משפטים תשפ״ו

00:03 Speaker 1 Welcome to tonight's Shiur, Motzaei Shabbos Parashat Mishpatim-Tzkorim. Tonight's Shiur is sponsored by, uh, Rav Remy, um, Kivman, Shliach in Liverpool, in honor of the f- the yahrtzeit of his late father, Rav Baruch Kivman, who for a short while he actually lived in England, was a Melamed here in the schools for a little while. Just, uh, afterwards, he lived in Crown Heights. Yehi zichro baruch. And thank you, Ra-Rabbi Liverpool, Rabbi Kivman for your coming forward. You're always available, unless there is a sponsor already. Okay. So we're gonna start off with a ma'aseh. I'm gonna connect it with the first of our list of questions about Shnayim Mikra. And this is from the Rebbe's Reshimas, and this is from 27 Mar Chesvan, Taf Res Tzadik Beis. And the Friediker Rebbe describes how he, on occasion, it was Parashat Vayera and Chayei Sarah, where he heard his father being Ma'aved Sedra, and from this, he became a Baal Teshuva. That's the, that's the earlier part. Now, this you have here, he says, when you heard him be Ma'aved Sedra, he was like a person who's totally Ish Pano El Gamri, like a person who's got nothing else to worry about from any business, no pressure. Ve'eino Elado, is he was totally en-engrossed or totally involved in Ma'aved Sedra without... As if he had no, no ca- no other care in the world. Sometimes he would finish off on Shabbos because he would have to pause. The Ma'aved Sedra, which he started on Friday, but he wouldn't... He just

02:00 Speaker 1 had to take a break, and he would finish off on Shabbos, but not in middle of a Parsha. Sometimes he would start even on, on Thursday and finish on Shabbos. Why did he have to take pauses? Et Nidkat M'kayach. He was-- His Ma'aved Sedra was with such energy that he got drained of energy, and he had to take a pause. And that was that Parashat Vayera, where he saw how his father was so into the Ma'aved Sedra, and he says One last description. He was Ma'aved Sedra. He wasn't wearing his Gartel. He wasn't wearing his Kovra Ogul, which is another word, a round hat, otherwise the Schtrimmel. Nor was he wearing the Biglei Meshin, was he-- nor was he wearing the silk, uh, Bekishe, et cetera. Un oygeshpilt. And he was-- his jacket was, was unbuttoned, so he was-- looked quite relaxed in that way. So he was not, wasn't-- didn't look intense, but his focus on his Ma'aved Sedra was total. As I was thinking of this story, uh, last year around this time, I was in Eretz Israel, and I went in to v- to visit my, my cousin. Was it last year or two years ago? Whatever. And, uh... Two years ago. And it's a Friday afternoon, and he's sitting beMa'aved Sedra, sitting on the couch beMa'aved Sedra. He told me that he was, uh, he went in Yechidus, Chof Shin Lamed Dalet. It wasn't Bar Mitzvah. He was, he's a few years older than me. And in the Yechidus, his birthday

03:34 Speaker 1 was on a Friday. The Rebbe said, "Mishtameh ve'est ezorgan shnayim mikra far kabbalas Shabbos." That presumably, you'll do my Shnayim Mikra, you'll do Ma'aved Sedra before Kabbalas Shabbos. Um, and he, he said there were several people, several Bochurim at the same time that period that the Rebbe, uh, un- You know, not as if they asked anything. The Rebbe, um, reminded them of the Inyan of beMa'aved Sedra and be-before Shabbos. So now... So going on to... We had this discussion, uh, of late. When we had-- When you got two half-- When you got three Haftaros or four Haftaros coming together, you only read... There's one of Parashat HaShavua, there's the Shabbos Meshoryos Chanukah. So you've got, all right, Parashat Miketz, and then you've got the one for Chanukah which is gonna be read. But what about the Rosh Chodesh one? And if it's, uh, if it's also Erev Rosh Chodesh, you got two. Uh, you got Shai Hashavua Mekdishi and Rosh Chodesh. And we came up with a theory that you'd only read the Haftarot, either the one of the Pesedra or the one of, uh, which is actually gonna be read in Shul. So now, this week, as I was looking over the Sicha every week, L'hak, uh, Chanoch Azbel L'hak published a Sicha. This is from Shabbos Mishpatim, Taf Shin Lamed Zain, where it was Shabbos Mishpatim, and it was Shabbos Meshoryos, and it was Shabbos Tzkorim. And the Rebbe talks about that, taking out three separate Torah, and really, perhaps we should do

05:06 Speaker 1 three Haftarot. But all right, uh, L'minahag, but you only do-- By the way, you do only one Haftaara. Af al pi k, the Minag HaTora is the, the Haftaara which is of the three is Parashat Tzkorim. However, you do as known the Halacha, the Rabbeinu Tam in the Siano, that beMa'aved Sedra, one of them would say, "Kol Gimel Haftarot." And therefore, V'temuvrin Sh'michadiest, so there's three Inyanim. That's why Vayochah, you say all three Haftarot. You know, here's, uh, there's a sha- there's, there's... And the Rebbe talks about the connection between the three Haftarot. Okay. So meanwhile, here he says that you should say all three Haftarot. So this is contradicting what, uh, I'd said, the theory which I'd said, that the ones which are neither, um, neither gonna be read in Shul nor Parashat HaShavua, that you don't have to do them. So I mentioned this to someone, and he said, "Well, actually, look in the Yiddish," because this is published now in, uh- Hanakos b'lahak. But at the time, this Hanakos were published in Yiddish, and they've taken- they've translated them into Hebrew. This is a Shabbos I can bring, so they don't have a, a recording. So let's read the He- the Yiddish. He doesn't say, "Alle drei hafteros." He just says, "Alle hafteros." So, uh, so we're still a little bit not, not totally clear. But, uh, it's... Even when you say, "Alle hafteros" also, all the hafteros, it seems to be all the possible hafteros. So right. Let's go on. And

06:59 Speaker 1 since we're in the Rebbe's capital is kuf, chaf, daled, so people have, uh, several people, or three or four people, or three people have asked me about pakhnich bar and pakhnich bor. Where there's a difference in the way it is in the Tehillim, it's nish bor, and in the Siddur, it's a pakhnich bar. I think it's that way. I'm just gonna pull out the Tehillim to ch-check. Um, so now, one of the people who was in conversation with me said perhaps our Tehillim is, uh, the... But we're not, you know, not so Meduyok or something. So before we start playing around with your Meduyok, Nushim Meduyok, I wanted to remember, um, recall that there's a Ingeman from, originally from London, his name is Shmulie Rabin, was brilliant, uh, in Dikduk, amongst other things. And around Tov Shin Nun, Nun Alef, may have been still a bocher. But he had written into the Rebbe about, uh, the Tehillim, the, the Chabad Tehillim, Tehillim, early Hasafid Scott, and how according to the Medaktikim, there's lots of discrepancies there, or that's what word he uses. And so the Rebbe's response to him, that's what I heard at the time, "Vos veisn zey vegen Dikduk?" Not what do you know about Dikduk, but what do those... You're saying the Ma-Master Medaktikim, um, have issues with, with the way it's presented in that Tehillim. Vos veisn zey vegen Dikduk? Interesting. Um, it just reminds me, I just, uh, followed a, a conversation about, about the exchange of water, when you

08:44 Speaker 1 have Beir al-Gabe Beir, where someone had written to the Rebbe that according to some scientists, the lower water and the upper water exchange. And so the Rebbe's response, I'm not gonna go into the whole thing now, but the Rebbe says, "Go find another scientist." And, and, and so there's a Ingeman in Eretz Israel called Rav Shaul Silam in, in, uh, somewhere in Yerushalayim. So he has a, uh, he's trained as, he's from France. He's trained in physics, whatever. And he actually just, by the Seem Harambam in now in Yerushalayim, he told over he, he made contact with a, with a physicist or whatever there. He was, who, who breathes water. This is whole Chayes is water. „May matzmichin kol pinie tayin v'yayim mesgepshute." And he's, he was quite, uh, confident that it's okay to say that the upper water, uh, upper waters and lower waters are not mixing. But that's a fun- another whole discussion. But this kind of, Vos veisn zey vegen, vegen physics, yeah. So now, looking at the Tehillim. So we have in this Tehillim, it says, "Hapakh nich bor." In the Siddur, it says, "Hapakh nich bar." So what we have on this, on the t-screen, we have here from an, on an early Tehillim, well, relatively early, from about three hundred years ago, Taf Ayin Zayin. That's in the back of the Siddur Shalot, printed in Amsterdam, Taf Ayin Zayin. And there it has with a komets. Here you have another also. This is attributed, this lower one, next one

10:18 Speaker 1 on the screen is attributed to Rav Saadia Gaon or something. And here it has also the komets. Then we have another Tehillim, which is s- also a Sefardishe print. Bear in mind, but for the Sefardim, Nich bor and Nich bar is all the same thing. So the Dikduk on that point is not so, uh, not such an issue. But yeah, but here he has a Pakh Nich Bar. But then he doesn't stop with that. He also has a note at the bottom. „Vemiktsas Forim Haves Bepasach, Vemiksason Komets. V'haolam Nohegin Lekroesei Bepach.” So it's the common reading is Pach. Just to, to support that, now I have a Tehillim with the Pirush of Rav Shamshon Rafael Hirsch, the Hirsch Tehillim, which is, uh, knowing Yekus, I mean, I think it's, it's, it's an accurate edition. And there it's also a Pakh Nich Bar with a Pach. So if someone st-starts telling you it's not so Meduyok, you know, well, we've got, we've got some history here that it is M- it, it, it... There's re- good reason to say it's Meduyok. But I want to go a little bit more scientific on this, and that is looking at the trop. Now, in Hebrew, we've got the word Shamayim. At the end of a pasuk, it becomes Shamoyim. Eretz becomes Oretz, and so on. There are many words which they will, their, the, the vowel will change when it's at a, an end of sentence, and also sometimes at Asnachter, which is a strong pause. Now, the

11:53 Speaker 1 t- the trop, the tunes of most of Tanakh are the same set of tunes. Then you've got for the three Seforim of Iyov, Mishlei, Tehillim, they've got a different set of notes, and they've got different names. And so all right, um, it doesn't, by our, by our community, the trop for Tehillim, very f- I don't know many people who know, know how to read them. But we have them in the, in the, uh- But as far as they, they are, they are more knowledgeable about the trope for Tehillim. But meanwhile, you've got a set, a series of trope in Tehillim. The trope on the word Nishbor or Nishbar is called Mugrosh Legarme. Now, you've got that, it looks like, uh, Azla Geireish, and then you've got a Revi. This is called Mugrosh Legarme, which in the, uh, the... I have a Sefer dedicated to the trope of Tanakh, and it has a chart of different levels. Now, in English, we've got a sentence. You've got the end of sentence is a full stop. Halfway through the sentence, you may, if there's a strong pause, you might put in a colon. Then you might have commas here and there to also to break the sentence, to put a pause in the sentence. A comma and a semicolon are not the same level of a, of a pause. Similarly, Lehavdil, in Tanakh, in the Ma'atami HaMikra, you've got Mafsikim, which are stronger, and you've got weaker, smaller Mafsikim, lesser Mafsikim. So, obviously, the Saf Posuk is the

13:37 Speaker 1 strongest one. So, like, this word, Nimlotnu. Probably in the middle of a word, in about the middle of a sentence, it might be Nimlotnu, but it's end of a sentence. The Asnachta is the second strongest pause. Middle of a sentence, it breaks the sentence into half. That's the Asnachta. Then we've got lesser Mafsikim, like a Zokef Katan in, in, uh, Mikra, in, in Chumash. And the, the, uh, this term of, um, what they call it, Mugrash Legarme, is, is put on the same level as a Zokef Katan. So, does that degree of pause change from a Patach to a Komets? That's really the discussion. Does the fact that it's on a slight... It's a, it is a slight pause. A Pach Nishbor is a slight pause. Does that change, or is it seen as middle of a sentence, therefore it be a Pach Nishbor? That is really the debate. How strong is this pause, and whether therefore it changes it from a Patach to a Komets. So that's, that's, that is the Machloket, so to speak. The Halukah de is how we see that. Now, in, in the way I am comfortable to read, yes, you read the passage. That's like Asnachta. I don't see much of a pause there, but there is this trope of a pause. As I was doing Tehillim this morning, I saw a similar structure as you see in chapter Peh Bes in Tehillim. Now, if it's the end of a passage, without some lo- or even by a pause,

15:21 Speaker 1 Yeah? So, if it be as a pause, it'd be . So, if it's meant to be a Pach Nishbor, it should be also , not vos. It's the middle of, it's, it's the middle of a sentence. It's not a s- pause. All right, so a Pach Nishbor, an Ach, Nimlot, is slightly more of a pause because there, there's only one, one trope afterwards. Here, there's a Tikra afterwards. Mekenzach ding, it's, it's, it's debatable. But I just wanted to share with you a little bit more. It's not just, you know, with this printer decided this way, this one. There's a little bit more to it that whether it should be seen as a, a stronger pause or as a lesser pause, and therefore, I don't know, well... And, well, how do you do Lamaisah? Oh, this is what you want to know. Lamaisah is what you gotta do. Okay, Lamaisah, you, you do what's written in the print in front of you. You have a siddur, it says, A Pach Nishbor. You say it the way it says in the siddur. Um, it's not the time, when you're davening, it's not the time to start making pilpulim with all these things. You just follow what the siddur is, and hopefully they got it right. Right. Let's move on. So now, we're going to go on to the next question, number three, and that is, what is the value of a prutah? So, we're preparing for Purim, and we're going to, uh, perhaps to make kits for

16:38 Speaker 1 people to do the mitzvahs of Purim, and some want to put in a couple few coins. So, what is the minimum for a prutah, assuming, that's not so clear that Ma'ot Chomas Leviyonim a prutah is enough. Some say it should be the shir of a sudar, um, which is more than a, a, a prutah. But assuming that it's a prutah, that's, so then how much is a prutah? Now, for those who engage in Pidyon HaBen, one side or the other side of the table, silver has shot up recently. And a, a Pidyon HaBen, which last time, year, a couple years ago, it looked like to me it was about sixty pounds, um, for a hundred grams of silver. Now, a hundred grams of silver is approximately two hundred pounds, which means... So, I can see the kohen smiling. Um, so, so, uh, that's, that's, uh, the sh- how much is a shir? Uh, so one gram of silver is approximately one pound. It went a bit more than a pound last week. Went to two fifteen, then it went down to, uh, one eighty-seven, but it's fluctuating around two pounds. So now, Rabbeinu Yonah says that the shir of a prutah, which actually we're learning Gemara Kidushin at the moment. Um, so, "Eisha Mis Kadesh is ve'prutah ve'shav a prutah." The shir of a prutah is the s- the val- the, uh, the, the value of silver of a, half a barley grain. What? So Rabbeinu Yonah says it's one fortieth of a gram. The

18:19 Speaker 1 v- the, the silver, one fortieth of a gram. So, if a gram of silver is now, costs two pounds, so one fortieth is about five pence. So current-- therefore, in the current m-moment, uh, about a five pence coin is about a pruta. Um, and i-if people are listening in other countries, you work it out in, in your, in your country, um, what is it, uh, uh, whatever the exchange rate is. W-find out how much is a gram of silver and in your currency, your local price, and then divide that by forty and that will be the sheer pruta. Right. Let's move on. A fine lady contacted me and asked me, she has an oven with a Shabbos mode, and she wanted to know, could she put in raw chicken before Shabbos in a covered dish, and then somehow it will switch on, on Shabbos mode, and it will cook. It will be ready for Shabbos day. So I must say that generally this idea of having food warming up on Shabbos with a time switch, whilst there may be Halacha, um, room for it, Rav Padva Zichronia Levracha was actually quite opposed to it. He did not allow the caterers. The caterers would love to be able to have their kugel hot and crisp. This is as a tsiruf, a caramel. This is rach un moleh and, uh, geschmack, and that's good for the caterers. We get better, better feedback. But if you leave the kugel on the, on the, on the thing before Shabbos,

20:06 Speaker 1 so then it's sometimes gonna dry out. So it's a ganze kunst to get the kugel. It should be hot and not dry. So they would love to be able to use a high-- a time switch. On the Shabbos morning, the cold kugel will become warm, and by the time, kugel time for Kiddush, it's all nice and hot and, and geschmack. But, uh, Rav Padva didn't allow it. He didn't allow the caterers to do this. He saw it's asking for trouble. But fine. That's, that's one thing. So generally, when people ask, can they use a timer to switch on on Shabbos, it's not so poshet. There may also be bases Halacha, uh, looking, I think, in the She'el Chachme, the Maharshal, which is brought in Alter Rebe also. It's one thing between... There's one thing if a melacha started before Shabbos and continues into Shabbos. There's another thing if a melacha starts on Shabbos. It's a different, different Halacha. Okay. But meanwhile, she tells me that she has this, uh, oven. So the first thing is, if you want to leave raw food to cook on Shabbos, there's a din. It has to be either gru or ktumah. So you're gonna leave it in the oven. How is the inside of the oven going to be gru or ktumah? So she tells me-- She got back to me, she says, uh, in other words, "Well, how do we do ktumah? We do a blech. You cover the fire." But inside an oven, it's not really practical

21:30 Speaker 1 to cover the fire. So how are you gonna make a change from the regular way of baking? So she comes back, she says, "It's got a matzah Shabbos. It's got a Shabbos switch, Shabbos mode." The, the, the Shabbos mode, she was saying, doesn't allow you to do adjustments. So if the reason that the, the ktumah is there to-- that you shouldn't come to adjust the fa-- flame, so this button, Shabbos mode, is, uh, is, is the same thing. So all right. I was, I was a little bit convinced. Then someone brought it to my attention. No, no, no. Wait a minute. You're saying this. One button, you might come to adjust the button. Oh, so you got now two buttons. You have to un-- have-- depress the but-- the Shabbos mode, and then you can start, uh, rotating the, the, the con-controls. So who says that, that, that, that's good enough? Here's another important point. When it comes to blech, so the Halacha requires you cover the heat, the source of heat. If you just cover the buttons and not cover the source of heat, that wouldn't be enough. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein says you should cover the buttons. Halacha requires that you cover the fire. And therefore, um, the fact that you've covered the controls, that's not good enough. It's a nice thing, but it doesn't help. So even if it would be, and this is what you have on the screen from Rav Forchheimer Sefer Shabbos Halacha. He talks about this matzah Shabbat, and

24:04 Speaker 1 that the Shabbos seems to have been, uh, um, permission-- permitting this. And he says, it's not really... He's not happy with that because it's not-- you can't compare the matzah Shabbat to a, to a hot plate because there the actual fire is not the way it is during the week, not really the cooking mode. Whereas here, you're just covering a button, which is a side thing. All right. So find another way to get your fresh chicken for a Shabbos lunch. Okay. So here's another question not on the screen. How many minutes after sunset could I wash for Seudah Shlishit? Now, once it becomes Shabbos, we're not allowed to eat without Kiddush because... Or not have covered for Kiddush. Once it becomes Havdalah time, you're not allowed to eat before making Havdalah. But when does Havdalah time arrive? Is Havdalah time sunset or is Havdalah time three stars? So there's two-- there are two opinions in Shulchan Aruch. One says until tzeis hakochavim, you can still eat. But the Halacha remains like the stricter opinion that after shkiyah, you shouldn't eat. Go into any Polish shtiebel and check out what time do they start their Shalaschodes. Um, I was once in Golders Green for a Shabbos, and I... A friend of mine, not a Babycher, so he, he had a shtiebel there. I was surprised, like a half an hour after shkiya, he came in and made Hamotzi. It was like, "All right, so they're relying on Rabbi Natang, this, that." But we, we, we don't

25:37 Speaker 1 follow Rabbi Natang in this respect. Uh, for tefillin, yes. For shkiya, not. Um, so now... So, uh, so for us, shkiya is... Well, after shkiya, we don't, we don't, um, we can't start our meal. We can't start washing, having Hamotzi. But there's a little bit of flexibility here. And I told this person that you can have up to eight minutes after shkiya. I told him you can have up to eight minutes, and I'll tell you why. First of all, the-- what the... You have in the clock, it says it's sh-- It says, uh, calendar says shkiya is at this and this time. Now, that's called astronomical sunset. Astronomical sunset means that if there was a lens at sea level looking towards the west, and as it's looking towards the west, the sun sinks beneath the horizon, approximately then, that's astronomical shkiya. Fine. Um, however, Halakha doesn't say you have to, you know, put on a pair of swimming trunks and get into the water to see the shkiya. Halakha is you're walking in the promenade or you're looking on the over cliff, whatever, and you see the shkiya. So therefore, the higher you are, the, the later the shkiya is. Yeah. If you're looking towards the west, the high-- If you're on the tenth floor, you're gonna see the sun well, longer than you if you are on the ground floor. And so this is the first point. The first point is that the calen-- the shkiya in the calendar is from sea level, but

27:03 Speaker 1 the shkiya la-Halakha is certainly not from sea level. It's from a little bit higher up, and that gives you a couple of minutes. On top of that, we have the Alter Rebbe's chiddush to differentiate between shkiya aninus and shkiya amitus, and he talks about roshei harim hagvo'im, that it's only if there be a... Let's say if you were by Haifa and the sun is setting on the west and you're looking to the har- the Mount Carmel, which overlooks the Mediterranean, and if you look towards the top of the mountain and you see that there's no longer rays of the sun, that is when it's shkiya amitus. Or even then, the Mount Carmel is not the tallest mountain. Rebbe Alter Rebbe says, "Roshei harim hagvo'im sh'ba'aretz yisrael." So therefore, that gives us another few minutes. Now, I wouldn't normally, uh, be so liberal with shkiya for other anyanim. The anyanim which are chamurim me'eid about shkiya, and for those things, I wouldn't be so liberal. But here we're talking about eating before, before half dollar. And there's a shitah which says you can, uh, till, till tzeis hakochavim. So we can afford to be more easygoing, and that's why I said up to eight minutes. So that's... So we, you know, when you finish Mincha, don't shove the n- guy next to you. You know, you've got another couple of minutes, so you can relax if you're washing for Shalaschodas. Okay. Now, here I got the following question. This is from another country. And he-- I--

28:30 Speaker 1 He's got a grocery store. Some kind of... I don't know. He sells also incense. And a goy comes in, and he says, "I would... I would like to buy a good supply of incense." And masya lefitumo, he says, "Because we use it in the church, and then we're having a service, and, uh, I need to provide, you know, uh, for the ser- for the service." So am I allowed to... Now, I want to clarify. Christianity is considered avodah zarah. Ah, you may have heard that a nochri ein metzuvah al hashituf. That means that for the goy, trinity is not an averah. Shituf is if he believes in Hashem and something else, it is not an averah. That doesn't change that the other worship, which he worships, is avodah zarah. Yeah. So if, if a goy worships Hashem, and he also worships a, a, an idol, see, well, he believes in both. He, he's allowed to do that, let's say. But the idol becomes a chefs of avodah zarah. So ne- here-- So the worship itself is avodah zarah. So are we allowed to, um, assist them? Which I'm-- actually, I'm, I'm thinking twice whether my lomdus is correct. But meanwhile, what we have over here is a siman in Shulchan Aruch, Siman Cuf-Nun-Alef, which says that if a goy-- That's from Chacham says, if a goy says, "I want to buy this product from you. I want to use it for worship," so you're not allowed to sell it to him. Comes along the Rama,

30:09 Speaker 1 and he says, "Yesh oimrim." That which you're not allowed to provide them the resources for their worship, it's only when they have no alternative source to get those items. They don't have alternate-- They don't have the supply, nor can they get it elsewhere. But if they can obtain the same goods elsewhere, then you are allowed to sell them the, the provisions for their worship. Yesh machmirim, now those who are machmir, and the minhag is lahok hil, like the, the more lenient position, uh, baal nefesh should be machmir. So you-- if you're Ashkenazi, um, so then you have basis lahok hil, unless you're a baal nefesh, which you're gonna be machmir for yourself. If you are Sephardi, then you wouldn't be allowed to sell. Now, to explain a little bit more about this. There's a nazir who made a vow not to do... Nazirs are not allowed to drink wine, and he's-- You're standing near him, and he says, "Do me a favor. There's a glass of wine there. I'm desperate for a glass of wine. Could you pass the wine to me?" And you pass it to him. So you're . You have provided the goy-- the, the nazir the wherewithal to violate a, a halachah, a mitzvah. So in the Gemara, there's a whole discussion. This is only if it's If it's, uh... you-- the nazir is on one side. The glass of wine is on the other side of a river. And he ask-- He can't, for some reason, he can't swim, whatever.

31:47 Speaker 1 So he asks you to pass it because he can't reach it. But if it's within his reach, he just asks you a favor, but he could do it himself. That's not called Lifnei Iver. You're not Iver on enabling. You haven't enabled him to do Aveira because he was able to do it without you. It still is a Mesayea Bidvar Aveira. It's, uh, one less-- one level less. You're accomplice to some degree, but you're not, you're you're not Iver Lifnei Min HaTor. Here becomes the debate whether the Isu Mesayea Bidvar Aveira applies to Goyim also. And so the Mechaber is saying you're not allowed to sell to them because, uh... And the Ramoh is saying, if they can get it elsewhere, so then it's only on the level of Mesayea. And therefore, there are those who say Mesayea is permitted to a Goy. And those Romah who say that it's not permitted. Just why I was hesitating after my whole spiel about whether a Goy has the Isu of Shituf, if, if he's allowed to do it, so why should there be Isu Lifnei Aveira altogether? All right. That's, uh, to just think about it more carefully. All right. But meanwhile, this is-- this remains simply, is he allowed to sell it or not? So there is an Archatayim to him to continue selling. Certainly, if the Goy doesn't say anything, you're allowed to sell. Uh, um, and if you know this, this for sure that he's gonna use it for Avodah Zarah, for his worship,

33:10 Speaker 1 then Bal Nefesh Yachmir LeAtzmo. And I've said many times, Yachmir LeAtzmo means you're pasken to be machmir for yourself. You don't pasken like that for other people. That's the Lashon Yachmir LeAtzmo. That's the person who's asking. Okay, fine. So the Shiur asks you, uh, then I think you should be telling them, um, yeah, Siman... That they were Yashmir LeAtzmo. Okay. So here is a, in a, uh, fine Jewish home, and there's a jar of mustard. And yesterday, Mrs. dipped a fleishiger knife into the mustard. Today, the mister wants to take some of the mustard with a milchiger knife and put it together with some milchiger food. And here's the question. Uh, or-- And I know, generally, we keep the mustard with a pareve, and... But i-is it your, is it your mustard now become, uh, is it... Do- It doesn't become treifed up when you're putting a, a milchiger knife and a fleishiger knife in the mustard. Let's read the question. So we have a concept of Dovar Charif. And Dovar Charif, a sharp food, has got the power of, let's say, if you took a classic example, you took a fleishig knife and you chopped an onion. Now-- And then that onion becomes fleishig. So when people ask me this question, when it becomes now they start-- then they fried it in a milchig frying pan. Yeah. So now the first question I ask, when you tell me it's a fleishig knife, do you mean you've cut-- used this knife for cutting meat, hot

34:45 Speaker 1 meat? Or is it just say vegetable knife you washed up in fleishigs? But if it's sometimes it's just like they cut sha- hot meat. Yeah. If so, that knife, knife is fleishig. Now, the, the interesting thing is that whereas generally we say if it's more than twenty-four hours since the-- it was used to meat, then you can, uh, be lenient. When it comes to Dovar Charif, it's got a pr-property of refreshing the taste, so that even if the knife wasn't used for a few days, if it had been used for, uh, hot meat to cut, let's say, to cut hot meat, then that knife is a, is fleishig, the onion becomes fleishig. And if you took that onion and you used it in a, um, uh, in a milchiger frying pan and you fried some or whatever, so then that frying pan would now become treif because it's got milchig and fleishig absorbed in it. Yeah, that's true. That's because you've got here a combination of two factors. You've got the onion, which is a Dovar Charif, and you've got what's called Duchna Sakina, the pressure, the friction of the knife. So those two factors combined. Hence our question here, you've got a, a bu- mustard, which is in a form of a cream, of a paste. So you don't have the friction, you don't have the resistance. So does it become... When you dip in a, a spoon or a knife into the mustard, does that make the mustard, uh, milchig or fla, fleishig,

36:07 Speaker 1 et cetera? So let's read. This is a contemporary Sefer on kashrus. Sefer HaKashrus. Apparently, that's a scroll. People who are going to train as mashgichim are told to, um, familiarize themselves with this Sefer. Um, so, so simple, very, very simple language. Sharp foods should be kept in k- pareve dishes because a food absorbs from the taste which is absorbed in the dish. And if you're gonna put the sharp food in a meaty dish, so then you won't be able to use them, uh, the dip, those dips with milky and so on. Then he says, a sharp food which was left in a milky or meaty dish for more than eighteen minutes, and then it was put in the food of the other gender, then ask a shailah. So what he's saying in simple words is a simple dip of a milchiger spoon or for a milchiger knife, a clean milchiger knife into the mustard does not make the mustard fleishig. If it stays there for eighteen minutes, that's called the shir r'ticha or something. If it's eighteen minutes or more, then a dovechariv may-- there may be interchange of taste from the implement into the mustard. But if it's less than that, it's a simple short dip, it's not... And it's clean. So it's not, not recommended. Recommended is you have a pair of a spoon for your mustard dip and so on. But bedi'eved, if it has been a clean, uh, piece of cutlery was dipped in, it does not make the dip fleishig

37:45 Speaker 1 nor milchig. Just where, you know, once it becomes , we realize that Pesach is around the corner also. In Halachas Pesach, we have about a base so'ir, a dish which is kept where you keep yeast in it. And because it's used for fermenting the yeast, so then that keli becomes chametzdik. No, no heat. But a, a strong product like yeast is going to impart a taste, and it's gonna be very hard, even with boi- boiling water. Boiling water will take out that which was absorbed with boiling water. But if the yeast absorbed or impregnated a chametzdik taste into that dish, hot water is not gonna take it out. So i-i-if it were a longer period, so the dovechariv does impregnate a taste. But, uh, meanwhile, we're talking about a sh- very, very short-term, uh, dip, then that would be okay. Right. Let's move on. So I gave a shiur recently about Birchas Hamazon, and we only got till, till Maimachronim Zimon. And in some , yeah. You're familiar? So where did... That's not in all Ashkenazi Durim, only in certain-- in, in the English ones and probably in the Singalsider probably has it there. I don't have a Singalsider at home. Please, I can find one. Don't worry. Don't, don't... I-I-I'll manage. But meanwhile, so here's, here's very interesting. And when else do you have Mi Yimalel? At the end of... Is it, um, Anim Zmires? So there's a Mi Yimalel over there. Now, so one of the Talmides asked me about this Mi Yimalel.

39:36 Speaker 1 So very interesting. In here, you have from the Levush, and it's also in the Alter Rebe's Shulchan Aruch, that to say after Borche Omer, to say, "Mi Yimalel v'os Hashem yaishmiya kol t'hiloso," and then to proceed to say, v'suchis zimra, toyim gemurim heim, absolutely misled. V'yasru li omri. And if you say it, it's just, it's almost... He says it's like heresy because you're about to say, um, you're about to say suchis zimra, and you say, "Mi Yimalel v'os Hashem," who can praise Hashem adequately? You know what? I'm gonna do it now. I'm going to say now suchis zimra, and I'm-- and, and we're covered. We've praised Hashem adequately, and that is considered blasphemy because who could, who could say all the praises of Hashem? He quotes the famous line, "Di yoi eli yami." You rec- recognize that. Di yoi eli yami. That's from the Yadomas, yeah. If the seas had been like, uh, ink, you wouldn't be able to describe the praise of Hashem adequately. Then the, this, this part, the Alter Rebe also brings, but the next part he does not bring. The-- this is the Levush. He says, "If it's at the end, you're finished saying phrases, and then you say Mi Yimalel. So what you're saying is, 'I've said what I can. Mi Yimalel, I can't say everything, but that's why I'm stopping here.'" That's okay. But to say it at the beginning and then to go into launch into praise is very presumptuous. So therefore, the fact that Mi Yimalel is

41:08 Speaker 1 said after Anim Zmires, that's it. It's-- you're parting. We've said Anim Zmires. Mi Yimalel, who can cover it totally? Okay, we-we-we-we'll stop here, but we, we, we can't do, do justice. That's, that's justified. But to say Mi Yimalel and then go and say in benching, l'chayei, it's clearly against... This is also Teshuvas Marshall and the Levush, and it's wrot- written in, uh, Magen Avram and Simon Hanaleph. So I, I, uh, I'm wondering where does this come from, this minik to say Mi, Mi Yimalel before Birchas Hamazon. It seems to be, um, toyim gemurim heim. And I don't think one should use that for an established minik Ashkenaz, as well as someone will find some justification. But I'm curious. So someone out there, if you find an explanation, please share it with us. Right. Let's move on to number nine. That was-- No, that was number nine, wasn't it? That was number eight. Okay. Um, yes. So now number nine. This is a, a new insight to me. Someone asks, "If you've just said Borche Omer and you hear Kaddish, and you haven't start Mizmur L'David, can you answer Amen on Amen Chaveir Rabah," let's say. And he was thinking that it's something like when you make a bracha on an apple and you hear Kaddish before you bite, bitten into the apple. So it's a hefsek. So the Borche Omer being like a bracha before Mis- be-before suchis zimra, you can't be hefsek between the, the, the bracha Borche Omer and suchis zimra. So that

42:47 Speaker 1 it-- So on the, on the bracha of Borche Omer itself, this is also curiously, it's not in the Alter Rebe's Shulchan Aruch. Um, boimrim Borche Omer kodem suchis zimra. Uh, sorry. Im siam Borche Omer kodem shesiam hachazon. If you as an individual have completely finished Bo- the bracha Borche Omer and the chazon finishes afterwards, oino achrav Amen. You'll answer Amen to the chazon. There's not a problem of a hefsek because- It's you're saying the same thing. You said, "I broke Shaama fully agree. That's not a problem. Right. But then if it were not the omen for Boruch Sheomar, if it were for some other thing. So then Mr. Brewer brings from Primo Godim that he is, he is concerned about it being like a Birkat Mitzvot, and therefore not to have a hefsek between, um, the Brocha Boruch Sheomar and the ps-- uh, recital of the Psukim DeZimra. But I must say that in the Alter Rebbe, we don't-- I don't see any, any clue to this. And even, even Birkat Kohanim. Is Birkat Kohanim like a Birkat Mitzvot? So actually, Chabad, we are machmir on this because when it comes to Habeil BeHaMe Istu BeAhavah, so we are machmir that the Chazan says the Brocha qu-- finishes off quietly. He doesn't say Habeil BeHaMe Istu BeAhavah aloud because otherwise it would mean that the tzibur answer Amen, and that would be constituted hefsek between Habeil BeHaMe Istu BeAhavah and Shema Yisrael. So though in Birkat Kohanim we do not use the words, , but

44:35 Speaker 1 still it's seen as a Birkat Mitzvot not to allow a hefsek between those Brochas and the recital of Shema. So according to that logic, the argument here of the Primo Godim does have basis that one should avoid after having said Boruch Sheomar, before you've launched into Psukim DeZimra proper, perhaps it's takka not to be mafsik, to answer something else because of a chashash of hefsek between the Brocha and the article of which, which you make in the Brocha. Once you've launched into the middle of Psukim DeZimra, then, then the rules are different. So this whole thing was, for me, was a bit of a surprise. So you can look it up in Siman Nun Alef, in Mishne Brura, and in, uh, other Halakha. Right. Let's move on to the next thing on our list, and that is about a swing hanging on a tree, from a tree. And this is a reference to Shabbos. Are you allowed to sit on this swing, enjoy this swing on Shabbos? So we have a simple Halakha. We're not allowed to climb a tree, not allowed to sit on a tree. Even, let's say, if a tree stump or a tree is less than... Sorry, if it's more than three tefachim above the ground, sometimes you've got the roots are, are, have, kind of risen above the ground, such as if it's more than three tefachim off the ground, you wouldn't be allowed to sit on those roots. Good. You're not allowed to mishtamish b'gj body karka. Someone asked

46:09 Speaker 1 me, "Is it got to do whether it has leaves or not?" It's got nothing to do whether it has leaves or not. It's a Yisro Elokim. You're not allowed to directly use something which is, uh, growing from the ground. Then we've got sdotin, the sides, or in other words, one step removed. And then we've got a level called sdot sdotin, two steps removed. So here we have in Shulchan Aruch, this is Siman Shin Lamed Vav. And it says a ladder which is leaning on the tree, you wouldn't be allowed to go up that ladder on Shabbos because it's sadei ha'ilon. I-- Now, however, if there is a peg which is dri-driven into the tree, you would be allowed to lean the ladder on the, this peg which is, which is attached to the tree because the peg is sdotin. The, the Halakhah is called sdot sdotin. It goes on. If you have a peg on a tree and there's a basket hanging on the peg, so the, the peg is sdotin, the, the basket is sdot sdotin. So then you're allowed to put stuff in the basket, take it out of the basket, but you wouldn't be allowed to take the basket off or hang it on because that would be Mishtadein Misbitas Dod. Okay. So now that's, that's the Halakha as it appears in Shulchan Aruch. And now a little bit. What you-- Here you have, you can see on the screen, you've got these red-- these yellow straps, and they're fixed to the

47:35 Speaker 1 tree. And then at some stage here in the middle, the end of the yellow strap, there's a kind of a hook. And then you have the swing itself has got black, black straps, black cords, and they have the top. They have a, a metal hook, and that metal hook locks into the loop, which is hanging from the yellow straps, and that's how you enjoy the swing. So is that called... Should we say the yellow straps is sdot, and then the black straps or the hooks is sdot sdot? That's, that's where you might have come from, from that angle to say it's okay. So the Piske Teshuvas, well, we, we went through this, um, actually about four years ago. I found it on my list on the index. So he comes up with a... First of all, he says, when you've got something which is made up of various components, you're not gonna say, "Oh, there's a screw, and there's a, there's a, there's a board, and there's a, uh..." It's all considered one unit. When something is made up of several components, we see that all as one. So let's say the ladder. The ladder, well, the rungs, they are into the uprights, and the screws which are connecting them to the uprights. Well, you, you don't do that. The whole ladder is considered a single unit. And same thing, the whole swing, lchudah. Although you can argue that this swing is, uh, is-- comes as separate pieces, but bepast it, it's all one, one

49:05 Speaker 1 swing, and therefore that should not be okay. Um, he also says another interesting observation. If you took a board, and you screwed it into the tree, so the, the, the board is holding on the tree because of the screw, that, that doesn't make the wood sdot sdotin. The same idea. The screw is tofel. It's just to, just to hold the sc-- the, uh, the board to the tree. And then he says another thing. If you had a, let's say, a board which is supported on the tree, and on the, on that board there are hooks which have been screwed into that board, would you be allowed to hang your coat on the hooks which are on the board which are attached to the tree? And he says, "No, you're not allowed." He calls them all sdot. It's, it's all what the, the hooks and the, and the board are considered one unit. Then he goes on, um, if the board, then you ha-ha-hang a, hang a swing from it, then you'd be allowed to sit on the swing, um, provided the tree is a sturdy tree. So I don't, I don't know whether you recognize this. There's this very beautiful book which, uh, has been around about thirty years, Miss Dharma. On, on about the Lamas Tes Melocas, and it's got, uh, all different activities going on, and are they allowed or not allowed? So here you have the hammock, which is hanging from hooks on the trees. So he says it's okay, and I

50:33 Speaker 1 think he's darn right, according to what we just read. Isn't-- The, the hook here is not part of the hammock. It's not part of the tree, and therefore, that's called sidon, sidodin. And then you take and put the hammock, and so then that's okay. So that's interesting that the hammock and, and the hooks are considered separate units, whereas according to our discussion, the swing and the yellow straps are seen as, as one unit. There, there is room to, uh, to disagree, but I think that would be true because these, these, these straps have no other function other than for the, for the swing. Whereas these hooks are there. I mean, they could be used for other things also, and therefore, I just see them as, as separate things. So in the hammock, it's called sidi-- The hammock itself is sidit sodin, whereas in the swing, I think it's called sodin. Okay. Now, what do we have next on our list? Leftit Tefillin. Now, see on the, mm, on the screen, you have here a picture of a pair of, of a Rashi... Sorry, a shel yad tefillin. And as you know, we have Hashem's name, Shin Dalet Yud. On the tefillin, we've got the Shin is on the sides of the shalosh, three heads, four heads. Then we have the Dalet is in the knot of the shalosh, and the Yud is in the knot of the shel yad. So where I'm showing now with the cursor, that end piece of the knot is a

52:08 Speaker 1 shape of a Yud. Now, I did not find a left-handed shel yad, uh, in a safer. I just used my computer to flip the picture the other way around, and therefore, the writing over there is mirror writing. Yeah. So now do you... When you have a, a lefty, and so the... Now with a lefty, so then the kesher of that tefillin is gonna be on the left side of the box rather than on the right side. Now, looking at the Yud over here, it's actually not a Yud. It's a mirror of a Yud. So here becomes a serious question. What-- How do you make the Yud in a lefty tefillin? Do you make a mirror image? Does that count for the mitzvah of writing, of having a Yud? Some say take that view. Um, others disagree, and they say, "No, that has to be a Yud. That's not a Yud." And as a result, you'll have to somehow put the retzuah knot from what would be here right to left, but from left to right, and then it would be the, the s-s pointy part of the retzuah. Instead of pointing away from the tefillin, it will actually be pointing up towards the tefillin, and it will be a, it'll be a Yud, albeit it may be an upside-down position, but that depends how you're looking at it. But it will be a Yud, not, not a mirror of a Yud. So this is a debate, and, uh, contemporary sforim have this thing. We now,

53:45 Speaker 1 we have in the Gemara talks about the sh- the Dalet has to be visible to the outside. The lesson of the Gemara, when you look at the Dalet at the back of the tefillin, you should be able to recognize a Dalet. And so it follows that the same thing, the Yud should be visible, should be seen as a Yud. Um, I, I asked once, uh, one of the prominent Lubavitcher Rabbonim about this, and he was okay to have a mirror, a mirror Yud. Uh, I'm not very happy about it because just like the Dalet has to be, as I said, has to be a visible Dalet, so the Yud shou-should also be a visible Yud. And therefore, I was more inclined the other way. But as I say, there are, there are, uh-uh, heavyweights in both, both directions. So, uh, what shall we say? Whichever way you do this is you've got whom to rely on. Right. Um, about Gartel for Benching. So last week, we had this discussion, should you wear Gartel for Benching? And I mentioned how it's such a chosheve mitzvah and, uh, if you need a Gartel to pull your strength together, um, so after a heavy meal, you may need a Gartel to wake, wake you up to, uh, focus on your Benching. Now, so I came across Baruch Gocha Protes after last week's, uh, Shir, that Top Shin Chof Zai, someone who, who makes a note. When-- A-after Yom Kippur, during those years, the Rebbe would have the Yom

55:16 Speaker 1 Tov meals upstairs in the apartment of the Friediker Rebbe. And so Motzei Yom Kippur was also a Yom Tov de Kemil, and the Rebbe came to this Yom Tov de Kemil, Motzei Yom Kippur, with his siddur, without his Gartel, number one. Number two, it says in, he said, that on Purim, the Rebbe would come in with his Gartel for the meal, for the Shaddai, for the Birchat HaSamosin, and for the Maimer. So the fact that it's pointed out it's done so for Purim, perhaps you can read from, from that, that Lavdavka any other time. So we're still not c-clear on that. Whereas last week, I was like, um, more inclined to say one should do so, but now if I see the Rebbe wasn't always so particular, um, so Okay. Can be a bit relaxed on that. What else do we have here? Okay. So one of our listeners heard how I described the holding of the Lechem Mishneh, um, holding the two loaves back to back. The base-- the two bases are connected to one another, and the are as if it's one loaf. So he, he sh-shared with me, this is a book called Mizmor Ladovid. Now, listen to an amazing Hashgacha Protis. This is a book written by someone called Reb Yitzchok Yarmish who lives in Montreal. So I sent him an email, and I didn't get a response. I happened then to get a phone call from someone from Montreal, and I say to him, "I do know... By the way,

56:58 Speaker 1 do you know the-- this person, Rabbi Yarmish, in, in Mo-Montreal?" He says, "He happens to be my father-in-law. Uh, unfortunately, he's, he's, uh, not too well," which explained why, uh, I wasn't getting a response to my email. At any rate, so he had-- Because the of the Rebbe was to hold the , to hold the two loaves next to one another. So he had understood, as you can see on this picture, to hold them side by side. And, uh, as I've said very clear, in it doesn't mean side by side, uh, in that sense. It's... Side by side is as opposed to one on top of the other. But in the side by side itself, it should be back to back. So that's how it's clear in the and as I said also, uh, and it's written over here also, we could see by the Rebbe there, by the that he hold the two challahs with the flat side of the two challahs is connected to one another. So just another and he should be able to come back and tell us, uh, that he's happy to have, have the challahs back to back. Okay. Um, the last thing which I want to share with you is that a couple of weeks ago, was it three, four weeks ago, we had a discussion about tevilas keilim in snow. If you remember that discussion, can you tovel keilim in snow? And then I showed how the Rama says how the m-the tevilas keilim in s- uh,

58:24 Speaker 1 about the keilim in snow, but the snow has to be packed. And he asked the shailah, "How do you tovel in packed snow?" When the snow is loose, okay, you can sink into the snow. But if you packed it, so then it's become solid, so you can't tovel anything. So I left that as a question. So now, one of our listeners kindly sent me from the, say, uh, edition of the Shulchan Aruch, which has, I guess, notes from various forum. And he says like this, "In the earliest source, it's talking about if you put in snow into a mikvah." Let's say the mikvah was short of the forty seah. It was left with thirty-nine seah, and you put in snow, and now that raised the volume. So for that, it says the s- the snow has to be packed, and then it's justified to raise the volume. But it's not talking about tovel in the actual snow. Um, then on this very question, those who understood that it means that you have to actually pack the snow, how can you tovel in packed snow? He, he asked this. Sefer Mikva Yisroel asked this question. And he comes up, um, see, someone suggests the following. It doesn't mean you're toveling in the actual packed snow, but rather if you have a mikvah made of packed snow or forty seah of packed snow, then you could pour a bucket of water, and that bucket of water, that space where the water is sitting in the snow, that

59:56 Speaker 1 will be mukarve to the mikvah, and that you'll be able to tovel in that water. Uh, and that was his suggesting. Um, if anyone perhaps in... If they still got lots of snow out where you are, I, I, I think I mentioned last week or last time we talked about it, you collect a lot of snow, leave it to melt, and you'll be very disappointed to see h-how little water comes out from a whole bucket of, of, of snow. It's, uh, really a pittance of water. I'm curious if you take packed snow. If you take a bucket and pack it with snow, hard packed, and then you bring it to the house, and it dissolves. I'm curious to know how much the volume of that packed snow will be, which is here it seems to be saying it's, it's gonna have this shier of, of, of water. I'm, I'm curious whether that is actually the fact or, you know. So someone that... We-- In England, we don't have the luxury of this amount of snow, but I think in some parts of the world, they're still enjoying this. So, um, if someone would do me a favor and check that out, I'd be happy to share it with everyone what the results are. A gut Voch everyone, and have a wonderful week, and So all ready for Shabbos Mevarchim. We can really start, uh, upping the simcha, the icha. Simchas Hagolah, with Mashiach,

1:01:17 Speaker 2 Amen.