תרומה תשפ״ו

00:05 Speaker 1 Welcome to tonight's Shir Motzei Shabbos Parashat Terumah. Today's Shir is dedicated by Mishpachas Rabin of Edgeware in memory of Rav Moshe Ben Mordechai, Alav Ha-Shalom, who passed away, Dalet Adar Toshe Lamet Gimel. So today was his yahrtzeit. And also in the derech of Rav Chaim Shmuel Mendel, otherwise known as Michael Rabin, whose second yahrtzeit is this week. May they be melitzat yosher for the families and, uh, for us all. I'm meant to be starting with a ma'aseh Shema'yisa, yeah? That's the... These are, these are the new rules. Okay, fine. So I heard a ma'aseh like this. At one time, a-- someone came to Reb Simcha Tzadok and asked him for a haskomah on his sefer. So the sefer was still in manuscript. And he presents the sefer, and the Simcha Tzadok starts leafing through. And you'll forgive me if I say in Yiddish, he says, "A fregt un a entfert." Turns the page. There's a fregt un a entfert. He's asking, he's answering. And, uh, as the Rav Simcha Tzadok is leafing through, a fregt un a entfert, so his ego is plummeting. Fregt un a entfert. And so ultimately, he blurts out, "Aber Rebbe." But that's what tosfos do. Tosfos is im dreyman yesh loyman. So what's, you know, what's so, um, insignificant about fregt and entfert? So the Rebbe said the following: When Tosfos asks a kasha, and then you take a Rashba, whatever, other Rishonim, you see that they ask the kasha differently. So why did Tosfos ask this kasha? And they

02:15 Speaker 1 get-- got a whole pilpul. Tosfos didn't ask this way because ein ish given shever. That way wasn't his problem. It didn't disturb him. It was this way which he had a problem. So he asked the kasha the way he did. And then Tosfos gives an answer. And then you see the Rashba or in the Ran or wherever, they give a different answer. You know? So why did they... Why did Tosfos give this answer and not that answer? And whether Rashba found it. You know why? Because if you're gonna go into it deeper, you know that Tosfos doesn't agree with the Rashba's answer. He-- That's why he gave his answer because the answer of Tosfos or the Rashba, he doesn't, doesn't, it doesn't fit with him. Okay. So when therefore, when the of Tosfos, it's not just this question, it's the whole world around it. And when Tosfos gives an answer, it's not just what he says. There's also-- There's a whole development around it, which you can under-- a deeper understanding in the sugya. When you ask a kasha and I ask, "Why did he ask the question this way, not the other way? And why did he answer the question this way and didn't answer the last question a different way?" It didn't occur to him to ask the question differently. It didn't occur to him to a- to answer differently. All right. So therefore, it's just . It's just a simple, very narrow question and simple, narrow answer. This is what the Simcha

03:40 Speaker 1 Tzadok's, uh, answer to this young man who-- budding scholar. Um, so I hope that some of the questions here will be a bit more just gefrekt un geentfert. That's, that's my hakdoma today. Okay. So the first thing we have is the following, that in Tof Shin Beis, approximately, the Friediker Rebbe... This was, this was told over by Reb Leibel Posner, Alav Ha-Shalom, who passed away just recently, probably well into his nineties. And he said that in the year Tof Shin Beis, might be later, the Friediker Rebbe had yahrtzeit for his mother. And he said, "Haftorah..." Now, as is known, those years, very few Anash lived in Crown Heights. The Anash lived more in Brownsville, which is another half an hour down the road on walking. And, uh, who davened 770? Some local Balabatim who were... And so when the Rebbe is saying the Haftarah, it sounds like there were some other people who are also saying Haftarah along with him. And one time, his-- the Rebbe, Friediker Rebbe, sends down Berel Haskin to announce in the, uh, shul the following: "" Haftarah is something to listen to. Uh, to say the Haftarah aloud... Oh, he changes the wording, huh? "" To say the Haftarah aloud is a minhag of igno-- is an ignorant minhag. If you wanna say with, say it quietly. So this was, uh... So now let's look into this, this, the background of this issue. Should the people be saying Haftarah with the Baal Koreh, baal dreidi maf tir or

05:57 Speaker 1 not? So let's come back to the Alter Rebbe's Shulchan Aruch, Siman Resh Peh Dalet. And it starts off the following. Lo yaskh la mafteh la hafteh. The one reading the haftarah should not begin, that means not begin saying the berakhah, I assume, until the goylel has finished wrapping the Sifrei Torah, in order that the goylel should also be able to pay attention to the haftarah because it's a chovah, it's a duty for everyone to listen to the haftarah and to hear the haftarah. So that's the first thing. Because it's a... Everyone has to hear the haftarah, so wait with your, "Don't start until Mr. Golel is, is, is done." Second point is, therefore, lo yikru shnaim, you shouldn't have two people reading the haftarah together aloud because you can't hear two voices. I heard someone... I had someone asking me just this week whether he could do that... He's got a, uh, whether it's in Russia, whatever it was, somewhere where people are, are not very not, not knowledgeable. Could he be translating the haftarah, or was it megillah, as they're going... I think it was haftarah. Could they translate the haftarah as they go along? So I told him, instead of doing that, doing... Have three psukim, then translate. As it was in the time of the Gemara, they had a, the Targuman. I mean, I understand his problem, that if you're gonna have a long stretch and people don't understand what's going on, they're just gonna be talking, and that's not very, uh,

07:33 Speaker 1 helpful for running a shul. But all right. So you do the three psukim in Hebrew, then in translation, and let's explain what's going on. But not try two together because shnei kolos ein nishmoim. Which, um, if I may just throw in, I've heard of some places that on Yom Nerim, they have a chazan, um, doing the avodah or whatever. At the same time, someone is translate-- is, is talking in English about whatever is going... About the, about Yom Kippur. Call Paul from different to different for- So this is where it's coming from. Now, so we have here three, three possibilities. We have here this Polish shaminig of everyone saying together, which seems to be quite problematic in Halakha. We have the minig of one saying the haftarah and everyone listening. And then you have the, the middle option, which is one says the haftarah and everyone is saying along quietly. So which is our minig? So I-I have written about this, and that's why someone brought this to my attention. But here is a sikha from Tov Shin Lamed Zais. You can see, I think it's Achman Shel Pesach. The haftarah talks about the guloh hasidoh. The haftarah is shayeach to everyone. Either he himself says the haftarah with a berakhah before or after, or he's listening to someone else and is saying amen. And then he says, if you're down with Yechidus, then you're saying the haftarah on your own. So you're seeing here, and there's other places where... And so actually, Rab Chaim

11:33 Speaker 1 Noah writes that when he w-- he lived in Eretz Yisrael primarily, but he visited Lubavitch for a little while, and he says the minig there was, the Rebbe says the haftarah and no one says it. No one else says it. So they just listen to the Rebbe. And so it seems that Hasidim by the Rebbe, they themselves was-- they, they wouldn't say the haftarah, just listen to the Rebbe. Um, I gave this over on the Wednesday night in, in Hebrew, and someone sent me a, a message that he had heard that in Simchas Torah, the Rebbe did not have mafteh Simchas Torah minig Because he had, um, because he had, um, Choshen Mishpat, he didn't have Maftir. You don't have two aliyas in the same day in different Sifrei Torah. It's a problem. That's, uh, let's, let's not get into that. But meanwhile, the Rebbe did not have Maftir. So Rabbi Chadakov used to have Maftir, um, on Yom Kippur morning, and I think also some Choshen Torah that I don't remember. At any rate, so they told me that the Rebbe also, when someone else said the Haftarah, he didn't say-- he didn't mouth the Haftarah with, he just listened. So it looks like the minhag of the Rebbe was just to listen to the Haftarah and not to say it along with the Maftir. Okay. I mean, the way I was brought up is that we do say it quietly with the, with the Maftir. Okay. Fine. So now we've got the second

13:06 Speaker 1 question is that a particular shul did not have a minyan last Shabbos, which was Parshas Shekalim. And so the question was, could he do Parshas Shekalim on Parshas this, this morning? Could he have done Parshas Shekalim? After all, the Parshas Shekalim is to remind people to bring the sh- the half shekel in time for Rosh Chodesh Nisan. So if you didn't manage to do it, the, uh, the, the primary time is either on Sh- if Shabbos Rosh Chodesh or Shabbos Mevarchim. Didn't manage to do it then, could you do it in, in, um, in this Shabbos, which was what we call a half Sukkah. And so this is discussed in great length. There's a Sefer called Shaalos v'Tshuvas Ginas Veradim, uh, not the one from the Pri Megadim, but from a, a Swardesher, a Goan. And he goes through a whole... and he says the following. If someone missed Kriyas HaTorah, if a sh- if a community missed Kriyas HaTorah, let's say l-l-last week was Parshas, um, Mishpatim. So then it does say in, in Shulchan Aruch, et cetera, that for Parshas Terumah, they can do the whole of Mishpatim. So it means for the Kohen, the Kul of the Kohen, and read the whole of Mishpatim, and then Rishon of Terumah, and then till Sheini. And so the Kohen has a very long Aliyah. And then they continue. That's what's written in Shulchan Aruch, what, what you should do if you missed last week. So you do see that you can make up. If

14:50 Speaker 1 you missed last week Haftarah, you can make up this coming week. But if you missed, let's say, on a Yom Tov, for some reason, you didn't have a minyan for Yom-- on one day of Yom Tov. The Ya'avetz Ladaat now is going to suggest, "Oh, let's do an... let's do next Shabbos, let's make up what we missed on Yom Tov." This everyone will understand that ov ha-zman lo yibatal karbonah. You missed the opportunity to... You can't make it up later. Why? Because it's not Yom Tov. Because you can't make, make, uh, do it then. So here's the question, is wh-wh-what's, wh-wh-why, why is Shabbos you can do next week and Yom Tov you can't do next week? So this Sefer Ginas Veradim, he comes up with a very interesting explanation. The, the Sedra Mishpatim is not so tightly tied to this day. And Parshas Terumah is not so tied to this Shabbos either. The proof to this is, as the Rambam says, there were those communities who used to do the Torah in a three-year cycle. If they're using a three-year cycle, so then they're not going to keep to Parshas Terumah on Parshas Terumah. They're going to be wherever they are, but it's not going to be, uh, not, it's not limited to that week. Therefore, there's a certain flexibility. If you didn't manage to do the Kriyas HaTorah last, um, Pa-Parshas Mishpatim, it also belongs to Parshas... You can read on Parshas Terumah. You can pa- read Mishpatim on Parshas Terumah also. It's,

16:24 Speaker 1 it's... You can make it up. It's not as if it's a lost case. Yom Tov, we understand. There's a time when it's Yom Tov. To do it after Yom Tov is irrelevant. Parshas Shekalim and the all the four Parshas will fall into the Yom Tov category. They have been designated by, uh, designed by Chazal whenever, whatever time it was, to be read on these four Shabbos, Shabbosim in the other time leading up to, leading up to Pesach. They have been designated, um, to specific Shabbosim, and once that opportunity has passed, it's, it's ov ha-zman lo. Even though the Svara might be, you know, it could mean that... And so this, he says you can't do it. This is the Ginas Veradim. Hashgaha Protes, I got a call from a, a, uh, Mishpacha of mine, Shliach of some in United States, and he says, "This Shabbos, he will have a minyan. Shabbos Zachor, he won't have a minyan. Can he do Shabbos Zachor this week?" It's the same question. And I told him, based upon this Ginas Veradim, the Psak was no, you can't do it. Because it's, it's, it's, it's been... Chazal have given set times for the Arba Parshas. And so you... There's no... You can't do it wh-when you want. All right. So that was an interesting Hashgaha Protes. Right. So here comes num-- question number three, and that is about Matas Hashekel. So there's a Minhag to give extra Tzedakah, specifically in a half shekel amount, uh, according to your local currency,

18:07 Speaker 1 and I'm not gonna go into all of that. It's gonna be three coins. And there's a Minhag to give for each member of the family. That's a Minhag in Chabad. And so now in-- this only on the screen it has from so it says the following. a child is exempt from giving maaser shekel. So our maaser shekel is what we call maaser shekel. It's not going to the Beis HaMikdash. It's going to tzedakah. Okay, it's in, in commemoration. A child is patur. If his father has given for the child once, to give a half shekel for this son forever. Uh, the earlier it says, . So the question is, what do you mean l'olam? If I've given, yeah, Baruch Hashem, I have a few boys. They're grown up, married Baruch Hashem. Do I still have to give a half shekel for my sons because I once gave a half shekel? So I said, "No, that's not the pshat." It means until they are of age and they're giving their own half shekel. But once they're giving their half shekel, you don't have to give it for them. But I needed to have a mokhir. So I looked around and Baruch Hashem, they were to help that this is the Rambam in Mishnayos called. 'Cause in Rambam in, in Mishneh Torah, he says, . Here he writes, "The and here's a child. So we say to the father, 'Since you gave him... you gave your-- on behalf of your son last year,' interesting , you kind

19:51 Speaker 1 of imposed this mitzvah on your son. continue giving until he becomes of age. Don't stop until he grows, he's, he's comes of age." So here it's clear, although it's poshit in Sekhel, but it's nice to have a, a solid source. that's when you can... and then you give it over to him. It's his achrayus. By the way, I'm seeing here also very interesting, um, in the Rambam, which I didn't think about before. When you've got voluntary mitzvahs, and there's always this question. The Rambam says a woman can't say a brocha alei shevasucha. It's not her mitzvah. It's not, yeah. It's, she doesn't have a tzira. Toifa says you can. Ashkenazim say a woman can make a brocha on, on a shofar, sukkah, lulav. Good. What's, what's the gedar of a voluntary mitzvah? So I had this, this, this, um, svara imagination. There is a, a room called a mitzvah. I don't have to go in there, but if I go, I'm doing a mitzvah. Yeah. I'll tell you where it becomes interesting. You know that there's a din that a sukkah has got a kedusha. That . The sukkah has got a kedusha. Once someone's used a sukkah, it got a kedusha. You mustn't use it for anything else until after sukkos. So my shaala is, what if a... there's a sukkah which a, a man hasn't used, only a woman used. Does that sukkah acquire a kedusha? Here's the question, is this just a, a, a voluntary... Is it a voluntary mitzvah levad soif

21:49 Speaker 1 or no? Does it become a mitzvah? She didn't have to. When she does, it becomes a mitzvah, and therefore sukkah. So here's the . You say that a child doesn't have to give a half a shekel. You kind of place the mitzvah on the child. All right. We can... uh, but I see this, this word. You've applied... It's, it's voluntary, but you've chosen to, um, to apply it. Therefore, keep on doing it next year also. Fine. Let's move to the next question. I don't have a slide for that, and that is, does a walk-in fridge need to have a mezuzah? Now, let's say the fridge is dalet amos square. Quite a large fridge. It's unlikely to be in a private house, but an institution, yes. A yeshiva, uh, would likely have such a large fridge. So does such a fridge need to have a mezuzah? So what's the argument against? Well, it's not really livable. Even super cool people don't like to live in fridges. Um, so it's, it's not livable. You say it should be part of minimum mezuzah. So some say, well, you can switch off the power and it would be livable. But there's another sefarah. I mean, that's not what it's designed. Designed as a fridge, and it's being used as a fridge. Here's another sefarah. There is it's... There's, there is this, uh, idea that a room, rocher is, that a bayis which is less than dal dal dalet is part of minimum mezuzah. So on the margin in Hilchos,

23:31 Speaker 1 in Hilchos Mezuzah, a pisquei teshuva quotes from a Sefer called, called Chamudei Daniel. Chamudei Daniel says, "The exemption of a small room from having to have a mezuzah is talking with a freestanding structure." You have a shed, which is a, um... Or you have a booth. You have your... Let's say you are one of these, uh, tiny houses, which is, uh, but just, just a dalet... less than dal dalet, and you manage to put in a bed, but, uh, not much more. So you have this little, uh, um, booth. It's part of minimum mezuzah. But if you have a house, which is a normal house, normal livable house, and it's got a room coming off it. Well, then the... that room is part of a larger building, which... And therefore it's chayav mezuzah. It's a pesach which is part of a la... a, a, a structure which is chayav mezuzah. It's all... That door also needs to have a mezuzah. The exemptions only would be if it be that's the entire structure which we're talking about. But if it's part of a larger house, so it's a pesach of a building which has dal dal dalet. So you're seeing that a, a room like a la... a walk-in, a walk-in larder, a walk-in wardrobe. So Chamudei Daniel needs to have a mezuzah, even if it doesn't have dal dal dalet for, um, amos. So the same argument now goes to the fridge. Never mind that it's not livable in the fridge. No one lives in

25:01 Speaker 1 the wardrobe either. But it is a room which is a facility of a house which is chayav mezuzah. That door is also chayav mezuzah. That's another argument why a walk-in fridge should have a mezuzah. Um, so the advice given in the Halakhim is to have a... put up a mezuzah, but without a berakhah. I'm going to just look at this couple of points on the ch-chat. Someone is saying it's very difficult to hear the Hav-Torah when the Rebbe said the Hav-Torah. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right, we're going to move on. Um, so I was at a simcha this, uh, past Sunday. It was a bar mitzvah in Birmingham, Birmingham area. And I was sitting next to my brother-in-law, Rabbi Yossi Alperovitch, who has had the, uh, great zechus to publish so far eleven volumes of Orot Filup, um, which is a, a collection of all mamorim, et cetera, from Chabad sources going through the davening. And his eleventh volume has covered, I think, um, the Shema or the berakhot after Shema. And now he's working on the next volume, which is gonna be focusing on Shemoneh Esreh. And so he said, "I started at the end where we say the pesukim." They say, uh, uh, when we... At the end of Shemoneh Esreh, we say a pasuk for ourselves. We say a pasuk with the Rebbe's name. So the Rebbe's pasuk is, "Mo'ur einayim yesamakh lev," yeah, "u-shemo tiferet yashar otzem." So the mo'ur einayim, the light of-- giving light to the

26:52 Speaker 1 eyes. So this brought him to this letter of the Rebbe. So it's a letter in Igrot Kodesh. As you can see, it's from taf shin tet zayin, and it opens with berakhah v'shalom. Now, when a ma-- when the Rebbe writes to, um, um... Usually it starts off shalom u-berakhah. But when it's a, uh, letter to a woman, then the Rebbe starts off berakhah v'shalom because there's something about not to be makdim shalom to a isha. And therefore, the Rebbe switches to berakhah v'shalom. First berakhah, and then shalom. That's where he kind of dealt with that issue. Okay, so he writes, he starts, "Berakhah v'shalom." I'm gonna go straight into the, to English. "I'm, uh, endorsing or I'm confirming the receipt of your letter with the enclosed, and at a pro-auspicious moment, I will mention you by the, uh, gravesite of... the holy gravesite of the Me'ah She'arim Rebbe for improvement in health. Probably, you do li-listen to, you do hear Kiddush and Havdalah, and you taste from the wine of the Kiddush. And according to Mid, Midot Gues royal, you dip in your finger in the wine, which is remains of the Havdalah, and you touch it to your eyes." Obviously, that means to the outside of the eyes. As is mentioned in Seforim, that this is a segulah, that for improvement of the, um... It says, "Mo'ur ein of shel adam," to the light of the eyes of the person, and you translate that into Yiddish. Tsum oygen sheyn fun mensh. Not shame, but

28:32 Speaker 1 sheyn, yeah. To the gleam of the eyes. And Hashem Yisborakh should give you hatzlacha. Look, I'm, I'm guessing that the woman had a problem with her eyesight, and the Rebbe is telling, giving her the advice that she should dip her fingers in. She should be careful with this minhag of dipping your fingers in the Havdalah wine and putting it in your eyes. But not in the eyes, but on the eyes, I guess. So that needed to be clarified in her case. Okay. So then, then, uh, he's, he was surprised to see this because I don't know how... We don't know how widespread it is men do this. Uh, it's not so widespread that women should do it, but it's a fairly clear thing from the Rebbe that he's telling this woman to do it. Um, yeah. I know that in some places, women are-- will refrain from putting out their hands where they-- to look at the nails by the Havdalah candle. They might see that as a, uh, you know, tznius to avoid doing so, especially when there's other men around. But, uh, here afterwards, to dip your fingers in the wine and put it on your eyes. So it's, uh, it's for me- women as well as for men, which is interesting. Okay. We're gonna go on to now to Kiddush Levanah. So, uh, here, here is the question when it comes to Kiddush Levanah, and it says you should face Mizrach. Does that mean... Well, so what happens if you are in

30:06 Speaker 1 another part of the world? Let's say if you are in Moscow, you pay, pay... You, you wanna daven towards Yerushalayim, you have to fa-face south. And if you are in Australia, you should be davening northwest. Uh, for that matter, if you're in Be'er Sheva, you should also be davening north. And, you know, in Spain, you should be davening south. So, um, when it comes to Kiddush Levanah, is it facing Mizrach, to the east, or is it facing Yerushalayim? That's the question. Now, it's interesting that this, this, uh, idea of facing Mizrach has its source in a Sefer called Yesod v'Shoresh Ha'avodah, which was, uh, he was, um, a little bit before the Alter Rebbe, I believe. But, so the, um... My understanding is that this is actually... It doesn't mean Mizrach davka. It means towards Yerushalayim. And the point is, when you're saying Kiddush Levanah, it's m-like a Mekabel Pnei HaShechinah. And for that reason, you should be focus... You f-f-facing Yerushalayim as you would to Shemoneh Esreh. Now- The wording on the top here is from the Alter Rebbe siddur. Ye'asher raglav, which means have your feet straight or put together, and look at the l- uh, moon once before saying the berachah. And then whilst you're reciting the berachah, you shouldn't be seeing the moon. So going back to Taf Shin Mem Alef, I was in Melbourne, Shliach, and that was when we had Birkat HaChamah. And when... In a, in, in leading up to Birkat HaChamah was published a list of guide-

31:44 Speaker 1 guidelines, and it said there, this, this... They, they based the guidelines partly on the guidelines for Kidush Levana. So they wrote the ye'asher raglav, and you should look at the sun before saying the berachah, which is okay. And so one, uh, one character who wasn't so f- um, complimentary to Lubavitch, he saw this loshon ye'asher raglav, he says, "Does that mean you make... You have to make your feet happy?" Because the word ye'asher is loshon ashrei. So you're making your feet happy. He didn't... He was, like, a little bit, uh, mocking. So I was, uh, vexed by that and, uh, started looking into it. And so actually there is a loshon. There's a... In the Sefer Migdal Oz. So Rabbi Shimon brings there a story with the Tzemach Tzedek and, well, sh- uh, in, in davening in Tzedakah, Lo Netzach, in Birkat Kohanim, we say, "Va'asher mechorsov kulam omdim." And the Tzemach Tzedek said something, a drush on the words va'asher mechorsov. Va'asher is the loshon Tamei Hashurai Bemaaglei Secho, which means the loshon of, uh, the word Tamei Hashurai means support my feet in your paths. And so they asked him, why is he bringing from the word, um, va'asher mechorsov when it says kulam omdim? So he said, Tzemach Tzedek explained that the kulam omdim means they're standing, but not necessarily so firm. But when it says va'asher mechorsov, Tamei Hashurai Bemaaglei Secho means standing firm. So there is a certain ma'ayan using the word ye'asher raglav. It's loshon of Tamei Ha... Loshon

33:38 Speaker 1 o- of, uh, of feet. The asher means holding the two feet as if they were one foot. That's the, uh, meaning. Now, in the Shulchan Aruch, in Siman Tov Chovot, Tov Chovot actually has ye'asher raglav. Well, the Alter Rebbe changed it, l'chore et, uh, al derech ha'remez to this inyan of Tamei Hashurai Bemaaglei Secho. Let's move on. Right. So here was a case that the chazan... Actually, it was after Musaf on Rosh Chodesh, and the chazan said Chatzi Kaddish, and then they continued with Kaveh. Um, I think half the people there were asleep, actually. How did he get away with it? How did he get away with saying, uh, half a Kaddish and then, uh, no one says a word and then later, "Oh, we did... Only said half Kaddish." Okay. Um, at any rate, so asking the question, what do we do to, to correct this? So the answer is, uh, this, uh, Sefer, if you see, I've referred to Sefer She'elas MiYavin, which has... By the way, I keep this Sefer right next to my place in Shul. The She'elas MiYavin, you know, these mistakes. I have another copy at home. But, uh, th- this, you know, some Sefer you need to have handy. So the She'elas MiYavin deals with this question, something very similar. And he said that, okay, in this Kaddish, if you didn't say Tiskabed Slosen. Tiskabed Slosen means may our prayers be accepted, or their prayers be accepted. Okay. So then the one who's say- one is saying Kaddish

35:22 Speaker 1 after Kaveh or after Aleinu, which normally would not say Tiskabed Slosen. So put a Tiskabed Slosen over there. Tiskabed... A- after Shemoneh Esreh, you say Tiskabed Slosen. After other forms of prayer, you don't say it. You missed it out there, so say Tiskabed Slosen later. Now, it could be the one who's saying... The chazan who's done Musaf and the one who's saying Kaddish after Aleinu is not the same person. But so what? It's for the tzibbur. He's saying on be... When really Kaddish is said on behalf of the tzibbur. So he's saying Tiskabed Slosen, "May our, this tefillah be accepted," and he's saying on behalf of everyone. And it's not the fact that it's a different person is... I don't see it as a big deal. Right. Let's go on to our next question, and that is about a lefty. Does a lefty... Now, our, our, we, we... This is a sugia in Gemara Shabbos, talks about putting on your shoes. Shabbos af samach alef. And the Ochlin, et cetera. The polet says, the advice, put on the shoe first on your right foot, then you put on your left shoe, then you tie the left sh- the shoelaces on the left, and then you tie the shoelaces on the right. Why is that? Because when it comes to tying, there's something, um, tefillin you, uh, you tie on your left hand, your left arm, and therefore it comes to tying, you ti- tie the left before the right. So there's a certain chashivus. When

36:57 Speaker 1 it comes to tying, the left has got a chashivus. All right. Well known. So here's the question: If a person is a lefty, should he tie his right shoe, which is his left, should he tie that one first? So what you have on the screen is from a Sefer called Itur, Dinei Itur from the Labau Chingaman. Overall, quite a good Sefer. Pretty good. Now, he says something very interesting, which was news to me, and that's why I... This is part of the fun of having this shiur, sharing things which I discovered during the week. So there's something called a left-handed person, and there's something called a left-legged person. Never, never, never was aware of that. He says a left-legged person should first put on the shoe on his left foot and then on his right foot. So how do you know who's left-legged? So, uh, he has in the beginning of the Sefer, he has kolalim, and he says that can be seen when a person starts walking. Do you start walking with your right foot, or do you start walking with your left foot? And, uh, so if you're, if you're generally would start moving with your left foot, it seems to be that you're left-legged. He doesn't talk about when kicks, kicks, kicking a football, whatever. He talks about beginning to walk. At any rate, so he's saying like this. That's very interesting. So you might be a left-handed person, but as far as it comes to your legs, you could be a

38:30 Speaker 1 right-legged person. Uh, so now, so if you're left-legged, then you put on your shoe first on the left leg and then on your right leg. Right. Now, then we go on to Sefer, the next Sefer. Having put on your two shoes, the right one and then the left one, or if you're lefty, left leg, you put on the left one, then the right one. Then comes to tying your two laces. So if you're a righty, you should right... You should tie the left, uh, sh- laces first. That we all know. If you're a lefty, left-handed, then you should tie your right shoe laces first. Because you put on tefillin on your right arm, therefore, you should also do tying the shoelaces on the right side first. So these, so there's, these are two separate things. One is when it comes to putting on the shoes. That's got to do to left-legged or, uh, right-legged. When it comes to tying, he says that's got to do with, um, your hands. If you're right, if you're left-handed, then you should be tying your, you know, you should be right, tying your right loo- shoelaces first. Right. Now, so far, what do you, what do you have on this Sefer? Now, he then has something else which I want to, um, make a fuss about. Now, first of all, does... What about, what about other types of garments besides shoes which also have, um, knots to tie? So the Alter Rebbe writes that if you have, let's say,

40:24 Speaker 1 cloth, a cloth, uh, kind of sock, um, so also you... And it ties, you should ti-tie the left before the right. Or if you have other garments which you need to tie, you tie the left before the right. The Malbim, who's more known for his commentary on the Chumash, but he also wrote a Sefer called Aitz HaChaim, and he says, "No, it's only got to do with shoes," and if you tie other, uh, other parts of your other garments, other things, you sh- it's, it's, uh, you don't have to put the left first. Alter Rebbe states it's got to do with, uh, tying. So any-anything which tied the two sides, you should tie the, the left before the right. Okay. So that's a machloket. Mishberura says like the Aitz HaChaim. Okay. Not, not, not, not an issue. But meanwhile, he says something very interesting. He says, "What about if it's not a shoelace?" Let's say it's, uh, avzam is the Hebrew word for a buckle or a scotch, which I found out of late that it means Velcro, um, not sellotape. So do... When it comes to you, you've got Velcro shoes or a buckle, should you... Do you have to put the... Do buckle first the left shoe and then buckle the right shoe? Or is it only when it comes to tying? So he comes up, and he says, "Lav davka," um, shoelaces, but also other forms of securing, of tightening should also be done first the left shoe, uh, foot, and then

41:59 Speaker 1 the right foot. And then he goes further. Even other bigodim, which if you're tightening them, I, I find them very, very confusing. It's all this, all this stuff is new to me. That anything which you... So he comes up with a new idea, which he's not the only one, that it's lav davka tying. It's also if it is tightening. So you buckle a shoe is also a form of tie, of tying, and therefore, you should buckle your left shoe before your right, right shoe. So he's not the only one who says this, which according to the Alter Rebbe, it's got to do with tying davka, and Alter Rebbe extends tying to other parts. It's davka to tying, nothing to do with anybody. He's Labau Chingaman, so what, what. But then he comes up with it. Where is his proof? He brings his proof from tying tefillin. When we put on tefillin, tefillin shel yad, do you tie a knot when you put on tefillin? You're just tightening. It's a raaya that tightening also comes under the category of tying. Yeah. Since by the tefillin shel yad, since by the tefillin shel yad, we only tighten. And- That's called... They said, "Ah, that's called kshira." So I once, I once looked into and written about this, the following question. You know you go on Yom Tov, and let's say you're lucky, you have a lot of people lining up, and you've got one pair of, uh, sh- shalosh, one, one, one pair of tefillin. Some people

43:38 Speaker 1 have got small heads. Um, someone keeps on unmuting themselves. Please keep yourself muted. Yeah. So, so you've got this pair of tefillin, and you know the shalosh has got to the... It's quite easy to adjust the size because it's one piece of, uh, strap going down and up again and down again. So how about I make it big size, and when it's a big head, then fits. When it's a small head, then I'll just pull the retzuah a bit, just the top piece, and it will still, it'll fit. It's not... And I don't have to adjust the whole thing. I just pull the, pull the loop. Would that be a solution to be able to easily adjust the, your, the tefillin to the size of the head? And my maskana was that it's not okay. Let me go a little bit further. You have the difference between Ashkenaz and Sefard tefillin. Before Chabad, yeah? Just Ashkenaz and Sefard. So in Ashkenaz, so the- there's a loop hanging on the inside, and then you pull the retzuah, you do a U-turn, and then you pull it round, and you wrap it around your arm inwards. Sefard, I've got the loop on the outside, and then you pull against the direction of the loop, and then you start rotating outwards. Now, let's say if I'm wearing... I, I, I'm happy to have Ashkenaz tefillin, and I want to wrap them, you know, Sefard style, Chabad style. Now, so then I, I start turning it around, and I

45:21 Speaker 1 turn the retzuah three times round the bias. It's gonna stay in place. But I haven't pulled against the kesher. Am I mekay mitzvah of kshartem? So my, my, my understanding is you're not, you're not yotz. And the question is like this: there's a mitzvah of kshartem al yadecha, and what you're doing, you're tightening. How are you mekay mitzvah of kshartem? The mitzvah is that you have to use the kesher to se- to secure it on your arm. That is the mitzvah of kshartem. You cannot make a g'new knot according to Ta- Toiszos, not like Reb Yirmi Lunderitz, who says you have to make a new knot every day. But even not, but you have to u- use the kesher to secure it on your arm. If you're gonna wrap it with plenty of retzuah, but not with the kesher, you haven't done the mitzvah of kshartem. And the same thing with the shalosh. It has to be secured on your head by a kesher. If you do this kind of shtick of, uh, loosening the, the retzuah, it's not being secured on the head by a kesher, so you haven't done the mitzvah properly. And . So I disagree with his, with his, his, his thing. Tefillin, when we put on tefillin, we're not just tightening. We are mekay the mitzvah of kshartem. And therefore, don't bring a ra'ayah from there that every tightening is gonna be the same as, as, as tying, and therefore buckles and, uh, um, uh, zips and all that should

46:42 Speaker 1 all come into the same thing. And then he says further, he got into other... We got him also a gartel. If so, what about your coat? Uh, perhaps you should, uh, do the left, the left side before the right side because, uh, you're tightening it. I don't know. That's... The whole thing seems to be, uh, they lost the plot kind of thing. Uh, as I said, that Alter Rebbe says it's got to do with kshira very clearly, and, uh, if it's not a kesher, I think it's the right comes first. Okay. Um, right. Where are we on the... Oh, we have one... Do I have a couple of little points here? All right. This is from... Right. Nu- we got number nine, ten, and eleven. So number o- number nine, here's a question. Since the inyan of tying your left shoelace first has got to do with tefillin, does it apply to a woman who doesn't, uh, tie tefillin? And so the, the Halakhah say it does apply to a woman, but here I want to add to that. I actually gave a shiur this past week talking about Birkat Hamazon, and this is in Siman Kuf Peh Zaiin. Very beautiful idea here. There are those who say that now when the Hakhamim instituted the lotion of the Birkat Hamazon, there are two particular, uh, themes in the second berakhah, berit and Torah. Al berit kha-sheh she-kasamta bevesoreinu, the covenant which has been in, uh, sealed in our flesh, and the Torah which was given,

48:20 Speaker 1 which you've te- taught us. So there were those who want to say that women should have no reason to say berit kha-sheh she-kasamta bevesoreinu. They don't have a berit in their flesh. And for that matter, Torah, they don't have a, they don't have a yidduh to learn Torah. Ve'akhshav, despite their reservations, it's aga loimar hakol, that women say it like men, no, no, no different also. And let's read the Alter Rebbe's lotion. Lefi she-ein od nikra od omeik sheyesh le isha. A man is only called a man when he has a wife. As it says, zach o nekhev habra, HaShem created the male and the female, v'yikra et shmom Adam. Together they become Adam. Hareh ha zach o ha nekhev heym guf ekhed. So the male and female become or, or seen as one entity, Adam. Lefi khoch, therefore, yikhoy lois loimar al berit hashorim she kasamta bevesoreinu. Therefore, a woman can say she kasamta bevesoreinu because she, to- with her husband, is like guf ekhed, and there... And he has a berit, and therefore she has the berit also. And the same thing, l'toras sh'limadtanu. He's learning, so she's learning. And therefore, it's shared. The, the berit and Torah of, of the husband is shared with the wife, and therefore they, they, they, that is legitimate. Then there's, uh, a sifra the Rebbe spoke to, to girls saying that, uh, all the mitzvahs even before you're married is also not just for you. You think it's just for your- yourself, yourself. For myself, I

49:51 Speaker 1 don't, I don't care. I don't... It doesn't bother me. No, you've got achrayut because you're gonna have a husband, and whatever your... The good deeds which you do now are gonna be shared with him also. Therefore, you should be, you know... I guess the same goes the other way around. For men to, to the, the boys to, to their, their mitzvahs will be shared with the women, with their wives eventually. So even if you're single, when you have the mitzvahs which you're doing as shared. Then separately, there's an inyan noshim have got a, um, a mitzvah to learn the halachas which are relevant to them, et cetera. But meanwhile, we have this very beautiful idea that the, the mitzvahs, that the... So the... If the man is wearing tefillin, so she is also wearing tefillin. By extension, she's wearing tefillin, and therefore she can, she can, she... Therefore she, when it comes to tying the shoelaces, the same thing she would be putting on her, uh, tying the left before the right. Sounds a little bit of Derech HaDerech, but it's in Shulchan Aruch, yeah. Right. Um, if you remember, was it last week, two weeks ago, we've been talking about how to do the knot on... It was last week, on the tefillin of a lefty, because the kesher will look like, um, if it's, if it's just a mirror image. So then a Yud in a mirror image is not a Yud. That was the discussion we had last week. So what you

51:10 Speaker 1 have on the screen, someone sent it to me, is a sofer. He sent it to me. This after Rav Zalman Schim passed away, which is actually, he passed away, uh, I was in New York at the time. Uh, it's first time I visited New York after I moved back to London. This was Purim, just after Purim Taf Shim Mem Heit. And within Shloshim, they published a couple of, um, pamphlets of, uh, psakim, which he had paskened in various inyonim, and there was a separate pamphlet just about sofris. So this is where, this is from that. You can see Piskei Dinim LeChas Dam from Rav Zalman Schim, published posthumously. Chof Tes. The Yud of the kesher of a tefillin of a lefty should be done yosher and not, uh, uh, not hafucha. Now, this is still a bit ambiguous. What does he mean straight and not, uh, oppsi- not... Now, hafucha can mean back to front or upside down. So that's why I asked, what is actually the mesorah from the same Rav Zalman Schim. So he, it was that it should be a tzurah of a Yud, not a mirror Yud, which is pretty much what I'd said last week. Right. Now, the last thing is, this is gonna be a bit of fun. Baruch Hashem, we've got a couple of minutes to address this. If you remember, I put out a challenge for our American listeners, since we don't have any snow here. And the question was that we, we had read about snow,

52:37 Speaker 1 packed snow. Uh, that when you want to use packed snow for tevilah, and I said, "How can you tovel in packed snow?" Because it says, this way it's written in Shulchan Aruch, yimale chalal. So the answer they wanted to say, it doesn't mean that you tovel in the packed snow, but you take packed snow, and you put it into a mikvah, which was, let's say, short of the forty seah. And you put in the packed snow, and then it raises the volume. So I was curious whether the volume of water from packed snow is gonna be the same as that volume in water. So I asked someone, and Rav Gavriel Druck here, I hope he doesn't mind that I mention his name. I'm sure he's not gonna too many requests of this nature. Uh, so he kindly, he lives in New Haven, and he, uh, took this basin, and he filled it up with snow. And you can see the upper picture. He filled it up with snow, and then he brought it into the house, and it dissolved. Um, I was told last week, I was, um, reprimanded. It's not... Snow doesn't dissolve, it melts. Okay. So it melted, and it became... You can't even see the line here, but it became, um, it became water. And he says he worked it out. It was about forty-five percent. He worked it out, he says. Very scientific. So he worked it out both in weight and in volume. In one, it was forty-seven percent, and

54:09 Speaker 1 one it was forty-five, forty-four percent. So if you take packed snow, I'm not talking about, um, you know, fluffy snow. Packed snow, it's going to... When it melts, it's going to be less than fifty percent than its same volume in, in water. Uh, yeah, so however, you understand what I'm talking about. Um, so now here's the question. How can I have a mikvah which is missing a seah? And I'm told this before, the word seah in French is a bucket, yeah. Anyone speaks French? Une seau is the word for a bucket. So it is just easy to remember. A seau is about a big bucket. So you got this thirteen seah mikvah. It's missing one seah. And so you go outside to the... And you take a, a bucket and pack it up with snow, pack it in, and then you dump it into the mikvah. And now, hey, presto, it's kosher, yeah. It's got forty seah. But you know what? Once that snow is going to dissolve, it's gonna be less than a shiur. So how is it, how is it, how is it make for kosher? Let's say, let's be more extreme. Let's say you took ice. Now, everyone knows, or almost everyone, anyone who's put a bottle of water into the freezer knows that ice is bigger than water. That's why the, that's why the bottle, um, cracked inside the freezer. So ice is bigger. So if I have a seah of ice, and I put it into a mikvah, and it

55:36 Speaker 1 now become forty seah. But when that seah of ice is gonna dissolve, it's gonna be less than a shiur. So why does it make up a mikvah? This wa- this was the problem which I raised last week. And so, uh, I wanna share with you a, a svurah. Now, we have a... This is a Mishnah in Uksim which says the following. Sponge, pas ufganis- Sfigonis, s-s-sfigonis. A bread which is spongy. Mishta'eres bikmo shehi. You wanna talk about shiyurim, kazais, whatever. Spongeca- a spongy, uh, um, a spongy bread. Don't have to squeeze it. It's a kazais, yeah. If it's got a, a large... got a significant hollow, then m'ma'acheis chalalah. Then you have to s-s-squeeze it before measuring it. Irrelevant for Pesach, et cetera. So, and he says before about Benei Bet Zolum also. So we have here something very interesting. Everyone understands that a piece of sponge cake, piece of cake, has got lots of air pores. But it doesn't matter. Those air pores are going to be part of the shir, and if you had a kazais in volume, even though the part of the kazais is air pores, that's still considered you've eaten a kazais. You can make a birkat hamazon. And one slice of bread in weight is, is a, is a kazais, let's say. But in volume, one slice of bread is probably more like three kazais. And that's enough. Comes, coming up Pesach. How much matzah do you have to eat to be, be able to make a birkat hamazon?

57:16 Speaker 1 By the way, what about birkat hamazon? What about make a birkat hamazon? You can't make until sedaim unless you have a shir of, of, uh, of kaveia. A kaveia is a whole matzah. That means every time you want to wash until sedaim, you have to have a whole matzah. But you can go down a bit because we're talking on volume, we're not talking on weight. And the air pores count, count to the shir. All right. So therefore, this is the, uh, my, uh, understanding of this, this phenomenon. Take a packed, the packed snow has got in it a lot of hollows. It's not a lot, not as solid as water, not as dense as water. It doesn't matter. That the way it is, so long as it's in that form, it's going to be a, uh, it's gonna be measured the way it is. The fact that in change of circumstances, it's going to shrink to a smaller volume. So we'll deal with it then, but meanwhile as it is now, it's mistar of the shir. That's what I wanted to share with you, and I hope you enjoyed this evening. Um, and a good shabbos. May should be a, uh, marbin besimcha. And, uh, um, simchas like ula, simchas oylum al rosh. Kol tuv.

58:25 Speaker 2 Amen.

58:32 Speaker 3 Yeah.