotes here from the Chazon Ish and others, the Kaf HaChaim, sorry, that he says wash four times, and that way you get rid of, um, you get rid of the, uh, ruach hatumah by the fourth pour. Okay, that's interesting, and the Gra also says this, by the way. Um, but in our minhag, it says we wash three times, and also, uh, F-Frei d'Rabbi confirms we wash three times, not four times. Okay. One last comment is that he quotes here from Rabbi Yair, from, uh, um, Harav Evadia, who quotes the Rambam in, in Sefer Peradeir, that if you make the bracha afterwards, it's a bracha l'vatala. Now, I, uh, I was suspicious. I didn't look up all of my references. I did look up the Rambam in Peradeir. The Rambam talks about like this. You know, in m-many shuls, you come to shul, and they start making brachas, yeah? And this one... And I, I was in shul, in a different shul this morning. Hanoson asech vivino, and then he went through

24:59 Speaker 1 asher yasani goy, w-well, the list of brachas. So in some shuls, they start off... They were starting off with saying, "Asher kidshonu b'mitzvotav netilat yadayim." Says the Rambam, it's a bracha l'vatala. You come...you, you, you washed your hands at home, you come to shul, and now you're saying a berachah, uh, al netilat yadayim. Says Rambam, says it's a berachah levatalah. So others disagree, by the way, but even then, I don't see how you can say, "Ah, since the Rambam says making a berachah al netilat yadayim in shul is a berachah levatalah, therefore making a berachah right after you wipe your hand-- you wash your hands and wiped them is a berachah levatalah." I don't see, I don't see, uh, the, the, uh, the... And you wanna say it's a miss as good as a mile. It's not. Here is you're still, uh, mamash just, just, you know, almost the techit dibur. You just finished the, the act, so the berachah is clearly associated with the act. Maar she'al ken there, when you're gonna go into shul, there's no, there's no connection there. Okay. Someone is saying that the word ofek in modern Hebrew means horizon. I'm gonna go back to that slide. I know that that's the word of a ho... But what does it mean here, the same longitude and the same horizon? I didn't get the technical, um, you know, how... What it means, the same horizon. Does it mean Berlin and Tromsø have the same horizon? I'm not sure what that

26:25 Speaker 1 means. Okay, never mind. We're go-- Rabbi Minhag is so s- about washing negel vaser again downstairs, or if you live in a f- in a, whatever, in another, you wash again. And that's why he di-- He also mentions that possibly that the wash-- since we wash twice, so the ruach ra has been gotten rid of with the negel vaser next to the bed, and so therefore the second washing, there's less of an opinion of ruach ra. Yeah, good. That's, that's one of the taina she, she has, Yicher. Uh, and still, you see what Minichabad is, we're going to still somehow, um, wait until we've wiped our hands. Becholal, wi-- th-this whole thing of washing a second time, and then you make a berachah. Is the berachah on the first washing or on the second washing? So my understanding is the following. I know it's, um, others will disagree. My understanding is the following. You made a bra-- You, you washed netil- negel vaser next to your bed. That's the main netilat yadayim. But then to make a berachah then, you still need to use the bathroom. You need to touch this, touch that. So you wait until you get dressed. So you've, you've, you've... When you wash next to your bed, you achieved a state of purity. But then you knew you're going to kind of s-step back from the state of impurity, and then you're gonna restore it. So the way I understand is, when you wash the second time, you're kind of restore...

27:54 Speaker 1 It's like you've gone out of the room for a minute. You're restoring the state of purity which you achieved by next to your bed and, and... But the really, the mitzvah is the one which you wa- of the, uh, of netilat yadayim is the one next to the bed. Okay. Another, another separate pilpul. Okay, let's move on. So a Hanukkah question. Could this... What you see on the screen is a chafing dish, um, fuel, and I, I'm not sure whether they call that in America as chafing dish. They call them Sternos, I think. At any rate, it's a, for especially for those who are just listening audio, it's like a tub which has a s- like a kind of solid paraffin cream, and you set it alight, and then it, it keeps food warm for several hours. So it emits a flame, but it doesn't have, it doesn't have a wick. So someone, a shliach, is asking could he use these for the menorah. So one of the earliest poskim who dealt with electricity, is it called fire or not, is the Beis Yitzchok. Rebbe Yitzchok Schmelkes, who I believe was in, in the town of Lodz. Um, you can see the date there, taf res nun gimel. That means more than a hundred and thirty years ago. Um, so he was asked, are you yoetz a ner Chanukah with a tub of oil without a wick? So he says that he, he has a, this kind of a tube, which the flame somehow i-is

29:29 Speaker 1 at the top of the tube, but there's not a wick as such. And he says, l'da'iti, in his op-opinion, you are yoetz, uh, because it's not imperative dumya de'menorah. It's not imperative that the ner Chanukah should be mamash the same as the menorah in the Beis Hamikdash. Because he gives an example that, you know, kovsor, by ner Chanukah, kovsor ein zochek, if it goes out, you don't have to rekindle it. But a menorah in the Beis Hamikdash, you would have to. But kid so, though, he takes the view that it does not have to be mamash identical. So whilst electric lights, certainly the, the poskim say you cannot be yoetz a ner Chanukah with electric lights, and they give various rationale. But when it comes to with a paraffin, uh, you got his opinion that it is okay. So, you know, you actually listen to what Chazal say. Right. Let's go on. So here, a family last Shabbos, they apparently did not have a fleishig cholent, and they had for challah, they had a challah which had been warmed up in a fleishig oven. And four hours later, five hours later, it's already Motzei Shabbos, and kids want to have pizza. Do you have to wait six hours after a challah which was warmed up in a fleishig oven? That is the question. So I look, this is from... You have on the screen, it's from the Sefer Psakim u-Teshuvos. The reason why do we have this business of waiting six hours? So there's two

31:05 Speaker 1 issues here. One is because of the lingering taste. Let me explain something. Min HaTorah, there is no isur of if you would even if to have a, a sandwich with a slice of cheese and a slice of salt beef and you ate them together, there's no isur Min HaTorah there because it says lo savakhel. If so long as they're not cooked together, there's no isur Min HaTorah. But there is a concern that we shouldn't have, with Rabban on Minig, whatever. It's Minig, which is in the Gemara. Not to have the two tastes of cheese and meat together. Not that there's any averi Min HaTorah, but there is... That's a Minig Estrual to avoid having those two tastes together. So there's a Gemara in Chulin where this one says, "I, in comparison to my father, I'm like vinegar, the son of, uh, the son of wine, 'cause my father, if he ate meat today, he wouldn't eat cheese until tomorrow, and I wait from one meal to the next." And that's the basis of the waiting six hours, et cetera. The Rambam learns from meal to meal is six hours. And that's the, uh, the whole waiting is so... One, one of the main reasons is there should not be the lingering taste that you shouldn't... Another aspect of it is that sometimes when you eat something which is, uh, has a certain crumble, crumbly nature or whatever, can get stuck between the teeth. So sometimes you might have a bit of meat stuck between your

32:36 Speaker 1 teeth. So how long does the meat between your teeth still remain potent, that it's got a, a, a meat taste? Because after all, you've got food acids, uh, diget- digestive acids in your mouth, and they'll break it down. So when six month... When six hour... Six hours have passed, the understanding is that the digestive acids have ruined any fleishig taste, and it doesn't taste like meat anymore. These are the two reasons. So but keeping to the first reason, the in... You know, the lingering taste. So the argument here is that, yes, you've got a paraver. Let's read what he has here. A paraver food which picked up vapor from meat. It was cooked it together with meat. And, um, so he says, "You do not have to wait six hours afterwards." And you can have... After that, you can have... So not together with it, but afterwards you can have milchig afterwards. The ar-- the argument is that, yes, there may be a slight meaty taste, but it's not... Doesn't linger. And then he says, if you machmir, a machmir to, uh, wash... To rinse your mouth in between, tov u'olah beracha. But you don't have to wait. So that was really the answer, that the challah baked, uh, sorry, um, warmed up, yeah, in, in a fleishig oven, you do not have to wait six hours. Now, someone I s-- this someone asked me, and meanwhile, I was on a... Some group, WhatsApp group, and this came up. This is a Sefer HaRashash Darka.

34:08 Speaker 1 I'm not familiar with the Sefer. It's obviously contemporary. Uh, and it's on Siman Petes. That's the Siman Yoreh Deah, which talks about waiting between meal, uh, meat and milk, et cetera. So he has here, I'm gonna just read it. If you cooked a dover charif, a sharp food, in a fleishig, uh, pot, or you cut it with a fleishig knife. Yeah. So you've got an onion which was cooked in a fleishig, uh, pan, or it was cut with a fleishig knife. That onion becomes fleishig, yeah. But you don't have to wait six hours. So you're not allowed to have that onion with milk, but you don't have to have it... Having eaten the onion, which is cut with a fleishig knife, you don't have to wait six hours. Then he says the, uh, very interesting. If you had cooked a dover charif in a milchig pan, or you cut the dover charif with a milchig knife, some say you should not eat it within six hours after meat, which is, like, interesting is somehow when it comes to the milchigs, they're being more sensitive. Um, not fully sure. He has some explanations in the notes. But yeah, it's a yesh eimrim. It's a yesh, yes, oysrim. But Bepashtus, we have here this mahalah that the chumrah is because of a lingering taste, and being cooked in the same equipment, um, would not necessary... Certainly in just baked in the same, in the same oven would not give it such a strong, strong taste to have

35:46 Speaker 1 to worry about a lingering taste. Let's move on. So a, a money issue. So here is the following scenario. So Reuven is making an event on Sunday, Sunday afternoon, and he needs to have a singer. On Friday morning, he sees a ps... He sees someone... He meets someone who is a shtickel singer. He says, "Would you be available on Sunday afternoon to entertain at this event?" "Yeah, I could make it." "How much would you charge?" So he says, "Two hundred dollars." "Okay, good." Or a, a deal. Whatever the words were. I wasn't there. Yeah. Then Shimon, the singer, goes out and an hour later, he's just walking and he's thinking he's got this... The, the amount of, amount of i-issues he's gonna reshuffle, et cetera, et cetera. I don't know what he-- what his hesbon was. He says, "For two hundred dollars is not worth it." And so he called up Reuven, and he says- For two hundred dollars, I can't do that. It's not, that doesn't, that's not, no, it doesn't work. So Reuven says, "So how much would be worth it for you?" She said, "Three hundred dollars." "Let me get back to you." Friday afternoon, Reuven and Shimon meet in the grocery store, and, uh, Reuven says, "You got the job." Okay. So Sunday afternoon, Shimon turns up, does his bit, and then afterwards, Reuven gives him three hundred dollars. And he said, "However, the fact that you changed your price was not erlach. That wasn't, that wasn't the right... That wasn't

37:44 Speaker 1 an, a, an honorable thing to do." So now Shimon was the one who's contacted me. I gave a price, and I realized I made a mistake. Am I not allowed to, am I not allowed to correct that mistake? That's basically his question. Is that dishonest to correct that mistake? So there is a concept of mechusar amona. The person had... So we have on the screen, you have... It's based upon a story in the Gemara about someone who was in middle of davening, and he was approached by a buyer who knew that he had an animal to sell, and the buyer offered him a hundred zuz. And he didn't respond because he was in the middle of davening, but the buyer didn't realize that. So he thought he's just not interested in such a low offer, so he upped his offer to a hund-- two hundred zuz, you know, five hundred zuz. In the end, he finished davening, and, uh, he says, "I'm ha- I'm happy to sell it to you. I'm gonna sell it for a hundred zuz. Once... When you gave that first offer, I was ready... I had already in my mind agreed, in, in a con- a-a-agreed in my mind to sell it to you for that, for that price. I'm not going to increase." So they got this idea of dover emes bilvavcha. And so there is an idea if, if you've given a price, so you shouldn't be upping the price. If you were ready for that price, so you

39:06 Speaker 1 shouldn't, you shouldn't... Then there's that concept called mechusar amona. So you can't be forced nebezdin to, uh, keep to the original price. But there is a mechusar amona that you've given your word, et cetera. I spoke about this on Friday night, and someone came over to me and says, "In the business world, there's, when there's this negotiation, and then in the Hamisha world, there's a mazal brocha. Once you've said mazal brocha and you shake hands, whatever it may be, you don't, you don't go back. This is... I mean, it's totally unacceptable to go back. Whatever it may be, whatever mis-mis-mistakes you may have made, you, you know, you, you, you keep your word regardless." Well, that's, that's, uh, in business, a certain prerogative of the business, um, community. But let's now look at the other side of the way I'm, I'm looking at this. There is a concept called ein roeh. See, if I sold a product, and I, and I sold it to, to, uh, I sold you a product, and I made a mistake in the price. I sold you a product. I thought it was worth two hundred dollars, and it turns out it's worth three hundred dollars. So then there's a concept called ein roeh. And w-we can, I, I can, um, I can claim to cancel the wholesale and re-refund you. Or there's a whole thing, which is a difference. If it's a smaller difference, if it's a difference of up to one-sixth, then, then okay. But, uh, if it's

40:34 Speaker 1 more than that, then I have the right, even after the fact, even after I've sold, even after you've taken the, the goods, to say that you... I, I undercharged you. And the same thing is not only when it comes to sales, but you have here also in mechusar amona, also ein roeh beshirus. When it comes to, to a, a rental or a salary, if it's something which should have been paid according to the standard price, should be paid so much more and you paid less, there is an issue of ein roeh here. So therefore, I, I felt if that's the case, then the, uh, Shimon has the right to, uh, tell Shi-- certainly before the event, to tell, to tell Reuven that, uh, that price is, is not enough. Al-although you could argue that it's, uh, it may be more subjective than objective, and therefore there is a question of mechusar amona. I'm not sure. Um, these were my thoughts, um, to say that he, he... And also, I, I don't know whether when he gives a price and an hour later he comes back and says... Whether that's considered, uh, he gave a final price and is going back on it. I'm not sure. Um, not so easy. Okay, let's go on. The following question I was... Someone's saying that Rambam says eating basar bachalav is osim min hatorah. That's certainly talking about basar bachalav, which is cooked together. It says three times, where it says basar b'chaleiv imo. One is to say yisro

42:11 Speaker 1 beishul, one is yisro achilah, one is yisro hana'ah. But certainly eating a piece, a slice of meat and a slice of cheese, chewing them together is definitely also not osim min hatorah. Okay. So here I got... I was very impressed with the shailah. That's why I wanted to share it with you. Uh, it's the following, that in, uh, in this, in one, one place in, in town, they are making a special Havdalah event, and a few of the madrichos want to get there in time. So the head madricha w-was going to drive from one area to where the area where the event's gonna take place. And the other madrichas are asking, in order to be able to leave the mo-minute Shabbos goes out, are they allowed to walk on Shabbos from their homes, let's say twenty minutes, to walk over to the place where- The, uh, the senior madricha has her car, and then it's, then it's obvious why did they come here. They came on Shabbos to be able to get into a car after Shabbos. That is the question. So I was very impressed with the question. And this is actually discussed in the Gemara and brought in the Shechinah. If you can see this on the screen, you have The redeeming factor there is that it says here in sh- further in Shechinah, that if it's Letzorech Mitzvah, then you are allowed to. Because it says the passage in Yeshaya that you should avoid Yetzer Hefetz. You should not purs- be pursuing

44:39 Speaker 1 your interests, your needs, your desires on Shabbos. And there's a famous diyuk, Hefetz- Hefetz, Hefetz Hefetz Shomayim. If it's your personal needs, then you should not be pursuing them on Shabbos. If it's Hefetz Shomayim, if it's min ha- um, uh, for, for Avodah Zarechem, then you are allowed to pursue that. So therefore, since they want to, um, go to be able to help with this, um, Havdalah event with the Cheder kids, et cetera, so it's Hefetz Shomayim, then it would be permitted. I know of a, a particular rabbi who, who went to... He used to fly back to Eretz Israel on Motzei Shabbos, and in summer, he would walk from his wherever he lived to the airport, and he would catch his flight on Motzei Shabbos. Possibly that was, uh, Hefetz Shomayim to be able to... I don't know. Could be that was his Hetter. Okay, um, let's move on. So now, someone asks me, and he actually was Negia for him, the Meiser. He te- he sells stuff on Amazon, and Amazon has two Eifanim. There's one Eifan that Amazon have a stock of your goods, and they ta- they'll, they'll deliver the order from them, or there's Amazon will kind of make a Shidduch, and, and you will deliver the... The merchant will deliver the goods. So with a merchant delivering the goods, look, it's easier. Then, then, then, uh, you receive an order on Shabbos. If the website Amazon is open on Shabbos, you receive an order. Okay, after Shabbos, you'll fulfill

46:24 Speaker 1 the order. That's okay. But what happens if he would do Amazon, uh, that, that Amazon deliver? So he's gonna put a stock of his stuff in Amazon warehouse, and then comes the order. And on Shabbos, there can be an order and a payment and a delivery all happening on Shabbos, and it's all his stuff. So this is his quest. Is there... Is that allowed? Is it not allowed? So before, before Amazon, before internet was invented, there was something called a vending machine, and, uh, where you put in, you put in, uh, so many pennies, and you get a bar of chocolate comes out, or a can or whatever it may be. So this was already discussed before the war in Hungary. There was a Rav Shimon Greenfield, Bar Shah, and he talks about this. Of, um, if a Jew owns vending machines. In the train stations, he's got a vending machine, sells cigarettes, sells chocolate. Does he have to disable those machines for Shabbos, or can they stay in, in function on Shabbos? He ba-- His basic take was that it's, it is allowed. And he says, "You don't care whether they buy the cigarettes on Shabbos, or before Shabbos, or after Shabbos. You got it there, and they've chosen when to buy it." So then it's... You're, you're, you're not, you're not generating, you know, directly that there should be a, a, a buying and selling on Shabbos. And I, I, I don't see any significant difference between that case of the vending machine

48:08 Speaker 1 and you've got stuff sitting in A- in Amazon. There, it's a payment. Here, it's a payment. There, it's a delivery. What's the difference? Delivery. Over there, he che- gets a pa- packet of cigarettes out of your ma- your machine, or he gets it out of, out of Amazon. I don't see. Uh, here's, here's people doing it. I didn't tell Amazon when to deliver. I didn't tell them to employ people on Shabbos. I've put, put, put my stuff. Let's say if I have a, a goy who's selling stuff for me, and I don't tell him when to sell. He goes, and he decides to go selling on Shabbos rather than on Friday or on, on Sunday. He chooses to go traveling on Shabbos. That's, that's okay. I didn't tell. I didn't employ him. Where it would be much more problematic, which I've had this, uh, a few times, where you've got a service industry. So let's say you've got... I, I service computers, and if... Well, let's say. And which means if someone has a breakdown in their computers, I have to send in a technician to fix it up. Now, I've got goyish technicians, and I, I want to employ them, that they should also be available on Shabbos. So if a, uh, an emergency comes in, so they have to go out on Shabbos. I don't see a Hetter for them because they're, they're, they're w- working for me on, on, uh, of, of... In their contract, they have to be available on Shabbos.

49:27 Speaker 1 That's not okay. But here, I've n- I've never made any stipulation about Shabbos. That it should, should be available, shouldn't be available. So let's just read what he has over here. This is a, say, very cute name. The word for, um, website in, in Hebrew is Atar. Like the word the Asra Chadisha. Yeah, but it's... Website's not the Asra Chadisha, but okay. So, um, it's called Derech HaAsarim. Yeah. This is the name of a... It's a two-volume set all about technology, um, websites, et cetera, about Shabbos and other areas of Halakha. So if... He writes the following. "Someone who owns a website, uh, some say he should close the website before Shabbos if there's a concern that Yidden will enter the site If it's not possible to s-close the site, then you should sell it to a Goy for Shabbos. And he gives us some sh-- uh, has a here, he's recommended . If most of your customers are Goyim, then you are allowed to leave your site open on Shabbos. In, in, in his notes, he goes through the various senonym of, uh, why it's not a problem of Mechira, and I think that's, that, that's, uh, that's adequate. Um, yeah. That's... In, in addition to this complication is that, that, let's say, uh, a Jewish website, but not for, for business, but for, uh, for information, for a Chinuch, and you still have to close it for Shabbos. But it's, it's serving all different time zones. Which time zone does it have to

51:06 Speaker 1 be off for? It's like, um... Yeah. Okay. What's our last thing is, um, about using silk for the lining of, uh, of a tallis and for the corners of the tallis. So the reason why people-- why we have this extra corners on the corner of the tallis is, is really to reinforce it. In this itself, there are different Minhagim. Some have the corners on the outside of the tallis. You see in, in, uh, some communities, and even they're gonna have a little bit of an embroidery with, uh, uh, some text on the corner with a Bracha, perhaps. And then we have, uh, what we are, we are more accustomed is that the, in the HaMisha world, generally, the, the, the, uh, corners on the inside. But that's really to inf-- reinforce. Other-otherwise, the, uh, the tzitzit possibly would pull through the woolen fabric. So, so some people are particular that it should be made with silk, but tallit cotton and tallit godol. And so what, what's, what's the reason for this? I think I did discuss this some while, a while back about the lining, and so that I heard from Rabbi Levi Garelik, a colleague of mine, that there's the idea that it should, it should keep on slipping, and you have to keep on getting it right. Like the tefillin, you shouldn't forget about your tefillin, so you should... Your tallis should keep on slipping so that you'd have to, uh, remember that you're wearing a tallis. Interesting. But, um, so what you

52:45 Speaker 1 see here on the screen is that the be-- by the Rebbe, by the Rabbim, in this letter, the Rebbe actually quotes. The Rebbe Rashab had silken, uh, corners, and how he tucked in the silken corner of his tallis, of his tallit cotton, I believe. He had a piece of linen, a piece of, of, of silk from the cloths from the, of the Alter Rebbe and the Tzemach Tzedek. So it looks like this was going back for generations of having silken. Now, and he, he says it's, it's, it's got to do with Zechai Levån Veyo. You're talking about a fabric which is going to enhance the tallis, so a silk is more, more, more expensive, more beautiful than, than cotton, et cetera. So it looks like for Zechai Levån Veyo. There was another Cheshbon, um, but that's, that, this... I got confused about on why we wear silk on Shabbos. So during the week, how many of our garments are made of wool, which is Tzemach Shebechai. On Shabbos, which is a higher Madrega, so we use silk, which is Chai Shebechai. That's why this inion of having a silk, uh, Bekishe, silk Kapote. I heard once from the Rabbi Elisha Malando of Rosh Chodesh is commenting about these artificial silks. So he says instead of going from chai... from Tzemach to Chai, you get a... If it's artificial, it's, it's a mineral, so it's Domem. So you're going from Chai, you're going, you're going from, from Tzemach, going down to Domem. Um, right. Someone's asking,

54:20 Speaker 1 would there be a difference where someone can, can block according to the same time zone whoever is browsing their site? Possibly. Uh, listen, if someone is in this Parshah, get guidance, um, individually. But, uh, Becholos, I've shown you, I've shown you that the, uh, the general Halacha is that if most of your, your customers are Goyim, it's not a question of misleading anyone, of... Um, and therefore, you're allowed to leave it open and look at it like a, like a... And if you do... Well, if, if you are doing the deliveries, it's a, it's a postbox. I can get messages, et cetera. So it's... That's not a problem. Um, the, the, the more concern is if the delivery, if the purchase and the delivery is happening through Amazon on Shabbos. But even then, we've said that since you're not choosing it that way, it's like the vending machine in the station, and that's okay. All right, I'm gonna stop with that and wish you all a, a Gutten Vorkh, and, uh, we should have a Zurus Toves, V'shu Hashem Ets Shira Siyon, and we'll wake up and we'll see the Geulah, V'zachzenu Eino V'shu Chol Hatzim Bachmich.

55:25 Speaker 2 Amen.

55:26 Speaker 3 Amen.

55:27 Speaker 2 Geirach Gut Vorkh.

55:29 Speaker 1 Geirach. Geirach Gut Vorkh.

55:32 Speaker 3 Amen.