יתרו תשפ״ו

00:00 Now, good evening. Welcome to tonight's Shiur. Motzaei Shabbos, Parashat Yisro. And start off with a maise, which I heard today by a fabrengen. We had a guest in Stafford Hill, a Blazek, um, Blazek Edelman. He told the following story. That, I guess recently, this, uh, Shliach in Tzfat by the name of Rabbi Yankel Reitzis. And one of his sons, lives in Holon, was approached by a couple if he would officiate for their wedding, which is gonna take place in Haifa. He said okay, and the documentation went through Rabbonu Torah Shead, and it was all fine. And so he comes on the set day, and he comes to Haifa, to a kosher restaurant with a good hashgachah, to fo-perform this wedding. He was, he looked at the kallah, he wasn't convinced. She didn't look so Jewish, but she was past Rabbonu Torah Shead, so okay. And then it looks like people who are not so terribly religious. Then as they're kind of preparing to get to, to go to the wedding, a van arrives, and a father and four sons arrive from Harnof. He had a big beard, and they all, all are holding their Gemaras, not to waste a spare minute. Turns out that these are the brothers and the father of the choson. And a quiet moment before the wedding, the father speaks to Rabbi, the, uh, this young Rabbi Reitzis, and he says, "I'm sure this wedding is happening bizchos the Lubavitcher Rebbe." He's interested. So because this boy had been in one

02:08 of the top bochurim in Mir. But then something happened, and he s-snapped, whatever, and he went off to America. And, uh, he was mamash meshal pachthis, whatever he was involved with. And the fact that he's getting married with a chuppah ve-kidushin is a, is nothing short of a miracle. And he attributes this to Lubavitcher Rebbe. Why so? So he says, the father says, "My mother worked as a secretary for Rabbi JJ Hecht in, in New York. And going back years, it was a time where there was going to be like BeMe parade. And she was, it was, it was working day and night. It was like, uh, very, very hectic till the, till the parade happened. And I actually was a young boy, and I passed by the Rebbe. As would be, the Rebbe would view all the children passing by, and the Rebbe waved to me." And he believes that this zechus of his mother being so devoted to the Rebbe's activities, so the Rebbe look after his son to bring him back, uh, get married with chuppah ve-kidushin. Very nice. Meanwhile, the son, the choson says to Rabbi Reitzis, he says, "By the chuppah, you do all the kibudim. You do this berachos erusin. You read the ketubah. You read all the seven berachos afterwards. Don't give it to anyone else." So it looks like, you know, there was a tension then regardless. Then, "I'll tell you a story afterwards." That's what the choson says. Okay. He operate, he, um, um, officiates, runs

03:42 the chasuna. After the chuppah is over, the choson tells him, "As you may know, that I'm, this is my mishpacha, and I went all the way, uh, away from Yiddishkeit. And I, in part of that hefkelus, I had to do with several, um, women at different times. And then I met this woman, and we were living together. And then I had a dream, and it was, I saw the Lubavitcher Rebbe in the dream. Now, although we didn't have pictures of Lubavitcher Rebbe in our house, it wasn't amenach. But, uh, of course, I recognized who it was." And he says, "It's pashtish a Jewish boy and a Jewish girl should be living together without chuppah ve-kidushin. Now, he, I didn't know that she was Jewish. And then this... I'm sorry, I just missed the dream. She saw I was a little bit anxious, but I said, "It's nothing." I had the dream three times. And so then I shared it with her. And then we decided, "Okay, we're going to get married properly with a chu- with a proper chuppah," despite everything else. But they, they made this, uh, they, and they made the chasuna in, uh, Tzfat, and this was the chasuna. So one of the points that she wanted to, Rabbi Edelman wanted to bring out is that the Rebbe b'achai v'rabotai, the Rebbe doesn't remain in debt. You do something for Rebbe, Rebbe will find a way of, uh, rewarding you for your, uh, commitment. Okay. So now we have a very interesting

05:21 question, a very practical question, and it comes to holding the Lechem Mishneh, uh, on Shabbos. Someone asked me to try to make a shtikel klreich to clarify how it goes, what's going on here. So here we have a letter of the Rebbe on the top of the screen. "Oifn hanochos haLechem Mishneh v'leit Shabbos u'l'mocharat. How are you meant to hold the two loaves of the two challahs Friday night and Su- and Shabbos morning?" Not Shabbos morning in Lubavitch. By the time you get to there, it's, uh, it's afternoon, but fine. Um, so beleil Shabbos, uh, the night of Shabbos, zoi eitz al zoi. You hold the two loaves next to one another. Well, lamocharot, so in the following day, Shabbos by day, ba'yom ha'shalchi halah mi yemin tihye lemala uksas al ha'shnia, that the ri-right challah should be slightly higher than the left challah. So this is a letter of the Rebbe with no references. Now, it published in the Shulchan Aruch, and so the notes which you can see, which are on, on the page, which we'll come back to in a moment, they are from the Shulchan Aruch, which is a collection of all, most of the Rebbe, Rebbe's letters of Halakha and Minhag. Okay, but let's... Before we go to the Shulchan, the, those notes, we're going to look at what's written in Shulchan Aruch. So Siman Resh Ayin Daled tells us, Shulchan Aruch tells us, Zohar beYosef Caro, that you should, uh, beitzey ha'shtei kikris shleimus, you should break bread from

07:06 two whole loaves. Sheuchas shnei beyada, and when you say the bracha, you hold, hold both of them. Uveitzei'ah tachtono, you should break off from the lower one. Now, I'm just wondering, I think by the Sefardim it's quite popular to have round, flat, kind of pancake type of challahs. Not very flat, but, uh, it could be about an inch high. Could be that's the kind of loaf they had, and you'd have the two challahs, and you'd break off from the lower challah. On this, the Rama adds, vedavka beleilei Shabbos, the breaking off of the lower challah is davka the night of Shabbos, aval beyoma Shabbos, uh, beleilei Yom Tov. But then day, Shabbos day, or for that matter, even Yom Tov by night, beitzey al ha'alyono, veha'atam hu al derech hakabbalah. Now, this is so interesting. We're looking at Shulchan Aruch, and both the Rama says kabbalah, and the mechaber here doesn't say. I mean, Beth Yosef, he says, "Al pi kabbalah," but they do not explain the, ha-kabbalah reasons. Uh, I guess they trust those who understand kabbalah will know anyways. But so here we have al pi niglah. This is curious. It's niglah based on kabbalah, yeah . So al pi niglah, you're meant to hold the two loaves, one on top of the other, and break off the lower one by night. By day, you break off the upper one. So that is what we have al pi niglah, and now we're going g-back to what we have. No. No, that's not that.

08:40 Here we go. And then we have what the Rebbe is saying, to hold Friday night the two challahs, not one on top of the other, but parallel, back to back. He doesn't say that in detail, but we'll come to that. And by day, the right challah should be slightly higher. Now, this interest was triggered because of the Torah Or two weeks ago. Well, let's take a look at the Torah Or, where he says the following. Towards the end of Parshat Beshalach, where we have, uh, story of the mon, et cetera. Achar zer kol zer we understand the meaning of shtei halechem b'Shabbos. Al pi nigleh, tzorch la'aniach zoi al gavei zoi, which should be one on top of the other. And that's what we just saw. He means al pi nigleh, but it's written in Shulchan Aruch one on top of the other. Because, because a nigleh is beb'chinas hishtalshelus b'chinas ohr yashar. In kabbalah, we have two forms of ohr. One is called ohr yashar. It's coming in a direct form. And then there's another form, which is ohr chozer, which is a reflective light, which is un-un, is understand, understood as a higher level, more makif. But meanwhile, so he says al pi nigleh is there's the upper and the lower, that's ohr yashar, and that's the way of hishtalshelus. There's a higher and a lower, cause and effect, et cetera. B'chinas nister, but on, from the aspect of nister or b'chinas ohr chozer, we're talking about a much higher light, which is

10:09 a reflective light, and talks about makif haklali. And therefore, al pi nister, the two challahs should be zoi b'tzad zoi. They should be sheteiem beshovah. The two challahs should be equal. And that's true. Yesh kalalus makif ma'aleh u'mateh shavin. The two challahs have to be equal. There's no upper and lower. They're both parallel. Then he quotes here from the Kutateirim about having the two challahs achereihem haboiso. That means the bottom of the challahs are held back to back. Apneihem chutz, l'chutz li is kulu uponim, as if it's got just a face, it doesn't have a back. That's similar to, uh, I saw in the, in kabbalah, and they bring about lechem haponim. The lechem haponim has, had two faces on either side, from the front and from the back, it had two faces. So we hold the two challahs as if we've got two faces and there's no back. The back is hidden. Then he quotes from the Chassidim Dach, holding the two lechem, same idea, having them back to back, and they should be parallel. And the source is Pri Chadash, et cetera. Okay. Very well. So we have here that in, uh, Torah Or, he talks about having the two loaves parallel. Good. Very good. So that we understand what the Rebbe says, beleil Shabbos zoi eitz al zoi. The question which this ingeman had to me was, I understand that, but how come that Shabbos by day, the rules are slightly different? The right challah should be higher. Because generally, the general

11:48 drift in Chassidus is that Friday night is a lower kedusha. It's a Shabbos, uh, to negate the, the weekday, and Shabbos by day is a higher kedusha. It's, it, it's Shabbos, a coalition, whatever the language is. So his question was, how come- That Shabbos by day, if the reason for having the two challas parallel is got to do with ohr chozer and makiv, and that's the, um, atmosphere for Shabbos. It's such a high exposure of, of a makif, whatever the pshat is. How come by day it seems to be less? It seems to be like ohr yoshve by day and by night, ohr chozer, which that's-- that doesn't fit with the general drift that by day is a higher, um, ohr than by night. That is his question, which I'm afraid I'm not going to give you an adequate answer, but I'm gonna still try to explore the, the, the topic. So let's take a look here. What we have on the screen is from the Kaf HaChaim, which the Kaf HaChaim is... lived, what is this? Eight years ago. And he, he was Melachim. He brought a lot of Kabbalah stuff from The Arizal, from Chizne Arizal. And now, the Arizal taught to have actually twelve challahs for your sha- for your Shabbos meal. All three meal- all three meals should have twelve challahs. And there are some rebbes today who have that minhag. Apparently, the minhag of doing challahs, um, braiding challahs with three braids, three, three, um, strands, and then an upper

13:32 layer. So in effect, you've got six s-strands in those challahs. That style of making challahs with six strands is meant to be reminiscent of the Inyan of, uh, Sheolechem, where you have the two... Sorry, not Sheolechem, of Lechem HaPanim, where you've got the s- two stacks of, of, of, of, uh, loaves, six and six. So, so the, the Lezecher, you have this minhag of braiding the challahs with six strands. But coming back, the Arizal talks about having literally, let's say, twelve bagels. And you have them positioned in a certain way with, uh, two seguls, et cetera. Then he says, you take from the central ones, which are double-decker, you pick up the right middle one and the left middle one, and you pr- bring them together back to back. And then he goes on, he says, the two lower loaves on the middle, they are correspondent to the two letters of He of Hashem's name. The two upper loaves you're holding in your hand, they correspond to Yud and Vav. So you've got the masculine, the feminine. The ones you're holding in your hand are masculine. The ones which are, which are on the table are the feminine. And then he says, you should break off from the first, from the w- from the right challah, and he's, um... You break off the first piece, you break off a kazais, and that's for yourself, and that's correspondent to the Yud of Hashem's name. And then you break off a second piece, and that's a kebeitzah,

15:07 the size of an egg, and that you should give to your wife, and that's correspondent to the Ois Vav of Hashem's name. Sorry, here he says something different. He says, yes, yeah, but that, that's... We'll, we'll come to that. Um, that's talking about when you only have two challahs. All right. But there is this Inyan which we say also in, in, in the, uh, piyut, you know, Azamrebishochen. To break bread, keve- kazais and a kebeitzah. And so it says very clear that you should give first the kazais for yourself, then the kebeitzah to your wife. And you see what he emphasizes here. Even there is someone quite chashuv at your table, you didn't shou- shouldn't give him f- before your wife because you want to-- don't want to separate between the kazais and the kebeitzah. Here he talks about the two Yuds of, of, of, of Havay and Adni, but actually... So we have this Inyan of, al pi Arizal, of having the two loaves of bread, bringing them, as we said, back to back together. Um, I'm just gonna go to the next slide, and this is also from the Kaf HaChaim, where he writes the following. Reb Shmuel Vital, who the son of Reb Chaim Vital, who is the one who recorded the teaching of the Arizal, uh, including Pri Etz Chaim. So he says, he would normally take the two upper loaves and hold them together. If someone has only got two loaves totally, then he should have in mind the upper

16:42 one is connected Ois Yud, uh, Ois Vav, and the lower one is connected to two Heis, as I mentioned just before. When you got just two, it's the two... The upper ones are here, it's Yud and Vav, and the lower ones are correspondent to the two Heis. But then he a- adds, Oh. So now all of a sudden, if for all this struggle, we found a Psastichah Mokir when the Rebbe said in that letter that you should hold the right one a bit higher than the, than the, than the left one. Yeah. This is in Siman Resh Samech Beis. In Siman Resh Ayin Daled, he writes, according to Kabbalah, you should break from the upper one, and there's no difference between by day and by night. So let's try to unravel what's going on here. So we have, as I said, we have then the Shechinach Ruk says, break from... To have the two together, Friday night, break from the upper one. We have a problem with that. Come Seder night, we pray with the whole Seder of Vehem Havienu Al Hamitzvos, and therefore we take, we break off the upper matzah because Vehem Havienu Al Hamitzvos. So how can you deal with, um, breaking the lower one? So they do some kind of stick-up, bringing the lower one should be a little bit further forward to yourself. But there is a problem of breaking the lower one is, is a problematic halacha. Comes along the Ari Z"L and says, "Instead of having them one

18:29 on top of the other, which is going to present you a problem of so hold them together." So then... And you break off the right one. With this, it's from the lower one. It's-- But it's not the higher one, so you've in a way partially fulfilled the, um, uh, uh, both the Ari Z"L and... Okay. Comes by day, but you should be breaking from the upper one. And then you should be ho-holding them parallel. But by day, there's no problem to f-fulfill both in , to have them parallel and to, to have one slightly higher. And so you as it says in . And you also to have them parallel. So again, to-by night to, to lift one higher, but that would be against what the says. Then by, by night should be . Therefore, by da-- by night, you keep them just parallel. You can't lift, you can't lift the right one any higher because it's, uh, against what the says, which is . But by day, you can kind of reconcile. You can have the right one slightly higher. And with this you both the position . You should be from the and you with, uh, so, with, uh... So you which is that they should be both parallel. Bottom line is just remember after all this whole pilpul, Friday night you hold the two challahs parallel. One to... Next to... Back to back. And in the morning, uh, the Shabbos day, you hold the right one slightly higher. Uh, I remember the

20:17 Rebbe making . It was... Must have been Rosh Hashanah, and there were two large round challahs, and he held them back to back. Then he took with his knife and made like a circular motion without touching. Just... It was just like a circular hovering over the challahs. Um, that's what I remember. I'm sure, uh, some people remember more detail. Okay, let's move on to the next question. So someone kindly sent me a whole range of pictures, photographs of various types of sports jackets and asking about tzitzit. So as you can see, the sports jackets have got... They... Well, c-because of the zippers, so they are square. There's a lot like an, a, a right, a right angle or a ninety-degree, uh, corner, both at the top and at the bottom. Unlike the hoodie, which we're getting close to Purim, like a hoodie . So, so the hoodie doesn't have the problem of tzitz, of tzitzit because it goes straight from the zipper straight up to the hood. But all of these sports jackets and, uh, and car-cardigans or sweaters in America, they all have this, this problem of having square at the bottom and square at the top. Now, I did discuss this a few years ago, but this fellow generously sent me all these photographs, so I wanted to share them with you, and we'll look at the halacha now. So now we have here in Alter Rebbe's Shulchan Aruch, he talks about c-garments which are common in Germany and Spain, which are open

21:55 in the front from top to bottom, and they've got therefore four corners, two at the top and two at the bottom. They're really they're patur from tzitzit because the mitzvah of tzitzit is pri-primarily two the, to the front and two to the back. But here, where all the four corners are to the front and they can't be worn differently, then one could argue there's no chiyuv to have tzitzit. and that's why it's common practice that people do not bo-bother with tzitzit on jackets which have a s-square, uh, towards the bottom and towards the top, towards the collar. for yourself, you should be careful to make one of those corners round so that it shouldn't have four square corners. Now, that's with a zipper jacket. To start making a round corner, I just find that very awkward to, to carry out. Fine. So, but which I've often noticed, it's not for you to start preaching to others that they should be mechmir, but for yourself, okay. For yourself, don't, don't wear such a jacket without cut-cut-cutting, um, round, uh, rounding a corner. That's in the Shulchan Aruch. But then we look in the siddur where the Rebbe, the Alter Rebbe, has about four pages on tzitzit, and he addresses the same thing. And here he's more... Right. I... You know, there's, there is a view that the siddur was written for Hasidim, and therefore there's much... There's a there's a n-tendency to be strict, stricter. So here, which means our, our jackets, which have two corners

23:54 in the front at the bottom and two corners at the front, at the, uh, at the top by the neck, one should be careful to make the upper corners rounded. as has become customary of late. Now, I'm, I'm, I'm... In, in my work on the siddur, I question why does the Alter Rebbe prefer rounding the upper corners to the lower corners? I don't think I have an answer. But meanwhile, he says, "Better to have the upper corners rounded." So whereas in the Sh-Shulchan Aruch, it said, in the siddur he writes this as a guidance for Hasidim. For whoever's using the siddur, that they should be careful not to have such a type of... Not to wear such a type of jacket without rounding the corners. So, right. Uh, so follows the Alter Rebbe, and the siddur is... So it's written for us, so we should avoid. That what it really means act practically. Um, that such a kind of cardigan, such a kind of sweater does present a problem for, uh, for a, for a Hasid. Not talking about all those sports jackets, which, uh, might not be, be beholden for a ˈpatsy ˈfar a Hasida Shid in any case, but a cardigan. Fine. Let's move on. Since we're talking about tzitzits, so here comes another question about tzitzits. And someone asked me, why does the Alter Rebbe... Well, the Alter Rebbe advises to cut the corner, to round the corner of a blanket. Uh, why is that not done? We don't see that widely

25:45 followed. So, this is again in Shulchan Aruch. On the top, we have about sheets and, um, ˈsakarium is not so clear. We are-- So they are b- basically night garments. Now, here's the pro-pro-problem. According to Tosfos, it goes according to the garment, whether it's designated for night or for day. But according to Rashi and the Rambam, if you wear a night garment during the day, you have to have tzitzits. So the fact that it's a night garment is not an exemption. So according to those who say that ˈksus layla, night garment, is ˈchayav tzitzit if you're wearing by day, so then your, your sheets need to have tzitzits because you ˈadam yoshnin bahen ba-ba-yoter. You, you, you wake up and it's, uh, already after daybreak, and there are no tzitzits. And the minhag is not to... And some say it's because it's only if it's mamash a garment to wear as a garment, but not just as a sheet. But others disagree with this. Therefore, if your sheet is made of, of wool, then you should c- around the corner to solve the problem. So here's, this interesting how he, he talks about... Here he mentions the difference between a woolen ga- sheet or a, an, uh, a different material. Now, then we take a look at the Seder. V'chehen ha-mirkseh, a cover, shekein kodreh. When I was brought up and my, my parents called it a kodreh, a blanket. Shemeschasim bo ki sheyoshnin beyom. Even though it's ikr miyukhi l'laylah, even though it's primarily

27:23 a night, uh, cover, you should m-make it a, a round corner l-l'to exempt from tzitzit lev ha'al. Now, here the Alter Rebbe does not differentiate whether it's made of wool or not. And it's interesting that in this Seder, there's no mention about wearing... The tal-tallis should be made of wool. Interesting. But meanwhile, he doesn't mention that difference. And so therefore, according to the, uh, Seder, a, a, a kodreh, a, a blanket should, you should cut, uh, uh, uh, you should round off the corner. Now, when I saw this and I started looking at it, I was, I, I was s- s- puzzled with the wording here. Shemeschasim bo ki sheyoshnin beyom. And here the Alter Rebbe has thrown a very, very interesting difference to what he said in this Shulchan Aruch. In the Shulchan Aruch, he'd said that the need for tzitzits is ki adam yoshnin bahen ba-ba-yoter, which I understand that means that your night sleep overflows into daybreak- into day, and therefore, you have a problem with the tzitzits. Here he says very different. He says, meschasim bo ki sheyoshnin beyom. Only if you s- go to sleep during the day. That makes a very big difference. And what he's saying is that in the Seder, that the only issue of having to have tzitzits on a blanket is only if you're one of those gentlemen who ta-tend to take a shluf, a nap, in the afternoon. Then, uh, then you have to worry about having the tzitzits. But if you only wear

29:02 it, on-only, um, if it's, if it's a night blanket and they overflow into the day, that's not a problem. Now, when you s- when I see such a diyuk, chiddush, and it's, yeah, chiddush to say what? That although the Rambam says a square garment has to have tzitzits, that's only if you put it on by day. But if you are sleeping and it stayed on you, then it's not a problem. So here we have from the Eliyahu Rabba. Now, the Eliyahu Rabba was a p- was a generation perhaps before the Alter Rebbe. In the Shulchan Aruch, kimat, the Alter Rebbe doesn't mention the Eliyahu Rabba. But in Seder, it seems to he, um... This Eliyahu Rabba is a likut. I'll say they're... It's a commentary on the Levush. He's got a short commentary called Ele Zutol, and the longer commentary is Eliyahu Rabba. Is, is a halakhah. But okay. Shuv matzos begilyon Shulchan Aruch. Says the Eliyahu Rabba, I found in the margin of a Shulchan Aruch. It doesn't say who this is. Hoyen ve'ein hasхоlas tashmish beyom. If you don't start using it by day, lo mikri tashmish yom, aphilu lo Rambam at kan venol hoyen hu. Comes with this, um, very big chiddush. That even the Rambam, who says that if you put on a night garment, a square night garment during the day, you have to put on tzitzits. That's only if you put it on during the day. But if it is a continuum of you wearing at night, then you

30:29 do not need to worry about tzitzits, even according to the Rambam. So that corroborates, and that's possibly the source of the Alter Rebbe's wording, ki sheyoshnin beyom. Having said that, that may explain why mostly, why it's not widely followed to, to cut off corners of blankets, because most of us do not take a, a nap, uh, by day with a blanket. As Reb Mendel would have asked by the Farbrengens, a bochur would come in late to the Farbrengen on a Shabbos afternoon, "Ni shlofn noch mit die pajamas," yeah? So, uh- To go during the day to have a rest, it's, it's unusual for at least for younger people, at least. When? Yes, Shabbos. Shabbos, resembling Davka to have a Shabbos. Shabbos Shabbos day, no yeah. Says also in, in Ariza all about having a rest on Shabbos afternoon. On Shabbos, the whole business of tzitzit is much more lenient because the Halakha is if you come into a shul and the only tallit there is a tallit, you're embarrassed to be without a tallit. The only tallit there has got paskul tzitzit, so you're allowed to put it on. I, you have a mitzvah of, uh, of putting on tzitzit. On Shabbos, you can't carry it out. So you're onus. So therefore on Sha-- of course, you can't chas v'Shalom make a bracha. But on Shabbos, putting on a four-cornered garment on Shabbos, you cannot be, uh, faulted for that because there's no... You, you cannot carry out the chiyuv of putting on tzitzit. There's

32:05 no, there's no issur. There's no issur to put on a garment without tzitzit. There's a mitzvah. When you put on a garment of four corners, the mitzvah go put on tzitzit. On Shabbos, I can't do it. Therefore, it's nisht gesehe gefarlich. That could be the hezhbon why it's not wide, so widespread. Vashateitz lach, if you are no-- you have a blanket and you do often use it by day, then of course there is a chumra to be to a corner, to, to round off a corner. Right. So what do we have here? Yeah. Someone is pointing out the clothing is usually synthetic, not wool or linen. Alf maskim. But we, uh, Halakha, even, uh, if it's not wool or linen, there's still a chiyuv of tzitzit. It's also a midrabbannon, but there isn't... Right. Let's go on to number four. Right. I don't know whether I have a slide for that. I don't think so. Should you wear a gartel for benching? So I did see in, uh, I saw in Piskei Teshuva he brings in Siman Kuf, Peh Gimel. He brings that some people were particular, some Rebbes, some, uh, gute Yidden part-were particular to wear, um, a gartel for benching. My son tells me that he, Reb Yoel Kahn, alav hashalom, he used to have Friday night. The bochurim would come to him for the Shabbos meal, and it was a very special time. There, there's, there's, uh, he would tell stories and, uh, whatever. It was like a farbrengen. And so Reb

33:41 Yoel was particular to put on a gartel for, uh, for Birkat Hamazon. I, I wouldn't say that's the standard minag. What came up to me today, you know, this one just recently, talking about Birkat Hamazon is on, is on par with, uh, with Shemoneh Esreh as far as hafsa'ah. That as far as interrupting, if you hear Avinu Malkeinu, let's say, middle of Birkat Shome'a, you're meant to answer. If you're middle of benching, I don't know why you're benching when there's a kaddish being said, but fine, if that happens, it's the same level as Shemoneh Esreh that you don't answer. And because it's a mitzvah m'deoraita, and I'm just thinking that to register that what you're doing is a mitzvah m'deoraita, possibly that also the, uh, putting on a gartel will help register. You know, it's, it's a difficult one because you come to benching, you've just eaten, and you may be very tired, sh-sh, you know. And, uh, and so, uh, you need to have a bit more zeriz, yeah? So it might be a good idea. I haven't done so till now, but, um, possibly when I'm feeling more frum, so, uh, to put on a gartel for benching. Okay. Point number five. So about saying a bracha when a child is born. So it's written in, in, in, uh, Shulchan Aruch, a boy is born, a bracha she'ateh ha'meitiv. When a daughter, when you see the girl, so then you'd say shehecheyanu. That's the way it's written in Shulchan Aruch. So someone asks,

35:23 um, not so-- we don't see it so wide, so, so commonly done. And the, the simple answer is because the tatties are a bit overwhelmed, and they forget that they should be saying a bracha, so they don't. But not, not there's anything deeper to it. So someone had written an article saying that the Rebbe had, uh, Rabbi Groiner had said that they should ask a Rov. The kid said he published this, and so the next week or two weeks later, Rabbi Groiner wrote, "That wasn't... What I had told was not about the bracha she'ateh ha'meitiv or shehecheyanu. It was about the birkas hagomel." That whether a mother, it's written in Shulchan Aruch, and that Rebbe said also that a mother's given birth, she should say birkas hagomel. She say it from the, uh, vivershal. And, uh, I've told the story before, but never mind, I can tell it again, that I heard that Reb Meir Alenik, alav hashalom, when his first child was born, so he told the Rebbe that his wife stood in the cheder sheini and said a birkas hagomel. And the Rebbe kind of in, in jest said, "The bochurim, the zal, did they say shehecheyanu?" The first time they're seeing that a woman would say a birkas hagomel. Right. So now, here's the, here's the question. If the, if the parents, the mother and father, if they did not say shehecheyanu or ateh ha'meitiv right away, can they say shehecheyanu or ateh ha'meitiv when they're listening to this podcast, bechol yeah?

36:52 Still, still happy, yeah. So this is from Kitzur Shulchan. And the Pri Megadim, he quotes, says that if your wife gave birth, you can say ateh ha'meitiv even achar k'de'dibur. Even, even a c-- three seconds later, you can still say, uh, uh, the bracha. All, all good news. You can say the berachah ..." But how long does it-- How lo-- For how long afterwards can you still say the berachah? It's illogical to say there's no shir. Possibly, so long as we're still engaged in that inyan or that, uh, excitement. And you haven't been distracted from the good news. But once, once you've been distracted to deal with other business, then it's too late to go back and start saying the berachah or Shehecheyanu. And so that could be the why it's common that people don't say the berachah right afterwards. They were distracted. Later on, it's way too late to say the berachah, so fine. Right. Let's go on. Is there an inyan of washing netilat yadayim? So now, if i-in winter people, some people get up before dawn, and they wash netilat yadayim next to their bed, and af-after they get dressed, wash again, make a... say So the Alter Rebbe brings up this So this I want to share with you. The-- When I was... I had a, a, a short while I was living in the house of Rabbi Zalman Shimon Dvorakin, and we had this conversation, and he pulled out the Rabbi Akiva Emden siddur, and he showed me where it

42:14 says there, apple, He also showed me the same list of berachahs. The berachah on, on, uh, kugel, on kartoffel kugel, make, uh, fry or latkes is, is shehakol, which is, uh, both are interesting. Now, possibly, possibly he's talking about in his time when they would be cooked without going through a machine, uh, to puree them totally. But the, the main, main reason why it remains are eight is because It's very normal to even... Actually, in England, it's common you have the p- uh, apples which are pl- uh, like, planted for cooking apples. They call them Bramley apples. In America, I heard that they don't, they don't have such a thing. But here we have type of apples which are inedible, uh, at fi- on, uh, uh, raw, and after they, they are planted for the purpose of cooking. So, uh, c- stewed apples is a very common product. Therefore, to say, "Oh, it's been downgraded. It's been made into a stew, therefore it loses its, its toyar, it loses its hashivas," that's, uh, it's not a s- not a strong argument. And he says, he says the berachah is for eight. Um, now about the c- the, the potato latkes. So I looked around and saw others bring this Rabbi Yaakov Emden siddur, and they say that's because the, the latkes are then also you added eggs, and you added, um, some flour and perhaps, uh, some other ingredients. And because of this, it's changed from its original form, and there he says the berachah

44:13 is shehakol. I want to just make one, uh, bavaronus, one, uh, uh, observation. Rabbi Yaakov Emden lived in generation before the Alter Rebbe or two. He publishes his siddur in the year the Alter Rebbe is born, taf kuf he. In the original Rabbi Yaakov Emden siddur, this list isn't there, and so it became very interesting. An alphabetical list of foods sounds ri- it doesn't sound like, uh, you know, David Yisroel doing that. It seems like more, you know, more, uh, down-to-earth people making an alphabetical list of foods with berachahs. So it's alphabetical Yiddish, but it's not from Rabbi Yaakov Emden. So if someone wants to challenge it, you're not, you're not challenging Rabbi Yaakov Emden. You're challenging whoever was the hokom who put it together. I didn't manage to research who exactly is the compiler of this list. So you have this... Typically, today we have, people have Yaakov Emden siddur, Siddur Beit Yaakov. So it's there. It incorporates from also the Siddur De'at Chachmeim, but this is not from the De'at Chachmeim, from Rabbi Yaakov Lisa. So who was the author of this list? I don't know. Right. So now we're going on to... I recently made a comment about, uh, checking out of a hotel on Shabbos, and in passing, made a comment about candlesticks. And saying that you, when you have a-a, "Daye bosset de dovah also a muttah," when you want to move a table which has on it muktzeh and a non-muktzeh, the non-muktzeh has to be of greater hashivas

46:08 than the muktzeh. So I made a comment that the non-muktzeh has to be more chashuv, more valuable, and not only of the flame, but also more valuable than the candlesticks. And I probably said that the candlesticks nowadays cost over a thousand dollars, and therefore the m- the non-muktzeh has to be of greater value than that. So someone challenged me on that because the Alter Rebbe talks about that the counterbalance only has to be against the flame because the flame is muktzeh. The candlestick, well, the candlestick is a kli shemelachtah le'issur. True, but it's muttar to move it. Let's say, the immobility of muktzeh only is, is the, only the flame. The, the, the, the candlestick is, is, uh, not, not a, not a total muktzeh. So, so here's my response. So this is f- from... The Alter Rebbe does say so. He's right, in Siman resh ayin tes. And this is from the Piskei Teshuvos in the same siman, and also, uh, there's a Sefer, Orchos Shabbos, uh, a contemporary Sefer, and they go through this also in detail. Sorry, I don't have it on the screen. And they're saying that all... It's all very well in those days where a candlestick was not so, uh, not so fancy. It was common to use the candlesticks possibly for something else, and that's why it's not such a rigid muktzeh. You have the con... The muktzeh, you're allowed to move it. It means you might use it for something else. You might use a screwdriver to

47:46 hold the door open. You might use a, uh, a, a, a hammer to crack nuts. Oh, Chabad, Hashem yishalem, yeah, fine. But yeah, but, uh, fine, you might use it for something else. You might improvise. But then you've got a whole list of stuff which you would never improvise with, and they therefore earn the title, muktzeh machmes chasones. So now, for example, the shochet's knife, you would go and start cutting, cutting string with it. Uh, keep, keep your distance. Uh, he's just worked hours on making sure it's honed so smooth and then, uh, et cetera, and you start messing around with it. I-I-It's... That's... It doesn't... No way. And therefore, even if a shochet himself decides he wants to use his poker to package on Shabbos, he cannot because it's muktzeh machmes chasones. That's the concept of... Now, now, would you use silver candlesticks for anything else but that? Would you use them as a paperweight? Would you use them to keep a door open? I don't think so. You wouldn't use them for anything else. Uh, the more valuable they are, the more... And sometimes they're very delicate. You wouldn't use them for anything else, so they become muktzeh machmes chasones. They become a m- much greater muktzeh, more s- a strict muktzeh, and therefore, you need to counterbalance. So they, this, this seforim, they bring this, they bring this from Chazalish, but, uh, it's a very shtarke seforah, and that's the case. Can you move the candlesticks kilayich hayad with your elbows? Yes.

49:17 Make sure, uh, some people who are, would care about it aren't looking because they might, uh, faint when you do that. They might drop them. But yeah. Yes, you're allowed to move any muktzeh kilayich hayad. That's true, yes. Right. So, so much for that. How are we doing? Okay. Then someone asked me about the way it's written in the siddur, "Yochid hamispallel ein tzorch loima yukam purkan ze velo mishebeirach." Now, this is from the Siddur Torah, as you can see. In the Tehillas Hashem siddur, which, um... There is an expression, uh, guide for dummies, yeah? Tehillas, Tehillas Hashem was made for much simpler. You know, then, so they added the word, yochid hamispallel bebeiso. If you daven at home... But this, it's true. Yochid hamispallel at home, then you shouldn't say this Yom Kippur because it talks about this kehillah, kahal haKadosh baruch hu, Mishaberach talks about, um, kahal haKadosh hazeh. If you're davening at home, it's... You're... How you can talk about... How can you talk about this kehillah when you're davening at home? Question is, what happens if you are in a shul but you're not davening with a minyan? That's a separate... There's a whole sep-separate farbrengen about this malaise of not davening with a minyan. People daven gadol is one thing, but people who just somehow cannot bring themselves to, uh, to daven with a minyan, it's... They cannot. They... I have a, I have a shtikel Chazon Ish which I'm not gonna share with you now. But, uh, um, v'al

51:01 daas amo koheim, v'al daas hakol, ona matir, nispalel im haminyanim. That you can, uh... You're allowed to daven with a minyan. But all right, it didn't happen. He's davening on his own, and but there's, there's a minyan around. So does he say this y- yes or no? So I would say yes. There's a kehillah here, so he can say it. Now, when I published the siddur at the time, I could not find an earlier source of this line to differentiate, uh, about a yochid who doesn't say, uh, should not say the Yom Kippur on. Later, somehow, I don't remember how I came across it, but I... An earlier siddur published, um, in the year taf nun zayin. That's the year before the Baal Shem Tov was born, and it writes the following. The, uh, this is in German Yiddish. The light dearach, um, Yeshuvim. Dearach Yeshuvim voinen. Di nit um minyan mispalel zain oder ve'nit shulen. Mus ein Shabbos something, then on the, on the Yom Kippur on, on, and nit Mishaberach zag, something like that. So, um, has this, this, this line, or this, this guidance that when you don't have... When you're daven in a place where there's no minyan to mi-miss out this Yom Kippur and the following Mishaberach because there's no kehillah. So this is not a chidush of the Alter Rebbe. It was published in siddurim before the Alter Rebbe's times. You say someone's commenting that some siddurim say, not a siddur, ein omer, ein tzorech leomer. Here it says,

52:43 ah, here it says, ein tzorech leomer, and some say, ein omer. Okay. I have a theory which I published in the siddur actually, that in Yiddish, you say medaf is in ishton, doesn't mean you don't need to do it. It means it's not appropriate. So the Yiddish is translated to Hebrew, ein tzorech, doesn't mean that you don't have to, but, um, it means, uh, it means you shouldn't. That's the, the... It's a Yiddishism c-coming into the, into the Loshon Hakadush. It's a theory because many times you have ein tzorech levorech. Really? Ein tzorech levorech. If you're not meant to, then you don't need to, then it's a brachah levatalah. So you have, I have a list of about six or seven places where you have this loshon ein tzorech, and it should be understood as being it's not appropriate to. This is, uh, I heard from the shliach in, uh, in, in, uh, in Berlin, Rabbi Teichtal. So when he first... No, when he was tandisking in, in Munich, when he first came, so there was some cake on the table, some biscuits. So the, uh, visitor says, "Muz ich essen?" Now, in Yiddish, muz ich means do I have to eat. In, in, uh, German, that dialect at least, muz ich means may I. So, uh, there's a biscuit on the, at the table, and the guest says, "Muz ich essen ein, eine biscuit." So they, "No, du musst nicht." He says in Yid- because in Yiddish he says, "You don't... I'm not forcing

54:13 you. It's, it's free. It's a free world." Uh, we... But in German it means, uh, may I. He said, "No, you're not allowed to." So it was like confusing. And then he also had a problem that he, um, all the streets or many streets, they asked him, well, they asked him, "Where's, where do you, where's your hotel?" So he says, "Oh, I li- my hotel is on Einbahnstraße," which means the one-way street. Um, fine. Now, th-just two more things. We had this discussion about the bells from a nearby church, and I c- did quote from the Sefer Divrei Malkiel to say that it's, that it's, uh, it's innocent because it's just a public service. It's not a religious thing. So I got from several people a couple of feedbacks. So one is a story of the Tzemach Tzedek. As we know, the Tzemach Tzedek lived in the town of Lubavitch, and then there was a time where he was called to a government conference on, on chinuch. Lots of stories about that. And Tzemach Tzedek said the Petersburg bells caused me forgetfulness because until then, till he had this visit to Petersburg, he didn't know what it means to forget. But when he went in the year taf reish gimel to that government conference, and then it was common that the churches had, on days of festivals, lots of ringing, and that caused him, uh, he suffered the yinun of forgetting. So not to dismiss totally. And then here we have another, another story. The

55:55 story is about Rabbi Aaron Kotler in a Sefer called Toras Chashavei Shor. One of his talmidim told him that he's now being plagued by, by heretical thoughts, and he wishes or to, want to convert to Christianity. Rosha Shiva didn't know what to do, tried to persuade him, didn't work. So he consulted the Kapishnitzer Rebbe. The Kapishnitzer Rebbe lived, I think, in Crown Heights or perhaps in the Lower East Side. But he was, uh, from the Rizhiner dynasty. Um, very close to the Rebbe also. And the Kapishnitzer said he should find out how the young man sets his watch. Rav Aharon didn't understand, but he goes back to Lakewood, and he asks the young man how he sets his watch. Now, in those times, if we remember sixty years ago, seventy years ago, the watches you had to keep on winding up every day. And if it didn't wind up enough, you had to reset the watch. So he was setting his watch every morning by-- at seven o'clock by the church bell from across the dormitory. So the Rosha Shiva went and bought him an expensive watch, one which did not need to be set. One of those automatic watches, I guess. And he said, "On the condition I'm giving to you this watch, if you ever need to reset the time, you should do so with the yeshiva's clock." And after a while, this bochur's mind settled down, and he t-t... And became a, an eminent Talmud chacham. Very nice. Yes, he's the shver

57:16 of Zalman Gurary indeed, that the Kapishnitzer. So this is a story, um, a fairly contemporary story about people giving extra attention to set their clock by, by the, uh, church clock, which isn't, isn't a good idea. Now, having... These, these are the two stories which I got, as I said, feedback from the beginning of the week from several people. Um, indeed, one of them came sh-right after this year on Motzei Shabbos. But then we're learning the sikha every Shabbos. We learn the sikha which is published by Lahak, and this year's from-- publishing sikhas from Taf Shin Lamed Zain. Shabbos Mevorchim Adar, Taf Daled Cheshvan, Taf Shin Lamed Zain. And the Rebbe is talking about the Poisei Achashvei Ha-Sipim, the people who are sitting on the fence, and the harm of the... How it's even worse than a person going to Avodah, because there he knows he's wrong. Here, he'll never do tshuva, so to speak. So he says, he has the lotion here that, uh, he has... I know there's a Nefesh HaChayim, the main thing, but I also have a Nefesh HaBahamis. A Nefesh HaBahamis, um, is a behema, so I should behave-- I should be allowed to behave like a behema. What's the, what's the aver? What's wrong? The Nefesh HaBahamis. To allow the Nefesh HaBahamis to carry out its mission, to behave like a behema. And he-- So that's the, the Rebbe talks about this, and he's saying, I mean, if this is the way Hashem made the Nefesh HaBahamis and my,

58:42 my behema side of it, I sh- I don't want to tamper with the, with the, with the creation. So he's kind of using Yerushalayim. The Hamish created me this way, and therefore, I shouldn't be tampering with the Hamish's kind of behemishkeit, behemish, uh, creation in myself. So here the Rebbe says, and here I found a very interesting line, which the sikha is published by Lahak is in Hebrew, but this line they translated, they brought to the Yiddish, which I've never seen this expression before. The five understanding in a matzav of Poisei Achashvei Ha-Sipim. Er veist nisht az zayn hanhogas sh'lo ke-dei b'ei. He's not-- He doesn't know that he's behaving inappropriately. Befrat noch, he includes this in Yerushalayim. Az dos is a tava, or, I mean, this, my, my animal inclination is a nature which the Hamish gave me. Um, it said, "Yerushalayim, hot er tsu ton mit a kloister." Therefore, demot lasach, he's got... The word in Yiddish, hot er tsu ton mit a kloister, it's got to do with that church. I've never seen this expression before, but the Rebbe says, he, he says his engagement, that kloister, it's a dover. He, he thinks it's Yerushalayim, whatever, but he's eng- And once he's got that kind of mindset, it's shvere poal nafim tshuva ton because he doesn't know that he's doing something wrong. So I just saw this. I'm not saying anything definitive about the church bells, et cetera. But yeah, one has to be careful about this. Um, one has to be

1:00:15 careful about this. And I say to talmidim that there are very intelleg-intelligent people who are Christians, and you start talking about doctors, lawyers, chosidim, scientists, you know. And you ask them, what is a... And you can-- You don't ask them, but you wonder because the whole Maistis, the Chazan is shtusim. So why are these intelligent people being farchapt? And so there's a, there's a klippa. There's a koach haKlippa there, and that's what you see in those stories. There's a koach, there's a koach haKlippa. And I just came across also recently in Yerushalmi, in Gemara Shabbos, has a story of someone who had a severe illness, and someone came along and whispered him in the name of Yeshu Pandira. It's otherwise known as Yoshke Pandrik in Yiddish. And he whispered him a, a healing, some kind of, um, message of how to heal him. And the guy, the person maybe was healed. Now, the whole thing, should he-- was it a good thing? Should he, should he have... Whatever. There, there is a koach in tumah. One shouldn't be totally dismissive. And because of it, because it has a koach, therefore, we have to be all the more careful not to be, uh, drawn by it. I'm going to fi-fi-finish off with one more thing. Last week, I told a story about someone in middle of Yom... I'm sorry, I'm over time, but you'll forgive me another two minutes. Um, a person who, he was living in the-- He, he was visiting Eretz Yisrael, him and

1:01:41 his wife, and it was on Yom Tov Sheni that they decided that they're going to remain in Eretz Yisrael. And they went over to Bnei Brak, and then the chazzanish told them to daven Mincha, a weekday Mincha and say, uh, say Atach Chennan Tonu. So also in Yerushalmi, you have this whole story about if Yom Kippur is on Sunday. If Yom Kippur is on Sunday, you don't do Havdalah. And there goes a whole discussion, and he says, "Well-" Why don't you make Havdalah when Yom Kippur is on Sunday? Because on Yom Kippur, it's different. On, on Yom Shabbos, you're not allowed to wash the vegetables. On Yom Kippur, you are allowed to wash the vegetables to be able to eat Motza'i Yom Kippur. So the Rab Yoish says, "But the heter is only to wash the vegetables in the late afternoon, min ha'minchah ul'ma'ariv." So therefore, no point in making Havdalah when Yom Kippur, you know, on, on Motza'i Shabbos going into Yom Kippur because there's, uh, the, the heter, which the, what the, the new Gemara, which you can do is only tomorrow afternoon. V'agdi Gemara v'yaavdu min ha'minchah ul'ma'ariv. Okay? So Yom Kippur afternoon. Come to the time you now can wash the vegetables, you do Havdalah now. So Gemara answers, "Man afshoch, kos ein kan, ner ein kan." There's no cup of wine. There's no, there's no ner. V'bahu bargos. How are you going to make Havdalah? Om rivavin. So rivavin says, "B'tfila. Say ata chanan tal." So very interesting, huh? So

1:03:11 you have here, Yehoshua Ami, which leaves this as a question. And Gemara, far as you say, it remains as a kasha. So the concept of saying, uh, saying, uh, uh, ata chanan tal la'azay in middle of the day. So we have here a, a makir is, is mentioned is in- Right. Um, tap waited oif. What's this? Um, it's nothing. Would you make a corner on a quilt cover and not have to on the quilt itself? That's a good question. I, I don't think so. I think the quilt remains a chir tzis regardless. But we've said, Rabbeinu said it's a beged lilo, and it's only if you go to sleep during the day with it, uh, then that, that would be a need to worry about, um, cutting off a corner. Or by the way, if you cut off a quilt corner, make sure you sew it back because otherwise you'll have feathers all out around your house. With that, I'll finish off and wish you a, a gut Voch, and we should have Mesoras HaGevulah with Moshia- with, uh, Moshiach Tzidkeinu heim yomeinu, amen. Amen.