במדבר תשפ״ו

00:04 Speaker 1 Good evening, and welcome to tonight's Shiur. Today is Thursday of Parshas VaMedaber. And just advance notice, next Thursday, for technical reasons, we won't have the Shiur. Um, right. So our first question, which I touched on last week, I did not have a chance to look into it carefully then. I'd like to share with you my findings so far. So I got a call, a message, Shliach, somewhere in the States, and they're having two, two, uh, people getting married. Well, two couples getting married in the same week, which is exciting for their small community. And they would like to do, uh, their community would like to do Sheva Berachos. Very nice. They'd like to do one event for both. And then, so the question is, what's the protocol when you've got two Sheva-- two Chasanim and Kallas at the same event? How, how do you, how do you, how do you do the Sheva Berachos, et cetera? So we have here on the screen from Shulchan Aruch Har Avnei Ezras. So, "Im yesh shnei chasanim yachad," says the Yosef Caro, the Shulchan Aruch. You have two chasanim. "Mvorchim birkas chasanim achat lishneiem." And he could be talking about actually a chuppah. You have a couple of chuppahs, a few chuppahs. You can do one set of berachos for all of them. And there are more adds, even if they're not mamash together, be had in mind. Then, "Ve yesh omerim," a second opinion. "She-ein levorich lishnei chasanim yachad." You shouldn't do two chuppahs mamash in one.

02:02 Speaker 1 "Misom ayin hara." I'm not sure exactly why it's ayin hara. If it's one person making several simchas, I can understand. But why should there be... If they're not related, why should there be ayin hara? I don't know. It could be on a community, et cetera. American community has two simchas. Could also be. "Vechein nogin lasos lechol echad chuppah befnad atzmo ulevorach lechol echad." Says the Rama, indeed, the custom is two chasan-- two, two couples, separate chuppahs, separate berachos. "Avol aachar hasuada," but the berachos after the, at the end of the meal, "Mevorchim leharbeh chasanim beyachad," you can make several chasanim in one, one set of berachos. "Im mochim beyachad." So literally, we got, uh, for the moment, we've got this joint Sheva Berachos. And now the Rama is talking about necessarily the week of Sheva Berachos, even the chasana. He says you make a separate chuppah, but you can have a joint meal and one set of berachos. Not much more so during the week. On the margin of the Shulchan Aruch, we have the Piskei Teshuvah, who brings us to the Radvaz. Radvaz, Rabbeinu David Ben Zamra, was probably contemporary of the Beis Yosef. Both in the Kubbul and a, uh, uh, uh, posek. He writes the following. Where-- Well, this is just a précis of the words of Radvaz. It's quite a bit long in the Radvaz. When you've got the two chasanim, and they themselves are concerned, "She-ein rotzeh b'bracha m'shutef es." They don't want to share the bracha. They would like

03:52 Speaker 1 to have their own attention. "Shapir domi levorich kol echad befnad atzmo." You can do separate berachos. And he goes, "Ve'en kam mishum afushi berachos, b'berachos." Don't worry about overdoing berachos. There is an idea of n-not saying unnecessary berachos. So the Radvaz here is short, and the Radvaz itself is longer. It's okay because it's for, to make them happy, to make them... So it's okay. It's not a problem of saying extra berachos. Then comes now is, the next piece is tricky. So you've got now, you've got two chasanim, and we want to do two sets of berachos. So how are you going to work this? "U'motziin et echad levayis acher." You take out one of the chasanim, goes out into another room. "Umevorchim." And they say, then they bench. "Vechozir umevorchim al zeh." And then you come back, and you bench for this one. Now, this statement is a little bit ambiguous. You could say the following. You take out one of the chasanim, and you do Birkat Hamazon in the other room, and you do Sheva Berachos in the other room. "Vechozir umevorchim al zeh." Then you come back, and you do Birkat Hamazon and Sheva, Sheva Berachos for this one. So all in two separate rooms. That's one way. There's another way of reading to do the following. Um, "Motziin et echad levayis acher." You tell one of the chasanim to leave the room. "Umevorchim." And the people present in the room do Birkat Hamazon and Sheva Berachos. And then the chasan who was,

05:46 Speaker 1 had left the room, "Vechozir," he comes back. "Vechozir umevorchim al zeh." When the chasan comes back, so then we do another set of berachos, uh, for the chasan who just returned into the room. "Vachen asa Chuzal," and he says, "Ein shom." And he says, indeed, he did, he, he did so. Which is something very... I mean, I've never seen it happen. To have- The second form of doing two sets of brachas. The same tzibur, chasan went out, he comes back, and you do, uh, another set of brachas for him. Very interesting. Um, okay. So, so what we've seen is you could simply have one set of Sheva Brachos for both couples. If you want, you could do something of someone going out and someone com-coming back in again. So what I didl-did tell that in Gmar, the, the shliach there and, uh, that he sh-- that if they are not fussy about the lanot makpidim, make one Sheva Brachos for everyone and everyone, that's, that's good. That's good. But now what came to mind is two things. One is by the Rebbes Farbrengens, there were occasions where there were brachas, there was Sheva Brachos at the Rebbes Farbrengens, and there were occasions where there were more than one Sheva Brachos. And so if I'm saying here, so wh-wh-how did I, how did I jump to that? Sometimes you have a chasuna. I made a chasuna, let's say on a Tuesday, and my brother-in-law made a chasuna on Thursday. So I went along with my daughter

07:37 Speaker 1 and son-in-law, and we had around the table, we did a Sheva Brachos around one table for my daughter's Sheva Brachos. It was within her week. Now, I'm not so sure whether that is legitimate because here the Raiva, the Rav has been saying, you want to do another set of brachas, go out of the room. Someone goes out of the room, then comes back. Or you do the Sheva Brachos in the other room, whichever way you learn. But that's... But to do in the same room, I'm a little bit concerned that it, it doesn't... Well, what am I, what am I concerned? Now listen to this. I'm not concerned about brachah labatal. I'll tell you why. What would happen, never mind two chasana. A regular chasana, and it comes ten o'clock or ten thirty, and some chevra have lots of energy, and they're ready to keep on dancing till twelve o'clock. And some people have to get up for, to work the next day, and they ask the balabos, "Can we make a, a zimun around one table?" And he said, he's a really nice guy. He says, "Yeah, go ahead." So these ten people go and sit around a table, they bench, and they all say Sheva Brachos. That's legitimate. In other words, at the same setting, you could have separate groups saying benching and saying Sheva Brachos. It's not commonly done, but it's, it's, uh, theoretically, it's okay. And in Shulchan Aruch, it mentions about in the olden times when you'd have a, a

09:13 Speaker 1 chasana, and, uh, there wasn't enough space in one house for everyone to sit together. So you had three neighbors, and each one, their main room was, was, uh, had twenty guests. So the chasan is in the house A, and house B and C, there's another twenty, uh, g-guests in each one. And they are there for the chasana. They're celebrating, and they're farbrengen. And it comes there when they finish their meal. So they will make Sheva Brachos because they're part of the chasana, even though the chasan isn't there. So therefore, if another group sits around a table at a chasana and does Sheva Brachos, it's not a brachah labatal, but the brachas are for the current chasan, not the chasan from two days ago. And a separate point is also that you, when you do a, a Sheva Brachos during the week, you need to have a panim chadashas, a special guest who has come, who wasn't there at the wedding and is now enhancing your wedding. At a regular chasana, in the case which I just described, the people who came to the second chasana on Thursday evening, they didn't come for my simcha. They came for that simcha. So if I pull them over to the table, "Oh, be a Sheva-- Be a panim chadashas." Really? Who, who catered? Who, uh, everything? Everything is, is not nothing to do with me, s-with my simcha. It's got to do with the c-current simcha. So it's, to say that that's, that's Sheva Brachos around, that huddle

10:37 Speaker 1 around the table is, uh, counting as a Sheva Brachos for the chasan, for the chasana from two days ago, for that couple, is a bit, uh, how do you say, questionable. And on the other hand, there's no chiyuv to Sheva Brachos every night. That's just something that's niggeh ferlech. If, if you, if you have a chasana of a relative during the week of Sheva Brachos, and therefore you're not having Sheva Brachos, well, that's niggeh ferlech. All right. Now then you, as I say, then you start thinking about what happened by the Rebbe. They did do two Sheva Brachos in the same, in the same, uh, shul in seven seventy. So I'm gonna share with you what happened in Tov Shin Chof Ches. Tov Shin Chof Ches, this is, uh, the Rebbe. They, they, uh... Looks like they rattled off a, a few Sheva Brachos for a few chasanim and kallas right after, one after the other. Possibly, they wanted to make it easier for the Rebbe. He shouldn't be a-hanging around. I don't know what the cheshbon was. But they did a whole, they did a, a series of Sheva Brachos, one after the other. To which the Rebbe comments, and he says, "There are things which are none of my business, and I don't mix into them. But so that this kind of some things should, will be attributed to me that I took responsibility for, therefore, I want to clarify. When you have several people eating together at one table, at one event,

12:02 Speaker 1 one table, there is a discussion whether they can break up into separate groups without a hefsek." And he says, "I'm not going to mix into, into, uh, a din, which is a din de'oraisah. That's got to do with the Rabbonim. And there are Rabbonim here that they can pasken which way they, they see fit. That's to justify what was done or to say that it should be diff-differently. But to not to get into the whole discussion," says the Rebbe. He's asking in the future, there should be between one Sheva Berachos and the next Sheva Berachos, there should be a hefsek with Divrei Torah, obviously with the sichas, et cetera. So, what I'm s-seeing here is that the Rebbe, the Rebbe davka wants it to be separate groups. And w-I wanna take it a little bit further, that by the Rebbe's chaverim is they weren't, uh... The Rebbe's saying, "Mesiba achat shuchon echad." In reality, it was separate huddles. Someone had a, uh, Sheva Berachos, so they got a few people together around it to, to, to wash. Most of the people didn't wash. So it was a separate huddle. So here, the Rebbe is looking at it as if you are seeing it, the chaverim, it's all one, one big chaverim. And he says it would be justified to break it up only if it is, uh, over with intervals in between. Now, I'm, I'm just looking at the sicha, and interesting because the Rebbe is not saying, "I have a problem with the Sheva

13:28 Speaker 1 Berachos being broken up." He is saying a problem of the Zimun being broken up, which is very interesting. Now, every child who's learned a bit of Mishnayos knows that at, once you, once you get six people, you're allowed to divide into two groups. And then once you've got ten, you're not allowed to divide into two, uh, two separate groups 'cause you lose the Zimun over the, with the Hashem's name. But once you've got twenty, you can divide. So this is from Siman kuf sadey gimel. I'm just trying to explain when the Rebbe is concerned about breaking up into separate groups, um, and doing Sheva Berachos. And as I say, he doesn't seem to be concerned about the Sheva Berachos. He's pr- concerned about breaking up to separate mi-mi- mizumims. I mean, for, for, pardon my English. So here you have that you are allowed to break up into separate groups if you have a shus of the balabais. Now, this Siman kuf sadey gimel, unfortunately, most of it is missing in the Alter Rebbe's Shulchan Aruch. That's why you have Mishne Berura over here. And he says, and this is what, l'chor, what the Rebbe's referring to. "Although you are allowed to break up into separate groups, mitzvu min hamukcha shelo lehischalek. It is actually recommended not to divide into separate groups, whether it's twenty into two groups of ten, whether it's six into two groups of three, meshum berov om hadras melech. When you've got a greater crowd, it's a greater glory to Hashem,

14:53 Speaker 1 and therefore, there is a recommendation not to break up into separate groups." Now, the Rebbe is saying if you're doing it at intervals, and so this perhaps that's more justified because, uh, possibly it's more convenient that way. That these are ready to bench now. However, the justification is to break it up because of the intervals. But possibly this is what the Rebbe's, uh, concerned about, where he says, "Yesh mokel la'shach klal betariah," whether to break up into separate groups without a hefsek. So that's, there is a concern. Why, what does the hefsek do that I still am not totally confident I know the explanation. Okay, let's move on. Let's get to something totally different, and that is one of the teachers in our school, very, uh, conscientious teacher, and is using our siddur and is asking, "Why is there the asterisk on top of the vase, the second vase of the word levavchem, which means you pronounce it not levavchem, but levavchem." So I was a little bit, um, stuck. I said, "I'd look into it." And I went to my Dikduk consultant who gave me some in-insight. Now, I'm, perhaps I've said this to, shared this bef-before. There are Dikduk bichlal, is said from the Alter Rebbe, is not a perfect chochma. So I've heard something. I don't remember that words, but something to that effect. And I'd like to say the thing like this, that, uh, there are different po-policies, different opinions in, in Dikduk. Um, another point which I'd like to say

16:42 Speaker 1 is that there is a sci-- that Dikduk is a science. What do I mean by that? What is science? Science is looking at phenomena and analyzing. This is working this way, this is going that way, and as a result, the science will predict, and therefore in, in unknown, predictably, this is going to happen. And in a way, Dikduk is looking at the Tanakh and seeing the way things are spelled, perhaps other sources, later sources, but it's analyzing the way, uh, it is spelled out in Tanakh, and then coming, uh, developing rules based upon observation. And those observations, as I say, you've got different opinions. If you read Rashi in Torah, his Dikduk is different to the Dikduk which we're familiar with. Uh, also the names he has for the Nekudos, that's a separate to-topic. This, the, the Dikduk evolved. And so we have a, um, a master Medakdek called Rav Shlomo Zalman Hanau or Hanau. And he is a contemporary l'chor of the Baal Shem Tov. Two generations before the Alter Rebbe, two or three generations before the Alter Rebbe. He publishes, and the Rab-Rabbi Yaakov Emden was a contemporary of his, little bit younger, lashes out at him. He has a whole sefer called Lo Eresh where he disagrees with him on many of his points. Be that as it may- The Tillhas Hashem Siddur is published-- is, is a copy of a siddur printed in Vilna, Tof Reish Ayin Aleph, which tells me like this: approximately a hundred and fifty years after Rav

18:29 Speaker 1 Zalman Hena, uh, had, had been active, his policies are adopted by the printer in Vilna. Nothing to do with Lubavitch per se. The printers in Vilna, was it Hamon of Achim Rom or howe-howe-however, they printed various siddurim, Ashkenaz and, and, and, uh, and, uh, also perhaps Nusach Sfarad also. But they printed, and they printed also Siddur Socharie Siddur. I have the copy. I have the... I have, uh, an original of the Tof Reish Ayin Aleph. Someone lent it to me. So, and they, the printers in Vilna, they saw the need to clarify where is going to be the Sheva, gonna be a Sheva Nach or Sheva Nah, which means an audible Sheva or a silent Sheva. And they came up with this idea of putting in asterisks, and they followed the policy of Reb Zalman Hena. And in various Misnagdishe sources, you've got a mention from Reb, um, Moshe Steinbuch, zal zayn gezunt. You have a mention from Reb Shoya de Lib- Deblitsky, and they point to the Chabad siddur. The Chabad siddur has got... They're following the, the, uh, Reb Zalman Hena, which is not the popular opinion in their pe- from their perspective. And in Shema particularly, they will show that in Shema itself, there is eight times, ten times, where we're following the, the s- the, the less popular shita of Dikduk. So I'm saying, first of all, it's not a Chabad thing. This is Reb Zalman, Zalman Hena and the printers in Vilna, number one. Number two, the fact that a

20:11 Speaker 1 hundred and fifty years after Zalman Hena, his policies are being used by a printer means that that's the way people spoke. That's the way people davened in the litter. The- It wasn't the printer made it up. He is following what is, uh... Okay, um, now, and, and therefore what? Therefore what? That when you have different dialects, that's legitimate. You have a Hungarian dialect, and you have a Galitziana dialect, and you have a Rusysheger dialect, and you have a Teimane dialect, and you have a Moroccan and a Baghdadi. That's okay. So, you know, back off a little bit, yeah. Number one. Um, now, before addressing, uh, this immediate question of l'vavachem, compare Chabad siddur to Artscroll. So let's say, ukesharto. So in the Artscroll, it's gonna say, uksharto, uvkumecho, uvshochbocho perhaps. And, uh, perhaps Rabbi wants to go through this before. And that's not the way we pr-we pronounce it. We're used to ukeshartom, uvkumecho, et cetera. This is, this is also part of Reb Zalman Hena's, um, policy. He has a policy about Sheva, where he, he intru-invents an idea that there's a tnuah kalo. You've got tnuas gedolus and tnuas katanos. You've got the major vowels and the minor vowels, and then he has the Shevas, the tnuah kalo, and he has whole policies built around that. But coming back to our particular concern, why in l'vavachem, why is that Sheva, is it a Sheva Nah? So he comes up with the following rule, and he says the follow... He says it like this:

22:00 Speaker 1 When you have a Sheva followed by one of the six letters of the gad kafas. Begad kefas, some, some prefer to pronounce it. When you've got the Sheva followed by the, these, one of these six letters, which four of them we put this, differentiate, beis vais, chof kof, pei fei, tof sof. So he says the following: If it's hard, then if it's a hard, it's a dgusha, then the Sheva before it will be a Sheva Nach. So look, for example, birkas kohanim. The resh is a Sheva Nach, birkas kohanim. The kof is dgusha, is stressed, and preceding it is a Sheva Nach. Mishpat, the pei is a, uh, dgusha, and therefore the shin in mishpat is a Sheva Nach. Good. But when the, when that, that letter, the kof is a khof, not a kof, then it, it should be mishopu, and ozavom, and molochoi, and et cetera. So this is, Reb Zalman Hena has developed this rule, that when you have the Sheva followed by one of those four or six letters, which have the option of being a soft or a hard, and the letter is soft, then the Sheva be-before it has to be a Sheva Nu. And therefore, it's l'vavachem because the khof of l'vavachem is soft. It's, it's berefuya, and therefore the Sheva before it is a Sheva Nah. That is the rule which he's bringing out. And thank you, Rabbi Mendy Charasik, for bringing me, uh, this source in the Sefer Soya HaHatevo. This is the work of Reb

23:57 Speaker 1 Zalman Hena, um, as I, who I mentioned before. We'll move on. So, uh, there's a weekly, uh, sheet called Habrengen, and all interesting things there. There are, uh, story anecdotes, and they published this week, this past week, about ping pong and a letter of the Rebbe. Now, this letter, you can read here. You can see on the screen. You can see the Rebbe's Ksav Veyad Kodesh. Ping Pong b'Shabbos Kodesh, movenshei lo zeh makom klal uchelal. That ping pong on Shabbes, on the holiday of Shabbes, is obv- is self-understood that it has no s- place for it at all. Story being in nineteen sixty approximately, you have Reb Aharon Mordechai Zilberstrom, who is a mechanuch, and he sees young lads who are, Shabbes afternoon, have got lots of spare time, and they are sometimes getting into hilul Shabbes, rachmanu u'tzilan. So he wants to do something about it. And so he decides to make some kind of club on Shabbes afternoon to keep these, uh, k-kids occupied. And included part of the activities for the Sh- Shabbos afternoon club, he includes ping-pong. And he writes it to the... He writes about this to the Rebbe, and that's the Rebbe's response. So very, very interesting. Such a strong, uh, rejection of the idea. So let's... So people are asking, and, um, I got actually someone in the shul asked me by us, and then I got also an email that someone in Monsey had written to the editors of the Farbrengen and asked them for the explanation,

25:48 Speaker 1 and they said they don't have an explanation. They just reprinted from their source. So he writes to me and wants an explanation. So let's try. So we have here the end of Hilchos Muktzeh, where the, the Ateret Zekenah brings that you're not allowed to play with a ball on Shabbos or Yom Tov because it's not called a tool. It's not a It's not a utensil. and there are those who do permit to play with a ball within and to be lenient and So we have here, actually look in the Machloket Ashkenaz and Sefard. The f- the first one is the Yosef Karo says that a ball is muktzeh. You can't play ball on Yo- on Shabbos. And the Rama is the lenient one who says it's okay. So therefore, if a football is , so a ping-pong ball is no... Is, is perhaps much better in as far as muktzeh is concerned. So therefore, you're back to the question, why the Rebbe is so, uh, um, you know, so strong about ping- that ping-pong on Shabbos. So now we then look in a little bit more. We look in the Beit Yosef in Hilchos Muktzeh. Just be- before going further, there's one contemporary posek. They're called the or the Debreciner Rav, and he was asked whether it's okay for girls to play ping-pong on Shabbos. And he's got three, three pages, and he's really comes to conclusion, no. Even though by girls, not a question of bizoyron, and still he's outspoken against it. Um, so

27:43 Speaker 1 now we've got the Beit Yosef. Beit Yosef bring from its earliest source, you're not allowed to play with a ball on Shabbos. However, the Tosfos in Bava said, says that it is common. Pe- pe- people do play ball on Shabbos, uh, on Yom Tov. Then we go further. The end of this quote of the Beit Yosef, he quotes from a Gemara Yerushalmi. There was a place called Tur Shimoin. A, a place in, in Eretz Israel. Why was it destroyed? Some say because of because they would play ball on Shabbos. So, so there are strong words, although the, the Aminich, Aminich Ashkenaz is to allow, but still there's strong words against playing ball on Shabbos. And possibly this is what the Rebbe is seeing here. You've got boys. Let-- Would it be... Let's, let's, let's change the question. Instead of playing ping-pong, to make a Shabbos afternoon, we do go and do football in the park. Jewish boys make teams, eleven a side, play football in the park. Would that be appropriate for a mechanch to do on a Shabbos with, with, with the kids? With these kids are challenged kids. Would that be appropriate? And if, if you have... If you could see that as not being a Shabbos activity, the Rebbe's taking it one step further, also playing ping-pong. It's, uh, what the Debreciner Rav is saying, it, it is noisy. It is something which you can hear from a d- even from a few houses away. So it's not a quiet, uh, entertainment.

29:29 Speaker 1 Uh, and it's a, it's a distraction from the tochen which Shabbos should have. That's, that's what I can see so far. Um, so the Rebbe is seeing... I don't know the Rebbe is saying it's a isur on... He's saying you as a mechanch, and you want to entertain these boys on Shabbos afternoon, but ping-pong is not the way to entertain them. Look for something more, perhaps more meaningful and more engaging rather than that. That's the best I can tell you. Let's move on to the next question. Someone's asking, is it okay for him to exercise? He needs to exercise for health reasons. You know, his health... He- he'll just be running on a, a treadmill. No, he has to run. Um, don't ask me the peratim of what, why this type and that type, but this is what he needs. Can he do... Go running early morning before davening? Because later in the day, his job, et cetera, his schedule, it's not gonna happen during the day, and it's important for his health to have this. Is he able to do running before davening early in the day? So before davening, we shouldn't do work before davening. We shouldn't be dealing with personal indulgence before, before davening. So here I found a sefer c-called . I looked online. I saw online on my oitzer, and this brought me to this sefer where you bring various- Contemporary, uh, poskim were asked this question, and they say it's called Tzorchei Shamayim. Looking after your health would be

31:14 Speaker 1 called Tzorchei Shamayim. If you can't do it after davening, then that should be okay. Um, it's not like dealing with business, uh, or doing your banking before davening, which shouldn't be done. It's talking here, uh, um... It's, uh, here he has... It doesn't, doesn't... Rav Shlomo Zalman Feinstein doesn't see it as a melacha. He doesn't see it as work. It's, you know, it's, uh... I mean, the same question could be, can a person have a shower before davening? And, um, I can, I can tell you that, that many people do, yeah. Many fine Jews do. It's not seen as, as a total distraction of, uh... It's, uh, getting ready for the day. So this is part of this person's getting ready for the day. So the p'yo they do allow it if it won't happen otherwise. The answer is yes. Obviously because of the need. Right. Let's move on. So one of our regular listeners planted a tree about four years ago, and now is asking about using the fruit. So we know the first three years of a fruit tree are orlah, and they are forbidden to have benefit from. But now is the fourth year. Is there an issue of using the fruit on the fourth year? So the fourth year is called Neta Ravui. And if it's a vineyard, it's called Kerem Ravui, the fourth year of the vineyard. So here we have in Shulchan Aruch that the mechaber writes that Neta Ravui, the kedusha. So the orlah first three years is

32:50 Speaker 1 condemned. You can't have any benefit from it. It's also bara noah. The fourth year, you would be taking the fruit to Yerushalayim, similar to maaser sheni. And similar to maaser sheni, you can exchange it for money, and the mon- the kedusha goes on the money. So, as we know. So does that apply in Chutz La'aretz? Does the fourth year have, a fruit have a kedusha? So me- mechaber says yes. But yes, Mishu Aim, the Ramos says the others disagree, and this is only applies in Eretz Yisrael, not in Chutz La'aretz. And then some differentiate between vineyard and other, and, and between grapes and other things. So we have here two opinions. Does Neta Ravui apply in Chutz La'aretz or not? And then we look in the Shach who writes on the, on the margin, hilchoch nir. Therefore, the advice given is whether it is the fourth year of a vineyard, whether the fourth year of other fruit trees, you should be poide. You should exchange it for a penny, for a pruta. Not, not a penny. A penny is less than a pruta. Five pence, six pence. Ex-exchange it for, for money, and then the kedusha will go on that. And like you do with maaser sheni, and, uh, don't do it with a bracha because of the second opinion that it doesn't apply. But you should be poide the fruit of that fourth year, and then you can enjoy it. We can then go on to our next question, and that was someone, our

34:22 Speaker 1 regular listener, is asking... He puts aside, he earns money, and Baruch Hashem, and he puts aside a tenth of his earning into a, into a separate account or sep- uh, envelope. And sometimes people borrow money. He's, Baruch Hashem, a person who people can turn to for a loan. So can he use that maaser money for lending? So normally, he uses the money for actually helping poor people, et cetera. Can he use it the same... From the same fund, could he use it for lending money? So here you have a contemporary Sefer, it's the Chamishpot, where Yesh Oimrim. You-- If you put aside your maaser money, you can put it to a, a fund for lending, uh, like a Biluch Chasadim, even though lending can also be for Ashirim. Let's say a person's making a Chasana. He's not poor. But at this point, he's got, uh, a larger expense. He doesn't have the ca- He's got... Let's say he's got properties, but he doesn't have cash. So at the moment, he wants to borrow money to be able to, to, to deal with, and he'll pay you back 'cause he's not a, a poor person. But there's still a mitzvah of lending money to such a person. So there are those who say that you are fulfilling the mitzvah. You can use your maaser money for lending money. Now, and then you can... And if that's the case, once you-- if you have put it aside for gamach, for lending money, you could also borrow from

35:51 Speaker 1 it if you need it for a short term. But taking your maaser money and lending it, and once it's paid back, goes back into your pocket, that's not okay. We're talking about, yes, identifying using your maaser money, some of it, as a lending fund. That's f-fine. Um, right. So I think that answers the question. At least I told... Well, I told the person at least henceforth you can have in mind that the maaser money which you put aside can be part... Some of it can be used for lending. Right. Now we go on to the next question. One of our... Someone turns to me and asks me the following. He actually suggested it should be on the panorama. It happens to be that in, in his particular part of the world, the shul is the central room of the building. It's a converted house. And it happens to be that the mikvah is on the other end of that large room. So you've got a central room which has taken up the full width of the house, and towards the back of the house is a mikvah. So then if you want to go to the mikvah, you need to go through the, through, through the shul. And obviously, when you go, go out, there's, there's no side entrance. So are you allowed to walk through a shul, and do you, uh, to do so? So again, every child learned Mishnah Berachot, Lo Yasnu Kapandaryo. One shouldn't be, like, making a harabais as a shortcut

37:18 Speaker 1 to go from A to B, to make a shortcut. And similarly, we're not meant to use a shul as a shortcut. So here's a question. What happens if it's not a shortcut, that's the only route? Is that, is that still a problem? Now, I feel uncomfortable with this humra because the te-term kapandario means instead of going around the houses... Right, it says, atsha, um, uh, uh, whatever the lotion is, instead of going around the houses, I'll cut through here. Here it's not to cut short. I was just... There's no other way. And yet this, the... He's quoting from the Tzemach Tzedek, which I a-admit I did not read up inside. He says, "Even if there's no other route, one shouldn't be walking through a shul to get elsewhere." Therefore, those who put, put, let's say, put up a, an office or storage, and the only way to get there is through the shul, that's not really an appropriate design. If the other room is also for a mitzvah, then it's okay to go through to, for a purpose of a mitzvah. So it's not so poshut. Uh, it looks like it is a problem, and one solution is to stop in the shul and say a pesuk or something. What I didn't find, I was looking and didn't find any comment on this. Does it make a difference whether the shul is a purpose shul, totally dedicated as a shul? Because in many situations, especially in Chabad's, uh, houses, et cetera, it's a multipurpose room,

38:56 Speaker 1 and it's used also for club activities. It's used for various... To say that that has a kedusha. So if, if it's in shul session, even then. But it-- the space is not a dedicated space for a shul. Therefore, I find it difficult to accept. If you're allowed to do other activities here, so how much more so that you should be able to walk through. I, I didn't find anyone to-- who addresses that, uh, that, that particular variation. Let's move on. So I got the same question from two separate people, both actually from France, uh, but different families. That they're going on holiday and there's a complex where there are various dwellings, and one family is in one house, in one apartment, and they have rented another apartment within that complex, and... But they are one family unit. So then they're going to be eating together. Do they need to make an eruv? And if they do need to make an eruv, the next thing is you need to do schirrus reshus. To, to, to explain, I'm, I'm discussing this because it's, like, the, the, the principles are fairly common. With a, a... One Yid with a goy does not need an eruv. One Yid with several goyim doesn't need an eruv. So if you are an apartment building and you're the only Jewish family and there are multiple goyim, you are allowed to carry in the building. You don't need an eruv. If a buil-- If the gardens, the yard has got a, a kasher

40:48 Speaker 1 a mechitza, ten tfachim high, not too large gaps, you can carry in the yard also. You don't need an eruv. If you're the only Yid, you don't need to have an eruv, um, where there are other goyim, where there are goyim. Where does it become an issue? If there's two Yidden. If there's two Yidden, then you need to make an eruv. Are you making an eruv? Then what about the goyim? You're gonna have to do what's called schirrus reshus. And there's a whole history behind this in the Gemara, that they were concerned that a Yid on his own wouldn't live amongst Nokrim because of the sakona element. But when the, uh... When there's two Yidden, they'll feel that they're safe, and they'll, they'll, they'll, uh, they'll feel comfortable. And then the children will be playing with the, with the children of the neighbors. And as a result, they're going to, uh, be drawn to the culture of their neighbors. So in order to discourage Yidden living comfortably with Umos HaOlam neighbors, they said, "You want to make an eruv, you're gonna have to do schirrus reshus." Predictably, the neighbors were gonna make a fuss. Well, say that's how much what they wanted. They want to discourage this union. Well, okay. That's the... They need for schirrus reshus. So now again, so what's the story? We've got, let's say there's ten, ten dwellings, and two of them are populated by Yidden. If that's the case, you need to make an eruv, and then you'd have to

42:25 Speaker 1 have schirrus reshus, which would mean to rent the shared areas, the corridors, et cetera. You'd have to rent it from the, from the goyim. You can... There's ways of doing it without not being too painful, can be done. I-Is that necessary over here? So, as they say, here, they're not two mamish separate units. It's one family unit using two apartments, and they're eating together, and that makes them as a single unit. Therefore, there's no need for an eruv. Let's say you've got this in two places in Shechinach. One is in Siman shiyh samach vav. That's the top of the screen. Where you've got... It's a given, on a given week, b'nei ha'chotzer, that they are sitting all together to eat, to eat together. So they really, they need to have an eiruv. But they're eating all together, so the fact that they all are eating together, that is their eiruv. Even though it's only one host who's providing the food, but the-because they're all eating together, that's the eiruv. That's even if they're separate units because they're eating together. Now we have here anshei hachotzer, similar thing, which, uh, even if they, they eating together the Shabbos, even though each one is eating their own food. But if they're eating as one, in, in one room, that also will make them into a single unit. So for either way, the fact that these two families, as I said, they're part of the extended family and they're gonna be eating Shabbos meals together, that is itself

44:04 Speaker 1 making them not just an eiruv. It's more than making them into a single unit. Because they're a single unit, they don't need to make an eiruv with... in, in the, in the, in the complex, and therefore they don't have to go to three sekhiras reshus either. Okay, let's move on. Okay. So last week we had a discussion about a choson giving a gift to a kallah, and I quoted, as you can see on the screen, from the Nitei Gavriel of him giving it through his mother and through his sister. So shortly after the shiur, F-Friday morning, I got f-someone from California, uh, Rav in California is, he, he, someone had shared with him that I'd said something about the, uh, choson not giving gifts to the kallah. So he shared with me the following. See, here is someone is writing to the Rebbe about getting engaged, and here is how the Rebbe would typically answer. He would write on the margins. He'd circle parts of the le- of the, the, uh, note and write on the margins. And so this is a answer of the Rebbe to, uh, someone who's getting engaged. And, "For some, it's dai time oz," so writes the Rebbe. It's well known my op-opinion already from time by gone that a tabas, a ring, is only given by the chuppah. "Vekam matanos acheiros yeshnon." There are other forms of gifts you can give. So he's saying to me, which I'm happy to hear, and you see the Rebbe is saying, "Don't

45:53 Speaker 1 give a ring." They're getting engaged, don't give a ring. Want to give her something else? You can give her something else, and it doesn't go into doing it through your sister, your brother, your, your, your... I'm sorry, your, your mother, et cetera. Again, I don't know the circumstances. Perhaps what they were... W- It could be someone who didn't have relatives, close relatives who could do it on their behalf. I don't know. But there is, at least they have here, some background that the Rebbe was okay with it, of giving matanos. And then he said, uh, if he can say my, I can say his name, Re-Reb Gershon Mendel Garelik, when he was meeting his kallah before they were engaged, and Reb Gershon Mendel kind of, it came across that he's like, uh, um, how do you like, a malach, a malach. Like, um, not so down to earth, and it was a bit of an issue. And the Rebbe told him that he should give a gift, whether it was through Rabbi Kadikov. But the Rebbe advised him, the next meeting, he should bring a gift to the kallah, to the prospective kallah. And, uh, Baruch Hashem, they got married, and they lived happily ever after. And, um, Baruch Hashem, set up a nice, beautiful Chassidisha family. Right. Um, one last hashlamah. And we had this whole discussion about taking off the cream off the cake. Is that a problem of boire? And so a couple of people asked... Well, one, one, one talmid said,

47:14 Speaker 1 "If the person doesn't like the cream on the cake for health reasons, why is he eating cream cake?" Um, so I told him it's his granddaughter's birthday. But then s- a couple of people said, "You're not allowed to take the bad away from the good. You're allowed to take the good from the bad." So if you put the cream cake flat on the, you know, on the side, uh, on your plate, and you take cake away from the cream, problem solved. You're allowed to take the good away from the bad. That's not a problem. So, um, right. That's as much as I have to share with you this evening. And next Thursday, as I mentioned at the beginning of this shiur, we're not going to have a shiur next Thursday evening because, um, can't use this technology then. And so the next shiur will be T-Two Thursdays ahead, Im Yirtzeh Hashem. And meanwhile, I wanna wish you a Good Shabbos, and Kabbalas HaTorah vesimcha veprimiyus, and we should be zoche to Geulah Shleima, um, Shemoshiach Tzidkeinu, bimheira veyamenu amein. Kol tuv. Shalom. Amen.

48:28 Speaker 2 Shalom.