תולדות תשפ״ו

00:00 Good to go. Is the, uh, screen visible? Any indication? Yeah. Thank you. So tonight's... Welcome to tonight's shiur. It's dedicated by Zvi Mitz, Yahrtzeit for his father, Yitzchak Ben Shmuel Mitz, who passed away, um, just t-ten-- the tenth Yahrtzeit just this past week. So thank you, and anyone who wants to sponsor in the future, we're always happy to, uh, oblige. And, uh, if you want to know how much it is, this is fifty pounds, uh, a shiur. All right. Let's go into our, into our sh- shiur. First thing is, uh, a story while I was in New York by the Chinos. Says someone saw me in shul, and he says, "I have a story to tell you that Rabbi Hadakov would often call various shluchim and..." Uh, including my father-in-law, actually. And they could be quite long conversations. And this was actually with Rabbi Shmuel Motkin, shliach in Milwaukee, uh, which just now became a mechutan. His grandson got married to a great-niece of mine, so I was able to verify the story with him or with his family. So it was once in a s- in the evening, they're sitting around the table for supper, and Rabbi Hadakov calls, and he asks Rabbi Motkin, "Do the children know their... the laws of brachas?" Okay. So-- And he put them a question, "What bracha do you make on-- when you eat rice?" And so the children said, "Two brachas, three brachas with a, with a piece of mezonos, a piece of, uh, something else." The,

04:16 the well-known thing. And Rabbi Hadakov was ju-- was satisfied with that. So why did he tell me this story? Because in my siddur, I had written that since the Alter Rebbe says that, uh, Yoreh Shmavah should eat it during a meal. I've written it. Because there's a sofik where the, the O-- When it says... In Gemara, it says clearly that orez, the bracha orez is mezonos. The dilemma is whether what we have on the table is actually orez or is it deyan. Because of that dilemma, therefore, the Alter Rebbe says Yoreh Shmavah should eat it only during a seder, and otherwise, it seems to me you say Shehakol. That's what the Alter Rebbe says. So I've taken that view that you don't do the stick with two brachas or three brachas. And here, so that's not that this is conclusive, but that seems to be quite popular. A lot of people do this, making two brachas or three brachas. And, uh, okay, that was the, that was the story. Actually, in the new print of this siddur, if, if I remember correctly, I added that Rabbi Groner, alav ha-shalom, Rabbi Levi Groner, also told me that he had heard from Hasidim about making the two or three brachas. Okay. So there's... It's, it's, uh, not-nothing new about that. So there's different ways of dealing with it. Either taking the Alter Rebbe very literally, Yoreh Shmavah means it's only during a meal, or to say, um, we'll do this bracha, that bracha. Just, you know, I'm

05:48 sure you're curious why, what's, what's the sevarah not to do that stick. So my, my main i- uh, argument there is that the purpose of you, uh, really, you could say Shehakol on the Erev Torah for anything. And this you cover, uh, all the, all the berachos. Shehakol nihaiah bidvarei. See, you've said that, that you acknowledge the idea that you're not allowed to b-benefit from this world without a beracha. That's true. We said shehakol. You can sa-say shehakol when you, uh, smell balsamim. You can say shehakol when you put on new clothes. It's all, it's all included in shehakol nihaiah bidvarei. But then there's a male of having specific shevach, specific praise. So therefore, you have a special shevach meyuchad. This is pri ha'adama, this is pri ha'eitz, this is, this is, uh, hagafen, et cetera. This is shevach meyuchad. My argument to you is that this, um, that when, when you have this rice in front of you, even if you do this, the, you have a piece of mezaynus and you have a p- a piece of vegetable, you still haven't made a berachah meyuchad on the rice because you still don't know what the berachah on the rice is. So you've said a berachah meyuchades on the other two things, but you haven't gained the berachah meyuchades on the rice. Okay, but fine. Meanwhile, since I sent this out on Friday morning, I got a request to address a further, a related question, and that is about lentil cakes. Now, I want

07:11 to, uh, share with you that there's something which has become popular in the last thirty years, possibly more, rice cakes. And the contemporary poskim generally take the view that the rice cakes are ha'adama, and they don't fall into this whole dilemma of is it ha- is it, um, mezaynus, or is it ha-ha'adama or shehakol? The general consensus is, the, the majority is, is that it's, it's ha'adama. Let me explain to you something. What berachah do you make on popcorn? You take, uh, corn s- the seeds, these hard seeds. You put it into a, some, uh, spec-specially made container or a pot with a bit of oil, and those seeds pop into this fluffy thing which we call popcorn. And the berachah is ha'adama. It's not as if it's been gone through a mincer or, uh, it's not been pureed. That is, it's... So therefore, the berachah remains ha-ha'adama. Now, what happens if you take popcorn and instead of loose popcorn, you pop them into a form, and they beget-- can get stuck into a round shape or into a square k- square shape, and it becomes now what we call a rice cake or similar. So it's the same thing. It's ha'adama. So the... Well, that's what the general view is. Um, that, that you can see here, I've just taken from one sefer, um, but many contemporaries try and say the same thing. Prichiot or chitav ha'orez, uh, which means rice cakes or, or wheat cakes, the yakarut cakes, that the gargarin, the grains

08:39 are not cooked, but they are, uh, tofim. They, they swell. They, they, um, are blown up, and they get stuck to there, to one another with heat. That's Rav HaPoskim, that the berachah is ha'adama because they are not called baked, they're not called cooked. Let's explain something. The reason why there's a seforah to say, um, why the Gemara says ha'adama... Sorry. Why the Gemara says orez is, is mezaynus is because although it's not from the five grains, chameshet min h-um, dogan, but there are entire populations which this is their staple food. And therefore, orez is, the orez is, is, uh, mezaynus. Fine. But that's true if it were in flour form or in the whole rice form, cooked rice. That's true. There are entire populations, this is their staple food. But when it's in the popped form, uh, as in, as like a popcorn, but in these, these rice cakes, that's not the derech habitual. It's not derech, derech avatia. And hence, this is the majority, uh, view nowadays, that rice cakes are ha'adama. And this is for me, uh, relief. If you want to have a rice cake and you, and you want, you want to be yotzer, the Alter Rebbe say, "Yoreish shamayim v'tzecha sudas." The Alter Rebbe is talking about in the cooked form, uh, et cetera. But if it's in this, uh, rice cakes, you can make ha'adama and you're, y-you're good. So now, so the question which the person asked me was, what about lentil cakes? And so what you

10:10 see on, on the screen, so that's actually a lentil cake rather than a rice cake, but there's no difference. It's the same, same principle. You've taken, uh, grains, whether it's... In this case, it's lentils, which have an outer husk, and probably because of the heat. So then the inside explodes out of the, uh, husk, and it becomes a, it becomes a food like this, like this fluffy, uh, crispy food, and it's all ha'adama. So that's, they're all ha'adama. Right. Now, what bothered me then for years, and I, I just kind of looked it up tonight, is there a difference then with this and, and Rice Krispies? Is Rice Krispies the same as these rice cakes? So I looked at it again in the Sefer Shari HaBeracha, and there you have on the screen puffed rice or Rice Krispies. So he's, he explains how it's done, and he says that, well, according to the Mishnah Berurah on the, the Rav Berach on rice is very, very mezaynus. And all right, although as mentioned, the Alter Rebbe says they're safek because is it, is it orez? Is what we have, is the rice dogan or, or, or, uh... Sorry. Is the rice orez or doyen? Mishnah Berurah says just say very minimum mezaynus. I, it might not be orez, it might be doyen. But with the other, you're yotzer with, uh, mezaynus, even if you'd say mezaynus on potatoes. Says Mishnah Berurah, you'd be yotzer because it's, uh, it is after, after all, it's nourishing food, and

11:41 therefore, it's not totally wrong. So that's the position of the Mishnah Berurah. We don't follow that. We follow the Alter Rebbe. And here, this Rabbi Shlitzberg in Mashal HaBeracha goes further. There, you know, there you see. So, uh, he knows about that. Or shehakol. So the same thing should be with petite orez. And the reason, what's the difference between Rice Krispies and rice cakes? So he explains in the footnote there that the process of Rice Krispies is they actually first cook the rice Then it becomes f-edible food. And then they, then they, uh, pop it somehow to make, or they somehow make it into the, the Rice Krispies, but it's gone first through a stage of cooking, which is quite interesting. What, what's... I'm, I'm just now thinking now, if that's the case, it should be a question of, uh, of having to be Bishul Yisrael because, yeah, this is where you have this business with the, what they call these, um, Pring-Pringles. I remember years ago, I came about tw-twenty-three years ago, I came to, to Leeds for Shabbos, and one of the kids asked me what is, what, um, does, something about Pringles. What bracha do you make on Pringles, or do Pringles have to be Bishul Yisrael? I don't remember what it was, but it was, it was important to them to know about Pringles. So what's the difference between Pring-Pringles and reg-regular, um, potato crisps or what Americans call, what do they call them in America? Potato chips, yeah. Um, and

13:13 the difference is that the Pringles is actually they've, they've taken the potatoes and cooked them, and they become edible. And then they put them in this form of this special Pringle shape, and therefore once they become rail achilah, says Bishul, a question of Bishul Akum. So really that, if that's the case with the, with the Rice Krispies, so it's all very well to say that Rice Krispies are not olat shulchan melachim. You wouldn't serve them at a banquet. But if they're going through an earlier stage where they are edible, then that raises a question of Bishul Akum. I don't know the answer to that. It's just come to my mind as, as I'm talking. Okay, let's go on to the next question. Um, so, yeah, so the lentil cakes, we've said that they're, they're, they're ha'adomo, and the rice cakes are ha'adomo. The Rice Krispies is, uh, raised a couple of questions. Okay, let's move on. So someone comes over to me, uh, at the chasuna in New York, and he says that he's a shliach somewhere, um, who sends out for people's birthdays. He sends them out a, a, a card wishing them a birthday and tells them something nogei about birthdays. What do you do about a person who's a ger tzedek? What, what, uh, what do you do for their birthday? You've got a fellow in your com- in your com- community. He's, um, he's forty years old. He was a magaya five years ago. You can't send him a f- a

14:41 birthday card that you've mazel tov on your fifth birthday. So, so, uh, well, so how do you, how do we deal with that? I was suggesting that it says write to him y- in celebration of the fifth anniversary of your joining the Jewish people. Um, and so, so but, but, but the questions are, when is his birthday, his or her birthday? And the other question is, what chapter of Tehillim? Because in Chabad, we have a minute to say Tehillim according to the, uh, age you are. So what, uh, yeah. So Mistaver Loimar, this is a letter of the Rebbe. Mistaver Loimar, the Yemulledes, it's logical to say that the birthday of a ger is the day that he was b'gaier. Since Chazal say, Shu hukakat ha'sheneled. It's like he was born, uh, a child. He loo- technically, technically what it means, he has no, uh, relatives, no brothers and sisters. But, um, the, the, on taking that, extending that a bit further to say, all right, he's born then, and therefore that's, that is his, we should celebrate that as his birthday. As I was thinking over the last few days, I was thinking about, someone may remind me, in HaYom Yom, there's talking, I think, a-about a Chasid who would celebrate the day when he went into the Rebbe the first time. I think it was the Rashbatz, and he would put on tefillin every year at the time when he went into the Tzemach Tzedek, what, it was five AM or something, the

16:12 first time he came to Lubavitch. I seem to remember it has something about Yemulledes there, but I didn't check it up. Right. Now, so that's the Rebbe saying to celebrate. The birthday would be the day when they magaya. That's the birthday. Then what about the age? So here we have a, a, and this is from Mesirut Meshiach Lichos, where we have a, an answer of the Rebbe to say Tehillim according to the years since the Giyur. This was an answer to the late Mrs. Ruth Benjamin, who was, uh, uh, lived in South Africa, Keyarus, and that was the Rebbe's answer to her, I believe to several other people. So, right. Now, someone asked me, "What about Quorn Thins?" And also, the s- the answer is the same. They're also ha'adomo, yes. The same thing. They're all the s-s- same method of them taking wh-whole, whole grains and popping them in a, inside a form and creating the... Right. Now, next question is, can you call up some, to the Torah, someone who is, who's, his saying a bracha is quite unintelligible. You can't hear what he's say- you can't understand what he's saying. So this is also from Mesirut Meshiach Lichos. Dealt with it years ago. The word for this kind of condition in Hebrew is called ileg. Ileg means a person who's unable to articulate words properly. So the example we have here is someone who has suffered a stroke, Rachmanut Zlan, and h-the, the speech is affected. So we have here a psak

17:46 from Shlomo Zalman Oirbach. If someone who's not familiar with him is able to understand what he's saying, then he's considered a medaber. It's considered that he's able to speak. But if only the people who are very familiar with the person understands, then he's not sure whether that person's, is considered a medaber, which is, uh, this is a very difficult thing to, to pasken on because basically this fellow, th-this particular fellow, whether a child or ca- comes up, young man about chais, thirty-five, uh, to say he can never have Aliyah Latorah because he can't, um- I pronounce, uh, words properly. A difficult thing to say, but that's, that's the psak which we have here. If people can't understand what he's saying, so then he can't do a birkat ha-Torah b'rabim. He can do, uh... No, he can say birkat-- he can daven, he does daven, but, uh, birkat ha-Torah is something which is done in public, so the public have to understand, uh, be able to relate what you're saying. Right. Let's move on. Right. Now, as you may know, there is a minhag mentioned in Shulchan Aruch of not extinguishing the f- the match when you light Shabbos candles. So here you have your Shalmi, it doesn't use the word Omar. It's Shalmi. Shalmi speak much faster and so, uh, why do you have to say Omar? Of course, Omar. Yeah. A log which is burning. You can put it near the wall. That it shouldn't, it shouldn't keep on burning. So take a, take

25:39 a look in the... I think this is the Korban Ha'edah or probably one of the meforshim. You've got here a burning log. It's been on the stove. And it's... You've taken away the pot. You don't need it to be burning anymore. Not allowed to p-put it out directly. You'll put it right near the wall. That it will go out by itself. Which is It means it shouldn't disintegrate, it shouldn't burn through. And, uh, I saw some contemporary meforshim saying that, yes, it's gonna cause it to go out, to... the fire to go out sooner. There's a rule in Yom Tov that . So this very point which we're discussing, that taking a piece of wood and putting it near a flat surface, which is not burn-- uh, you know, which is fireproof, that's gonna cause it to go out sooner. So we have this here in this Yerushalmi. Fine. Let's move on. Just to share that inyan. Someone asked, "What's the earliest time for Parashat HaTamid?" Now, this is an interesting question. It says in the Tur, it is in the Alter Rebbe, says similar lotion, Now, in our Sidda, in Korbanot, we've got twice Vayidaber. The first one is Trumat Hadeshen, and there the Alter Rebbe adds... By the way, that wasn't in the first print. It was added by the Alter Rebbe in the later, uh, in a later print. So that first Vayidaber of Trumat Hadeshen, the Alter Rebbe says you can say it even earlier because the Trumat Hadeshen means that

27:30 they would, in the Beis HaMikdash, they would, uh, take away some of the ash of yesterday's Korbanot, leftovers, and then it was-- that was the ready, g-getting the place ready, the Mizbeach ready for the ne-ne-new day's Korbanot. So the Alter Rebbe says there you can say it in, in, in winter, you get up, uh, even, even a reasonable hour, certainly if you got up very early. So it's way before sun-- before dawn, and he says you can say Vayidaber. What about Parashat HaTamid? There you have to wait. Now, the word until the day becomes light is a little bit ambiguous because we've got various levels in the day becoming light. We've got dawn, Alot Hashachar, which means the blackness of light, of the night has lifted. We've got, um, then we've got You can... Then you've got the sunrise. You've got various levels. So what, what does it mean by ? And actually, in my Sidda, I've, I've been, uh, struggled with this because before Hanusah L'sefche vino, the Alter Rebbe to-mentions not to say it until, uh, Alot Hashachar if you were up a whole night. When it comes to Birkat HaTorah, then he says, And so what does mean exactly? In that context of Birkat HaTorah. BeKitza, it's not clear. And Parashat Ha... Saying a Parashat HaTamid is not such a dover chamur, and therefore, the Piskei Teshuves, he says it means Alot Hashachar. There are opinions that it means that the eastern side of the sky is already light, uh, and that's,

29:18 uh, later than Alot Hashachar. So he says since if you said Parashat HaTamid by night, you also Yotzer. Therefore, you can relay, rely on the opinion to say it from Alot Hashachar. Okay. So that's, that's his psak, and I don't have strong, uh, grounds to argue. Um, what I just... Since I mentioned this, I want to mention that in the Sidda by Birkat HaTorah, I made the following co-point. We have in the Hagadah, Now, what were the Rabbanim, these five tannaim, what were they doing till then? They were saying Divrei Torah. They were talking about the Hagadah, Divrei Torah. And so they were saying Divrei Torah. And they said it's time, time for Kri-Krishmat Hashachar. What's the earliest for Shema? Not Alot Hashachar. The earliest for Shema is what? Is Moshe Yakir. So when they came along, it was after Alot Hashachar. It was in Moshe Yakir. And so they had been saying Divrei Torah after Alot Hashachar. So it looks like um, may be similar to Moshe Yakir. Uh, and because that, we see that they were saying Divrei Torah after Alot Hashachar, um, without realizing that it was already after Alot Hashachar. Okay, let's move on. Okay, so I mentioned that was at a, uh, wedding of a Mishpacha, and when I was dealing with the paperwork, et cetera, with the tannaim. So unwittingly, I gave the... I took my scarf and gave it to the... Well, let, let's go back. When it, when it comes to T'nuim, there are several parties who

31:07 are, um, committing themselves. There's the... Well, there's, uh, there's the Sadra Choson, the father of the Choson, the father of the Kallah. Then we've got, out of Kablan, we've got two guarantors. So they also have to go be, um, oblige themselves. And then slightly, slightly, slightly connected to the story is also the Choson Kallah themselves. They're also, like, a little bit committed to the Chasuna. Okay. So we make... Basically, you do six Kinyanim. And the way we do it is we give the, the various parties who are committing themselves to lift a cloth. This idea is the, what's called Kinyan Sudar, is a kind of Kinyan Chalifin. So the Torah, uh, the Halakha allows a, a way of exchange. Say I've got a cow and you've got a horse, and we want to exchange. So when I do a Kinyan on your horse, my cow becomes yours. You haven't even seen the cow. It's a different country. Doesn't matter. When I take from you your thing, so then my article it now becomes yours. So now here we're not talking about cows and not horses. We've got here a Choson Kallah, and you've got the, uh, family, and they are committing themselves that in this, they will pay X amount of money. So what we do is we give them to lift the Sudar. They are taking something, and in exchange, they are committing. That's, that's how this Kinyan Sudar works. So as I say, we were, we were doing the Kinyan on him, and

32:42 I wasn't one of the witnesses. I just took my scarf, and I gave it to one of them to lift, uh, to lift. And then someone pointed out to me that the meaning is actually to have the aidim to give the, the cloth. All right? So, so let's... I was curious afterwards why-- what's the difference? Who gives the cloth to the, to the com-- parties who are doing that commitment? So here you have in the Ramoh, in Cheshed Mishpat, kuf tzadik heh. I spent some time looking around. Well, he says in the first part, he's talking about the Kinyan with a, with a sale. And, um, he says, "Even if you give him a keli to lift, and you expect him to give it back, still the Kinyan works." Says the Ramoh, "It's common practice that one of the witnesses gives his cloth to the party making the commitment." Because, uh, yeah. All right. Uh, okay. So it says that it's done by the, with the aidim. It doesn't say why. It just says that that's the meaning to have the aidim do so. Then we have here, um, not mentioned on the page. The Aruch HaShulchan says, "It's one of the aidim or one of the dayanim will give their cloth to the party making the commitment." Here you have Niti Gabriel, who writes the, the, the midin. It can be also the cloth of the, of the Rav or someone else who gives it to the one who's making the ki- the, uh,

34:28 thing. The meaning is that to do it with the aidim. That the aidim give their cloth. And so he gives a, his explanation for this. Uh, perhaps it's later on. If the, uh, let's say the father of the Kallah, if he would lift up his own cloth, then he has achieved nothing. It's only when he gets someone else's cloth, then by exchange, his commitment becomes bou- He, he's bound by his commitment. So it's become the minchag to use dafka from the aidim. Otherwise, there would be confusion if by the Bal Simcha themselves says, "Oh, take out his own cloth and lift it up," which is, uh, may be good for Kiddush Levanah to clear the moon and the clouds to see the moon might work, but it, for Kinyan, it doesn't work. You take out your own handkerchief and lift it, it's Dvarim Betalim. So in order to avoid this Dvarim Betalim, that the Kinyan should be done, so it's become the minchag to use, uh, the, that the aidim should give... One of the aidim should give their cloth. So just I found that interesting to verify. Right. Now we go on to the next question that someone was asking. They heard a shir, and the one who gave the shir, a great talmid chacham, and he said two things which were surprising for this lady. Number one, he had said that when you do Hafrashat Challah, you should do it as soon as you're finished making the dough. Making the dough means you

36:00 take flour and water, mix them together, and then it's... You have a dough, and then you leave it, and, and then it rises, and then you shape it into, into, uh, loaves and bake it in the oven. So she was surprised because she's used to being Mafrish Challah once the dough has risen. And this person, this Rav said, the shir, that you should do it right away as soon as the dough is ready, and the reason being Zrizim LaMitzvah. The second thing which he had said, that you shouldn't burn the dough until you've shaped the loaves. So, so we're going to go, go through, uh, both, both points. So the first point of waiting until whether, whether you do it right away when the dough is finished or you wait until the dough has risen. So this you can see from Sefer HaTerumah. The Sefer HaTerumah is from one of the later Roshonim, and he says, talking about before, he's talking about Yom Terumah. He says, "Y-yeah, when you make the dough, you shouldn't take Challah. Uh, you should wait until you've kneaded the dough properly. It's all ready to, uh, to, to, to shape. Now, those who wait until it's become means it's risen. See, they wait until it's risen. So what's the reason for this? Why should you delay ? Why should you not be ? He doesn't give a reason. So I saw in a safer, contemporary safer, uh, brings someone who says that when you want to give challah, you want

37:42 to give a good quality, uh, piece, and therefore you wait until it's risen. It's, it's more good quality. Which that safer, Safer Chelkas Benyomin, he rejects that, and he says, "If the kohen would be enjoying the..." So you wait 'til you give the kohen the nice quality. But here you're going to go to throw it into the, into the fire. So why does it have to be good quality? So my suggestion, um, is the following. That sometimes when you make a dough, sometimes the, the yeast which you've, you're using is not, um, effective. Perhaps you used too... The water was too hot or perhaps too cold, or some other circumstances. And as a result, you make a dough, and it doesn't rise. Now, what happens if you make a dough and you and it doesn't rise? So what's gonna happen now? I think that there's a . It's... If it's not gonna be eaten, so then there's no mitzvah to be . Therefore, it's just a svara that you wait until you see the dough has risen, and therefore you have every reason to believe now that it's going to be, uh, a successful batch of dough. It'll bake, bake well. Therefore, you, you wait until then. At any rate, you see already in Rishonim there is a minhag of waiting. are those who have minhag to wait until it's risen. So that's the first point. The second point was about when to burn the dough. So this lady who called me, she has a

39:09 custom that she normally makes the dough on Thursday, then she puts it in the fridge. Then on Friday she shapes them and bakes them. Now, now she's learning a new thing. That you can only... should only burn the dough, the, the piece of dough, only once you've shaped the challahs. That means she'll make the... she made the dough on Thursday, but she shouldn't be burning the piece of dough until Friday. So let's take a look here in Shulchan Aruch. This is, uh, it's a shin chof zayin, somewhere around. In Yoreh Deah, when do you take challah? Well, the earliest is once you've mixed the, the flour and water. And, um, make sure that there's no flour which is not mixed in well. Then he said, . You should wait with the burning of the challah until the shaping of the loaves. And the reason for this is because when you are making loaves, it's common that you will scatter some flour on the table, and you'll roll out the, the dough on, with that flour. Now, the flour, which if you burn the challah on Thursday and on Friday you're taking flour and adding it to the dough, so then the challah is not covering the dough, the, the added flour. So all... So if you maprish challah and you have in mind also the add... the flour which you're going to add subsequently. But if you've already burnt the challah, it's, it can't cover for the flour which is added. In a, in a

40:51 regular domestic situation, it's unlikely that the added flour would amount to a volume of a chiah challah. Unless, I mean, in a larger, say, larger situation, there could be... you can use perhaps a few pounds of flour. That's when it become a real, uh, concern. But that's what it says in Shulchan Aruch, at any rate. That you should... because you want to include in the mitzvah of challah also the flour which is added whilst shaping the loaves, therefore don't burn the challah until that has happened. Right. Let's go on to the next thing, and that is someone sent me this picture of a menorah, and it's got eight... I think it's got nine, uh, candle holders, but it's in a very slight curve, like a crescent shape, and very slight curve. So is that okay for, to use for a menorah? So here is, we have in Hilchas Chanukah, where they are, they... we have about... the Gemara talks about if you took a dish and you put wicks around, you've got a round bowl, and you filled it with oil, and you put wicks all around, and you lit the various wicks. So if, uh, if there's no lid on this dish, then the worry is that all these wicks will somehow, in the eyes of the viewer, will look like just one big torch, and therefore it's not valid. Therefore, following on from the bowl, round bowl situation being a problem, therefore, the Rambam continues, "You should be careful that the neris, the

42:33 lamps, should be beshove, beshura, beshove. They should be in a straight line, v'lo b'egul, not in a circle. D'havei k'midura, which would then look like a, a, a, a bonfire of sorts." So fair enough. I, I still... That there, there is... To have the menorah just, like, in a circle, the lights, they all in a, in a, all around, that is going to be a problem of midura. I still think that this, what we have on the screen, which is, is basically a straight run. It's slightly curved. I don't think there's any resemblance to midura, and therefore, uh, I wouldn't say it's, uh, a problem. Right. Um, what else do we have here? Okay. So then, yesterday, on Friday, I'm contacted by a Shliach somewhere in, uh, in, in Russia, and he's really thinking about Asara b'Tevet, and he's worried about getting his... a minyan. So he has a minyan, but he doesn't have a minyan of people who are fasting. It's amazing stuff which goes on there in Russia. They have these Kollelim, uh, where people are paid to come to learn, and bit by bit, they become... They're learning Torah, and they, uh, become Shomer Torah Mizvos. Each one at their level or their, their, their speed. But at the moment, he has, he has a, he has a minyan that helps with the minyan, these Kollelim, but not necessarily are they ready to, uh, fast, especially if they're elderly. So here's the following Halakha. It says in Shulchan Aruch that you can

44:17 only say Aneinu in Chazarat Hashatz as an extra bracha, which means normally we have nineteen brachos Shemoneh Esreh, and, um, with Aneinu, it's a twentieth bracha. That would only be justified if there are ten people davening in that sh- who are fasting. Only if there's ten people are present, present who are fasting. And even if there are ten people in the town who are fasting, that doesn't help. You have to have the ten people who are fasting in the shul. Now, not to be confused when it comes to, let's say, um, making up a minyan. If you've got six people fa-- um, davening Shemoneh Esreh, oh, we've got a minyan, and you can have another four people who haven't davened or aren't davening, and they make up your minyan. But that doesn't work for Taharas. Taharas, there's a, a requirement that all the... You have to have ten people are fast. Now, that's the, that's in Hilchas, uh, Taharas, Tov K'Olam Havav. But this Shliach came across in the Alter Rebe Shulchan Aruch Siman Kuf Yod Tes. If there were not ten fasters in the shul. And then after Rfaeinu, they, the, the, the, the tenth faster comes into the shul. Then the Alter Rebe says, "Okay, then the Chazan should incorporate the Aneinu in Shemei Ah Tefila." So this was a bit of a surprise to him that you need to have ten people are fasting. And, uh, yeah, so we have here, um, from the Sefer HaMinhogim. And here it's interesting that you

45:54 have a difference in this respect between Krias HaTorah and Aneinu. And let's read this carefully. The reading of Vayichal on the four fast days is if you have even just three people who are fasting. So you can do Krias HaTorah, and those three people will be given the aliyas. Persons not fasting shouldn't be... It doesn't add that, but that's, that's just I'm adding that. Aneinu, as a separate bracha on the Dalet Zaymans, even if there are three people who are fasting, there's also seven people who ate pochas mikashir. So he adds a new thing. So by the Krias Vayichal, Krias HaTorah, he doesn't talk about the seven who ate pochas mikashir. But when it comes to Aneinu, this is kind of in respect of the Shulchan Aruch which says you need to have ten people fasting. So Tzemach Tzedek is... So this is based upon the Shulchan Aruch Tzemach Tzedek, and he says, "Okay, you've got three who are fasting and another seven who are... have eaten less than a shir." So a little bit of history here, and that is that this is a letter of the Tzemach Tzedek to his son, Reb Sraneh, HaGaon Reb Sraneh, who was a Rav in Nezin, Rav and Rebe in Nezin, and he was not of, uh, robust health. And it was a time there was a plague. I don't remember what, what exactly the plague was, but the Tzemach Tzedek writes to him, "Chas V'Shalom, he mustn't fast, um, on Tisha B'Av even." And i-in, in

47:24 this part of this conversation, it's also a-about the Dalet Zaymis, a-about, uh, Krias HaTorah and Aneinu. So it's talking about in a Shas Hadchak, and most of the people would not be able to fast because being... Fasting would make them more vulnerable to the illness, to the, to the plague. Then he says, "Okay, so you've got three people who are fasting and seven who are eating pochas mikashir, they are, they are mitzarif. Um, but if you have people who, you know, they're not, they're not on the level that they're gonna fast, they're not ready to... Then their commitment is not, uh, there, so they're not mitzarif as far as making up your minyan. I still... I, I did say to him, "If you want to say Aneinu in, in a Shemei Ah Tefila, there's no question," because here's the whole thing is about saying an extra bracha. But if it's going to be together with the Shemei Ah Tefila, that's less of a problem. Right. Um, so going back to the previous question about, uh, using a round bowl and wicks around it. If there is a lid, so there are more... The Shulchan Aruch said it is kosher. In Kafla HaKelly, then it would be kosher. That is min hadin, we din have the Gemara. But then we have the, the minhag as described by the Rama is that the one would just avoid this whole round menora situation to, um, because it's some... It would resemble a menorah. Okay, what else do we

48:51 have? So, also this is the shtikel from Tzemach Tzedek, where you have... Talking about Vayichal, and then Aneinu, he says, "If you have to have ten, um... If there's no ten who are actually fasting," then he says, "Af Al Pi Ken, if there's three are fasting, and bevada yihye oid shiv'ah who are eating pochas mikashir," so he's kind of relying on the two together. Right. Um, right. This is from the Sefer HaMinhagim. There's a lot of discussion about that. Fine. Let's go on. So I know I've passed the number ten of the audio list, but we have another couple of minutes. So I want to share with you another shail which came up on Friday. So it's a half an hour before Shabbos, more, and someone's asking me, his wife has got an infected finger, could she soak it in salty water over Shabbos? And I, I looked up, and the puyul, the answer is no. And let's read the first seif in Siman Shin Chof Ches. Now, it says, Alter Rebe writes, "A person's got a michush be'alma, who's got a minor..." A michush means irritation. There's no element of danger at all. The person, they can-- they're functioning normally. Then we wouldn't-- that such a-- on such a level, you wouldn't be allowed to use medication on Shabbos, even through a Nochri. Unless, which kind of details later might, might change. Even when there's no con-concern of Melacha, not even with Rabanan. And if it'd be a healthy person, that wouldn't be a

50:35 problem. But this person is doing it for healing purposes, and it's evident he's doing so for healing purposes, it's Asu. And that is because of Gezeirah, the decree, in case one would come to grind the Samamon in the various, various, uh, herbs, et cetera, L'refuah She'yehi Hamut. If you'd be allowed to do medical stuff on Shabbos, people would be tempted to, to, uh, start, um, actually, um, grinding stuff. Just I once had a, a very strange shailah. Someone called me on Friday. He says, "I know you're not allowed to take medicines on Shabbos, but can I grind garlic to, um, for, for, for medicine, as, as a medicine?" So that was the reason why the Gezeirah is there in the first place. Just want to finish off. We have another couple of minutes, and so share with you a couple of stories from the Kinat Hashluchim. So we'll finish the Shir. That was just, um, Lavan Malcha time, some stories. So I was at the Ohel for Shabbos, and there was a Shliach who spoke there, Shliach from Eretz Yisroel. Um, so he tells, tells the story of a fellow by the name of Oren. And Oren came to his shul on the night of Yom Kippur. And at the end of the davening, Neildrei Maariv, at the end of the davening, the Shliach announced that Mincha Chabad is to say a whole lot of Tehillim on Yom Kippur night, so you're welcome to stay. And Oren was there, and then Oren went home. Oren

52:15 did not turn up for Shacharis and Musaf. He came about Mincha. And so, uh, the Shliach, "Oren, so nice to see you. We missed you in the morning." He says, Oren says, "Well, you know, I'll tell you what happened. I feel very bad that I came so late. But, you know, you said it's a custom to say the whole of Tehillim. So I went home because I can't read the Tehillim as fast as you guys. So I went home, and I was saying Tehillim until six AM, and then I lay down, and, uh, that's why I arrived so late. Can you give me some Tikkun for my having missed Shacharis in shul? I feel so bad about it." So the Shliach says, "You know, let's do a deal. You give me your Tehillim, and I'll give you my Shacharis and my Musaf and my, my, my Avodah and everything. You can have a- all of that, and I'll g- I'll have the zchus of your Tehillim, which you did till six AM." So this is how Oren is beginning to, to become more involved, and he starts coming to Shiurim. Oren is twenty-one years old. He runs a pizza shop. And he one day, uh, is coming to Shiurim. He's ta-taking things very seriously. And one day he says, "You know, the Parnassa is not really working very well. Rabbi, could you come perhaps visit me at the pizza shop?" And he comes. Whatever they discuss, what, uh, this, that, what can he do? He's

53:41 trying to be Frum, and Hashem is, is saying, giving him tr- struggles with his Parnassa. So the Shliach says to him, "Oren, you know, you've come a long way, but you know, that which you... You're living with a young lady and without having had a Chupah. That's not okay." So he says, "Okay." That, but he says, "I'll tell you." Uh, his, his, uh... Sh-she, this young lady, she's a whole, a whole week, she's, uh, in army base. She comes just for the weekends. "Okay. I'm not worried about her. She'll agree to get married. My father is a problem." You know, who's heard in the secular society, uh, getting married at twenty-one years old is, is absolutely not unheard of. So he's very worried what his father's reaction will be. And so the Shliach suggests he writes a letter to the Rebbe. So Oren sits down and writes a letter to the Rebbe. As he's sitting and writing the letter, his phone buzzes, and he can see caller ID. It's his father on the phone. "I didn't answer." "Why didn't you answer?" "Well, I'm in the middle of writing to the Rebbe. I don't start interrupt to answer phone while I'm in the middle of writing to the Rebbe." Uh, this is Oren's, uh, Hergesh. After he finished writing, g-gets back. Now, now the father happens to be, um... Oren's mother died a few years ago, and the father's living with a lady without Chupah and Kiddushin. But the father picks up the phone and says,

55:10 "Oren, you know, the fact you're living with whatever her name is, Daphna, uh, you know, Ze lo beseder." It was like a totally out, out of the blue. The father picks up the phone and says to him, "It's not okay that you're, you're marri- you're living without, without a Chupah and Kiddushin, you know, without proper marriage." So the father had... was the one who actually brought it up. They sh- Okay. Well, he saw the Rebbe's, uh, um, helping him over there. Okay. So then, then, uh, okay. Then what do you do until, till you manage to get the, get the, the wedding? Well, they can't sleep together in the same house. So a whole week, she's not there. She comes for the weekends. So Sunday morning, kind of, "How was the weekend?" So he says, "Well, Friday night, I managed to sleep somewhere, you know, in a friend's. Um, and Motzei Shabbos, well, I slept in my car." Now, Oren is, uh, a, a big husky guy, and the Shliach says, "But his car is a small car." So he, he has been sleeping in his car, abi, just to keep the Halakha. And so, uh, the Shliach was amazed by his dedication. And, um, so he says, "I'm so inspired. I'm gonna have to do some Hachlata." "So what are you gonna do?" So the Shliach says, "I'm going to, I'm going to, um, upgrade my, um, my filter on my ph- on my, my cell phone." "Oh, is that, is that, is that

56:41 a thing to do?" says Oren. "Yeah, okay. So no problem." He says, Oren says, "I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm going to do that also." "But how will you g-g-do Google? How will you do, um, uh, Uber? What..." He says, "I've got the shop. I've got a tablet in the pizza shop. I can do all my business there, but I don't need to have, uh, everything on my phone." A few weeks later, um, Shliach asks Oren, "How are you managing with your phone?" He says, "No problem. No, no problem. Uh, you never have to call up for some support that they should take off that block and that block and that block. I didn't know there's any support." So he's just, he's just good with it. Um, so then he decides, okay, they're gonna get married. So appropriate day, we're gonna make the, we're gonna make the wedding on, um, Yud Aleph Nis. So that was his plan. But then he th- he realizes that actually, if you're running a pizza shop, the-- A few days before Pesach, the pizza is very-- pizza shop is on very high demand. So it's not the right date to ta-take off to make a chasuna for himself. So he made it a week earlier, and then it comes just before Pesach, and the Shliach says, "Oren, you know, you know, it comes Pesach, there's no, um, there's no, uh, gibroks, there's no, um, no, uh, kitniyos, and all the vegetables are peeled." He gives him the whole, the whole

58:07 spiel. "No problem. Pizza shop." So he's... The pizza shop, they-- a-apparently you can get, um, kosher le Pesach pizza, a way of doing it, and got a good hechsher and gave him a rough time to make sure that it's going to be, uh, tak a kosher without any shailas. But it's-- I'm sure it's kitniyos and whatever, uh, whatever stuff. And so, so Oren stands the whole day in the shop selling pizza with a kosher le Pesach pizza. And what did he l-- What, what did he... So he said, "Came a night, at night, at the end of a long day, we came home, boiled some potatoes, and we had that for supper, and everything was fine." So this was, uh, the story of Oren. Just one more story. I see I have another, uh, minute or two. Another story about a Shliach. Oh, well, s-someone, a-- Some Haimish Yid comes into a Chabad house in some remote place, and he noticed that one of the people who was in the shul, uh, was-- He just saw him getting out of his car around the corner. And he was horrified that such a person comes to shul, whatever. And so he wanted to take up his, you know, complaint to the, with the Shliach. But the Shliach was busy. So he looks around, saw the people are kind of casually dressed, but then he saw one person, a kapote with a talis, with a long beard, and he's sitting davening and, and, you know, focused on

59:30 his siddur. So he saw this as, uh, you know, the alter rechidim. Says, uh... He goes over to him, asks him in Yiddish, uh, in Shule, they call the... He said, "I don't understand. I don't, I don't speak Yiddish. I only speak English." So he, in his, uh, probably in Boro Park Yiddish-- English, he speaks to him, and he says about this person who was parked around the corner. He says, "So the fellow in the kapote and langem voris," says, "Actually, two years ago, I was doing the same thing." So, uh, so he realized h-his kasha was answered. And so this is another story which I heard. Um, I'm sure it's happened many, many times, but just sharing with you some of these, uh, conversations which we had over the Kinus, which is a very, uh, uplifting at the time, en-engaging and, um, exchanging ideas, uh, with one, one another, and really, uh, keshev et achim gam yachad and, uh, it's a geshmak to be there, and happy to share gross them with you. With this, I'm gonna wish you a, a, a gut voch, and wish you to hear besuras tovos, ikar besuras hagolah, b'soch z'chutenu, b'shuv chol nitzim b'rachamim. Chof. Amen. Uh, shavua. Amen. Good shavua. Say something. Good shavua. Good moich.