וארא תשפ״ו

00:05 Welcome to two for, for the shir. This is pre- prerecorded. I'm actually currently in, uh, Chicago area. And, uh, but by the time it's released to many of our listeners, it will be Motzei Shabbos for them. So this, this, uh, shir is, is, uh, has been sponsored by a Shliach in Bristol, Mendy Singer, who is a regular participant in the shir. And this is in dedicated in memory of his grandmother, who, uh, Ma-- Mrs. Chana Singer, who passed away just this past Shabbos in, uh, the Binstock home in Manchester. And if I may say that the Mr. and Mrs. Singer Senior were... They lived in Sutton, in south of London. And when the Chabad House of Wimbledon of South London opened, they were a tremendous help to the Shluchim there, to Rabbi and Mrs. Dubov, um, in a quiet way, but enormously supportive. And yehi zichro baruch. Hamashchiach ben Ditzah Sorosh for her, for her children, and for her grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. And, uh, ki tivronam neshech nefur vechibeseicham. So we're going to go now to our list of questions. But before that, a story, and that will be connected to perhaps point number, number nine. And this story is the following. That after the, the Mitteler Rebbe passed away, so the Tzemach Tzedek adamantly refused to become Rebbe. With... And so there were a couple of Hasidim, after months of, of this delay, a couple of Hasidim found their way to Ruzhin. When they were by the Ruzhiner, the Ruzhiner said a Torah. "Heym

02:29 Hashem Elokey's Ehye asher Ehye. Heym bechaiseima b'nei Yisrael Ehye shlochania aleicha." So he said, Ehye is Gematria twenty-one. Asher Ehye is twenty-one times twenty-one equals four hundred and forty-one, and that is the Gematria of the word Emes. If you'll say the Emes, tell, tell Parah the Emes, and then that Parah will be, will, uh, be subdued. The Ruzhiner said... He finished off, and he says, "Emes is a Rosh Yotzeves of Toras Menachem Eir." When they came back to Lubavitch, they heard that the Tzemach Tzedek had said this very same Torah in Lubavitch, but he didn't say the last three, the last, uh, the punchline of Toras Menachem Eir, he didn't say. He just smiled. So there was this kind of Ruach HaKodesh connection with the Tzemach Tzedek and the, uh, and the, and the Ruzhiner. Now, I think this because it's connection to, to these Parashat. And whilst I'm telling you this, I came across in K'doshim, in Chelek Chovov. I saw it last Shabbos. How do you prod-- do you... When we say then Hashem's name, Ehye. Now, according to Ariga Moreh, Ehye is one of the Sheva Shemos Sheain L'nakrim. It's one of the seven names of Hashem which mustn't be erased, erased, et cetera. But the Rambam doesn't list it. And it looks like the Rambam holds that it is, "I will be," but it's not, not a name as such. So there's a... The Rebbe brings a note. I'm sorry I didn't prepare it, put it on the screen. The Rebbe

04:32 bring, uh, a note from, from the Chaim Vital that it, that you're allowed to pronounce the name Ehye. Now, this was for me was a Chiddush because we... And let's say Hashem Alekim, we pronounce Alekim. The Rebbe never used the term Shakai, which be Shin, Daled, Yud. Kel, yes. Um, although I never saw the Rebbe writing Kel Kuf Lamed. I find that really off-putting because it looks like Kal, which is the opposite, which is a disgrace. Um, I remem-- And then I have a note in the Siddur in Pichai Ovf's about the name Tzvios and how that we, that in Chabad, we don't hear the name, is it being pronounced Tzvokois. It's pronounced Tzvios. But I do have a note in the Siddur up there in the same place, in Pichai Ovf's as I say, that I remember hearing a recording of the Rebbe saying Shechiah. And that's why I was intrigued to see this in K'doshim where it quotes that it-it's, uh, well, one is allowed to utter the name Ehye in the normal way. I haven't r-researched it any further, so I'm gonna leave it at that. But since I'm already talking about the Inyov Emes, I'm going to skip to question nine on our s- our, our list, and that is a very sincere Hasidisha frum Yinger man. He's a Shliach Eretz Yisrael. That's as much as we're gonna identify. And someone told him, uh, he's-- he needs to raise funds for his yeshiva. Someone told him, "This and this person is

06:17 a generous person, is a g-man of means. You could approach him." And he even gave him his telephone number. But he says, "Don't tell him that I gave you his number." Okay. The Shliach calls up the person, the, uh... And the person asks him, "How did you get my number?" So he said, "Someone gave it to me. I don't remember who it is." And afterwards, he felt terrible because he'd said something which wasn't true. So he asked me, "What's, what's, what's the story now?" So I didn't, didn't give him an easy time about it because Emes is, uh... Now, truthfully, is, is it a issu deraisa to say something which isn't true? That's questionable. It's questionable because although it says midvar sheker tirchak, but that pasuk lit-literally refers to, um, halakha, sorry, refers to Eidis. Not to say Eidis, uh, sheker. But t-t-to be truthful, truthful is, is, uh, possibly a midas Emes. Uh, I heard once someone said to the Rebetzin, uh, like in jest, the likes, uh, or something, something like that to say, "No, that can't be true." And she t-took exception to this in her very ideal way. She's not sheker. She's never told a lie in her life. And, uh, so that's the midas Emes. A, a person is a medaber. The four levels of, of, uh, Briah, Adam, Tzemach, Chai, Medaber. Medaber means you have a power of influence. Medaber is also Loshon Yad B'Ramtachtenu. And so Dibur is a, a way of influence. And so Dvor Emes, if

08:17 you speak in a way of truth, then you're able to have a, have an influence. There's-- There are lie detector machines. A person says something which is untrue, and they know it's not true, it will be, it'll be something will jar inside their purse unless they're born li- you know, or w-were seasoned liars. Because this is a, this is what a person is. A person is a medaber. This is what we're, we're, Hashem created us as such. And so a medaber has to be a Dvor Emes. So, so since I've been talking about this, so we have on the screen here was the question, what's after the fact? Does the person who said a lie to someone, in this case, he told this, uh, Gvir, he told him that he forgot. Is there a chiyuv to come, go back and say, "Dvorim sh'amar ti sheker hayu," to say, "I'm sorry, I told you a lie"? So really, it doesn't seem to be the, the case. You can see here's a Sefer. I just did a bit of a search. He says, "Eli tzorich lohedi al hashomim sheshiker asher." Unless you, unless you are getting a benefit. If you... Let's say, when you said a sheker, and as a result, they're giving you covert or something or other benefits, then that's, that's, that's cheating. But if you had said something which is untrue and it's not, has no bearing, so then, then, then it's, uh, it's bein adam la'makom. It's rather than bein adam la'chaverei. So

09:49 you don't have to go and apologize, et cetera. Although, yeah, it would be, it would still, I think it would be, uh, more, more correct for the person to be moideh than, and to apologize, but not, not that there's a chiyuv min hadin, and it doesn't undo. Uh, it doesn't undo the sh- having said the sheker totally. Okay. It's, uh, it's certainly an incentive not to do it again. This is what this Sefer called Divrei Chassidim, Hilchos Issur Sheker by Reb Nachum Jabov. Actually, he's an excellent mechaber, no longer alive. Uh, he wrote a whole series of seforim on different topics called Divrei Chassidim. Um, we find the, the one which I use is on, on Hirhazavel. It's really an excellent, uh, Sefer. So he's, he's writing here that Misvara Sheker is a bein adam la'makom. And he quotes here on the low- on the note, he quotes here from the Rashash Ramo, uh, Siman Yud Aleph. He writes, "If Seferim write, if a person did say a sheker, he then he should, uh, he should say, 'I'm sorry, I, I said something wrong.'" He says it's more on a, on a Midash Chavis thing. Okay. Let's come back to our list al ha'seder. Okay. I'm gonna go back. And so question number one on our list was a simple question, the worn-out cover of the Tefillin. The Tefillin Shaliyad, does it need to go into Genizah? Does it need to be put into Shemes as such? So you've got what's called... There's two categories,

11:37 Tashmishei Mitzvah and Tashmishei Kedushah. So Tashmishei Mitzvah, we've gone to a lot of discussion about what to do with tzitzit. Can you put wrapped tzitzits and put them in the, in the g- in the rubbish, uh, et cetera, in a respectful way. Then we've got Tashmishei Kedushah. Tashmishei Kedushah means that they are part of servicing something which has Hashem's name. So the Tefillin themselves are for sure Tashmishei Kedushah. I saw some, uh... But what about the cover? To the, of this Tefillin box. So let's take a look here. It's not so clear, but here, this is a Sefer specializing in Ichaz Shemos, of k- what has to be put into Geniza, into Shemos. And he writes, "The cover of the Shaliach and the boxes which we use for covering this Tefillin," these plastic boxes, "they d- and when they are, are no longer in use, they should be put in Geniza." He, in the note of Gimel, he refers to the Shaar Hatzion in the Mishne Brurah, and he says it doesn't make a difference whether it's a Shaliach or a Shalosh. And where he challenges the words of the shal- of the Mishne Brurah, who wants to differentiate between the Shaliach and Shalosh, because the Shalosh, the box, has got Hashem's n- uh, the shin of Hashem's name, and therefore, uh, whereas the Shaliach doesn't have anything written, therefore he wants to say the Shaliach is the, is, is, is the Tashmish Hakdasha, and the box which is to protect it is called Tashmish

13:15 de Tashmish, and so one step removed. But he, he, uh, he doesn't remain that way. He says no, that the bias itself... Mishne Brurah takes the view that the bias itself is Kedushah, and therefore the, the protective cover is called Tashmish Hakdasha. Right. So yeah. So the an-answer is that it sh- this sh- if it's no longer usable, it should be put in Shemos. Right. Now, this is a question which a couple of people had this pa-point, question number two. A couple of people had this question this past Shabbos. One was rec- that they did not have a Minyan for Krias HaTorah on Shabbos morning. One was due to the inclement weather in the north of England, and therefore the people who just about make up their Minyan stayed home. And the other one was actually from Ukraine because of the, uh, power cuts and this and that. So as a result, they did not have a Minyan for Shacharis. And I'm gonna f- th-th-in this second Shailah, and the, uh, the tenth man came eventually after the Davened Shacharis, and they've already did Krias HaTorah, as in from a Chumash, and then they did Mussaf, and then they did Mincha. And after Mincha, Mr. N-number 10 arrives. So what do, what do we do with Krias HaTorah? That was their question. Now, the... I can go back to the north of England question. Do you have to make up the following week? Now, the way the Sharia frame specializes in Krias HaTorah, he takes

14:55 the view that the need to make up the next week is when the Krias HaTorah for the past week, there were 10 people, but there, there was some mighty argument in the shul, and they couldn't get their act together, and they didn't do Krias HaTorah. Afterwards, they calmed down. It was already the afternoon or next week. But if there was no Minyan, he says, there's no need, no, no Chiyuv to have Krias HaTorah if there's no Minyan. So there's no Chiyuv. There's no need to be Mashlim, to make up, if there was no Chiyuv in the first place. Having said that, not everyone agrees with that, and some people will. So the Shliach in north England, I s- I said that you have to assess the, the, um, the ca-capabilities of your community, whether they could hope, uh, can manage with the Humra of doing a double Krias HaTorah of, uh, Shemos and Vaera. But coming back to the story in, in Ukraine. So as I said, they did not have Krias HaTorah in the morning, and it's now after Mincha. So here, the Sharia frame quotes the Chiddush in Birkei Yosef and in Chaim Shoal, where he wants to take the view that after Mincha, it's no longer time for the Shacharis Kriya because it's already time for the Mincha Kriya. In the morning, we read, let's say, we read Parashat Shemos. In the afternoon, after Mincha, it's, or du-during Mincha, it's Parashat Vaera. And he wants to say, even if you just said

16:32 Ashrei V'HaLetzion, no one's worried. Let's say it's two o'clock in the afternoon, when you could have Mincha, no one says you can't make up for Krias HaTorah for Shacharis, as far as I can see. But once you've already said Ashrei V'HaLetzion, so you've got, you've geared up for Mincha, then he says, well, if it's Mincha time, you can't do, you can't make up the, uh, the missing Kriya for the morning. That's, that's the Chiddush view. But here on the screen, we have from the Dagul Merivavah, from the Noideh B'Yehudah. His ma- his comments on the margin of the Shulchan Aruch, this is in Siman Kuf Lamed He. So you got Eichas Krias HaTorah is a little bit in Eichas Shabbos, um, Reish Peh Gimel approximately Reish Peh Daled. And then the main long discussion about Krias HaTorah is in the Kuf Lameds, Kuf Lamed, uh, Gimel onwards in, in, uh, Arachim, co- through the Me'am Loez. Okay. So he writes the following. This is the Noideh B'Yehudah in the Dagul Merivavah in Kuf Lamed He. That if they missed Krias HaTorah at Shacharis, u'veMincha k'var mot tzemanucha, the, uh, tempers had calmed down, and by Mincha, they were able to do Krias HaTorah. So he says, if they have the time to do the whole Sidrah, so that at Mincha they should read the entire Sidrah and call of the morning. They should, in other words, they should read the whole of Parashat Shemos. And he, very beautiful, he writes, Ki kol yom haShabbos hu

18:08 zman haKriya. That the whole of Shabbos Shemos, including the afternoon, is the zman haKriya for Parashat Shemos. The fact that you do also, uh, uh- Parshas Va'era at Mincha doesn't detract from the definition that the entire day of Shabbos is the zman hakriah of the, of the kriah of that Shabbos. And he... Right. So now he says, if even at Mincha, lo yahaya lahem menuchah. So he doesn't talk about the possibility that they daven Mincha and then to do it after Mincha. He just talks about if they didn't manage to get their act together that Mincha either, should they be on Mondays or Thursdays doing the, the missed Krias HaTorah of the past Shabbos? And he says, "No, that's not okay," because it sh- that's gonna be a major disruption to Melacha. People have to go to work, and they just do the, the, uh, first hilchani of the Sab- the following Shabbos. And he has another nice line here. Ein dochein dover shezmanoi oz b'pnei dover shekvar ovazmanoi. You wouldn't push aside, uh, uh, Kriah of, of Va'era to make up for something from which was missed in Parshas Shos. If it's w- either/or, he says, you do the one which is called for now. Then he also says, if you're gonna start doing on a, on a, on a Monday morning or Thursday morning, and you're just gonna use last week's Sedra, then that's really gonna confuse people 'cause they're gonna know whether what's going on here, which Sedra is it, and so

19:52 on. He does have a bit more. So he, uh, as I say, he doesn't, he doesn't t-talk about doing it after Mincha, but he did say this, this, this f- line, kol ha'yom haShabbos hu zman hakriah. Now, then on the, the bottom of the page, and this, this is from the She'ar Tzion. And he's talking about this situation, and he says that if you, if they didn't manage to do Krias HaTorah in the morning, but it's now the afternoon, ve'yikreu ha'sedar shel Shacharis. Be-- You should do the Shacharis, the seven aliyas should be before Mincha, then do Asher Yatzar, and then do Kriah of Mincha. Kein nirali, which is, uh, sounds very nice. Right. Makes a lot of sense, and you ma- you made a pause. So he doesn't say it's ma'akiv, but he says that that's his advice. Here, but they... in this case, where they didn't, uh, uh, it's not, they didn't, uh, uh, read before Mincha, they didn't have a minyan. I'd still think that, uh, to do Krias HaTorah of Shacharis, but then to do Mincha also, that I find a bit funny because then it's seems to be a, a bit of a, a clash between the two in yoniym. You've just lain... You've just said, kol ha'yom hu zman kriah of, of, of, of Shos. So then you're gonna do Va'era. Although you can say, well, perhaps do just Va'era, as he said, ein dochein dover shezmanoi oz b'pnei dover shekvar ovazmanoi. But there'll be agmas nefesh. People say,

21:29 we missed out a whole week's Krias HaTorah. So I'm more note it, it's not, it's not during Sh- Mincha. Then you have to read Parshas Va'era. It is after Mincha. Okay? So unrelated to, to be mashlim the past parsha, but I don't think to do both Sedra-- uh, both ha'shlom of Shacharis and ha'shlom of Mincha. Let's move on to the next question. That is, a shliach is very excited. They've got a project of a, a new building, and chayif ol of kol ha'yom. He's thinking about this building. It's a major occu-- or preoccupying his mind. And is he allowed to look at the plans on Shabbos? Is he allowed to show to family? Is he allowed to show to visitors? Can you display the plans on the wall? So this here is actually this, uh, a little bit of, uh, should we say two things. One is about shtaru hediyatus. One should not be reading mundane stuff on Shabbos. And they are building this, he's talking about melacha, so one shouldn't really be reading such material on Shabbos. Then there's a separate thing of, of discussing, discussing building projects on Shabbos. Now, there is a, uh, concept, hafrotzecha asurim. Yeah. Mitposek Yeshai, mimtzo hafrotzecha, hafrotzecha asurim, hefetz shomayim mutarim. Those who say zmirus, they will remember this loshon, um, hafe-- and the way it says, l'shabeach habonas. So, so hafrotze-- hefetz shomayim amutar. Is that a free-for-all, or is it only subject in need? So I think I saw this from the Shemiras Shabbos KeHilchasa,

23:34 but this is the reference. There's a Sefer called Nezer Yisroel, Likutey Rimon. It was-- it seems to have been almost as popular as She- Shemiras Shabbos KeHilchasa in the pre-war era. And so he writes the following. Hefetz shomayim, mutar ledaber bohem beShabbos, k'keday hefsek mitzvah. Yeah. Vechein mutar lifsek zochr la'ani. You're allowed to make an appeal and allocate money for ani, for the poor, to talk about shidduchim, et cetera. Even, uh, and, uh, and also about teaching children, even to teach them a trade or a vocation is also allowed to discuss at Shabbos. All of this is considered mitzvah. If a person doesn't have an income, they'll become, uh, dishonest and steal, et cetera. Very good. Okay. Then, but he has in the note an important point. Af al pi she'eino tzorech hayom, you can discuss these mitzvah, um, accounts, even though it's not needed for today. Then he says, b'ta'aras Shabbos o toeles Shabbos kosa, davka ki sheyes tzorech bedibure hayom. You can discuss this kind of thing if there's a need to discuss it today. Kol hahochi, osro afil uledvar mitzvah. So let's say we sell aliyas in a shul. Ah, you can make a sale, and you can sell them earlier, but the people are not there. So you can do... That's why you're allowed to sell aliyas. It's tzorech mitzvah. You want to make an appeal for a communal need, and you want to do that appeal on Shabbos. Why are you doing it on Shabbos? Because that's when you have

25:13 the... all the people are there. So you want to, um, uh, utilize the opportunity. So that's okay. I would even say this, I'm not so sure, yeah. To have the plans on this-- on the wall hanging up in this current Chabad house, the plans for the coming Chabad house. So as far as Chef Se Shama, you could say people are coming. All right, interest. Interest, participate, uh, contribute. But does that also allow Sheta Hadyetes? After all, this is a plan. It's a building plan. So I'm not sure whether the Tzorchi Rabim was-- it would be a heter to read Sheta Hadyetes. What I'm, what I'm certainly, what I'm quite confident, though, is that for yourself and for your family, that they, they shouldn't be looking at those things on Sha-on Shabbos because there's no urgency. All right? So something on your mind, you'll keep it in your mind somehow till the end of Shabbos and deal with it after Shabbos. But it should be... Uh, they shouldn't be consulting, looking at those plans on Shabbos. Let's move on. So someone shared this with me. Is it here? Uh, so... Oh, sorry, it's not. It doesn't somehow, not saved over here. About at a bris. So at the bris, there's, uh, we have for benching, we, uh, we use a kos, a cup of wine. And then towards the end of benching, by the, uh, before, uh, Harachaman hu yizakeinu after Mimorim, we add six stanzas of Harachaman. And what's become quite popular is you share

27:01 them out. There's you say this one, this one, this one, this one. One is the brachah for the mohel, one is the brachah for the sandek, one is the brachah for the avi abin, and one is, uh, et cetera. And so it's common to give them out. So someone sent me a copy of it, very much a contemporary Sefer, to say that there's no, no point in sharing the c-passing the cup around when the brachah, when the Harachaman is being said. It's not a... Benching is, um, benching is al ha-kos. Sheva berachot can only be said with a cup of wine, and therefore the cup of wine is passed around because it's, uh, ein moshirain al hayayin. But Harachaman has got nothing to do with the kos, and therefore there's no need to pass around the cup for Harachaman's. It can just stay where it is, and by the one who's lea-leading the benching, and after Harachaman's are over, and then after, um, the full benching is finished, then, uh, then the one who's leading the benching will make a berachah, and afterwards, whoever wants to have kesher berachah is welcome to. Let's go on to the next question. That's question number five. We had a ba-cake baking in the oven on Erev Shabbos, on Friday. At lichting-- at licht zinden, I checked the cake. I put in a toothpick or something, and it was still moist inside. So the question is, is he allowed to leave the peg-- uh, cake to bake? Uh, let's

28:36 say the oven has a timer, it'll switch off an hour later. Is he allowed to leave the cake to bake into Shabbos? And number b, if, if, if he weren't allowed to, would the cake be mukza for the rest of Shabbos? So the, the rule here is that you're allowed to, you're allowed to have semi-cooked food without a blech, provided it's mevushal kmachol b'derabbonon. I've told this story before, but I'll tell you the story again. I once came to Manchester on a, in a, uh... It was a winter Shabbos. And the boy who was in charge of the kitchen for that Shabbos, this is many years ago, the boy who was in charge, he realized a half an hour before Shabbos that the soup for Friday night was actually sitting snugly in the freezer, a block of ice. So he whipped it out of the freezer, put on big fire, highest flame. It comes the time of licht zinden, and it's still ice is swimming there. So he switched it off for a boy, and the boys didn't have soup for that Shabbos. Now, truth is that he could have left it, he could have left it on the flame, provided the flame is covered. So with a blech, you're allowed to leave raw food because of the i-issue of Shema Yahata, that you might come to tamper with the, the flame, et cetera. But if the blech covers you for that. So he would be allowed to leave it there. One thing I would

30:17 say is if someone lifted the lid and it wasn't fully hot, they would not be allowed to put the lid back on again. So it's not a good idea to rely on this. But they could have left the soup on a high flame, um, until, till the time of the meal. And, uh, what happens afterwards? Well, if they, if they were concerned that there's any hazard, they could ask a goy to lower the flame, et cetera. But it-- That's, that's, that's with a blech. So the blech allows you chazarah. The l-blech allows you to leave uncooked foods to cook. But even withou-without a blech, if the food is more than ma'achal b'derabbonon, you are allowed to leave it, uh, on the, on the flame And that's for cooking. What's the parallel for c-- for baking? To say it's already marach b'derasoi, and it's lo is ha, semi-cooked, therefore, we can leave it to bake. So the definition given in Shechinat Olam is, "Yikore mu poneo hamudbok-- havlibok betano," that the surface which is stuck to the oven has become crispy. Now, this perhaps is not so easy to establish, but here, uh, the cake was crispy on the surface. Every likelihood, it was crispy at the bottom. The fact that you put your... a match in and it came out moist, which means it's still moist inside, then still I would say that the c-cake was already m-kevahel, was, was already ha-half-baked. And I understand that some people actually enjoy the taste of cake which

32:06 is still not totally, uh, baked on the inside, a little, a little creamy. So it's past kevahel b'derasoi. It's past chatsi afiyoso, and therefore, they could y- have left it to bake, uh, fully into Shabbos since it was already half-cooked before Shabbos. I say this because to... how do you do the equivalent of a blech in an oven? That's a little bit, bit awkward. But I'm saying even without being blech, without a gruf uktumo, uh, since it's already halfway there, you could leave it where it is. Now, two similar questions to, to... Well, now, and here was in a... from a different part of the world. And he says, like he writes to me, he writes to me in Ivrit, but so not sure where it's from. But he, he's, he's wanted to set up the sh- the kiddush just before Shkia. It was not a special Shabbos, as in a bar mitzvah or someone has sponsored a major thing. But just it's nice to have a three... He whipped out five minutes before the zman. He whipped out a, a cholent which was sitting in the freezer, and he put it in a crock pot, and he took out a coa- a kugel, switched on the electric hot plate, and he put the kugel on the hot plate, put some water also so that it should, uh, shouldn't, it shouldn't burn it, the, the kugel. And then he had second thoughts during Shabbos, and he then removed everything. He removed the foods. He was

33:39 thinking that that was not allowed, what, what he did. So, so we've got here two things. One is the cholent, the frozen cholent, which had been put into a crock pot, and the other one was a c- a, a fully cooked kugel, but frozen, put onto a hot plate. So here you have on the screen from the Sefer of Rav Forcash, Shabbos Ha'alochah. I think it's Peh Ches. So he says the following, that a stove which has no, uh, no adjustments, as, uh, it's, it-- there's no, there's no knob to make it lower or higher. That's not so common, but the elec- the plug-in Shabbos hot plates are such that they don't have any controls. So then he says, there's no worry of shemirat haten. Now, what's the, the, the concern that you might ca-- start tampering with it? It's, it's... There's nothing to tamper. And then... And you're allowed to... So the plug-in hot plate, which has no control knobs, then you could take the kugels from the freezer just before Shabbos, put it on it, and it'll, it'll warm up for Shabbos. With the water, it's, it's, it's okay because it's, it's the equivalent of a blech. So as I just said, with a blech, you can even put raw food on for it before Shabbos, and so that would be okay. The crock pot, though, had, uh, had contro- has a control knob. High, medium, low. That's where you have a problem of gruf uktumo. It's not where, it's not gruf uktumo,

35:30 because the, the, the fire, the, the ha- has to be covered. And so to just put the raw cholent or the frozen cholent, which effectively is raw then, to put it into the, uh, crock pot, uh, which has got adjustment knobs, then you would... that would not be okay. And he, he writes, even if you cover the knobs, that doesn't matter. Let me just explain something. Rabbeinu Yonah Feinstein does say that the knobs of a, a cooker for Shabbos, that you have to cover the knobs. That's, that's his chumra. But really, going back to the original, the original concern of shemirat haten, going back five hundred years ago, a thousand years ago, you got a stove, which was like a, a, a deep pot, and you got some coals at the bottom, and you use a stick to stir them, and you have to keep on stirring. That's how they, how cooking used to be. There was a continual poking necessary. And so now, the Hakham tell us you have to cover that, gruf uktumo, that you should be... Uh, remind yourself you're not going to poke it over Shabbos. So there, the controls and the fire were in the same place. Now, the poking space and the fire space is the same thing. Comes along electric cookers, and you've got poking spaces on the... by the knobs. Fire is, is, is, is somewhere else, so they have been separated. So which needs to be covered, the knobs or the fire? So as Rabbeinu Hillel,

37:08 Zal Sangerson, he says, "We have to... We really can-" You could say the whole business that you might come to start tampering is a little bit obsolete because we don't have a live fire as such that you have to tamper with it, you have to poke it. You just leave it alone, and it happens. But we have Kabbalah soil. Chazal said you have to cover the fire, you have to cover the fire. But you have to cover the fire. They didn't say you have to cover the, the control-- the poker or the control knob. So, so the control knob is a hedor to cover. It certainly does not substitute for covering the fire. Yeah? And therefore, to put raw food in a slow cooker before Shabbos is not okay unless you have some kind of grufa ktuma, a substitute. And what is the recommended, which you could have done, take a sheet of silver foil and make a thin lining of the outer housing of the... In other words, the, the crock pots have this outer housing made of metal, and the inner is a ceramic, uh, insert. So if you put a sheet of silver foil inside the outer-- to line the outer housing, then you could put the ceramic pot inside that lining, and that's called grufa-- that's called ktuma because you've covered the source of heat. Now, so he says quite clearly that the c- the covering the knob doesn't help where grufa ktuma is called for. Now, coming back to something

38:45 which we discussed a few months ago. Can I put up cold water just before Shabbos and let it heat? There's a, there's a shliach. He wants to... He doesn't... He's there in the morning. He doesn't want, he wants, doesn't want to come too early. Uh, he's got other sin things to do. Can he come ten minutes before Shabbos, pour in cold water, and, and then, uh, leave it to cook, to boil into Shabbos? So if it's got no knobs, the answer is yes. If it does have a control knob, then the answer is no. Because he, he, he, what Rav Fokach is saying here is that the control knobs, covering the control knobs does not substitute for the need for grufa ktuma. So to, uh... But if the water was half hot, half heated, perhaps you could say then, you know, of, um, ma, uh, we had to learn this, but I thought you have of malchum and rasoi, but it was totally cold water at the onset of Shabbos. That would not be okay. Right. Now, if we've gone through that before, just come back again. Right. Then we have here a question. A-- In a certain Chabad house, they're making a ladies event. And so maybe at the Neviim, everything has to be connected with a gash mizuka thing. Here also, they want to make a gash mizuka thing, a takeaway from the event. So they're going to have, uh, every woman's gonna be given, uh, a decorative bottle, and there's gonna be

40:20 a supply of olive oil, and they're going to be taught how to add various ingredients, spices to the olive oil. And then they'll take home this oil inside this bottle. And the question is, do the organizers have to see that all these bottles should be toveled before the event? That was the question. So now what you have on the screen is from a Sefer called Psakim and Shuves, kind of very much a contemporary Sefer, and here is in the Dinim of Tefillas Keilim. So he writes, "Keilim which are there just for storage, and it's not that you eat directly from them. They would be passed-- The food would be passed to another Keilim. So some call these klei seudah, that they do have to be toveled because they hold water, foo- hold food. Others say no, since you, you don't eat directly from them, and they're not also used for preparation." So let's say if you had a, a mallet, which, which you use for beating, uh, chicken breast or something, that would nee-need to have a tevila because it's used in preparing food, but this is just storage. Therefore, so it's a, a storage of supplies in the kitchen. Says the Maharlikus, "And therefore, they should be toveled without a bracha. But those Keilim, which are also used for serving to the table, storage Keilim, which are brought to the table, like a bottle, a jug, a tray, a tray which is used for actually for the actual food, not for just for dishes."

41:58 And what I found re-relevant to our discussion, malchiya, which means a salt cellar, a salt shaker. So the-- this is the closest I could think of. A salt shaker is brought to the table. You don't eat from the salt shaker, but it's brought to the table, and it's used to enhance the, the food. So I was thinking about this bottle of olive oil, which may be brought to the table. It's a decorative bottle. It may be used by people at the table to add a little bit of oil and flavor to their salads. Well, that would make it called klei seudah, and therefore, they should be toveled with a bracha. So again, the-- this little bottle of oil, which is flavored oil s- with seasoning, which would be, would be brought to the table, should be the same as, uh, as a salt shaker, which should be toveled with a bracha if it's made of, uh, metal or made of glass. Um, whereas if it were a storage container, let's say you've got, uh, a sugar canister, a coffee canister, a bread bin, those things which are used for storage but not brought to the table, then he says they should be toveled without a bracha. Right. What else do we have? One, I think we have one last thing. Oh, this is the Harachaman which I shared, told with you. I told you about sharing the cup, but it's not necessary. It says, "Mepashut yesh toras beminhag ze," because Harachaman does not need to

43:30 have a kos, so don't compare it to Sheva Berachot. So we went through that before. Right. Now... So two, two, two more things, and that is, you remember we had this discussion based upon this Sefer Bechadrei Serasecha, uh, Rebbe Gruner's correspondence, so to speak, with the Rebbe, and the editors had put a title, Staka Lifnei Ma'ariv, and I'd taken exception because that was not the Rebbe's intent to say that you should give Staka before Ma'ariv. It was more the Rebbe was saying when you have a special event, so you can... Also you should incorporate Staka, um, but not, not as a regular thing because we know that the Rebbe, as a practice, did not give Staka before Ma'ariv. So I wrote this up and, uh, published in the Ohr HaSavuyrim. So someone sent me the following, uh, addition. So this is from Taf Shin Mem He. And the Rebbe revisits this. This is also in Elul time. I think it's Erev Rosh Hashana even. When the Rebbe says this in parentheses, "Umem komersh nis bay apam baruch shehadin beshu chanorach." As it was ex-explained, discussed once at length, that which it says in Shemonah Esrei to give Staka before davening was said for Shacharis and Mincha and not for Ma'ariv. Now, remarkably, the editors do not give a reference, bay apam baruch. When did the Rebbe discuss this? And I suspect that this is actually referring to the same Sifra which we discussed last time, Taf Shin-- Elul Taf Shin Lamed Daled. And the Rebbe

45:21 had discussed the topic at length, and perhaps it's not... Wasn't so clear to the reader, but in the Rebbe's mind that he, he had then said that it's not appropriate to give, to, to... Not appropriate to establish a minig to give Staka before Ma'ariv. If there's a special need, an exceptional need, yes, but not to make it into a minig because it doesn't fit with Kesiv HaArizal. Right. Um, so this is, as you can see, it's on the screen, Toras Menachem Taf Shin Mem He, towards the end of the Sefer. Finally, someone gave me the following feedback about adding Aliyas. So if you remember what was the dilemma, um, oh, what had happened was that Shavuot Hanukkah and they had made six Aliyas in the first Sefer Torah until that, until Shvi. What do you do with the last from Sh- from Shvi till the end when the seventh Aliyah should be called up into the Sefer Rashadish. And it's discussed how Chabad generally do not do Heichalofis based upon Tzemach Tzedek, et cetera, which is definitely true, true. And as you read also, now we're leading up to Yut Zvat, the famous letter of the Rebbe about the various Halachas for Shabu- for Shvu- Yut Zvat and the Shavuot before Yut Zvat. And the Rebbe says to make multiple Minyanim, but not to do Heichalofis. So Chabad meaning not to do Heichalofis. So someone writes to me that... Friediger had about three daughters. The eldest was married to the Rashag, the second one was

47:07 the Rebbe's wife, and the youngest, her name was Shaina, and, uh, she got married to Reb Mendel Horenstein, a Kohen. Uh, both of them, um, were killed in, in Treblinka, um, concentration camp. Um, at any rate, when, when they got married, so the Shabbos, the Shabbos before, Shabbos after, but the, the Choson, he was a Kohen. And, uh, his, his father actually was also a Kohen, yeah. So he was a-- His father was a son-in-law of the Rebbe Maharash. And so the Shabbos, they gave the Choson to be called up for Kohen. The Rebbe, as in Chabad, or it was the Minich, the Rebbe had Maftir. So then what does the Mechutan have? So the Rebbe had Maftir as he has every week. The Mechutan was a Kohen. So they added another Aliyah at the end, Acharon. And Acharon, after Shvi, Acharon can be given also to a, to a Kohen. So here you have that it was done. So what do we respond to this? So first of all, we have a clear guidance from the Rebbe that we don't do after Heichalofis. What happened then is doesn't have any bearing on what we do. We do what we're told to do. Possibly also, Reb Mendel Horenstein and his father, Reb Moshe Horenstein, they weren't of, um, Lubavitch origin. They were from Polish origin. This is mentioned in passing when this, uh, about the saying the Nosi. So we also say, "Yehi Ratzon." In Hayom Yom it says that even a Levi or a

48:58 Kohen also should say the Nosi, as it was the Rebbe Rashab told his, uh, told Reb Mendel Horenstein, Reb Moshe Horenstein, although he's a Kohen, should still say the Yehi Ratzon. Now, actually, the Sharu- the Shara Kohelet, um, he brings, he brings the saying the Yehi Ratzon with the Nosi. It looks like it wasn't so standard, and the Rebbe Rashab is, is quoted as saying, "We don't say the N- we don't say the... We say the Nosi, we don't say the Yehi Ratzon." And, uh, so the fact that Reb Mendel Horenstein or Moshe Horenstein was told to say it because they weren't, uh, from Lubavitch origin. So in their Minich, there was-- their Kehillah they say the Yehi Ratzon after the Nosi, so he should also say it. So that's possibly why, since by his Minich it is acceptable to do, um, an extra Aliyah. So to accommodate him, they made an extra Aliyah for the, for the Mechutan. Any rate, the, the Meise, we just follow, as I said, what we were told and what's, uh, certainly Minchah Chabad is, uh, we don't do Heichalofis, and so, yeah. That's as much as I have to share with you for today, and I wish you, uh, for my part, a Gut Shabbos, and for your part, Avodah, and, uh, thank you for participating and for all the encouraging feedback. And, uh,