כי תשא תשפ״ו

00:03 Speaker 1 Good evening. Welcome for tonight's shiur. Motzaei Shabbos Parshas Ki Siso. I'm going to share with you something which I noticed today. Um, when Haman wanted, uh... when Ha-Ahasuerus tells him how to honor the person who the king wants to honor. So he mentions, he mentions three things. They should take the levush hashulav has'beha melech, the garment of the king and the su-- the horse of the king and ashanitan kesa malchus bereshah. He also mentions about the crown. To give this to the person who the king wa-wants to honor. Then Ahasuerus says, "Do all of this to Mordechai haYehudi." Um, but he says, "Maher kaches levush ves hasus." So whereas Haman had mentioned three things, three items, where, um, Ahasuerus responds, "Take the, the levush, the garment, and the sus and the horse," he does not mention the, the crown. Rashi says that Ahasuerus was not ready to, to give the crown to, uh, w-as much as he wanted to give the covert to Mordechai, he wasn't ready to give the crown. What we then see is, after Haman was duly suspended and no longer a threat to the Bnei Yisrael, and then it says that Ham- that Mordechai was given tremendous honor. And Mordechai goes out before the king, levush malchus, wearing royal clothing. Peiles vachur va'ateres zoov g'dolah. This time he is wearing a, a golden crown. Ateres is another word for a crown. Maybe there's a difference between a kester and a, and a, an ateres. I don't know. I mean, there could

02:04 Speaker 1 be this, this, there's something inter-in that. But meanwhile, what I saw in the Targum, just to, um, uh, just for a moment. There is a famous Targum Sheni on, on, uh, Megillas Esther. And the Targum Sheni is quite long. It explains things much more than you have in the text. But actually, what I'm looking now is not the Targum Sheni, but it looks like what, let's call it the Targum Rishon, if you want, which is also quite generous. And so I'm seeing here that he talks about when Mordechai goes out wearing the Mordechai yotzam l'fnei hamelech, wearing these royal, royal clothes. And then he talks about all the various gemstones which he's wearing and how he also has a some kind of necklace which has an image of the city of Yerushalayim. And then he has a crown of Macedonian gold, and above the crown are the tutfon, are the tefillin, and they are fixed in gold, which is interesting. And he says so that the people should see that this is Mordechai haYehudi to fulfill the pasuk, "Vero chol amei ha'aretz kishé hashem nikra alecha." So this is, uh, I wasn't aware of this before, that Mordechai, when he goes out in this, uh, wearing these royal clothes, he's also wearing tefillin to proclaim publicly the Targum on the pasuk in, in, uh, Megillas Esther. Peilik Ches Pasuk Tes Vav. Okay, and fo-follow, following on from that is leYehudim ois shoa oyd v'simcha. The Yehudim were celebrating. And the point also being brought out

03:58 Speaker 1 by the Fabregin, it wasn't that the story was over. It was actually the beginning of the end of the story because there were still had many, uh, many struggles ahead, and yet, uh, they were already celebrating. And Bezrat Hashem, we too should celebrate the, the Yeshua's which you have seen. And Bezrat Hashem, we'll see the, uh, complete Yeshua with MoShiach Tzidkeinu b'karov. I want to, before starting the actual shiur, there is a, um, a recently be, um, launched Beit Hara. It's more based in, in, uh, United States. Beit Hara Chabad, and they've sponsored today's, uh, sh-shiur, and they have a WhatsApp number which you can see on the top of your, um, the program for tonight. And so they are like-- We have a Beit Hara over here in, in, in, uh, London, which is, uh, from the general Cha-Cha-Charedi community. Here's a Beit Hara particularly geared for p-people in places, especially shlichim, but people in places where they don't have a Rav available. And so there's this helpline from ten AM to ten PM, uh, on American time. So there you have, uh, the number one three four seven six eight eight seven nine one seven. Okay, let's go to our shiur. So someone contacts me, actually from the United States. There's a luach called Dover B'ita. There's like a volume published every year of... by someone called Mordechai Genut, a tremendous Talmud Chacham. And he goes through the relevant halachas of each day of the year. And in Sukkot, in, sorry, in, in

05:43 Speaker 1 Purim, there is like a comment of being aware that there may be an incurring, a chiyuv, a duty to ta-take challah from your shalach manos. Where there is a, he, he has a, a, a valid point, and I'm trying to, going to explain this, and then I'm going to say why I'm not so an-anxious about it. So why-- what is the concern? So let's say if I receive shalach manos from five different homes, and each one sent me a packet of rugelach. Assuming that they did not make rugelach... Sorry, they did not make, um, take challah at home because they only made small batches. So now we've got five, five packets of rugelach. Each one is less than a sheer challah. If I now take all of those rugelach and put them into one basket, then now there's a chiyuv challah. So although they were kneaded in small batches, but now that they're put into one basket, so then those small batches become one large batch, and then they have a chiyuv challah, which is actually the standard practice in the matzah bakeries. When we bake matzah, we davka make smaller batches, not a sheer challah, so less than whatever the required amount is. The reason being, when we bake matzah, we try to make the proc-pro-process as swift as possible because we don't want to delay, uh, chashash of concern of chametz, of, of the, the dough beginning to rise. And so the delay of spending another thirty seconds or less to take challah,

07:23 Speaker 1 we want to avoid that. So they take this and make the chatzilah when they make the, the, the batch of dough, make it a bit less than the sheer. Then after the matzahs are baked in the oven and taken out, and they're placed on, in racks in the oven room, then for every, every, uh, from every, from every, um, I don't know, every hour or whatever it may be, then the mashgiach will make a point of separating challah from that batch. In other words, by putting them all on the same shelf, and they always sometimes cover them with a sheet of paper to make them into a single batch. So now by covering them, they become chayav challah. Then he takes challah afterwards. So the idea of, as you can see in the Shulchan Aruch here, that if you have, um, small two doughs which are less than a sheer, but they, if they even, uh, and if they put in one basket, then chasal nitzorfon. Then the basket will make them into a single batch. V'afilu achar shana efes u'nas pas. Even if they've already been baked, also that could bring on a chiyuv challah. So this is his concern, this in the Sefer Luach Dovr Itur. There could be a situation where you received several shalach manos, each one less than a, a, a sheer. And if the balabostes back in their homes haven't taken challah, so now it will become a chiyuv challah in your, in your dining room, et cetera. Now,

08:55 Speaker 1 I'd like to but, um, raise a couple of, uh, uh, reasons why I'm not so concerned. First of all, there is a teshuvah in Semag Tzedek, Elimus Chos, why people don't take challah from cake. This is, I think, Siman Resh Lamed Heh, where he says the following. There is a discussion in the Gemara, if you have a honey cake, what bracha should it be? Should it be, um, shehakol because of the honey, or should it be mezonos because of the, of the, uh, the flour content? And then, Sal kedaita chamino, armaita afot duvshe ikar. That the main component is the honey, therefore the bracha should be shehakol. Kamash malo on duv, uh, mechimcha ikar. So the Halakha confirms now that in when you have a combination of grain with other foods, so then the grain, it becomes a dominant feature, and the bracha is mezonos. So we know that in a mixture, mostly the Halakha will be that it's mezonos. Says the Semag Tzedek, that's the din in, in Hilchas Berchos. But when we're talking about the dinim of Hafrashas Challah, who says that the same rules apply? It could be that n- when it comes to Hafrashas Challah, we'll say that the, that the honey is the main thing. And therefore, when you have a honey cake, so then on this, on this basis, now you could say that the honey is the prominent, is the more dominant component, therefore the bracha, th- therefore there's no ha- no chiyuv to be, ta-ta-take challah. So

10:34 Speaker 1 that's the chiddush of the Semag Tzedek, Elimus Chos, why challah it n- doesn't-- people don't take challah from cake. Now, in, uh, we discussed this a few times. In the commercial bakeries, they do take challah from cake also, as far as we understand, and they take it even twice because challah, whether they take it from the flu, when it's liquid, when it's still a batter, or once it's baked. So I'm not g-going to go into there, but if it's made in a bakery with a hechsher, don't worry, challah's been taken. So now, therefore, in back, back to this, uh, concern from this, uh, Luach Dovor Itur. So if it's cake which is made with sugar, et cetera, there, uh, sort of a sweet cake, then it's not such a concern. Then now the next thing is, yes, the Shulchan Aruch does say that if all the s-small amounts of dough or baked goods are put into one basket, they now become chayav challah. That's true. What about if they are kept in bags? And then the bags are put, all the bags are put into a large basket. So the bag itself is a kli. So whilst you're saying, "Oh, th-they're put all into one basket, that makes them all into one, uh, unit," but they are actually kept by separate, into separate units because they are still in separate bags. So therefore, this chashash which this person i-is, uh, is, is, uh, arousing, is raising, is only if all the, the small batches of

12:05 Speaker 1 dough which weren't making, taking challah back, back in their homes, um, are all put into one large basket. I think it's a little bit- Of an, a rare, rare event that that should happen. It's not impossible, but it's, it's rare. Um, very mind another point, that even from your local neighbors, if they make a large amount of, of, uh, Erev Purim, my mother, ala sholom, she didn't take challah when she made cake on, uh, every week on a weekly basis because it was less than a sheer. But before p-before Purim, she made a lot of pastries for, um, um, shalach manos, and so she took challah. So that was one of the few times she didn't used to bake challah for Shabbos on, uh, on ear- when I was a kid. We were a Labadeka bunch, so she kept her energies for other stuff. But, uh, she... When she... Be-before, before Purim, she made a large amount of, of, of pastries, and she took challah. So therefore, it's... That's also diminishing the likelihood of this happening. Now, then this in here becomes a bit more interesting. What happens if the, these small batches are put into a large box called a freezer? Does the freezer now act as a basket to make them into a, one sheer challah? So again, usually in the freezer, you're using b- uh, bags, but i-if you don't want to So here, does this freezer act as a basket? So this is very much discussed in contemporary poskim, both, um,

13:40 Speaker 1 the Minchat Yitzchak of Weiss and the, uh, Maarz Eliahu from Rav Falk. Perhaps others also discuss it, but Rav Falk is, uh, really, uh, has a, has a very thorough style of, of analyzing, uh, shailas. Really, uh, impressive. At any rate, um, so if the freezer... So there... I-I... An oven, an oven is not counted as a kli to combine for a sheer challah. It's considered a built... It's like con- like a room rather than a kli. So is a freezer called a room or is a freezer called a kli? I would like to say that even if you want to take the chumrah, that is only if it is a small freezer. If it is forty se'ah. Forty se'ah in hachas Shabbos is considered mechubal hakarka le gabei baynah. And so same thing over here in hachas, hachas, uh, challah. If the sheer is forty se'ah, then the... If the freezer has got a volume of forty se'ah, then it's no longer a kli. It's considered mechubal hakarka, and don't, don't worry about sirach sal. So therefore, practically speaking, a, a, a freezer which is about shoulder height, and a regular freezer measures sixty by sixty, uh, centimeters. So that is over a sheer of forty se'ah, and therefore it's not, not an issue of sirach of the sheer challah. So I'm just finding various arguments to mitigate this question. Also, the, uh, they talk about do shelves in the freezer serve to separate, that they shouldn't become one sheer. So all right. It's...

15:22 Speaker 1 I'm not saying it's impossible, but I am trying to be melamed zchus and to mitigate that it's not a huge problem. Right. Let's move on. So here is a question. If someone is laining the megillah just for a group of boys who are under bar mitzvah. He's already heard megillah. He's laining for boys who are under bar mitzvah. Does he say a bracha or not? So now in dinim of kiddush and havdalah, let's say you already were yoetz the kiddush, and now you come home, and who has to hear kiddush? Only bnei beis ha-katanim. You have children who are under bar mitzvah. They have a chiyuv to hear kiddush because they're in the age of chinuch. Can a, an adult make kiddush or havdalah for children who are under bar, bar or bat mitzvah? And the halacha is yes, you can. This can be also a practical thing. I don't know how many people do this, but in the summer where the children go to bed early or before nightfall. So can you make havdalah on Sunday morning? Can the father make havdalah for the children, uh, who didn't hear havdalah the night before? I never saw this as a child, but I've heard some people are particular about this, if the children are old enough to understand what happened to havdalah. So can an adult make havdalah to be, um, moetzii children? The halacha is yes. If that is the case, if I can make havda- kiddush and havdalah for children who are bnei

16:57 Speaker 1 chinuch. So the same thing if I blow shofar for a child who's, uh, i-i-is gil chinuch, I should also be able to make, um, a bracha. It's the same as shekech shalom b'mitzvot. So here you have the Pri Megadim on the screen. Uh, ve'hinei, one who blows... This is tav kuf et ez. If one who blows shofar for a cotton shehi giya lechinuch. Yesh lo ma shemivorach lo. The mechuyav midrabonon. He has a chiyuv. So also because of chinuch, but it is a chiyuv. Lav davka lisam mechuyav. When you blow shofar, lav davka for an adult, even if you blow for a child, you should also, who's got the age of chinuch, you should be able to make a bracha. V'tzorich ein bozeh. And he's not so sure. So then I look further. Here's a Sefer Hanech Lenaar from Rabbi Yakov Shaya Bolor, very much a contemporary. He passed away several years ago. With many, many, very, very good seforim. And he, he, he challenges. He doesn't understand why the Pri Megadim is concerned. What's the difference between kiddush and havdalah and lulav and, and, um, uh, whatever, maybe whatever mitzvah. So it... More I would say it's okay to make the bracha. The only thing is the, the, the following. That if you're making, uh, if you're, if you're making havdalah for children, you can't ask them to make the bracha because they're not drinking the wine. Therefore, um, it was also probably not able to do the berakhahs. When it comes to megillah,

18:29 Speaker 1 and you're learning for a group of boys who are under bar or bat mitzvah, the likelihood is that there is one amongst those, um, under bar mitzvahs, someone who's able to say the berakhah. So let them say the berakhah, like with shofar. You blow shofar for, for under bar mitzvahs. Mm, normally, let's say you can make a berakhah for them, but if they can make the berakhah, it's certainly more straightforward. Like for an adult, if the adult is able to say the berakhah, then you don't say the berakhah. You only have what's called arvus. You only have responsibility for them to hear a berakhah if they are incapable. But if the child is capable to say his own berakhah, then you, you don't need to... Then you shouldn't be making a berakhah. You should tell them it's... And if they're not able, then I would say you can. Okay, let's go on to the next question, also somehow related to Purim, and that is that, uh, someone on Purim evening, before he managed to do very much, he fell asleep. And he woke up just minutes before alot hashar. He sends me the exact time of alot hashar, and he started Shemoneh Esreh two minutes before alot hashar, and he finished Shemoneh Esreh at two minutes after alot hashar. And he's asking me, "Was I yoatzet Shemoneh Esreh? Do I have to daven a second Shemoneh Esreh at shacharit?" This is his question. So we, we-- The halakha is the following. When it comes to

19:55 Speaker 1 Shema, the- lechatchila, you meditate Shema earlier, but if you did not say Shema until after alot hashar, only after dawn, and it's still before sunrise, then you should still say Shema. You're yoetzet bediaved, or rather beonus. If you, for whatever reason, it was beyond your control, and now it's after alot hashar, so you still say, you'll say, um, Hamavdi harovim and Avot Olam and Shema and Emes Veemuna. You'll say the Birkat Shema, Shema and Birkat Shema, and you're yoetzet. You don't say Ashkenazit. You don't say Ashkenazit because after dawn, you can't say Ashkenazit because Ashkenazit means that people are lying down, people are getting up already. So now there's... In other words, we have a certain dispensation that you can be yoetzet Birkat Shema shel arvit after dawn. Does that also extend to Shemoneh Esreh? So now look over here. You have here the Mishnah Berurah is saying, "Ve-gam Shemoneh Esreh lo yisparel. The tefillah of Arvit nitaknen rag bishvil halailah." The Mishnah Berurah says, "Yes, you can do Birkat Shema during that interim between, um, alot hashar, netz ha-chamah," but that doesn't apply to Shemoneh Esreh. Others disagree. Aruch HaShulchan says, bepshat is, that, that i-if th- you have here a bedienus, you can say Shema. Um, in your culture case, you miss paal Shemoneh Esreh, for sure you can daven Shemoneh Esreh. So you have here both of them saying goodby- but without, without bringing solid rise, whether Shemoneh Esreh is included in the same heter as Birkat Shema. Fine. So first of

21:57 Speaker 1 all, you've got the Birkat Shema to rely upon. You've got the Aruch HaShulchan to say that you're yoetzet. But even if-- Now, the Rambam, he does say in, in-- clearly that the latest time for Shemoneh Esreh of maariv is alot hashar. Now, so then here, let's, let's look. He, he, he has here another interesting consideration through the Piskei Teshuva in siman reish lamed heh, I think. He says the following, "If you start the Shemoneh Esreh during a time where it's still within the zman, even though you finish Shemoneh Esreh afterwards, you're also yoetzet." So now look at Ha-Aruch seventy-eight. He quotes from a Sefer, Afikei M'ginim, which I'm s-- I'm, uh... I confess I never heard of the Sefer, but it's a, uh, from about, uh, from the mechaber passed away, Torat Chamah Tes. So it says-- The, the name M'ginim, I suspect, the Shulchan Aruch used to be known as M'gini-- Orach Chayim was called as M'gini Eretz because you've got the Magen Avraham and the Taz, although, although we call him the Taz, Torat Ovot, but his got volume, his commentary on Orach Chayim was called Magen David. So it used to be common. People didn't necessarily buy a whole set of Shulchan Aruch. But Orach Chayim, a lot of people would buy just the three volumes of Orach Chayim, and those volumes were called M'gini Eretz because of the two main beforshim, Magen, Magen David and the Magen Avraham. So he has this volume, a commentary on Orach Chayim, so he called

23:35 Speaker 1 it Afikei M'ginim. Okay. Meanwhile, so I looked up here, and so he quotes, he says, "We rely on the Ravit that maariv, you're yoetzet even after alot hashar." So I looked up this Ravit. Well, in Rambam, Birkat Hafila, peh gimel halakha vav, there's no comment of the Ravit over there. So I was a little bit concerned. So Baruch Hashem, I was able to look up the, the Sefer Afikei M'ginim on the Otzar Hachochma. I'm gonna come to that in a moment. So now just... We're getting a whole discussion here. So again, uh, is he yoetzet? So first of all, the Aruch HaShulchan says you can daven Shemoneh Esreh like you can daven, um, Birkat Shema. You're yoetzet bedia-- So you can rely on that. Now we have another consideration, that if you started before and you've-- this zman, at the end of the zman, and you finished after, there's also a svara to say that you're yoetzet. So now, see, and he, this Ha-Aruch seventy-eight, he quotes this from the Sefer Afikei M'ginim, and so now I'm going to go to the... That Sefer. So there's i-i-it's interesting chidush. He ac-- He has two points here, which the, the, uh, Piskei Teshuva has misquoted, um, partly. So now, here he s- writes the following, that he has men discussed earlier, that if one starts a tefillah in the z-- within the zman, even though you finish the tefillah after the zman, you're yoetzet, you're lechi v'aseh. So he's-- This is one svara. This is useful

25:11 Speaker 1 also for other tefillahs. It can be for shacharit, it can be for Mincha. We have here an interesting svara that so long as you started in, within the time, even though you spilt over to after the time, there's a svara that you're yoetz. I did not research this, but here you have his saying that, that he's discussed it elsewhere in the safer. Separately, he quotes here the Raavad, who writes in the beginning of Brachot that after Halos HaShachar, you can still daven Shemoneh Esreh of Ma'ariv. So he's not talking about the Raavad in his commentary on the Rambam, which he, which the Piskei Teshuva refers to Peh Gimmel Halacha Vov. That's where the Rambam says you're not yoetz. The Raavad does not say anything there. But the Raavad, in addition to his commentary on the Rambam, he's got other writings. And he di-- Uh, uh, he also has Hasagos HaRaavad on the margins of the Rif. So you have the Rif, right to the back of the Gemara, and then you have, you got the Bala Moher and the Ramban and the, the Bala Moher, the Chaar was a contemporary of the Raavad. And so the Raavad challenges the Bala Moher. Bala Moher is Rabbeinu Zacharia HaLevi. And the Bala Moher-- And the Raavad argues on, on a point, I'm not going through the whole pilpul, but this is just a... I looked today, "Avel yikra v'yivarech lefanehu leacheihu." He's talking about after Halos HaShachar. "Avel yikra v'yivarech lefanehu leacheihu." You can ra-- say the

26:45 Speaker 1 Shema after Halos HaShachar with the brachot before and after. "V'yespalel im lo yestapalel. Elokai elokei leolti v'lichshvor, elokeihem divrei emes." So I'm, believe me, later I'll have, when I have a chance, I'll go through this Raavad more carefully after go through the, uh, Gemara, et cetera. But that is when this Afikim HaGidim referring to the Raavad in Bereish Brachot. So he's referring how to hit this in, in Mamish very short words. The Raavad evidently disagrees with the Rambam, and he says that you can still be yoetz Shemoneh Esreh after Halos HaShachar. So when the Aroch HaShulchan said you're yoetz Shemoneh Esreh after Halos HaShachar, well, he's got a Raavad to back him. All right. Let's see what there is in the chat. Let's see. Someone's asking the counter freezer... under the counter freezer. Um, so I-- In BeEmes, I'm more noted to say that chalos which are kept in bags means that they are a separate keilim. As far as I'm concerned, a bag is a keili. That's why you're not allowed to rip off a bag off a roll of plastic on Shabbos because you're creating a keili. A bag is a keili. Uh, it can also even contain liquids. It's a keili. In addition, the counter under the, the under the counter freezer, the Chaar counts as a, um, mechubar lakarka. So then again, you've got the hetter, even if it's less than arbayit se'ah. You've got the hetter lactana. Again, it's not mechaber. Right. Someone's asking, doesn't the Alter Rebbe say you

28:24 Speaker 1 should finish Shacharit and Musaf before Sof Zman Tefillah? I, um, admit I did not check that up, and that could be also a lecha d'tefillah, and we'll have to look that up. Okay, let's move on to the next question. Um, someone asked me about use-- children using a paddling pool on Yom Tov. So a family is planning to go to, on holidays, to somewhere, uh, renting a villa somewhere, and this villa has a bathing pool or a paddling pool, and they're asking, it's gonna be hopefully warm weather, is it okay for children to use the bathing pool on, on, uh, Yom Tov? Not talking about Chol Hamoed, talking about Yom Tov. So now to explain a bit of background, there is the issue of merchatzot. It looks like a long, long time ago, people would find Shabbos the perfect time to go to the public baths. I mean, don't forget, uh, I mean, it's a day off work, and, uh, you could relax and have, have a nice warm bath, uh, socialize also. Public baths. And then the Chachamim noticed that the people who were the bath attendants, they were actually heating the baths in a forbidden way. They were adding, uh, adding fuel to the fires. And they said it was already from before Shabbos, but it was, it was, uh, it was too efficient for it to be from before Shabbos. And so Chachamim saw the need to ban the use of merchatzot, use of bath-- uh, of public bathing facilities on, on

30:02 Speaker 1 Shabbos. So we've got this din of gezeiras merchatzot. That's talking about hot water. Bathing in cold water is not included in gezeiras merchatzot. However, this you can see, and this is from Rashash Chovot. "L'maaseh hiskimu g'dolai haposkim" That, uh, poskim do allow miklahaz, to allow a shower, a cold shower if you're very... It's a very hot day, um, and you're feeling very uncomfortable. So a cold shower would be permitted. "Ach zu la'zeh nagu limona lekach mechakach la chalutin." But other than that, it's, uh, it's, it's a established custom not to bathe even in cold on Shabbos or Yom Tov, and one is not allowed to be mezalzel to, to, um, um, you know, yeah, not, not to take this, uh, an easy route on this. So the poel is the answer is no. That, uh, one doesn't bathe on, on, uh, Shabbos or Yom Tov even in cold water. Let's just take this a little bit further and discuss this. That if... And it's if, uh, three thousand years-- two thousand years ago, bathing was, uh, wear-wearing your birthday suit. Nowadays, people go bathing, they're wearing a, uh, uh, swimming trunks, a chulo, uh, a bathing suit. And then whilst, whilst going into the water wearing such a bathing suit may not be a problem, but taking it off and then wringing it out is going to be a problem of issur schita, and so possibly that's part of it. People... Male and men, or women for that matter if necessary, will use a mikvah,

32:00 Speaker 1 uh, on Shabbos or Yom Tov, and will be careful about when it comes to drying not to, not to squeeze, not to squeeze the hair out of the body, not to squeeze the towel. But just for luxury, for indulgence, the, the worry, pro-probably part of the worry is that people will come to wringing out clo-uh, clothing or et cetera, and that could be one of the reasons why. So the poel, the answer is no, that one w-shouldn't be allowing children to use a paddling pool on Yom Tov. Right. Whilst I was listening to the Megillah, and I think it says three times, "Abizor Leish chu es yodom," and I was thinking, why did they, uh, uh, abstain from taking anything of the spoils in-- when they were able to defend themselves and they were, they were able to access the spoils? So why did they not? It's just not a question of halacha. I was just curious. So I did look up. You can see this is from the Torah Shelemah, and he brings in several explanations. One is that they didn't want... That they-- he quotes from the Rekeh, that, that there shouldn't be, uh, an accusation that the reason for the Yidden killing their enemies was because of a lust for more, for, for their property. So that's one explanation. Another me-source is they were concerned that perhaps the, the gold that would have been used in Avodah Zarah, and therefore it's not allowed to have benefit from. Then he has, uh, he

33:41 Speaker 1 quotes here from a Sefer Binyan Ariel. I confess, I did not look it up. I don't know who it is. So Binyan Ariel says the following, that back in the time of King Shaul, when they were told to battle with Amalek and to wipe out Amalek. So then it says, "Vaata el hashalal," and, uh, that they were... The people were, um, they were gravitating to the spoils, and they were very concerned. That's why they didn't want to waste and they kept the sheep, use them for Korbanot, et cetera. So there was an interest to hold on to the spoils. Here, in the times of Mordechai, they wanted to correct the mistake of the, of the people in the times of Shaul HaMelech. And therefore, that was their reason to not have any benefit from the spoils of, of battle, to rectify the mistake of the people in the times of Shaul HaMelech. Bearing in mind that, you know, ish yomini, that, uh, that Mordechai is a descendant in a way. He's a descendant of Benyamin, and Shaul's from Benyamin. And it was like Shaul's mistake of allowing Agag to survive, which brought, uh, allowed the whole, the whole, uh, whole Parasha of Haman. Haman was a descendant of Agag who was, who was, uh, that knight where, where, where, um, where Shaul left him to survive. That's when he be-be-he, um, he, um, beget a child, if you want to say, however, whatever the word is. So, so here they wanted to rectify the-- what

35:23 Speaker 1 was done wrong in the times of Shaul HaMelech. Finally, you have the Bnei Soscha who says another reason that they saw this as a miraculous, um, a miraculous victory. And there is something about not having benefit from miracles. And that's why we have similarly by Avraham Avinu, where he says, "Mikud va'atsreicha va'anaal u'milo yachech mikol ha'shalach." When he went with the battle of the four kings, the five kings without the whole story there. So A-Avraham vows not to have any benefit from the battle. And that's because he... If the battle had been won, if the victory was through a natural way, okay, you're allowed to work for a living, and you're allowed to have benefit. If the battle had been won in a natural way, then it's okay to be-to benefit from the spoils. But when the battle had been li-- clearly a miraculous way, then one should avoid from having hanuah from miraculous gains. Which is so interesting because we have this whole general approach that it was nes hamul lo b'teva, and yet it looks like the Bnei-- according to Bnei Soscha. They recognized that their salvation was miraculous, and therefore they desisted from taking the spoils. I just wanted to just throw in, I did listen to, uh, a podcast some time ago about a, a Jewish soldier who went into Azza and he went into a house. They had to s-search a house, um, for, for trying to find any evidence, uh, which would help them. And then they were going

36:52 Speaker 1 to blow up the house. And they found-- he says, "I found a piece of jewelry," an expensive piece of jewelry. And he-- this soldier, he says he did not take the piece of jewelry. And ten minutes later, they blew up the house with the jewelry and everything. But he didn't... He, he... We didn't, we didn't go in here To plunder. We went in here because of for our safety, but he, he morally desisted from taking, from taking spoils, which possibly was inspired from the Megillah. Let's move on. So one of our regular listeners is asking, do... He has sent me a photograph of these tzitzits. Do they... Are they possible? So I, I felt it's a, uh, w- valuable to, to discuss this, especially we've just gone through this in Rambam, in the Rambam tzitzits, yeah. So this is like this. The tzitzits originally, according to the Rambam-- Oh, no, don't know about the Rambam. According to Toisfes, the tzitzits originally are made of, um, four long stre-strands, which are then folded and made into eight ends, eight long ends. Those four strands, two are techelet and two are lavan. Two are blue wool and two are white wool. When you don't have techelet, so then you have two of the original white ones, and you have another two which they are to substitute for the absent blue ones, so we have two white ones. So we do have an opinion, which we see here in Shechinat HaRuach, and it's simya de'bes, I think it

38:38 Speaker 1 is. It says the following. It says-- does say in the Gemara that if the tzitzits are cut short, and there's only the only kedei anevo, well, whatever the kedei anevo is, a couple of, uh, a few centimeters, then it's still kosher. That's only for the substitute strands. Again, you've got, you've got eight strands in the tzitzits. Four of those are for the original white, and four of those are substituting for the techelet. That which there is a concession. Even if they're cut short, they're still kosher. It is only on the substitute for the, to the, for the techelet. But for the original white ones, they have to be, uh, the full length, and if not, it's ka- it's, it's not kosher. So now therefore, when you have one strand is snapped short or two strands are snapped short, then it's still kosher because there are still definitely t-two of the full length strands which are intact. Once you've got three ends are snapped, so then that means there's only one full length, uh, um, strand which is going all the way, uh, of, of the white. So you, now you... You don't have two full white threads, uh, and therefore it's possible. That's certainly in this case where the three are snapped on one side. That means there's only one which is intact. But even if it were two on one side and one on the other side, also, you don't know whether, uh, which, whether it's the same ones which are snapped or which,

40:24 Speaker 1 uh, which, which are the ones which are intact, which one, which are not, which are, which are snapped. And therefore, when you've got three ends which are snapped, and therefore... And they're less than the full length. Again, if you've got three strands of the tzitzits, which are less than the required length, the chatichilah, then that makes the tzitzits possible. What exactly is the minimum length? That's another discussion, and that's p-p-particularly relevant when you've got young children who wear tzitzits, and they drive-- ride bikes, and the tzitzits get caught in their bikes, and they, they very often are... You can see that most of their tzitzits are snapped short. At what stage do you have to replace them? That's another discussion. What is the minimum, minimum length? It could be less than we... With chatichilah, we do twelve, um, as boys. It could be there's room to be make for other shitas. But, uh, meanwhile, in, in principle, if three strands are... If three ends are cut short, then the tzitzits are passul, a maaser. The Alter Rebbe brings two shitas. The poel is mah-ich machmir, and the Seder that says, says some l'chumrah that if three ends are, are shortened from the required length, then the tzitzits are not kosher. What you could do, by the way, if one of them is snapped, you could repair. You could tie it, an extension to it, and then that would avoid it becoming passul if another two snap. Let's move on. Okay. Now, last ye-- last week,

41:57 Speaker 1 I threw a question at the end of the shiur, and that was about, um, was, is it zecher or zecher, and why is it, why is it in Parashat Ki Tetzei, our minhag is to say zecher, zecher, and why in Parashat Beshalach do we say zecher, zecher? And I left the question open. And a couple of people got back to me, and someone sent me a whole, um, essay about this, actually. There is a story in the Gemara that when Yo yo ben Siruyah was in a position to get rid of Amalek, he got confused whether it's the, the memory of Amalek or the males of Amalek. Because he understood it with the word zecher means the males of Amalek, and he made a mistake. It would means-- it means the memory of Amalek. But, uh, s- that, that is not the crucial to our discussion because halakha is that zecher means the memory of Amalek. So why is there a difference between Parashat Beshalach and Parashat Ki Tetzei? So assuming... This is, uh, the place where to look this up, by the way. It's, it's a Chabad minhag, so you have to look up Esei HaMinhagim. On the top, there is a discuss-- a detailed discussion there showing that there is a dilemma Whether it's the correct pronunciation is Zecher or Zecher, and that is true in both Beshalach and in Parashat Ki Tetze. The dilemma is in both of them. But the question still remains, why do you resolve the dilemma by saying

43:30 Speaker 1 it twice? Here, Zecher, Zecher, and here you say Zecher, Zecher, Zecher. That's what we're trying to do, um, resolve. And so the Rebbe refers to a maimer Bnei Yerushalayim. In the-- There was a kuntres of, I'd say, eighty pages called Bnei Yerushalayim. And it had mamorim of the Alter Rebbe, I think also the Mitteler Rebbe too. So there's a maimer of the Alter Rebbe over there. And this maimer is later printed in the Sefer Mamorim, Mamor Admor HaKatzor. And I'm going to go through the explanation perhaps briefly. One pasuk says, "B'emchei zecher Amalek," that, "Hashem will erase Amalek." Then there is another pasuk, that's the parasha in, in Beshalach. And then another place in which says, "Timchei zecher Amalek." That means it's up to us to get rid of Amalek. And he says, and he says, "This is kri ukesiv. Is it segol or tsere?" And the Rebbe does point out it's not a kri and kesiv. It means that, it means it's the... Whoever wrote the maimer, it's not the Rebbe. Al-Alter Rebbe didn't write this. It was written by someone who was listening. So he understands that there's two ways of reading. And the Alter Rebbe now explains that segol, the A sound, is a, is indica-indicative of ahavah. Now, here it says shva, but it means here, it means that tsere is indicative of yirah. And so now he says, "So what's this, what's this Amalek with ahavah?" So if you do a mitzvah, but you do a mitzvah not with the

45:09 Speaker 1 right motive. You do it lagamar, you do it for a, for a side motive. That's, that is a, that's a plesh tikun Amalek. But that Amalek, Hashem doesn't want us to erase. But when there is a, uh... comes to averus, lo asa, and you want to do it... I'm, I'm, I'm taking the liberty of paraphrasing. I want to do an averah, not because I want to make Hashem upset. Just to have a ta'avah, have a, a lo lishma, an averah shelo lishma. There, absolutely no. No, no way. So you have, um, you have, uh, getting rid of Amalek in a mitzvah sa'aseh and getting rid of Amalek in a mitzvah lo sa'aseh. And so now a mitzvah not for, not with, not with a totally lishma, uh, that's okay. Don't, don't, don't work too hard on getting rid of that mitzvah shelo lishma. It's okay. Get... An averah, absolutely no. And that's the difference between the, the, the zecher and, and that's the difference between the, uh, the two parashas. When it comes to Parashat Beshalach, there it is: Emchei et zecher Amalek. I will. And that is saying like this. There's a mitzvah you may be doing shelo lishma. That's an Amalek. You're doing a mitzvah shelo lishma. But it's not your, that's not your call. There will come a time when Mashiach will come, then Hashem will get rid of mitzvot shelo lishma, so to speak, and will do everything lishma. But meanwhile, that's not up to us. I will de- I will

46:52 Speaker 1 deal with it. That's the, that is the segol. And therefore, since emchei is when Hashem is going to deal with it, therefore, the segol is the main, main nikud. And therefore, in Parashat Beshalach, where it says emchei, then if we say first zecher, and then we say also zecher just to be yotzah the other shit. Whereas in Parashat Ki Tetze, where it's the, there the mitzvah is on us to get rid of Amalek. And there is talking about the lo sa'aseh. Even if you're doing the lo sa'aseh for other motives, not because you want to upset Hashem, but it's absolutely no. It's you're expected to... There is, is inyan of yirah. You have to call in the yirah to get rid of the, of Amalek in, in the, in the, uh, lo sa'aseh. And therefore, it's got to do with the s- nikud of tsere. The main thing is zecher. Also, because of the other yirah so you say zecher. So this is the maimer. It's a lit-- not so clear, but be'erech, this is what the maimer is saying. That in Parashat Beshalach, since it's up to Hashem, therefore, it's, it's, and it's got to do with ahavah, therefore it's zecher and then zecher. And in Parashat Ki Tetze, it's got to do with yirah, and therefore it's kasah of zecher and then zecher. That's the biur in the maimer. Um, and that's, and that is the basis of the Minchah Chabad that you see, can see here, the Rebbe's loshon. Um, api hamahu

48:22 Speaker 1 ashrom parashat Beshalach is zecher to ze-zecher with the segol. Parashat Ki Tetze is got to do with zecher with the tsere. Therefore, that's my guidance that in Parashat Beshalach you say zecher, zecher, and then in Parashat Ki Tetze you say zecher, zecher. Okay. What else do we have here? Okay. One, I know I've gone over time, um, so just to finish off with this. So someone was asking last year, last week, sorry. We had a discussion about hyphenating Hashem's name. If you did Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei with hyphens in between, dashes in between, does that, uh, avoid the kedushah? So I also mentioned there about the name G-O-D. When we... And generally, we have our guidances. We write it G dash D to avoid that the G-O-D be having a kedushah. They wouldn't be allowed to erase it, et cetera. So someone asked me what would happen if he had written G-O-D, and then he puts in another, another O. So instead of God, it becomes good. Does that help or a- or is it possibly the contrary? By doing that, he has erased Hashem's name. In other words, you can erase it by taking a, a, a, you know, eraser or a painting over. You can erase by changing it to a different meaning. So I told him this is takis, this, this is discussed in poskim. So here you have, first of all, in Shulchan Aruch. In Shulchan Aruch and Yoreh De'ah has the following. Someone who wrote the name Yehudah, and he meant to write

49:58 Speaker 1 Yehudah, but he, in haste, he forgot to put in a daled. So he had written Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei, written Hashem's name. So then he says in Shulchan Aruch, "Okay, you written Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei, but really it's meant to be... And you didn't mean to write Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei. You meant to write Yehudah. So write the daled just on top. top between the vav and the heh, you put the dalet, and it'll become Yehudah. It's gonna be kosher. What'd be the other way around? If you had intended you needed to write Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh, and somehow, again, half-asleep, and you wrote Yehudah instead of Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh. So then what you should do is you should take the dalet and make it into a heh, and then you are able to erase the heh at the end, and that's also kosher. Okay. Then Rabbi Kivah Yaga writes the following. If you had intention to write Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh, you've-- and it really should be Yehudah, but you didn't. You were, you weren't thinking straight, and you thought you're going to write Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh. And so you wrote Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh. And then you want to put... But it really needs to be Yehudah. So he said, you're not allowed to add in a dalet then because then you are, by adding the dalet into the Yehudah, you are erasing the name. You're taking away Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh, make it into Yehudah. He gives a reference to, uh, sources. So therefore, this idea of adding another letter, and by the addition is gonna change the meaning from Hashem, Hashem to a, to a mundane

51:27 Speaker 1 meaning that is also included in the issue of Michikas Hashem, and therefore that would not be okay. That's, that was my answer to him. So that's the end of tonight's Shir. And thank you for joining us, and we look forward to a week of Besuros tovos, Yeshuos, V'nechomos, and Simchas Olam Al roshom, Shechezeno, Inenu, Veshucha L'tsion Berachamim. And we should see Mikdash Altiloy, uh, with Mashiach Tzidkeinu .

51:56 Speaker 2 Amen.

52:01 Speaker 3 Amen.

52:03 Speaker 2 Amen. Thank you.