בשלח – שירה תשפ״ה

00:12 Speaker 1 A gute vokh. Welcome to tonight's shiur, Motzei Shabbos Beshalach. We're starting a bit earlier because of the fabregen, bes Hashem, tonight. So let's... And we'll perhaps finish a little earlier to enable to be there on time. So we'll start right away with our questions. So someone is asking me, one of our regular listeners, what is the difference between yisgadal and yisgadel? Now an opportunity for a plug for the new sforim on the siddur. So this is a, a copy from the relevant page in the siddur, yisgadal or yisgadel. Some of you might remember Reb Shmuel Grossman, who lived here in Stamford Hill. So, uh, he passed away fifty or forty-five years ago, approximately, whatever. So, um, he used to say yisgadal, yisgadshe shmei rabba, and apparently, we'll see that the Rebbe Mishmos Aiden, the Rebbe Rashab, would also say, uh, he would not say yisgadal, it would be yisgadel, and we will see in a moment. So let's go al ha-seder, though. First of all, we have here Rabzar-- stands for Rab Zalman Hena. Now, he was a master midaktik who lived a generation before the Alter Rebbe, and he says it should be yisgadel, and that's because it's Hebrew, not Aramaic. And his, uh, bar plukhta, shall we say, Reb Yaakov Emden, says it should be a pasach. Now, this is-- This, this information is very important for me in the research of the Alter Rebbe's, um, siddur to understand what did he have in front of him. He's talking about the famous sixty

02:02 Speaker 1 sidurim, et cetera, but he has certainly in front of him the, uh, from one generation before, Rab Zalman Hena and Reb Yaakov Emden. So they-- and they want yisgadel, want yisgadal. The Alter Rebbe's first prints, so we have, we have the first print of Shklov, uh, taf kof samech gimel, and the first one which was printed after he passed away, that's Kapust, taf kof hei vav, and, and I have about five prints from that period. So there, it's all with a pasach. Then we've got taf kof tadek vav in Slavita. That's, uh, not very far from taf kof tadek beis, and there it has already changed to yisgadel. And Chernovitz, taf reish chaf hei, is pretty much a copy of the Slavita one. Again, it has yisgadel. So in the writings of the Temim Tevek, it's yisgadel. Then you have Rebbe Rashab, Reb Yaakov Landau says that he would say yisgadel, but not in, um, it was not pronounced so much. So because it wasn't yisgadel, but it was yisgadal, yisgadesh. So it was mil el rather than mil ra. Yet our minhug is to pronounce it with a, with a pasach, and this is first recorded as our minhug in the, in the-- Before the Sefer HaMinhagim was published, we have the Rebbe Ra-- our Rebbe would publish lists of minhugim in the back of some of the kontrasim which were published of the Mamorim of the Friediker Rebbe, of his father and mother, Baal HaTulah. And so there's a maimon-- a kontras for

03:41 Speaker 1 Beis Nissan. I'm not-- I don't remember now which year it is. It's in the Sefer HaMamorim, perhaps taf shin yud or taf shin tes. I'm not sure. Perhaps taf shin hes. But there you have, um, that our minhug is to say it with a pasach. If you want to read more about this, so now talking about Baalei Dikduk. So you have, um, Rav Wolf Heidenheim, and then we have what's known as the Bear Siddur. And that was, um, the siddur which was printed in Redelheim. So he was a follower, in a way, of Rav Wolf Heidenheim. Zelig Man Bear wrote a sisteral siddur, which is published in Redelheim, taf reish mem beis. So I have in this the Sefer called Luach Erez. Now, I'm, I'm just gonna tell you that Luach Erez is a Sefer written by Reb Yaakov Emden, and that's his polemic against Reb Zalman Hena, all about Dikduk in siddur. So he challenges so many points which Reb Zalman Hena introduced. So this volume of Luach Erez was recently, as in the last twenty-five years, was reprinted with lots of addi-- um, additions. And so at the back of this volume of Luach Erez, you have an article written by Reb Zelig Man Bear to... And his conclusion is very, very clear it should be yisgadal rather than the yisgadel. Now, you wanna ask a little bit, you know, still, what's, what's, what's it all about? So one argument, is it Hebrew or is it Aramaic? And in Heb-Hebrew, it's yisgadel. In

05:24 Speaker 1 Aramaic, it's yisgadal. Well, then some say, well, first of all, kadesh is largely in Aramaic, therefore it should be yisgadal. But then even in Hebrew, this is what Reb Zelig Man Bear argues, he says there's a difference in meaning between yisgadel and yisgadal, and I'll try to explain. Um, if you remember a couple of weeks ago, Moshe Rabbeinu says to Paroh, "Hispoh eer olai." It's a similar structure, but there's a difference between will be made great or will make himself great. Yisgadal means he will be made great. Yisgadel means he will make himself great. So this changes... That's the way, as I was telling Bambert, explains the difference, if I understood him properly. So there's a slight difference in meaning, and what we're trying to say is not, not that the Amish is making himself great, but Yisgadal, Yiskadash, the, the name of Hashem should be made great. And therefore, uh, he, he concludes it should be Yisgadal rather than Yisgadel, which would be a kind of a, uh, a projection of self rather than being the recipient of an out-- an influence from outside. So there's... And if you didn't understand all of this, well, that's-- diktuk is a, uh, complicated thing, but that's the history. Um, and you've got a few references where to look up. Right. We're gonna move on. We may have discussed this before, but one of our, uh, regular listeners, he listens to the recording religiously, and, uh, he asked me about what to do with leftover bread from

07:14 Speaker 1 a catering or in the house, and the bread is no longer going... It's not gonna be eaten. So what do you do with it? Now, we do have a certain respect for food. Uh, and we, we, when one, one doesn't disgrace bread. And this in... Where would you find this? This is actually in the, the Halachas about the meals on, uh, Bircas Hamozin, et cetera. It’s in Chuf Ayin Alef. So we have here, uh, a, a Lashon, Sheain Zorik Es Hapas. One should not throw bread. So to other foods which get spoiled through throwing, one shouldn't be throwing them out of respect for food. And so now it goes on. This is now from the Piskei Teshuva. He says, "It's now common to throw out re-re-remnants of food. They used to say a person became fat from, uh, from Avedus because, uh, it's Avedus to throw it out, so he would eat it. So eventually, he put on weight from all of these Avedus. He became fat from Avedus." Um, and to quote Rabbi Yaakov Pam, Rosh Yeshiva in Torat HaDaas, he say, he would say, typical American, "What's the difference whether you throw it in or you throw it out?" Um, you think it's, uh, you're, you're saving it, uh, you're saving it by throwing in. If you don't need the food, it's the same waste. Um, it just makes a difference on the other waste, um, when, when you eat what you don't need to ha-- and, you know, don't need. So, all

08:47 Speaker 1 right. So the fact that people do throw out, that's, that's the reality in today's life, that people have surplus food. Baruch Hashem, you know. Um, so what he finishes off is that when you are throwing out bread particularly, it should be done in a respectful way, in a, in a bag and then, um, um, discarded that way rather than just putting the bread with the other leftover food. Going back to, um, to Tiskadel-- Tishkain Tiskadel V'Tiskadesh. So then that is, uh, indeed, I was thinking of that earlier. There is, "Hashem should make himself great." Tishkain, you should dwell. Tiskadel, and you shall make yourself great, and you should make yourself holy. B'secher shalaim ircha. Whereas in the Yisgadal, the context is more that you shall be made great. Okay, we're gonna move on to the next question. That is, um, someone, again, one of our regulars is asking. He is in a situation that he will either daven Maariv with a minyan, but early, that is, uh, after Plag Hamincha but before nightfall. Or if he wants to daven on time, then he just doesn't have the option of davening with a minyan. So what should he choose? Davening with a minyan early or davening on time V'Achidus. So what you have on the screen is from the Tzemach Tzedek's Chidushim Al Hashas. So the Tzemach Tzedek wrote an enormous amount, and he had-- he wrote on, on, on the, on the Mishnah. It's sometimes referred to as Chidushim HaMishnayot. So even though it's in

10:36 Speaker 1 the Chidushim, it also is in the, in, in as if it were a Halacha, um, article. And he, um, sums up, in a place where Maariv is, is, is davened before nightfall, before the stars appear. So if you're particular always to say Bizmanoy, to daven Maariv Bizmanoy, then even if you're in a shul and they're davening Maariv, you're not obliged to daven with them. Rather, you'll daven, say, Krias Shma and Maariv Bizmanoy, um, in the correct time. If you sometimes do, uh, daven Maariv early, then when you're there with a minyan, you should daven along with them. That's basically what Tzemach Tzedek is saying. Someone's asking if it's okay to feed bread I no longer wish to eat to birds, and the answer is yes. Uh, but don't ask the local council because they might say you are feeding rats. Uh, and if you do see, uh, them coming, then, then, you know, it's a bit of a disservice to the community. But fine, we're going on to the next thing. So here's a very interesting question. Um, so people ask me sometimes original things, and that's why I like to share them. So this you can see is a, a hot plate, a plug-in hot plate. And they're asking, they sometimes put challahs directly on the plate, on, on the, the stainless steel. And therefore, they're asking, do they have to dip the hot plate into the mikvah? Because a regular tray, you'd have to dip in the mikvah before using it. So if

12:10 Speaker 1 you put challahs directly on this plate, on this hot plate, then it's asking, "Do I need to dip it in the mikvah?" Of course, the next thing is you're gonna say is, put electric appliance in the, in the mikvah, um, it's going to ruin it. Then we're gonna have to deal with that. Uh, uh, uh, that's a separate question. It's asking, in principle, does it need to be toiveled? So let's see what we have. So I, I looked up on this. There's a, I have a volume called Tevilas Keilim, written by Rav Tzvika Cohen of Ashkelon, a dedicated volume all about, uh, immersing keilim. And, well, so I'll g-go, going from there backwards. So we're having the Shulchan Aruch, a tripod. You can see there the word tripod. This is in the Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah, kuf chaf. A tripod upon which pots are placed does not need to be toiveled. But some padilias, which I don't know what that is, that is, needs to be toiveled because the food is put in it directly. On this piece of Shulchan Aruch, we have now in the Darokei Teshuvah from the Magen Avraham, who is like a compendium on the Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah. So he writes, he quotes from the Pri Chadash. That which we've said, the tripod does not need to be toiveled, even though occasionally food is put on the tripod itself. But we, when, when we talk about dipping in keilim in a mikvah, we will go ikar v'rov tashmishu, its main

13:42 Speaker 1 function and its majority function. And s- so therefore, coming back to our hot plate, the most use of a hot plate is to put pots, um, to keep the food hot in keilim pots or perhaps in casseroles. And, uh, and that's the rov tashmishu, that's ikar tashmishu. The fact that occasionally you put a, a challah or something directly, that's certainly the very much the minority usage, and therefore it does not need to be toiveled. Okay. We're going to go on to the next thing, and that is about... So one of our, again, one of our listeners asking me about chapped lips. Um, so sometimes he's, has chapped lips, and he, uh, sometimes would, tends to suck that blood. And he's asking, "Is that permitted or is that forbidden?" Okay? So now we have the dinim of blood, um, are discussed in Yoreh De'ah, siman samech vav. Siman samech tes is the beginning of the halachas of salting meat to extract the blood. And in siman samech vav, we're talking about the dinim of blood itself directly. So it says human blood. See, if it's, has separated from the body, then you're not allowed to have that and, and eat that blood. And therefore, if you bit into a loaf of bread, and then blood from your teeth now have left their trace on the loaf, on the piece of bread, you'd have to cut off that little bit, scrape away that bloodied area. But, but the blood which is between the teeth, you are allowed

15:22 Speaker 1 to suck it. So now we, we're still back to the question. The lips are not inside the mouth. They are, um, they're not like a loaf of bread. So what's, what's the, uh, where, where do you draw the line? And so, to my mazel, I was able to trace that the Rav Menashe Klein, his Mishnah Halachot addresses this. He says... Well, he goes into the business about blood of fish. Blood of fish is permitted, but you're not allowed to have it a, a bowl of fish blood because of maris ayin, people will think it's, it's, uh, forbidden blood. But if there are scales or other bones of fish floating in it, so that's going to be an indication enough to say that it's kosher blood. And so, so human blood should be the same thing. If it's clear to the onlooker that this is human blood, there shouldn't be a problem of maris ayin, therefore it should be okay. And that's, on that basis, he says, therefore, a person who has, um, um, cracked lips because of the cold, and he wants to suck the blood which is visible on the lips, that's not a problem. It's the same thing as the blood from between the teeth, uh, which is between the teeth. So it's not visible to the outside. Someone's asking, "Would it be boreh to break off the bloody piece of challah?" The answer is definitely not a problem of boreh. Like you're allowed to peel vegetables or with a, or you're allowed

16:51 Speaker 1 to peel an, an orange or now a banana. That's not a problem of boreh. You're, you're allowed to remove the, uh, or let's say a banana, which is a little bit brown, to cut off the, uh, and it's bothering you that you eat the brown part, you can cut that off to get to, to access the food which you want to use. We're going to move on. See, here is interesting development that... Well, um, I'm gonna have two questions which... And that brought the, the, uh... One, one brought the other. So as you may know, I give this shiur in abbreviated form on Wednesday night in Hebrew, and one of the listeners heard what I said. Well, and he sends me this picture. He is somewhere in Georgia, not a state of America, but Georgia as in, you know, um, one of the republics of the former USSR. And he's got this commercial oven, and he's asking me questions about it. So we're gonna go through two questions. So the first question was a young woman, she bakes bread, she bakes sourdough bread, and she, uh, sells-- she makes these, these loaves and sells them, and they are baked in a fleishig oven. And she, in the, on the back, she puts a sticker that this was baked in a bread fleishig oven. And so she then asks me, is she permitted to bake this bread because we're not allowed to make fleishig bread. That was her question. So here we have in Shulchan Aruch.

18:30 Speaker 1 This is the end of "" where it says you're not allowed to knead a dough with milk, lest someone will eat that bread with meat. And if you did make a milky, uh, bread, then you're not allowed... That is condemned. You're not allowed to eat that bread at all. Unless it's a small amount which can be eaten in one sitting. Or if you made a particular different form, therefore it's in an un-unusual shape, and it's gonna be known that's not-- that that is milky, which couldn't be eaten with m- m- with... We've gone through this discussion before, I believe. The mish-- The, uh, the Halakha continues, "Similarly, one should not bake bread in an oven which has been greased, has been spread with an, um, uh, alyo, the animal fat. And if it was done, then it's the same as if it was, uh, uh, kneaded with milk, the same problem." So in times bygone, their ovens were similar to the familiar matzah ovens, which has got... It's a large oven with a stone, a stone floor, and the bread is placed like the matzah is directly on the floor of the oven. And so if that floor of the oven, oven had been greased with animal fat, kosher animal fat. So now he's saying that that makes the bread mamash fleishig. Therefore- That makes the bread mamash fleishig. And therefore, you wouldn't be allowed to have that bread. Same, same, same restrictions. That's true if it was bla- baked mamash on a surface which

20:21 Speaker 1 was greased with fat. But in the case of irregular ovens like we have, it's not a question of direct contact of with a surface which was touched with meat. It's in the... It's the zeh or it's in the, in the atmosphere. In, in the oven is... So then the lechatchilah, lechatchilah, a challah which is baked in a fleishig oven, you won't have with cheese, you won't dip it into a milk, a milk, a milky coffee, and so on. That's a lechatchilah. But really, strictly speaking, that challah is pareve, and therefore you are allowed to have it. Yeah. So if it be mamash, a fleishig challah, that would not be permitted, but to fl-- bake challahs in a fleishig oven is permitted because the, the de'aved, that is can really be pareve. So the fact we don't use it with milk is a chumra, and therefore it's, uh, it's okay to bake such bread. So that's why I answered this young lady that it's okay for her to bake challahs or the sourdough bread in a fleishig oven, and as a chumra, we say don't have it with milk. So now comes the fellow from, from, uh, G-Georgia, and he asks... Well, for him, it's much more than that. He's got these commercial ovens, and that's actually many of the Botachabad in these remote places. They are the purveyors of kosher food in the area. So he's asking, uh, "What would be necessary to allow me to bake bread, which would be totally pareve? How far

21:54 Speaker 1 did I would have to go?" So the, the... This, I pulled out the Sefer Hakashrus, which talks about if you have a milky or fleishig oven and you want to make a pareve bread. So then he says three, three conditions. Number one, a twenty-four-hour lapse since the, um, meat or milk has been taken out. A thorough cleaning of the, of the chamber, the, of the oven. And the third, to turn it on, to turn it on t- for tw- for twenty or thirty minutes on the highest heat, or at least higher than the previous use. All right. So you can make an oven pareve. You can make your fleishig oven pareve, and it says three things. Twenty-four-hour delay since it was last used for fleishig, let's say. Make sure it's clean, and then, um, turn it on for twenty, thirty minutes. So now, what about the famous thing that we don't kasher from fleishigs to milchigs? How does that... You know, here you're saying you can kasher, there you're saying you can't kasher. So he writes in his notes, "One shouldn't rely on this hester on a regular basis." Now, the Magen Avot, who talks about kashering from fleishigs to milchigs, so that's he-- and that's in Hilchot Yom Tov. In part, he mentions there one shouldn't use the same dish, same cutlery for fleishigs or milchigs with kashering in between. So you could say that an oven, which is a much more expensive piece of equipment, it's a little bit much to demand a

23:44 Speaker 1 tzibbur to buy s- two separate ovens. And therefore, perhaps b'shaat chet'ach, you can rely on this, on kashering. And then, I no- don't know why he doesn't mention this. There's a difference between kashering from milchigs to fleishigs or milchigs to pareve and fleishigs to pareve. But meanwhile, he says, at the end of this note, he says, "Ki l'chol ha'de'ot," it would be preferable to have separate ovens for fleishigs and milchigs and so on. So I recommended to this shliach, I mean, if he's, if he's into such, such heavy-duty stuff, it would be-- and he wants to make pareve bread, it would be the correct thing to invest in buying an separate unit. Or perhaps to dedicate one of those units just for pareve rather than bu- this business of switching and kashering in between. That's, that's a good for a, an, a one-off solution, but not on a, uh, not on a permanent, uh, basis. Okay. The next one was also a que-- a challenging question. So this is a... I think it's, uh, actually, uh, a bad moised in America, and they-- there's a certain kind of service which they need, and that's outsourced. And the company which is providing that service is a Jewish company in Eretz Yisrael. Unfortunately, they are not Shomer Shabbos. So let's say, I'm just giving a simple example, an accountant. I, I have to have an accountant to, my-- to, you know, to do my accounts, for tax, whatever it may be. Can I give my accounts to

25:20 Speaker 1 a non-frum Jew? And he may be doing accounts on, on Shabbos. Is that, is that permissible for me to give him the accounts? So the thing is, it's totally off-premises. There's no publicity. Now, I should tell him, "I don't want you to, to do my work on Shabbos." Once you've done that, the fact that they do so on Shabbos is, is strictly speaking, you're allowed to have benefit from it because it, it's not, not your-- in your interest at all that they should dafka do on Shabbos. Wise is that they don't send emails on your behalf on Shabbos, 'cause then it's going to be, uh, looking very, uh, inappropriate that you're... that they're doing work for, on your, on your behalf on Shabbos. But strictly speaking, I said... And he asked, "Is it..." I said, "Listen, so for sure, lechatchila, you should be using a, a Shomer Shabbos, um, company. But if that particular service isn't, isn't available by a Shomer Shabbos company, min ha-din, you are allowed to use this." I'm going to move on. So here is a question of a, uh, Rav Ovchin Giman, and he does a lot of hospital visitations. And it, uh, it is written in Shulchan Aruch, minhag lishpoch kol hamayim hashuvim shebeshkunat hameis. When if a person passed away, then it's a minhag to pour out the water in the immediate vicinity, and that means that in that house and in the adjacent two houses, something like that. There are a couple of reasons which are given

27:12 Speaker 1 for this. This, um... So we have here, the Shach writes, what's the reason for the pouring out of water? That is so that we, we... by pouring out of water, then people will be able to see, oh, something's happened, and you don't have to start actually verbally saying the news because people can see what you're doing. You're kind of conveying the message, the, uh, the sad message without having to say anything. And, um, then he says there's a second reason, which is that the malachem oves dips, uh, d- and drips in the water a drop of blood, and that's, that's, that's, uh, dangerous. So it's a sakana aspect to it. It says in, in... Now, this one on the left of the screen is from the Sefer Nishmas Avrohom, um, which is dedicated to halachas related to medical issues. And he writes in, in, in hospitals, it's not customary to pour out water when there is someone who passed away. According to the first reason, we understand it's not an issue. We don't want to frighten the other people. But the second issue, it seems to be unclear why not. Now, that's, that's from this Sefer. Now, then I looked in another Sefer on these dinim. A very, very good Se... There's, um, someone called Rav Nochem Yavrov, and he published about twenty sefarim under the name of Divrei Sifrim. And he has one on hilchas avelus, like in topical, um, sequence. Kitzur Dinai Avelus, a very good Sefer. And then he has two volumes

28:59 Speaker 1 on hilchas avelus, like a com-commentary according to the Sefer of the Shulchan Aruch. So this is from the, the commentary. So he brings here that in this business about pouring out water, but if the water is in a container and the container is, is closed and s-is, is sealed or tied, then it's not a problem. And he says for this reason, the water in the... in Eretz Israel, every h-house has got a... Dod Shemesh has got a, a tank on the, on the roof to be heated with these, with the solar panels. Because that water's sealed, the, the... in a sealed container, therefore it's, it's okay. Then he gives another reference that in the dinim of Mayim Shelonu, it comes up that if it has iron in it, it's also not a problem. If it's in a plastic thing, that's where it would... If it's sealed, i-if it's sealed, you're still okay. So the answer to this fellow is that if, if his... See, if he has with him a wa-water, a bottle of water, if it's closed properly, then that's good enough. If it's just covered, seems to be not adequate. Um, there would be reason to pour it out. Right. I want to... My last point for tonight, that I want to backtrack on something which we discussed last week. And as I've said this before, and say it again, everyone makes mistakes. But if you make it public, then other people can correct you. So here, we had last week a discussion

30:37 Speaker 1 about the name at the, uh, the posuk for the name which we said, which you say at the end of Shema Onessra, and it came up about when a person has an, a Hebrew name and a Yiddish name. And then someone asked, what about Menachem Mendel, et cetera. So this is from the text which I quoted last week, but now I'm... we're gonna read it more carefully. Someone whose name is known as Henoch- So then his pasuk should start with a he and end off with a chof. That's only if his... That is truly his name, is Shem HaKodesh is Henoch. He's called up to the Torah as Henoch. But if he's, he's really called up the Torah as Chanoch, and Henoch is only like a nickname, and he's only- when he's called up to the Torah like Chanoch, he does not need to say a pasuk for Henoch, only for Chanoch. You know, there's a very strange minhag. In the Hungarian community, someone who's called Yo-Yocheved Yehuda, he's known as Zalman Leib. Uh, I've never really gotten a... But they're called up to the Torah, as far as I know, Yocheved Yehuda. They're like Rosenberger Reuven, Yocheved Yehuda. But colloquially, they're known by friend, they, they, they're known as Zalman Leib. Uh, so they would have to say a pasuk on Yocheved Yehuda, not on Zalman Leib. So in this discussion also came up about the name Dov Ber. So I also, I gave this class to the, uh, boys in machina last week,

32:09 Speaker 1 last Sunday. And a boy's, his name is Dov Ber. Does he say a pasuk daled, starting daled ending with resh? Or two pasukim, one daled ending, and ending with beis, and the second one beis ending with resh? And so there was a time the Rebbe spoke about the name Dov Ber. Now, this goes back to the Midrash Imrei Chaim. He occasionally signs his name Duber, all in, in one, as one. And I-it was actually once at a get in the London Beth Din, and they had to, um... And the, the name Dov Ber came up in the get, and the late Dayan Kaplan said that in Chabad, it's, it's written as one word, and that's how they wrote it in the get. So that's true in the get, and it's written in, in one way. So in the written form, Dov Ber is written as one word commonly, at least in Chabad. But in pronunciation, it's two separate names. And indeed, I gave the shiur on, on, uh, Wednesday night, and one of, one of the listeners got back to me and said that he was actually told his name is Dov Ber, and he was told by, uh, one of the shluchim when he was a bochur in yeshiva that you should say two pasukim, one from Dov and one from Ber, which makes much more sense to me. Um, someone's asking, does the plastic kettle in the office need to be emptied before pouring in water from a closed jug in the morning?

33:37 Speaker 1 It does have... There's no... This whole business of Mayim Shalonot, so to speak, being a, is, is, does not have a proper makor. There i- there is a Inyan of worry about, um, Mayim Gluyim, and that is not ca- not relevant in our regions because we don't have snakes. So really, b'din, it's, it's, uh, it's okay. Maybe, uh, someone's more fussy, wants to pour it out and re-refill it, but b'din, it's not necessary. I'm going to... I see we have a couple of minutes left, and I wanna share with you a fascinating story. Um, I, I know it's, um, it's Motzei Shabbos. This is not a Chassidishe story. Um, what... The story's about Rav Mordechai Eliyahu. I'm not sure when his yahrtzeit is. He was a, really a very special person. And, uh, he was Rav HaRosh Yeshiva in Rishon LeZion for many years. He had a exceptional relationship with the Rebbe. I heard that the Rebbe would sometimes call him on the phone, um, which is very unusual. And, um, how did he begin, begin his relationship with the Rebbe? Apparently, when the Rebbe came out with a whole thing that just like you raise money to give for the poor for Pesach, so the same thing you should do for, uh, for Tishrei also. And when he heard that, he says, "Yeah, what's the Big Chiddush?" And he give-- gave a reference for this. Okay. And then he had this relationship with the Rebbe. So now he says the following. The story is

35:05 Speaker 1 like this. It's on a Friday afternoon in Eretz Israel, and there's a Russian Jew who's a Baal Teshuva, and he got involved in a terrible accident. And, uh, he's, he's married, no children. He-- His, the, the, uh, prognosis was not very good. He has a brother back in Russia. This is going, let's say, in nineteen eighty. Has a brother in Russia who's totally, um, uninvolved with Yiddishkeit. And the worry is, if he doesn't make it... Someone's telling me that the yahrtzeit of Rav Eliyahu is the twenty-fifth of Sivan. So, um, so if he doesn't make it, so this young woman, his wife, will be left as Naguna because she will have to go through Yibum or Chalitza and go find this fellow in Russia and do a Chalitza with him. It was, like it was really a, a concern. And so a couple of his friends got on the case, and they went to a local Rav who says, "Go to Rav Eliyahu. He's also in Yerushalayim." And so they went to Rav Eliyahu, and this is on a Friday afternoon. It's-- He is in, um, in, uh, what's Shaarei Tzedek. And they go to Rav Eliyahu and, and he says, "Does the brother in Russia possibly have a mother-in-law in Yerushalayim?" And they said, "Yes." And she's a ninety-year-old woman, and she's actually a widow living in Yerushalayim. So whilst... Let's call them Reuven and Shimon. Reuven is the one involved in the accident. Shimon is his brother living in Russia. Shimon's mother-in-law emigrated

37:11 Speaker 1 to Eretz Israel, and she is living in Yerushalayim. So Rav Elyahu says, "Go back to Shaare Tzedek, to the hospital, and the choile who's conscious, he should appoint one of you in front of Edim, appoint you as a shliach to go to this old woman to be mekadesheh, to be, to become his wife." So someone says, "But it's, it's... We're going into Shabbos." "Ask questions later." Then another one says, "But he's an Ashkenazi, and he's got a wife already. How can he have a second wife?" "Ask questions later." So he got one-- So one of them runs off to get witnesses and go to-back to Shaare Tzedek, get the, uh, appointment of shlichas and go off to, to, uh, to find this old lady. And Rav Elyahu says, "Make a mental note of the time you do this." Meanwhile, the other chaver went to Rav Elyashiv, and he comes to Rav Elyashiv, tells him the story. He says, "I don't know what we can do. It's, it's, uh... It's, it's, uh... I can't, I can't help you." So he says, "But Rav, Rav Elyahu said this and this and this." "So go quickly and do it." Fine. So they ra-rushed over to Rav Shaare Tzedek, got the, got the kiddush, uh, uh, authorization, ra- found this old lady, and she, at ninety years old, she accepted to become the wife of the patient, of Reuven, who's in, uh, on his deathbed ef-ef-effectively. And at eight thirty, she was mekabel condition on Friday night. Reuven passed

38:52 Speaker 1 away at eight forty. What happens now is that the brother, um, in Russia, Shimon, has got no obligation of yibum towards the wives of Reuven. Because Reuven has two wives, one is a close relative of Shimon with whom he cannot do yibum. Therefore, the first Mishnah in Yevamot says that if one of the wives of the deceased is a r- close relative, all the wives of the deceased are exempt from chalitzo or yibum. So with this chap of, as a sh- shvigur of the, of the yevam in, in, in nearby and getting kiddushin, he solved the problem. So now, so then the second friend went back to Rav Elyashiv, and he asks him, "Harav, how come Rav Elyahu had this solution? Why did you not come up with this solution?" So Rav Elyashiv says to him, "When a Rav, a Moreinu HaGaon, is in the driving seat," using my language, "so then he has special siyata d'shmaya, special ruach Hakodesh." Whatever it may be, he has a special guidance to find a solution to, to solve the problem. By the time ca- you came to me, the problem had been addressed already, and the solution had been found. Therefore, there was no need for me to have special inspiration to find a solution for the problem. So, uh, I mean, the story, the, it, it describes the, um, you know, the gadolus from the, uh, the siyata d'shmaya of Rav Elyahu, the humility of Rav Elyashiv. And I just thought that, I found that a

40:38 Speaker 1 really very powerful story, which I felt like sharing with you. I'm going to wish you all a gut Voch, and we should have, uh, much happier stories to share, uh, in the future. And, uh, Kol tuv. Kol tuv. Shulian.

40:54 Speaker 2 Shulian.

40:55 Speaker 1 A gut Voch.