עקב תשפ״ה

00:14 Good evening, and welcome to tonight's share. It's Thursday of Parshas Ekev. It's also today is Hof Of, and this is the Yort site of the Rebbe's father, Gaon HaMakubal, Rabbi Yitzchak, the Rov of Yekatarinoslav, and who was exiled because of his leadership of the, his community. And after five years of exile, was released to live in a place called, uh, Almaty. And shortly thereafter, only sever-several months after he was released, he, uh, succumbed to illness and passed away. So that's eighty-one years ago. And, uh, the Rebbe saw this as a tremendous chutz to share the writings of his father. And so the Rebbe had very few sforym whilst he was exiled. He had left back home, paid many, many, uh, files, but those we unfortunately have never had. He took with him a Zohar, Tanya, another couple of sforym, and happened to be that the Zohar which he had, had wide margins. And so he would write notes on the margins, and these were subsequently published. And the Rebbe would talk about how his mother, the Rebbe Tsnaana, had managed to create ink out of berries and whatever. And you can see on, uh, in the Rebbe's library, you can see on show the Zohar open to one page, which has got different inks and green ink and red ink and blue ink, whatever she had available at the time. Uh, so I'm gonna share with you... Oh, I did prepare a note of the blade ink. Here it is. So it's a little bit

02:20 of a seder. Okay. This is a piece which has been, uh, worked on. And of late, there's a Rabbi Dubov, Rabbi Dovid Dubov, who has really done tremendous work in deciphering and presenting the, the Tanya Hoor Blevick. So he takes out pieces, bite-sized pieces. So we have here is a piece commenting about the sons of Aaron and how they, uh, they, they died because they brought a, an offering, "Asher lo tziyor esem." Now, he picks up on the trop, "Asher lo tziyor esem." So it's a mechachafulah. So on the word loi, it has a, this double... The Zohar uses the word treitami. It's got a double, it's a mechachafulah, means a double mechach. It's got this fancy note. And then he says how to the, the two tamim correspond to Netzach B'Choid, and they'd caused a pagam in that level. And then we have, well, this is remarkable how he picks up on Yaakov with Yitzchak, when he goes to get the brachos. "Vayomein lo yayin vayes." So you have the same trop, and here we have the loi with the mechachafulah, and here we have loi with the mechachafulah. The difference is that one is loi with an alef, which is no, and the other one with the Yaakov is a loi with a vav, which means to him. Now, the difference is that because Yaakov, he explains, Yaakov poured, he diluted the wine. So you've got... Somewhere here he says that the Bnei, Bnei, Bnei Yaron, they only had avo, and they didn't

04:25 have yira. And that was the wine which they had. They, they, "Shtuye yayin", they had a tremendous passion without the yira. Yaakov, when Yaakov brings the wine to his father, "Armi Yaakov mayo, the chochma legoy chamra de bina." He, he diluted the w- the wine, which is corresponding to bina, diluted it with chochma, which, um, so that's... So he kind of balanced the gvuras with, with the bitul of chochma. Therefore, that's the loi with the vav, and loi with the vav means hamashochah. Hamashochah, Netzach B'Choid de abo, B'Netzach B'Choid de bina, and he successfully brought down from chochma into bina, and as a result, it was a cause for brocha. Whereas in the sons of, of Aaron is bechefer. That's the loi in the negative, with an alef, and that is because they did not dilute the wine of bina with, with water of chochma. And as it says, "Yeshuya yayin," they were, they were intoxicated with the wine. It was the wine of, it was the wine of bina without the balance of chochma, the bitul of chochma. Then he brings a third mechachafulah, and we have about the territories in, uh, in the Eiv HaYardein, "Vayikroh lo noi vach shmo." So you got loi and loi, and now we have a lo. And again, it's a mechachafulah. And there you see it's again treitami, and there was also not a success story. Because there it's also just on the side of Binah, and he says the word Noivah is equals, uh, fifty-eight. That

06:15 corresponds to the idea of Shishim Giborim. And then also he says the letters of Nun Beis Ches, also allude to Binah. Nun stands for Be- Be-- the fifty gates of Binah, and Beis Ches is Sephiros. Binah is the, um, Beis Ches. Binah, Sephirot HaChes, shehi Bais Beis L'Chochmah. Okay, um, okay, then he goes into Chovot. So anyway, um, because of the Noivah story not being a success, therefore, the name which they named that town, Vayikra lo Noevah bishmoi, so that name didn't last, as Rashi says, uh, comments on the Ramban. So what I just find fascinating here, and this is so typical of, of Reb Leivick's, um, style. He picks on those details which normally you don't even give attention to. You think they're just, uh, backdrops, and he makes... And he shows, uh, the, the side, the secret, what is behind it in Kabbalah. And he shows us, here you have a trop, which generally people don't give too much attention. This trop, that trop, and then he shows this, uh, twice you have the word lo with a trop, then lo again, and each time it's the same trop, and there's a, there's a reason for it. So that's, uh, that's very typical of his Torah, of taking those which people generally don't even give too much attention and making them into a whole Torah. There is somewhere in the Rebbe's Reshimas, something about you have the idea of fifty... thirty-two paths of Chochmah. Lamud Beis Nisivas Chochmah. And the highest is referred

08:03 to as Nisiv LeYodai Ait. The path which even the vulture wasn't able to notice. And in this, the... I think the Rebbe, perhaps the Friediker Rebbe or something, in reference to this kind of Drush, this is the Nisiv DeYodai Ait. This is this hidden path in Torah, which generally people are, are not aware of. And, uh, this is the, the Giluy in which we're having. Okay. I now want to share with you, let's see if I can find it on the screen, something which was brought to my attention. Okay, so this is perhaps also related to the Rambam at this time of the year. But, uh, it's also we're getting close to Yom Kippur, to Yom HaMeroim. So we have here the, the Mikorbanot. Now, in every, every Musaf, we enumerate the Korbanot of that day in psukim which enumerate the Korbanot. By the Sefardim, they don't. Not, not all the... because of Yom Tovim, it may be too complicated. People might get the wrong Korbanot, so they just say, "Ko ome." But Ashkenazim, we do have the details of the Korbanot. What we have here is, after the psukim of the Korbanot, then we have that the Korbanot were accompanied with Minchah, Minchasom, bread offerings and the Sehem, and they're accompanied with wine pourings, and this is how much for it is for a bull, and this is how much for a ram, and this is how much for a sheep. Veyayin kin niskoi. And the appropriate amount of wine. And here we have,

09:46 Veshnei se'irim l'chapeh. Veshnei se'irim l'chapeh. In addition to the above, two goats as a Korban Chatas, and two co- two, um, uh, sh-sheep, I think is Korban Tamid. Fine. Then, then it says, "L'vadt Chatas Hakipurim," quotes a posuk. That the offerings are of Yom Kippur in addition to the special sin offering of Yom Kippur and the Olah Satomit. So there are two problems with this, this text. Number one, Shnei Se'irim. What are the two goats? So one is the indigenous Se'ir Chatas. Most Yom-- I think all the Yom Tovim, including Rosh Chodesh, have a Se'ir. A Se'ir Ch- Chatas. A goat, which is a Korban Chatas. So Yom Kippur is also the same. There's one goat. Then you've got the famous, um, um, Goral, where there, there's two goats brought. One ends off in the Azazel, and the other one, the first one, is Se'ir LaHashem, and that's a, that's an atonement. So the Shnei Se'irim is one is the, like the Musaf of every Yom Tov, and the second one is the Se'ir LaHashem, was o-o-one of the two of the Goral. So then, Milvat Chatas Hakipurim. What is that referring to? Also referring to the, um, Se'ir LaHashem of the Goral. So you're saying you're mentioning it twice. That's one problem. The other problem is, well, you've mentioned Shnei Se'irim Minchasom, and then you said Olah Satomit. Well, you already mentioned two Tamidim. Is this a third one? A third Korban Tamid? So these are two questions. Now we're gonna go on the

11:35 next slide. We're gonna see various old prints of Siddur, the Siddur. So this we have the S- the Amsterdam print, the first print of the Shalo Siddur. And so here you can see it says Se'ir L'chapeh. Yes? And it does not have the posuk, "Milvat Chatas Hakipurim." The second print, twenty-five years later in Amsterdam, Taf Kuf Beis. So the printer changed that. Now, the, uh, Shalo had passed away a hundred years ago, before. So he wasn't really, uh, controlling the printer. So the printer decided to change it, and he put in shneih se'irim l'chaper. And this is the question: Do you have to mention the goat of the gorales at this point when really it gets a proper mention in the Avodah later, or, or does-- should it be mentioned? So it looks like at some stage they were not mentioning it, and then it was said, "Oh, you should mention it." But there's no... The next pasuk, mulvad chatas hakipurim, doesn't appear here. Here, again, this you can see lower down. This is Reb Yaakov Emden. Reb Yaakov Emden publishes his siddur in Tov Kofe. He has also upgraded from seir l'chaper, shneih se'irim l'chaper. So he's also alluded to the extra goat, which was for the, um, seir laHashem. Whereas this, the siddur on the left, this is Psharit Filla from Reb Zalman Hena, which is a more posher to siddur. These are-- The other ones are more for batamina hakhamim. But Reb Zalman Hena was a tremendous medakdek, but he stuck to

13:17 the original. So the more traditional form of just saying seir l'chaper, and there's no mention of the second seir, and there's no pasuk, um, which is, um, mulvad chatas hakipur. But then we have here the Maharil. So the Maharil is the-- one of the latest rishonim. Should we say the father of Minag Ashkenaz, the rekord of Minag Ashkenaz. And he says on Yom Kippur, you should add in Musaf, vechatas avon niskem, and ve'seir l'chaper, and then add the pasuk mulvad chatas hakipurim v'shnei se'irim l'chol chatas. Now, I don't have a complaint to the, to the, to the Maharil because he only said seir l'chaper, and therefore mulvad chatas hakipurim is-- that's legitimate. He should mention the seir, the, the, the, uh, the seir laHashem. That fits. Our problem is once he said shnei se'irim l'chaper, why are you mentioning mulvad chatas hakipurim? I also don't know whether he had al olah sator mid v'shnei se'irim l'chol chatas. If he didn't have that, then it makes sense. He's ha- he says to bring the pasuk mulvad chatas hakipur v'shnei se'irim l'chol chatas. All right. Now, this, this whole problem is already addressed by the Nida Bihuda, both in his comments on the Shulchan Aruch called Dag Malavo and in his Tshuvus. And he objects to the, the, the mention of sh- of shnei se'irim l'chol chatas and then the pasuk mulvad chatas hakipurim. So it seems... And, and I looked for machzorim which have this pasuk, and it's, it's clear that there were such machzorim, so

15:03 it's not the Alter Rebbe that introduced it. So Nida Bihuda is upset with shnei se'irim and olah sator mid. He doesn't take issue of chatas hakipurim and shnei se'irim because he could have had just seir l'chatas. But that's-- These, these, these are our two problems with the nusach. So the pioneer of, of understanding the Alter Rebbe's nusach is very much the Rebbe's alter ze-- alter, alter zeide. That's Rebbe Rav David Levent in his Shaarei Kohilloh. Now, if you look in, in Yom Kippur, there's no comment. But if you go back to Shavuot, there is unique in Chabad nusach, v'shnei se'irim, that, uh, by the musaf of, of Shavuot, we mention another goat. And that's because on Shavuot, there's two sets of korbonot. There's a set of korbonot like the musaf of every day, of every, every yom tov. Separately, you have the, the shetei ha'lechem. And the shetei ha'lechem are accompanied with another whole host of korbonot, including another seir, you know, another seir l'chatas. So it's like an whole new celebration, a whole new festival. And of that whole other set of korbonot, only the seir of that other set of korbonot is mentioned in our davening. That's, so that's a separate discussion, why don't we have in our davening on Shavuot, why don't we talk about the shetei ha'lechem as a-- in musaf, et cetera. But meanwhile, the Alter Rebbe does have a shnei se'irim l'chaper for Shavuot, and this is where the Shaarei Kohilloh addresses this. Now, he says that he quotes

16:52 the Tosefta, how you have, you, you, you have the idea of zevach toelah. We should be talking about the korbonot. And the Tosefta talks about thirty-two korbonot chatas over a year. Now, so that's why we want to mention mulvad chatas hakipurim. Now then, here's a very-- This is, I think, one of the key explanations which he writes. Rashi in Chumash says that when it says mulvad olah hakodesh on Rosh Hashanah and on Yom Kippur when it says mulvad chatas hakipurim, says Rashi, those words are not written as a command. It's only the last two words, ve'niskeihem. The last words, um, ve'niskeihem, that is a tzivui. So let's go back to that slide. What he's saying is that Rashi in Chumash mentions that these words, mulvad chatas hakipurim ve'olah sator mid, are not a tzivui. What we need to mention this pasuk is because of the last words, ve'mincha ve'niskeihem, that they should be accompanied with mincha, min-- with mincha and nesachim. Um, so that's basically his answer. So we're not, we're not invoking that there should be a second chatas hakipurim, um, because it's not a tzivui bechalal. That, that's basically his answer. Uh. Should I say it's very smooth? No, but that's the best I can t- share with you. Right. Uh, now we're going to go on to our next question, and that is someone had heard that I had said that you, the hard of hearing persons should not be wearing a hearing aid on Shabbos. Obviously, that person was hard of

18:32 hearing because I had and have told people who need a hearing aid that they are allowed to wear a hearing aid on Shabbos. That is the general guidance which is written in the contemporaries forum, that they are allowed to. No difference whether the person is wearing glasses, which enable them to see where they're going, and to wear a hearing aid, which all- allows them to, to, uh, also to hear where they're going and not to get into danger, et cetera, and to be able to function, to communicate, et cetera. So that's to wear... So well, first of all, to wear one, you wouldn't-- one shouldn't switch it on on Shabbos because of the issue of like switching on any electricity. If it's switched on before Shabbos, it can be worn and it can be worn in the street also. And that is, as I said, it's no difference to a tachshith. Now, the word tachshith normally is translated as an ornament, a jewelry. But tachshith can also mean a something which an accessory, which enables you to function better. So if a person has suffers from rheumatism or something and wears a copper bracelet, may not be wearing it for, for, uh, for beauty, but if it helps somehow them to cope with a, uh, with a medical condition. And that's considered a tachshith. We have the whole discussion in, in Siman Shin Alef about a cameo. So a cameo is not a beautiful thing, but it is, it is believed to be some kind

20:05 of protection. And let's say if it does work, so there it's a tachshith, not in the beauty sense, but in the functional sense. So the same thing would apply for a hearing aid. Where the challenge would be is if you need to s- uh, change the battery on Shabbos, that would be a problem. A couple of years ago, we had a discussion about, about, um, putting them into a charger on Shabbos. But I'm not going to go into that discussion now, but just to say that the general, general guidance is that they, they may be worn on Shabbos if needed, um, even in the Shulchan Aruch. Right. The next quest-question which I wanted to address is-- came up this week. People are traveling. What happens-- What's the story with, uh, in a hotel, with an eruv in a hotel? So whereas in-- if you have a, let's say, an apartment building, block of flats, where there are several owners. And so the corridors and the gardens, they belong to multiple owners. This is where we have Takanat Shlomo HaMelech, who saw that people were m-- getting confused, and they were seeing the shared premises as Reshut HaRabim. And they said, "If we're allowed to carry in this Reshut HaRabim, then we're allowed to carry in the other Reshut HaRabim." And so Shlomo HaMelech instituted this idea of eruv, that there should be a conscious, uh, act to show how we've done something. This multiple-owned area should be s- as, as a single ownership. That's what

21:53 the eruv is for. The question about, uh, people staying in this. Obviously, if you have a guest staying in your house, you don't need to worry about making an eruv because the guest is... He doesn't own y- your property. In a block of flats, so then the, the guest has made-- there's probably a contract. And even if the landlord wants to move them to a different flat, that's not gonna be so straightforward because there is a contract, and so there's an ownership there. In hotel, that generally is not the case. There's no... It's not rigid. You don't have a contract on a particular room. There may be, in some hotel, they may have for long-term guests. There may be such a thing now. People who find it easier to live, they can afford it, and they live in a, in a, in a hotel long-term. But generally, that's not the case. And so if it's just short-term guests, there's no ownership there, and therefore there's no need for an eruv. That's, that's, uh... And, and it, it... If, if people would stay for more than thirty days in this hotel, then that would be possibly warranting an eruv. And once, once there is a need for an eruv, then that makes life, uh, you know, a bit difficult because you cannot make an eruv with goy-- when there's Yidden and Goyim, uh, without Skhirut Reshut. So I was just now, at the beginning of the week, I was in a hotel, and we had this

23:28 discussion about an eruv, need for an eruv. So happens to be that all the Yidden in this, uh, which is where I was there for the esrog picking. So all the Yidden in that hotel are all one, one group. So although they have separate rooms, uh, separate, um, s- areas, but they all eat together. So then because they all eat together, that makes them like a single unit. Now, just to explain this. That if you have two Yidden, two, two units of Yidden, they need to make an eruv. And if there's a goy, then you have to do Skhirut Reshut. If all the Yidden are just like a single unit, then you don't need s- to do Skhirut Reshut because one Yid with a goy does not need to have, uh, an eruv. Only when there's two Yidden, you need to have an eruv. As a result, since all th- those people are, are eating together, therefore, they don't need an eruv. But in addition, I've said, people staying in a hotel, there's, there's, uh, a lot of room to be mekil. They say that because they are very short-term and there's no contract on which room they have, therefore they're just guests rather than owners. Let's move on to our next question. So someone asked me. He's actually from South America, Shliach in South America. He shows me a picture of candles, which are... They look like Yahrtzeit candles, but they got a little sticker on them which talks about Yoshke or something. Not

25:07 sure if a baby or whoever. Um, but he says, "Can I use these candles if I remove the sticker?" So I told him yes. And I'd like to go through this with the, the concept of Ein Hechdesh la'Avodah Zarah. That consec- consecrating doesn't work for Avodah Zarah. When something has been used for Avodah Zarah, that's an issue. When something is, has been designated to be used for Avodah Zarah, that is not an issue. That's the concept for Ein Hechdesh la'Avodah Zarah. It's a lotion of the Gemara in Avodah Zarah Daf Men, daled on the base, I think. I saw it today, uh, earlier. And so now, let's... It's a little bit confusing and little bit... Yeah. So now here we have, as you can see on the screen, from Yerodei Hilchos Avodah Zarah, Siman Kuf Lamud Tes. There-- Sadly, there are not many commentaries on Hilchos Avodah Zarah. So to start tracing it out. And I can see that's probably because of, uh, fear of too much gov- government scrutiny, so it was left just the way it is, without too much. So, but meanwhile, we have here Neris Shel Shav, or the wax candles, which have been lit before Avodah Zarah. They are their beautification of the Avodah Zarah, and they are also... If the goy took those very candles, which had been lit for Avodah Zarah, and then he formed them or sold them to a Yid, then they are mutar. Because since he extinguished those candles for his own domestic needs, that's

26:57 called bital. So here we have a concept that a goy can be mevatal Avodah Zarah. He can decommission it. By the goy, uh, disgracing the Avodah Zarah, so then he's decommissioned it. I remember now, it's just now on this Shabbos, this past Shabbos, was the, was the Yortsite of the late Rav Padver, Zecher Livracha. Uh, he passed away in Taf Shin Samech, and I had the zechus to, uh, learn with him with a, a couple of other people on a cou- a few times a week. And one time we were sitting there, and one of the dayanim came in with an shailah that someone had gone to South America and picked up some antique from the Incas. And it looked like it was an item used for worship. And, and so this is many hundreds of years old. It's worth a thousand, worth thousands of pounds. And asking whether there is a heter to, uh, to sell it. They already say Avodah Zarah is also Banah. Rav Padver was known to have Mahachil said, "Probably it has been mevatal." All right. So then it says here, "Candles and wax of Avodah, of Avodah Zarah may not be used for Ner Mitzvah of Shabbos and Hanukiah and Beit HaKnesses." And then he talks about the various vestments of the c- of the, of the priests. You are not allowed to make them into tali- tallisim. Because it's despicable to use something which was used for Avodah Zarah. So here it's, it's ambiguous. It says the candles

28:33 of Avodah Zarah. It doesn't say they were used or they were not used. So, and, and, and, and what I'm saying is it makes all the difference. So now he, he does give a reference to Arachim. So this is in Yerodei Kuf Lamud Tes. There's a reference to Hilchos Beit HaKnesses. In Yer- Arachim. Neris Shabo. She- Kusi, She-Nesen Kusi, which a goy has given for Avodah Zarah. He put them out, and then he gives them to a Yid. You're not allowed to use them for a Shalom, but they are mutar for a, for a Hediyap. So here you see very clearly that when it says that they should not be used for Osurim Le Ner Mitzvah, that means candles which have been used. And were have been used. They've been decommissioned because the goy extinguished them. They're mutar for personal use, but they're not, they're permitted to use for a Mitzvah of Shabbos and Hanukiah. So it's clear that this means that they have been used. If that wasn't clear enough, so someone showed me today, this Halakha is brought in Kitzur Shulchan Aruch in Siman Kuf Samech Zayin. And there he says clearly, "Neris Shehudluku la-Avodah Zarah." Then, and then they were put out. They should not be used for Mitzvah, even though they can be used for personal use. So the Halakha, it remains that the fact that it's got a label and it's designated for Avodah Zarah does not stigmatize those candles, and they are mutar even for a Mitzvah. Um, if

30:08 you have a heritage not to do so, I'll respect you for that. But in the Halakha, it's, it's okay. Okay, let's go on to, uh, my sixth question for today. And that is, someone called me yesterday, two days ago. Now his people are going on holidays. He's going off to Airbnb. Very self-conscious. He doesn't want to make too much, to ruffle too many feathers. He's not sure whether they're going to-- whether the, whether the stove there is an, a regular electric stove, or it's one of these new, newer-fashioned, uh, inductions, induction stove. Now, if it's an induction stove, then you need to have special, special pan which will allow the, the heat to somehow go through. He doesn't have such pans because he doesn't have an induction hob. He'll arrive there, he'll find out. Then if he does, he'll go and buy one. But it doesn't have a mikvah. So what will you do? So then to start going knocking door-on the doors of a goy, your neighbor, and say, "Can I give this to you as a gift?" And he's... As I said, he's very self-conscious. He doesn't want to do that. So he's asking me, "I work with... At work, there are goyim there. They, they understand, you know, well, obviously..." So, um, could I, could I make it that the, the, the pan which I'll buy in that resort should belong to the goy who sits next to me in the next desk at work? How... Can we do that? So you

31:40 have a concept in Halakha, "davar shelo ba leolam." You can't s- you can't sell, you can't give away something which you don't even have yet. So... And when you do this to give it to a goy, it means to give the goy to do a kinyan. So I, I didn't see how you can have the goy be koina something which you haven't bought yet. But what I did suggest to him was, if you give the goy a hundred pounds, and then you say... You explain to him, and then g- can you lend it back to me? I'm gonna go on holidays, and if necessary, I'll use some of this money to buy new, new utensils. And I'm not buying them for myself, I'm buying them for you. Now, of course, you're gonna say a goy is not eligible as a shliach. I'm not coming here that the buyer is buying bashlichus of the goy, but he's using the goy's money, and so he didn't buy it for himself, and therefore it still remains... Well, if you don't... If you say that the, uh, shlichus doesn't work, all right, so it remains still belongs to the shop. But anyway, he didn't buy it for himself. So in that way, he should be able to avoid the, uh, m- requirement of toveling the keilim. That's the best I could offer. Right. Um, I'm gonna go on to the next point, and that is about esrog trees. So I spent a couple of days looking at esrog trees,

33:09 and as we know that there are many esrogim grow with a, with a pitom, and there are those esrogim which don't have a pitom. Now, all esrogim start off with a blossom, with a flower. It's a white flower with a yellow middle. And then as the f- Well, after the... Once the flower is there, then it starts... The bottom of the flower starts opening up and developing into a fruit, and the flower starts getting smaller and shrivels, and the pitom seems to be the leftover from that flower. And in this, there are different types. This can be on the same bush. There's the same, same tree. Some esrogim, they will have a pitom, and the pitom will be still part of the flesh of the esrog, still the green or yellow fleshy type of, um, substance. And it's... Then it's got a, should we say, like a mushroom on top, which is the leftovers, and that's the pitom. Now we know that if the pitom is knocked off, the whole parshah whether it is kasher and isn't kasher. Then we've got the other type of esrogim, which they come pitomless. So what, what happened there? Did they never have any blossom? So they did have a blossom, and then it sh- it... That there, that, that... What happens there, it sh- it sh- shrunk, and it became so dry and brittle that it fell off. And so you got this pitomless esrog, which is kasher. That's the way it grows. Here's the question. I go,

34:50 I see on the tree an esrog which has got this very dried-out pitom, and if I just touch it, it's going to come off, and it'll look like a pitom lo esrog, which, which, which essentially it is. So one of the soferim was asking me what... how do you deal with this? He said, "I'm a bit anxious about this." So I did look around. I did not find this addressed very clearly. But one of the other traders, soferim, says, "This is their general mesorah." And they say, "Don't worry about it." One of the nice... I can see the svara. It's dried out so much, uh, it's as if it's no longer part of... A living part of the esrog, and in fact, it falls off, uh, sooner or later. Doesn't disqualify the esrog. Okay. Now, I have another couple of questions. And you know, I sent out eight questions, and then I realized there's a couple of feedbacks from before which I didn't, um, which I didn't address. But meanwhile, I'm looking at question number eight, and that is the... What's the correct procedure for making a bracha and cutting a whole loaf in the weekday? Or it should be on the weekday. I don't know. So, uh, can you see the challah? Yeah? Okay, good. So we've got here a challah. Now, since most of us use sliced bread when we do have bread during the week, so we rarely have the opportunity of making a bracha on a davar shleima, on a whole,

36:22 on a whole challah. But it may be sometimes, especially if you bake on your own and bake... People are out on holidays, especially if they're, they're baking their own bread. So you come to the table with a davar, with a, a shleima. And there is a ma'alah. There is an advantage of making a bracha on a shleima. The problem is that once you make a bracha, and then you're gonna start spending time to cut. So till you actually eat, there's a delay between the bracha and the eating, which is not a desirable thing. Here's the difference between Shabbos and weekdays. On Shabbos, we just do a little mark on the challah, if that. And, uh, because on Shabbos, there's a din of shleima, so there's a requirement of shleima. During the weekday, in order to shorten the amount of time- Between the berachah and eating the bread. So there is idea of, of cutting into the challah, and then, and, and, and then, uh, breaking it, uh, making... cutting into the challah, making the berachah, and then breaking it off. So let's read this. We got this in Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. Uh, let's read the We don't want to have a unnecessary delay between the, uh, berachah. The, the... It's gonna... You-your cutting is gonna take time between the hamotzi and the eating. So then I'm gonna try to explain these words. Cut around the loaf like a ring. So that if you hold the piece, the whole thing would have come with. I'm gonna

38:15 explain what's going on here. On the one hand, there is an inyan of cutting in. Now, on the, the other... The, the downside of it is if the piece you've cut in so well, and if you hold the cut-in wedge, if you hold it by the wedge, the loaf will fall away, then you've lost... It's not a dovea hasholech. So even though meanwhile they are holding together, but if the cut is so deep that holding the wedge, the whole loaf will, will break off, that's no longer called a sholech. So how do you cut into it and it's still going to be strong enough to hold, to hold the, the loaf? Yeah. If it's a deep cut, it's gonna fall away. If it's not... And if no cut at all... So what, what he's saying is, I don't know whether you can see on the screen, but what, what he's saying is cut in as a, a... Let's say you cut in, uh, a quarter of an inch all the way around from the top and then the side and the bottom, and do, let's say, two cuts parallel. And so it's, it's... Because it's only a, a thin penetration, then if you hold by the between the cuts, it's still gonna hold because, uh, because the cut is not a deep cut. On the other hand, because you've made those cuts, even though they're not very deep, if you will now pull away, it'll come away very quickly, very easily. So that's... So let's

39:48 read that. I think that's the pshat. So he says, So cut into the bread in a circular motion around... And that's because, if you remember the Gemara, there's a whole discussion where Benashie with Abaya and, uh, that you're meant to cut from the... where the bread is, is first baked, and there's a discussion whether it meant the top or the bottom. And therefore, we cut the top and the bottom, and that's where we... The first piece is a wedge from the top and the bottom. But the cut is, as he says, like a ring, not a de- not a deep cut. And how not deep? How shallow that should be? The inyan. It should be such that if you will hold the prusa, if you will hold the piece which you've cut into or cut... That, that wedge, it's still strong enough to lift the entire loaf. If it's going to be deeper than that, and by picking up the, the piece, the wedge, the rest of the loaf will fall away. That's already considered a broken loaf. And we are, we are seeking You want to make the berachah hamotzi whilst it's a whole loaf. So this is, this is this whole halichas. Um, for years, this inyan had po- bothered me, then I came across this, how the Kitzur writes it very, very succinctly. Okay. Now, as a hashlome for what I missed out last week, I'd, I'd mentioned... On the list, I had written about cans, opening cans, or in English, tins,

41:34 on Shabbos. And someone asked, "Is there any benefit of making a hole at the bottom?" So here we're getting into a interesting debate between the Chazon Ish and other poskim. And the Chazon Ish was of the opinion that a sealed can is not a kli. So what's the problem of opening a can? Oh, by, by opening it, you're going to create a kli. So let's solve that by preempting. Let's pierce it at the one end, so then it's already ruined. And then when you open it at the other end, and you create a nice opening, but it's no longer... It, it was... It, it's... It was... It's dead on arrival, so to speak. It's, it... You, you destroyed it before it had a chance to become a kli. So that's the Chazon Ish's thing. So he has the mazel that his, his, his, uh, sefer became very popular. So many contemporaries forum bring this, uh, advice. The principle which is said, Shelo Ma'almin, amongst others, challenge. What do you mean a sealed can is not a kli? It's a very good kli. It's can... It's, it's so good that you can protect the contents for, for, for, for months and years even. So there's this whole premise that a sealed can is not a kli is really, uh, very questionable. Therefore, it comes the other way around. If I take a can and I ruin it, so then I've destroyed a kli, and I don't ha-- I'm, I'm not allowed to destroy a kli. So

43:22 this is where it becomes the, the difference. So those who follow the Chazon Ish, they will, they will rely on this hetter of piercing from the bottom and then opening from the top. But those who follow the other poskim, which I know Rav Flemm Zalam brings their ayin. Tefillin. Tefillin is just sewn, so it's a, it's a container, and it's... it contains parshas. Is that a keilim or tefillin mekubal tumah? If a Tommy person touched a pair of tefillin, would those tefillin become tumah? Now, nowadays, unfortunately, we-- those... these halakhahs are not terribly, um, applicable. But in Zlam of Chazal, this is... And you take a look at Mishnayos and Keilim, it talks about the batim, it talks, it talks about tefillin being mekubal tumah. So although it's a keilim, which is-- which was sealed, and even as I mentioned in Gemara, if someone had a pair of tefillin which had-- he had from his grandfather, and they'd never been opened. So you're talking about long-term clothes, and yet it's considered a keilim. So Flemm Zalam challenges this entire premise of the Chazon Ish of saying that a can is not a keilim. Once it is a keilim, then you have a problem of destroying it. So that was that. Um, now, two more points. If you remember last week, we had a whole discussion about a mezuzah which is sliding onto a track, and the track is fixed to the wall, and then you slide the mezuzah onto the track, and then it sits

44:59 there. Um, and I showed that some poskim say that that is fine. So now, in the discussion also came up if a mezuzah is fixed with its a single nail rather than two nails on the top and the bottom, if it's just one single nail or one single screw. And what I had said was that if the one screw holds it very firm, then that also would be adequate. As long as it's f-held firm, and it doesn't... There no... It didn't have to be nails. It has to be f-held firm. It's a double-sided tape. We're gonna hold it firm. That's the... It's... That's, that's it. That's enough. So now he's asking, there's the loshon in the Gemara, tlo baMarkel. If you hung a, a h-hung the mezuzah on a stave. So he says you can hang things on a, on, on a hook, and they, you know, and they stay there. So, and the Gemara says that tlo baMarkel is not good for a mezuzah. So why is the one nail better than tlo baMarkel? That's the way I understood his, his challenge. To which I answer that the very fact they use the word tlo baMarkel, and here we have the word kviyus. Tlo, the word hanging means it's, uh, just suspended. It's not, it's not firm. That's the very... That, that the indication of the word tlo. Whereas, um, the loshon or whether if it's firmly fixed, I th- I see that as a different thing, and I therefore am happy to follow

46:31 the poskim where we say clearly that if it's a single nail, single screw, but if as long as it's firm, then that would be okay. Final point, that last week we had a discussion about someone, uh, who had came to the Beis Hamikdash ten minutes after Shkiya, and he wants to put on tefillin, and we had a whole discussion. I was in-inclined to say that he shouldn't put on tefillin with him. It's already Shabbos. So someone referred to me, referred me to Rabbi Brein's... Has got a excellent, um, not what it is as well, but there's something called Ask the Rav, and there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of shailas which are answered. And this shaila is an- is, is discussed there. Uh, if, if anyone wants to look it up, it's number two five seven six two. Um, I'm not gonna repeat it because you can listen to the recording. So, um, so here he, he's takes the view that, uh, he could put it on after Shkiya. And have a kavani doesn't mean it was Shemitzah, something along, along those lines. Okay. I did, um, mention last week that I al- I see also a, a, uh, confusing message. If someone's gonna be putting on tefillin after Shkiya, somehow in my mind tells the other people that the hasgalas Shabbos is, is, uh, is flexible. And th-that's... I remember, re-re-Rabbi Mendel Futerfas once saying the following, that the Ragats dover, he was sitting as the end of Shabbos, and he was like tapping with

48:10 his finger and looking kind of at the clock perhaps. Shabbos, Shabbos, Shabbos, Shabbos. Motzei Shabbos. And it's... And there's, there's a moment, there's, there's a clarity. Till now it's Shabbos, and now it's not Shabbos, or the other way around. Till now it's erev Shabbos, you can do melacha, but now it's Shabbos and there's no melacha. And to, to, to, uh, to confuse that, it may... That's, that's my, my, uh, feeling about it. But who knows? We metot as good as they say. And I mentioned that loshon also, whichever way. Everyone's doing it Hashem Shamayim, so wonderful. And so with this, I'm going to wish you a good Shabbos. And, uh, here besuras toivas, yeshuos uねchomos, sheach tzikeinu, binyan beis hamikdash, im heiru yomeinu ovei aryeh v'yivneh ariyel, ein chodesh av aryeh nishah simcha korech malish binyan beis hamikdash, um, malcheinu b'yoshëinu. Amen.