וירא תשפ״ז

00:03 Speaker 1 A good to everyone. Welcome to tonight's Shir. It's Motzei Shabbos Parshas Vayeira, which was the 20 Cheshvan, the, uh, birthday of the Rebbe Rashab in the year five hundred and twenty-one. We'll start off with a ma'aseh, ma'aseh connected with Parshas Hashavua, the theme of hachnasas orchim. So the Mezritcher Maggid tells the Alter Rebbe, "I'm gonna tell you a Torah," and it's on the words, "Bameh yizakeh na'ar orchot." Now, literally meaning how will a, uh... How will the lad cleanse or purify his, his, uh, path? And it says, "Bameh..." It translates this differently. "Bameh yizakeh na'ar?" With which-- Which way are you going to merit to have a son, a lad? "Ez orchot," through having guests. And the Maggid tells him the following: the Rebbe, that since the Baal Shem Tov's parents were barren from birth, and they lived in a, uh, settlement, a yishuv. They had ample parnasah, ample sustenance, and they used a small amount of their income. They would use for themselves and the re-remainder they used for hachnasas orchim, for welcoming guests, and they would have on a Shabbos, would have twenty, thirty guests. One time, a Shabbos, um, day, Shabbos afternoon perhaps, it was already after the Shabbos lunch and a guest arrived. And it was surprising because in such a small townlet, says if someone should come on Shabbos... But he didn't ask him, "Where do you come from?" He just asked him, "Have you made kiddush?" And he says, "No, not yet." So he gave him wine to make

02:00 Speaker 1 kiddush and also gave him food and he honored him like all the other guests. The guests who saw this and they, they started harassing the-their host. They mean someone who came on Shabbos from ‹indiscernible›. You're gonna give him such honor of bread and wine. Indeed was the great Machnas Aruch says the Midrash, but after the people had eaten, he and he pre-prevailed upon them to bench, to praise Hashem. And if they didn't, uh, want to comply, he would cause them, you know, a little bit of difficulty. He would give them prices, uh, high prices, etc. So the Baal Habos felt awkward about this, and he went into his own room, and he started crying. And he remembered, um, that, that... Well, well, he realized that by going away from the room, perhaps his guest will feel awkward. So he went back to the guest, and he honored him even more than before. And then, then it came to Shal Shuddis, etc. Then it goes on that generally the guest would stay with him over Shabbos until Sunday, Sunday afternoon. That was his... He did the same with this guest. He gave him a good, uh, bed. Sunday afternoon, when the guest was to, to take leave, uh, so he says to the Oruch... Sorry, in the Weg Ruft Zuch Tzum Ob De Oruch. So the guest says, "I am actually Eliyahu HaNavi, and I was sent from heaven to t-to test you about how you we-greet guests." And he says, "I, I-- You, um, you

03:46 Speaker 1 succeeded. You, uh, you, you succeeded in the test. And for such hachnasas orchim, for your hachnasas orchim, you will merit to have a son." And he told him, "I'm gonna tell you a Torah." He told him, "When you have a... You'll have a, a son when he's gonna be two and a half years old, you should give him over this Torah. That Hashem Alichim is the God of heaven and earth. Him alone you should fear from, and you shouldn't be fearful of anything else besides Hashem." And that was the, uh, the parting words of the guest. And indeed, shortly thereafter was the birth of the Baal Shem Tov. So that's the story of the Baal Shem Tov being born after his parents had this exceptional non-judgmental, uh, hachnasas orchim. This is... I'm sure many of you know the story. It's printed in, I think it's Tzadik... Sefer Sikhas... I think it's Sukhas Hatzadikhes. Okay. So now here's the q-first question we have on our list. Is cake and tea after lunch, after benching? Well, have you... Do you make-to make a new beracha? Or do you say, "Well, I never stepped away from my beracha, so why should I make a new beracha?" So the story is that actually, whether you like it or not, benching itself creates a, an int-an interval. Let's read this from the beginning of, uh, Siman Kuf Tzadik. After having finished Birkat Hamazon, one says... After the benching, one says, "Barefi HaGofen" on a cup of wine, even if you

05:36 Speaker 1 made a, a beracha on the wine during the meal. Because whenever you ate or drink, or drank after Birkat Hamazon, that's considered a new meal. Because Birkat Hamazon, by its very nature, it's a departure from what was happening until now. In addition, first of all, it's a... So they're saying that there's a, a... Call it psychological or whatever you wanna call it, but there's a, a mindful, "I'm not eating now." And secondly, he says that whilst you're benching, you're not allowed to eat or drink. And as a result, the, the benching becre-creates a barrier, uh, a cutoff from the previous meal. So that's the first point, that having cake and tea after benching would, uh, would warrant an, uh, new brachos. Now, here we have another interesting thing, that what happens if someone, let's say, was... They made a bracha achronah, and they realized they, they were not up to there yet. They really, they, they wanted to eat further. And that's really relating to the second question on our list. The rabbi made an a... made a, a loud bracha achronah. I answered Amen, but really there was a piece of, uh, the eierkuchen with a bit of herring, uh, looked, looked... I, you know, I hadn't finished with that. I was still, uh, had to, um, do justice to it. So, so in effect, when I answered, when I answered Amen to the... it was a b'toos. So let's read this carefully. In other words, there here it was through Amen. Let's say

07:13 Speaker 1 if you take a said bracha, I don't think there's much difference. If you are intent to eat further, then you should not say a bracha achronah until you finish eating. Um, then he says, if you in-- if you had in-intended to eat further, but you by mistake made a bracha achronah, you do not need to make another new bracha because you, you had an every intent to continue eating, and your, your bracha achronah was by mistake. So that's what he says over here. Now, on this point, the Mishnah Berurah in Biur Halacha is, uh, brings those who disagree with this, but the Altar Rebbe has taken a position. So if you answered, or you said a bracha achronah when you really weren't ready to finish eating, so then, well, the bracha achronah, I don't call it a bracha lavatala, but anyways, it doesn't, doesn't create a, um, doesn't create a hefsek, and your bracha continues. I just remember years ago, well, it was about twenty-five years ago, thirty years ago, I was in Montreal overnight. Uh, it was, uh, and it was a farbrengen. I was sitting with Rabbi Meir Gurary with the bochurim. It was about four o'clock in the morning. It was hei teves. And, uh, I excused myself for a minute, and I made a bracha. I was gonna beginning to say a bracha achronah. So Rabbi Gurary says to me, "When are you coming back?" So I said, "I'm going up to the room." He says, "Oh, well." He was right,

08:45 Speaker 1 yeah. And anyway, anyway, the state I was at that time, I wasn't gonna argue anyways. Um, yeah, but I wasn't... I, I had every intention to continue, so therefore, my, uh... It wasn't appropriate to say a bracha achronah. If I would, it would be a mistake. So when... So to summarize what we've said so far, when you've said a bracha achronah or benching, uh, and, and that was with intention, so then that becomes a hefsek. But if it was been by mistake 'cause you didn't realize that you, uh, you didn't realize that you, I guess, that you haven't finished, whatever, so then you, then you'd, you wouldn't have to make a new bracha. Now, coming back to the first question of having c-cake and tea after the meal. Now, so let's take a look in Siman Resh Tes Vav. So here, the Altar Rebbe says that if you, if fruit was brought to you during the meal, this is not saying on Shabbos, even the weekday, there's actually an advantage to leave those fruit for after benching 'cause then you will say a bracha achronah hamuchdes lahem. Because like this, if you have some grapes during the meal, so they're covered with benching. But if you have them after the meal, you're gonna say a, say a separate bracha, um, "Baruch ata Hashem, eleh geulai avos nosan sadeh." So that's, that's an advantage of leaving them the grapes for after the benching so that you, you'll be gaining an extra bracha. Uh, sorry, no, you'll

10:27 Speaker 1 be gaining that the after bracha will be the specific bracha rather than the more in-included or included in the benching. And then he says, "Ve'yesh bechol kim." Others disagree with this. Okay, I believe gen-- the general mineg ha'olam is not to pa-- to worry about this. Uh, but if it happened, then he goes further. "Ve'yesh lechachmir kesvara sh'aina," especially on Shabbos and Yom Tov, to m-to leave the fruit for after benching to c-come... "Lehashlim meah brachos." In this way, you are complementing... You're, you're having your full complement of a, a hundred brachos, or you're reaching to that goal. Therefore, there's an advantage to after Shabbos or Yom Tov to leave the dessert for after benching so that, uh, you will be able to have the extra brachos to make up your meah brachos. And in this way, you are not... don't have to rely on to make up your meah brachos, which we discussed last week, I think, about hearing haftarah and Chazzan Ashas, et cetera. By leaving the fruit after the meal, then, then you're, you're, you're gaining. Uh, don't know how much you're gaining. You're gaining one, one bracha, or twice, two meals, two, two brachos. Uh, meanwhile, what we're seeing here, that it's legitimate to leave dessert for after benching in order... So you're asking whether cake and tea requires another bracha. On the contrary, it's actually an advantage to do so on Shabbos in order to create a, another bracha opportunity or the two brachos opportunity. Um, which number one, one

12:03 Speaker 1 more further comment is do you make a bracha mezonos during a meal? That's depends what type of mezonos. Generally, the answer is no because, um, many mezonos is possibly hamotzi, or we say mezonos, which is possibly hamotzi. And therefore, you wouldn't make on a biscuit, et cetera. You would not... Or a sponge cake, you would not make a brachah hamotzi, uh, when having a, during a meal of which you've said already hamotzi. The second point, which I want to just finish off with, is some young families find leaving the dessert for after bentching as a very good incentive to get the kids to bentch like, to, to be bentching like mentioned. Okay. Um, I thought it was worth a mention. Sorry about that. This is... Uh, so someone's asking, "Why is it the brachah she'eino tzrichah?" Well, on the contrary, we... There, so there is a, an idea of tov leharbes b'brachos hatzrichois. And so what I am seeing here is that to have your grapes before bentching, so as I said, your bentching for the grapes is gonna be included in the larger Birchas Hamazon. It's not gonna have the advantage of Birchas Hamuchadash. That seems to be the hesbon over here. Do, do after bentching, then they're going to have... And there's a merit of having a brachah hamuchadash. Yeah, not... I, um, I say for me it was also, um, a bit of an echadash. Okay. Right. Let's move on. Now, uh, about carrying an erev. Sorry, carrying a, an umbrella within

13:45 Speaker 1 an erev. So, so the umbrella's been around for a few hundred years, and in the Gemara there is something about a chair, a folding chair, of unfolding a folding chair, and you are allowed to do that. So is there a difference between unfolding a folding chair and unfolding an umbrella? So there's room to, uh, pick holes in this. So therefore, we have the, well, the most well-known posek who addresses this, is the Menoah HaYehudah. Chazkal Landau lived in Prague about three hundred years ago, and he put down, he, he laid down that you're not allowed to use umbrellas on, on Shabbos. And so this is how the Shemiras Shabbos KeHilchasa words this. Gedir godru gedole hadoros. It's a precaution which has been, uh, laid down by the eminent authorities over the generations not to open a, an umbrella or a sun, a parasol on Shabbos or Yom Tov. See, he's wording it in this way that it could be that you could argue halacha there is room to be, but this is the psak not to. And then he goes further, even if it was open before Yom Tov, before Shabbos, you also shouldn't be using it, even if there is an erev, and that's because I guess people don't understand the difference, et cetera. So then we have beneath this, we have a piece from the Chida, which I mentioned I think last year, last week. So he lives again about two hundred and fifty years ago, three hundred years ago. Umbrella, chass, which

15:24 Speaker 1 is made to protect from the sun or from the rain, you're not allowed to carry them on Shabbos and Yom Tov, nor to open them. Then he says, "You are allowed to have a goy carrying it for you." So you're allowed to have a goy marching behind you prot- holding your, the umbrella to protect you. That's from Rabbeinu Pardes. If I'm not mistaken, he was a, a posek in, a very eminent, uh, Talmud Chacham in Italy. I guess a little earlier than that, about probably three hundred and fifty years ago. Then the Birkei Yosef here in... He wrote the Birkei Yosef, then he writes Machzik Bracha, a further list of comment, commentary on the Shulchan Aruch. And so in Machzik Bracha, he brings a later authority who disagrees with the, uh, Rabbeinu Pardes, and he is more lenient about this. Okay. Let's just go on to the next slide and see what we have over here. So this is from a Sefer Orchos Shabbos, and we've addressed this. We mentioned that these, these different opinions, uh, whether it is like the chair or not. So he says, "From my Rebbe," Rab She-- Rab-- Shlomo Rab or Rab Shmuel. I'm not sure which he means, Rab Shlomo Zalman or Rab Shmuel. I don't know. So anyway, so my, my Rebbe says that the Svara of the Menoah HaYehudah is don't compare the umbrella to the folding chair because there is a chair which is just folded and it's, uh, so all right, it's, it's not a

16:55 Speaker 1 such a dramatic change. Whereas the, uh, umbrella, which is, uh, scrunched toget- scrunched together and you're opening up. So he sees that's a much more of a new creation. Okay. All right. Bottom line is it remains that we don't u- use umbrellas even if they are open from before. As you see that Shemiras Shabbos KeHilchasa says so and all the others also say that we... Even if umbrella is open from before Shabbos or Yom Tov, uh, even within an erev, one would not be using an umbrella on Shabbos and Yom Tov. Okay. I'm just seeing here, um... Right. Let's move on. What's our next point in the question? Oh, here's, uh, shall we say, the, uh, pick of the week. So here is the following question. Uh, this I got from a shliach in Sydney. Since the massacre on the Sukkoth, on Hanukkah, uh, first day of Hanukkah in Sydney, he's taken on to promote mezuzahs, uh, uh, going knocking on doors and encouraging people to put up mezuzahs. So there's an elderly couple who live near him, and they have actually a tiny mezuzah I can't say they bought it in Selfridges because it's in Sydney. But yeah, it's the kind of thing that, uh, they pro-possibly pro-bought, and you never know whether it was ever kosher. And it's been painted over several layers of paint over the decades. And he offered to take it off and, uh, and check it, and they said, "No, no, don't touch it. That's, that's from..." This old

18:33 Speaker 1 lady said, "This is from my mother-in-law, and, uh, don't, I don't want to tamper with it." So he's asking, could I put a kosher mezuzah on the inside of their doorway? So there's the tiny mezuzah, uh, tucked up high, high up on the outside, painted over, and I'll put another mezuzah on the inside. So... And he's, he's, he's assuming... Now, normally we think that we should not be allowed to put two mezuzahs on one door. There's a concept of Bal Tosif, not to add to, to two mitzvahs where there should only be one. So that was, that was his hesitation. Can he rely on the, the, the, the probability that this little mezuzah, which is there painted over, is most likely not kosher? So I told him he's okay. He's right to do what he's doing. And subsequently, I looked up and found that the, the Mukachever, otherwise known as the Milches Lozar, he would do that very thing himself. There's, there's a set called Dakke Chaim v'Sholom describing the, uh, the practices of the Mukachever, and he would travel to a spa, and he sometimes would be there for even for thir- more than thirty days. As happened to be, he would stay in a, in a ho- a, a hostel or something which belonged to a Jew, but he wasn't a terribly frum fella. There was a mezuzah there, but he thought that possibly it was one of those, he calls it lithograph, could be a, a printed mezuzah. And the owner didn't

20:13 Speaker 1 want to... He, he wasn't comfortable that you should start tampering with his property. So the Mukachever would put up his own mezuzah on that doorway without bothering to tamper with the, the existing mezuzah. And when he left, again, not to get into fights with the, with the landlord, he took his own mezuzah back, which is an- another interesting thing. Well, he, he took the liberty of putting up a mezuzah, even though there was this tiny mezuzah there, on the as- uh, basis of the assumption that that little mezuzah was not kosher. So, so it has a... Do we have a precedent? Yes. But let's go a little bit further, uh, to understand this. So now I've mentioned the term Bal Tosif. We're not allowed to add to a mitzvah. So we have here in the Gemara, in the Mishnah Sanhedrin, talks about someone who is disagreeing. You have the concept, it's called the Mizokin Mamre. So here's a qualified Talmid Chacham, but... And he's disagreeing with the, with the Beis Din, with the central Beis Din. And so there's consequences for that. So it mentions there, it's only, he's only being punishable if he is Mosif in the actual mitzvah. And they say it's only if, let's say, he made tefillin with five compartments. That is, we have tefillin as a mitzvah in HaTorah. The fact that tefillin has to have four compartments is Midrabbanan. So he's doing a mitzvah in HaTorah and tampering with it, making it five compartments. So that's the thing which

21:54 Speaker 1 Ikroy Midivre Torah. And the, the commentary, the explanation how to do it is Midra- Midivre Soferim. And he's te- That's the only example they could c-come up with with tefillin. So the Gemara asks, how about he wears a pair of regular tefillin with four compartments, then he puts another little box next to it on the same strap or a separate strap? Why, why, why, why is that not also tampering with a mitzvah? So they answer, Gemara says, This box is on its own, and this box is on its own. He hasn't tampered with the mitzvah. He's added another mitzvah, so to speak, but he hasn't actually added to the mitzvah itself. So then according to this, two mezuzahs which are not in, in one is, is not a problem of being Mosif. But then we go along, we find another Gemara, and this is in Eruvin, where it talks about the f- We all know the story about a person who's walking, and he sees tefillin, a pile of tefillin on the roadsi- roadside, and he wants to bring them to safety. So the Gemara famously says he's allowed to pu- wear two pairs of tefillin at a time, walks into town, then takes them off and goes back and back and forth. That, that's the idea that you can wear, there's space on the head for two tefillin. All right. So the Gemara says, um, in that discussion, it comes up, would it be an inyun of Bal Tosif? By, by wearing two tefillin,

23:27 Speaker 1 would it be Bal Tosif? So now... Oh, you just said if you've got two separate boxes, it's not Bal Tosif because each one is, is a separate unit. And here you're saying wearing two tefillin is Bal Tosif. So how do you reconcile that? So comes along the Taz in the Arachim, Siman Lamed Daled, and he says there's Bal Tosif min HaTorah and Bal Tosif midirabbanan. In the Mishnah Sanhedrin, it's talking about the Zoken Mamre, and if he is in... If he's found guilty, he's liable for the death penalty. There we say, uh, each one is a separate unit. You can't, you can't give him, uh, chet of misa when there's... Each one is a separate unit. That's a bit of Min HaTorah. In the Mishnah in Eruvin, w-wearing two tefillin, that's talking about Bal Tosif dirabbanan. So having two parallel units is not Min HaTorah, but it is a dirabbanan of Bal Tosif. So now having two mezuzahs on the one door would be a Bal Tosif dirabbanan. So now let's come back to, uh, a, uh, um, an approach to our situation. There's a house here which has got a tiny mezuzah. Uh, and I s- as I say, it does not have a cheskas kasherus. A person who's not just traditional and not frum, and going back fifty, sixty years ago, bought a mezuzah. I would not rely on that as saying it's got a cheskas kasherus. But okay, there might be. There's a small margin it might be kosher despite the layers

25:03 Speaker 1 of paint and exposure to the weather. There is a small margin. So it's a Sofek, Sofek Bal Tosif dirabbanan. The other side of it is, the more, the greater likelihood is that the person is mitzving or in the mitzvah of me'ah toirah. Now, this is even more chamur than the case of the k-- the, the, um, min ha'salasa because there he was just a tenant, and that's the chir derabbanan. Here, they own the house, so they've got a for sure a mitzvah derabbanan of having a mezuzah. Perhaps there might be a bal tosiv derabbanan. So the... I, I just see the, the weight is chir derabbanan would override the possible bal tosiv derabbanan. Yeah, someone's pointing out this happened in Manchester, uh, fifty years ago. That someone did this, and it turns out the small mezuzah was kosher. As I'm saying, there is a possibility, but even then the, the weight would be, even if it was, it's bal tosiv derabbanan, and here we want to ensure that this person has a mezuzah in their toirah. Right. Let's go on to our next question. Someone's asking, going back to the umbrellas, did that include ga-garden parasols open before Shabbos? No. If it's just sitting in one place, you're allowed to sit under it. And if it's open one tefach before Shabbos, then you can open it fully. But if it's not open at all, then you shouldn't open a garden parasol on Shabbos either. Now, so someone's asking, why did he put the mezuzah on

26:36 Speaker 1 the inside, not on the outside? He-that's, that's the way he asked me the question, and I thought possibly because this older, uh, the, the, uh, the, uh, the couple who live there perhaps would, would not be so okay with having the mezuzah visible so prominently. Uh, it might... So that, that perhaps he did that to accommodate them. But actually, in the approach of halachot dei'ei koi, that each one is a separate unit, in this way, there's an advantage. They're not near by one another. But you're right that there is a preference. Now, lechatchilah, mezuzah should be, should be, uh, in the doorway or as close to on, on the outside. But, um, if you put it on the inside, it's called mechuzat ha'achori ha'delet, which is not a lechatchilah position. You're absolutely right. Thank you for that comment. Let's move on. Is a deaf man co-counted for a minyan? Now, this is, uh, actually, uh, it's a boy who... From England, but now he lives in the States. And he-- and his, part of his shlichut is with people who are hard of hearing. And so here you have a, a man, boy, a man who is able to speak, is not able to hear at all. And he asks if he's metzarif to a minyan. Can we join him for a minyan? So my first reaction was that he, uh, he's metzarif for a minyan, for Kaddish, for the Kriyat Shma even. Whenever you need to have ten people present, he is present. But

28:17 Speaker 1 for Chazarat Hashatz, you need to have nine listeners. And for this, he is not a listener. You know, the truth is, even if he had a cochlear plant, uh, implant, that also wouldn't make him as a listener because that's not counted as listening. Halakhah is just going through electronic, uh, uh, medium. All right. But he says that this fellow, if he didn't realize this, we're not counting him for a minyan, he will be deeply upset. So we're looking for a solution. So let's read from the Shulchan Aruch. This is in Siman Nun Hey. So we have a kheiresh, a person who's deaf, but he's speaking and he cannot hear or the other way around. If he can hear and cannot speak. So they are considered pikchim, they're considered just as intelligent as anyone else, and they do combine for a minyan, even if they, uh, even if they don't respond. And even if there's two of th- or, or three, so long as the majority who are present are able to answer Amen, so then you've got a kosher minyan. However, then he says, when it comes to Chazarat Hashatz, now read, read this carefully. If the chazan has already davened the quiet Shemoneh Esreh, so then he can't do Chazarat Hashatz unless there's nine listeners. So for Chazarat Hashatz, you have to have tisha she'omin. So I said to this fellow, "Rabbi, uh, you know, I can... I give you a hitzah. When it comes to Gaal Yisrael-- come, comes to Cha- to the

29:45 Speaker 1 quiet Shemoneh Esreh, don't daven the quiet Shemoneh Esreh with everyone else. You just wait, and then when everyone's fi-finished, then you do the Chazarat Hashatz as your own Shemoneh Esreh." Yeah. So you'll do Chazarat Hashatz as your own Shemoneh Esreh. Then there's no question of Rachmana Liba. And i-it's just, uh, like any other davening, which needs ten people present, does not need to have ten listeners. So he says, "What do I do about Gaal Yisrael?" So I s-so I said to him, "Could he, could he just finish Gaal Yisrael and then wait?" Well, that's a problem of mafsik bein ga'al l'tefillah. So I said, "You know what? When it comes to, um, Shema Kolanu, start off a whole sing song and get everybody to join in, and then you start humming, and, uh, no one should notice that you aren't saying the last words. And then they all finish, and they do their own Shemoneh Esreh. And then when they're finished, you'll quietly just finish off, and then you'll start your Chazarat Hashatz." Now, about this business about saying your, your Shemoneh Esreh aloud. So there's different forms of this. So are you allowed to say your own Shemoneh Esreh aloud? So let's write, read here what we have on the screen. Um. So this is from the dinim of Chazarat Hashatz. So Shaliach Tzibur, I walk into a shul, and there's a tzibur there, and they're saying, "We're looking for a chazan." So you say, "Oh, I'm a professional chazan." Yeah. Um, so then

31:16 Speaker 1 they say, "Well, well, go ahead." See, he hasn't davened the Krias Shmoneh Esreh. He can go over to the hala-- to the amud, and he does, does a Chazarat Hashatz. He does not need to do a Krias Shmoneh Esreh. And if he's covering for them, idea Chazarat Hashatz if in case someone hasn't davened, yeah. If he's covering for everyone else, so he covers for himself. It doesn't come into the issue of you're not allowed to daven your Krias Shmoneh Esreh aloud. That's considered, uh, inappropriate because he's doing so . There's a tzibur without a, without a chazan, so he's accommodating. So listen carefully. If you are, if you are not a chazan, and there's no tzibur, and you do what they call a Ho'achatz, which is not so popular in Lubavitch. So you do a Ho'achatz, then after HaKeil HaKadosh, you can't say further, uh, aloud because you you shouldn't be davening your Shmoneh Esreh aloud. But here, let's say, let's say the other case, another scenario. Six people have davened, and for whatever reason, let's say the one who was chazan until now is in a rush to go away, whatever. So can a person who hasn't davened take over and do a Chazarat Hashatz? So the answer is yes. It's not a Seder, but yes, that would be okay. So again, to say after HaKeil HaKadosh aloud, if it-- if what you're doing is a Chazarat Hashatz, even though for you it's the first Shmoneh Esreh, then you can say aloud. If it's

32:51 Speaker 1 not Chazarat Hashatz because there's no minyan... I'm sorry, there's no, uh, there wasn't six people who davened quietly, then you would have to stop by HaKeil HaKadosh and then go, go on quietly. Uh, that's the general halachah. Just one other comment about this. If you daven Shmoneh Esreh aloud as a Chazarat Hashatz, your own Shmoneh Esreh aloud as Chazarat Hashatz, then number one, you'd have to now say Aleinu after Sim Shalom, and you have to ba-- take back your three steps. Normally, as a chazan, you don't have to take back three steps at the end of the Shmoneh Esreh because you're gonna take three steps back at the end of Kaddish. Which is interesting, even on a Monday and Thursdays, yeah, it's after Avodah Zarah. So that those three steps is the three steps for going, for going back after the Chazarat Hashatz. But if, let's say, another example is if you forgot to say Al Avodah in the Krias Shmoneh Esreh, so you don't have to announce it to everyone. Instead, you just do Chazarat Hashatz. But then by Sim Shalom, this time you'll, you'll remember. By Sim Shalom, you'll finish off Sim Shalom, and then, then you start getting ononononos, and you just have to say, you know, Aleinu and finish off that way and do three steps, then come back and say Ha... You know, um, Kaddish. So someone's asking, could he do the Shmoneh Esreh, then do Chazarat Hashatz? Could... Well, uh, could this... When you're asking the case of the,

34:26 Speaker 1 the deaf, um, part, uh, um, um, congregant, could the chazan do Shmoneh Esreh normally then do Chazarat Hashatz as a tefilat nedavah? So the answer to that is technical, that on Shabbos, he's talking about Shabbos, so one doesn't do a tefilat nedavah on Shabbos. So that wouldn't work, yeah. Right. Baruch Hashem, we found a eitzah. Yeah. Right. So now let's move on. Question. Baruch Hashem, our mikvah has underfloor heating. Is that an issue on Shabbos of, uh, walking on the underfloor heating? So first I want to say like this, that having a, a, a, uh, a pleasant, inviting mikvah is a very good idea for promote-- for the Inyan of Taharah. And I want to just digress for a moment. I heard on some, some Drasha, some non, non, non-Hassidish speaker saying that the whole idea of going to mikvah, uh, the Takanas Ezra, and I'm not gonna be too articulate. The whole thing was Takanas Ezra, , So, okay. So to control yourself, yeah. Now, so what do you do? Now, in Hassidish of Chazon, they put a... They introduced a mik-- um, an idea of going to mikvah every day. So they've under-undermined the Takanas Ezra. So people, people can be metzuyas on the shayes heien kitanin goyim. He goes to mikvah every day, that makes no difference. Metaynah, yeah. So my response to that is, I say, before Takanas Ezra, they were metzuyas at kitanin goyim, and they were in a state of tumah. After Takanas Ezra, they're metzuyas at kitanin goyim,

36:26 Speaker 1 but they're in a state of taharah. So we, we... So hirvachnu, as they say. So coming back. So mikvah should be a comfortable, inviting, and yes, underfloor heating, good idea. So now here's the question. On Shabbos. So we have here in Siman, uh, Chelev Avot I think it is, where it says in Shulchan Aruch that if you've washed your hands in cold water, you shouldn't go over to the st-- to the, uh, fireplace with your wet hands and warm up your hands near the fireplace. Because effectively, you're washing... You're having a warm bath, so to speak, or bathing in hot water. And he says even if it's, even it's, uh, less than yad tzedek, it's also is to bathe in warm water on Shabbos. So you can argue he's come out of the mikveh and he's walking now on this-- on the underfloor heating. He's warming up the water on his, uh, uh, feet. So he's bathing in, uh, warm water on Shabbos. So my response to that is, well, what about the mikveh itself? No. See, he's actually-- he's not warmed up cold water. It's the... The, the mikveh itself was warm. So he's come out and he's, he's, he's, he's, uh, warming warm water, not cold water. So I don't see it as a problem. Yeah. Right. Let's move on. Um, how are we doing? Why do we gaze... Uh, oh, what's this? Yeah. Okay. Why do we gaze at the candles at Kiddush? So I thought it was a straightforward thing, and,

38:04 Speaker 1 uh, you know, predictably, everything becomes a bit, uh, complicated when you look things up. So we have this in Shechinach, and this is, I think, in Reish Ayin Alef in the dinim of Kiddush. When you begin Kiddush, "Tov l'hiten einov b'neres." It's good to look at the candles. Now, why-- what's the advantage of looking at the candles? Key because the word ner is two hundred and fifty, and twice two hundred and fifty is five hundred. And that is a healing for someone who walks with very broad strides, psia gassa, and broad strides takes away one out of five hundred or point two of your eyesight, and by, by, uh, looking at the candles. So that's going to restore the eyesight which you lost through having-- taking broad strides, uh, during whatever. Doesn't say when. However, that's at the beginning of Kiddush. But 1 hour you have for the brocha of Kiddush, then you should be looking at the cup, as was mentioned earlier. So before at the beginning... And actually, one time the Rebbe came to the Seder, uh, in fourteen fourteen, and he asked, "Where are the candles?" So the lady had-- who had lit candles in the kitchen, the Rebbe said the candles have to be visible. When the Bachurim are making Kiddush, they should be able to see the candles. So where does this come from? So this is actually a Gemara. It's, uh, two places in the Gemara, in Brachos, I think in Shabbos also. And it says, "Lo yafsia psia

39:42 Speaker 1 gassa." It's not recommended to stride with broad strides. And Omar Mar, because we're told, "Psia gassa," broad strides, "Niteles echad mitov kuf mimoer einov shel adam." Because broad strides diminishes one out of two hun-- or five hundred or point two of the person's eyesight. "Ma tikante?" What's the way to restore it? "Lehadrei" or "lahadrei." How do you repair this? I don't know, perhaps. I'm not sure. Um, "B'kiddushe d'vei shamsh." At Kiddush, at the evening of Shabbos, that's how you're able to repair it. So look in Rashi. "Kiddushe d'vei shamsh, sh'shoseh koseh Kiddush b'Shabbos balailah." So how do you restore the lo-- the, the, uh, diminishing of eyesight? By drinking Ki- the cup of Kiddush. So where does it come to the business of looking to the candles? So that's how Rashi learns. But then we have here, this comes from the Maharil, who was much later than Rashi. He quotes from his Rebbe, the, um, Omar Marash, uh, that the, that the... quotes from the Sefer Sechel Tov that, that base upon ner, this idea that, that, that the psia gassa diminishes one out of five hundred from eyesight, and the ner twice has got... It's five hundred, and we're looking at the, uh, the candles of Shabbos. The two candles of Shabbos, that is going to be a cause for healing. So it's interesting. You have here the source of the concept of psia gassa being an issue. Yes, it's in the Gemara, but, uh, what is kiddushe d'vei shamsh? You say now we've

41:27 Speaker 1 got two Pirushim. Rashi says it's the drinking from Kiddush, and, uh, Maharil is saying it's looking at the candles. So now, all right. Do both, yeah? Just to be, to be safe. Right. Now, someone asked me about the idea of buttons right over left. Now, I did a little bit of, uh, a look on Google or somewhere. Why is it that ladies' clothing are buttoned right over left, and men's but-- clothes are typically left over right? So it turns out like this, that the fancier ladies would have someone to dress them, to do the buttoning for them. Someone else doing it for you, it's easier for them to do the right over left. But for yourself to manage your buttons, it's easier for you to manage your buttons with your right hand. Therefore, by having it left over right, it's easier to manage your buttons. Um, okay. That's, that's the, uh... Rabbi Google says this to me. Fine. So now comes the... There is a... There's a Minhag Yisrael of trying to have right over left, to have your clothes right over left, and that's because the right is the yin of Chesed, and the left is the yin of Gevurah, and we want to prevail, uh, Chesed over Gevurah. If I'm not mistaken, the late artist, uh, by Rose Kalman Tiefenbrun, he drew a portrait of the Tzemach Tzedek. Now, famously, the Tzem-- the portrait of the Tzemach Tzedek was drawn by a goy. And he had made a thumbnail sketch of the Tzemach

43:18 Speaker 1 Tzedek. And one, the picture, the popular picture is not the original. It's very different to the original picture. The original picture of the Tzemach Tzedek looks very sickly, uh, and it's very frail. And when they found the original picture, the people in the Rebbe's library were able to ch-- recognize the volumes on the shelf, the bound volumes. They can match up with the volumes which they had in the library, which were passed down from generation to generation. So, um, so that's the picture of Tzemach Tzedek. And so the Rebbe made two comments to Mr. ​​‎‎Zvi Hirsch Bernolewisz Shalom. One was that the white tunic, which Tzemach Tzedek is wearing, should be made right over left. The goy had inadvertently, he didn't realize, and he made it, uh, left over right because that's how he was used to, and it should be right over left. And the second thing was, as you see, the Tzemach Tzedek is holding a Sefer, and he's got his g-glasses. And the w-- because if he's got the Sefer on his lap or on a table, whatever, and he's got, uh, glasses. And the glasses in the original picture are lit-sitting on the volume. And the Rebbe said it shouldn't make... raise the glasses. They should be lay-raised in the air rather than sitting on the Sefer. Just if I'm really talking about that picture, the, the white clothes, this was Minchas Yisrael. Uh, uh, in Europe, from Yidden on Shabbos would wear white clothes. And then the-when the, uh, uh,

44:49 Speaker 1 in the time of the Tzemach Tzedek, the Russian government, which was then in control of Poland also, they introduced what's called the Gezeiras HaMalbushim, and they wanted to make these Yidden not so, um, u-ubiquitous, if that's the right word. Not so noticeable, not so different. And so the, the, the Gezeiras HaMalbushim. And there was also, also a thing of the beards. So you look in Tzemach Tzedek, there's a tshuva about the beards, a very long tshuva, and it's about clothing, about wearing Goyishe clothing. They come together, which is all in-- And you can see his contemporary, uh, Seforim. You can see in, um, what's it called, from Yehuda, um, um, Bartlan, et cetera. There's a few contemporary, the different Nehemia, where they also address these questions about the beard and about the clothing. And there's also all response. Now, the, you know, the Reb Arloch Hasidim in Machal Yushheimer, they wear these yellow or white kaftans. This is how all Frome Yidden used to wear Shabbos. The reason why in Eretz Yisrael they still have them because they had emigrated to Eretz Yisrael before the Gezeiras HaMalbushim. Therefore, they've kept that up, and that wasn't unique to Hasidim. It was also the, the Misnagdim also. So the, the, the Prushim in Yerushalayim also wear those kaftans because that was the minhag, that was the minhag brought from Europe before the Gezeiras HaMalbushim. In, in Europe, as I say, it was in, in, uh, Russia and in Poland, the Gezeiras HaMalbushim caused a change in this.

46:23 Speaker 1 And perhaps I've told this before, but I can t-uh, share with you again that in Russia, the most, uh, senior Rebbe at the time was the Ruzhiner, and he responded to this, and he-- with a, uh, in a code form, and he says that it was once... It was leading up to Yom Kippur, and the chickens had a mass meeting, and they were-- wanted to find a, a strategy how to save this. At every year of Yom Kippur, there's a massacre of chickens. What are we gonna do about it? So one of the senior chickens got up onto the bimah and banged on the bimah and said, uh, well, not Rabosai, but whatever the chicken oys say. And he says, um, "The masa-- the, the gezeira is only on the white chickens, not on the black chickens. So I've got a device. We'll, we'll find a place where there's some soot, ashes, and we'll roll in the ashes and the soot, and that way we'll turn black. Then we won't-- we will be, uh, able to evade the gezeira, the decree." And what he was saying is, in, in code form, that the gezeira is because we are so, you know, in their face. If we'll take a lower profile, then we will, we'll, uh, be able to avoid the gezeira. So that's why if you ask why, also why Chabad have less colorful, or the shtreimels are, are, uh, not in, et cetera, um, it's all related to this Gezeiras HaMalbushim, where in Russia

47:55 Speaker 1 they were-- they, they, they, uh, took a lower profile, uh, and so the Bigdei Shabbos were not, uh, not so noticeable. In, in Poland, there was the, the, the Poland, the Rebbe, Polish Rebbes took the view that they should resist, even without the expense of mesirus nefesh to some degree. In Russia, they said, "No, you don't have to, you don't have to have mesirus nefesh for it." And even in Russia, they said the, the Rebbes, the Rabbonim, they would allow them to wear, um, Bigdei, uh, more visible begadim, but not everyone else. So that's how things, um, developed. So coming back to the story of the Baal She... of the, uh, of right over left. Is there an inyun of having right over left, and is it not a problem of a man not emulating, not, not wearing women's garment, uh, clothing? So interesting question. The question is, i-- since a man is not meant to be trying to wear women's clothing, so right over left is a women's, women's style. So that's an interesting question. I'm just looking here at a sikha. You can see it's on the screen. That the Rebbe says that we should do things with the right way, and this is also the diyuk al pi Minchas Yisrael that to have clothes right over left, v'lo k'minhag haMedinah lehafach. Not like the beji-minhag haMedinah, the common, uh, thing is to have the left over right, but you wear the right over left. Now, generally, kapotes are made right over left.

49:35 Speaker 1 Suits, some people would make a, a point of adding another button on the inside to be able to wear right over left. Now, shirts, possibly because it's not a choshuv a beged. That's why. And perhaps it's also e-expensive in comparison to, uh, other shirts. So people are not so, in Chabad at least, are not so fussy. Of course, there are others who are more fussy about this. Right. I'm going to look at some of these questions over here. Um, so Rav Naftali is saying that the Kotzker Rebbe said not to fight for the traditional levushim. That might be so, but I the Gerrer were-- took a more, um, resistant approach, and that's when the Gerrer Rebbes, be-before they were-- Their family name was Rottenberg, and they, they went into hiding, and they changed their names to Alter, and that was somehow that they should be able to hide. Um, you know what I mean? Not so-- And they, they were worried that they would be, um, they would be made as the example to show that the govern-- by their government to say that they're serious about this. So it looks like in Poland, there were-- it wasn't such a clear, uh, mahalik about it, at least. Right. Um. Now someone's asking, using hearing aids without you couldn't hear, even not a cochlear implant. Um, that's an interesting question. So a person who's using a hearing aid very often can hear a little bit, and then the hearing aid helps them hear more. So then

51:22 Speaker 1 they are considered a hearing, but not, not very well. With a cochlear implant, then they-- without the, um, the, the implant, they don't hear anything at all. That's why I mentioned that. Yeah. So someone's asking if the-- a person turns up and asks the shlichat chatan, "I want to take over." Um, is that... Well, is that called a Shaas Hadchak? That's the question. We said for you to daven your Krias Shma aloud is in a Shaas Hadchak. So if you didn't say Yaaleh V'Yavo to take over as chasan, is that called Shaas Hadchak? Sometimes the chasan will actually be very grateful if you take over. Um, yeah. Sometimes the chasan's actually under a Shaas Hadchak anyways. Um, okay. Right. So Rav Naftali is saying he heard that Friediker Rebbe had shirts which were buttoned right over left and not our Rebbe. That's possible. I, I can just say that I have seen a photograph of a shirt of the Friediker Rebbe which had his initials embroidered on the cuff. And possibly, well, I'm just theorizing, possibly speculating rather, that he-- if he had shirts made specially, so then you make it specially right over left. But if you just buy them off the shelf, then to start getting the right over left is a-- can be, uh, a bit of an expense, et cetera. So it's nisht azoy groiss, uh, issue beyont. Yeah. Okay. Uh, this past-- recently a lot of people have-- and a number of people have been asking me about someone born

53:08 Speaker 1 ben hashlachas. How do you observe, um, the birthday? Is it the, the previous day or the following day? So what you have on the screen is from, first of all, from the Nittei Gavriel, where he says that if a person's born ben hashlachas, he'll become an adult on the previous day. You have to put in other words, the day before the bar mitzvah or the, well, the day before the ben hashlachas, um, because of Sofim B'Naah Tore. On the other hand, I guess for making up for a minyan, I'm not sure about that. Then we have here the second and third co-um, um, copies are from a Sefer called HaSif Minhagi Chabad or something like that from Rebbe Nachum Wahaba. It says if someone's born ben hashlachas, nireh, it seems that he should m'dinai minchagi yom huledet both days. Now what this means is that in Chabad, we have a number of minhagim for yom huledet. And after the Rebbetzin passed away, this is so interesting. The Rebbetzin passed away, and her birthday was Chof Hey, uh, Chof Hey Adar. And the following Chof Hey Adar after she passed away, the Rebbe made a whole tumul about the yom of Chof Hey Adar. And around then also is the yom of-- the Rebbe made a whole tumul about the yom of Yom Huledet. And then in the Kuntessichas was published a list of ten minhagim associated with Yom Huledet, the yom of, uh, of Tehillim and of, uh, Chazal Nema'imer and, and Mafabregen, et cetera.

54:44 Speaker 1 So in Chabad, we have Minhag Yom Huledet. So here's the question. The person, uh, is born ben hashlachas, so what they're recommending is to do it on both days. And so in the note there, he writes there's a similar if a person is born in a li-- what do you do in a leap year, and, uh, he was born in a regular Adar. So there's apparently there's a source to say you should observe, um, uh, observe Minhag Yom Huledet in Adar Rishon and in Adar Sheni. Right. Then he has half an hour after the shkiah still counts as the previous day. Others disagree with that. Okay, let's move on. Well, you have a similar dilemma about Yortzeit indeed, whether you observe the Yortzeit on the previous day or the following day. Let's move on. Here's an interesting, um, question. This is a question. As you can see, these, uh, beautiful apartments, quite tall. It's more than two meters high, and the-- there's no, there's no lintel. The door goes all the way to the ceiling. Now, um, a doorway, by definition, is two door-- two, two verticals and one horizontal. Here, there's no visible horizontal. Does the ceiling count for that? And there are those who do want to say that when you need to... Since there is something above the doors, not to the open air, some want to say it should have a mezuzah. But this is from the Sefer Sechel Tov, where he writes, in conclusion, a pesach, which is all the

56:23 Speaker 1 way till the ceiling, um, then it's not called a mashkiach. What that means is, if there, if there would be where the door closes, there would then be a wall going up. So then you could say that the corner, so to speak, you've got the, you've got the ceiling, and then the wall goes up. That's similar to a corner of two walls meeting, where we say sometimes that the end of the wall counts as a, as a doorfla- a door post. So if on top of this door, it would go straight up, then he would say, put up a mezuzah without a bracha. But here, th-there's... that is totally flush. There's nothing at all there to show anything different to the rest of the ceiling, and he says it does not need to have a, a mezuzah. Okay, that's useful to know. Then we have, going back to our discussion, was it last week or two weeks ago, about a door- large doorway, a large, large gate rather. A large gate within an archway, and then within that, it has a small door. If you remember, that was a large gate for guard- cars to drive in. And then within that large gate, there's a small doorway which, uh, for people to go through without opening the large gate. I mentioned about the Yeshiva in Breno. It was actually someone from France. He mentioned about the Yeshiva in Breno. So he sent me a photograph of the front entrance of the Yeshiva in Breno in

58:02 Speaker 1 two-bis Avenue du Petit Château. It looks a little bit nicer than it looked fifty years ago. Um, possibly they changed the doors. It doesn't look the same. As far as I remember, the small door was a fair bit smaller. But what it is showing is that there is just one mezuzah there, uh, and no mezuzah on, on the overall door, and there's no mezuzah on the smaller door. But more importantly, you have a Tzemach Tzedek in the Piskei Dinim of Tzemach Tzedek in is it somewhere? He says, If you have a large gate, If you have a small entrance within the large door, even if the small door opens without the big door. I'm looking at the title here, I'm wondering whether the word per-per-pertur would mean like the word port, a port, a portai, which means like a gate or something. Because pertur means a quarter, and it was-- at first I was struggling, but possibly means a small, a small, uh, port, small, a small entrance. So, um, again, so we have here a large gate within it, which there's a door. Then he says that, um, suggesting that the small one doesn't need a mezuzah because there's already a mezuzah for the larger gate. And therefore, so saying that the mezuzah is for the, uh, uh, for the doorway, and so as in this picture, the mezuzah is for the doorway. The fact that there's one door, two doors, three doors in there for that doorway, that's, that's all okay. There's a--

59:47 Speaker 1 the mezuzah is for the doorway, that's enough. Uh, so someone's asking why the mezuzah is so low. That's possibly because it's a very tall entrance here. It's actually more than two meters. And so when you have a tall, uh, doorway, some say that you put it in the top third, as that's what Rabbi Shav told, told, um, Rebbe Yankele Lando in, in Rostov. But then there's another opinion which says when it's a very tall doorway, you should put it at shoulder height. And, uh, when Nissim Mindel did a translation of the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch into English, and the Rebbe was Maggia, so he just quoted from the way this... You put it on the top third. And the Rebbe added, that if it's a very tall doorway, he quotes from the Kitzur Shulchan without mentioning the name, that you should put it on shoulder height. So really, that's very interesting. I've write-written about this in the Yeshivim. What do you do now? You got a, uh, the Rebbe Rashab, even a tall doorway, you put in the top third, and you have a, a, uh, written comment of the Rebbe to say you put it on, uh, on the shoulder height, and so kind of stuck in between. Uh, I don't have a clear answer on that. Right. Right. So just, uh, one last comment. Does right over left apply to a garment without buttons, i.e., a dressing gown? Definitely, yes. That's the story of the Tzemach Tzedek, that the gown does not necessarily have

1:01:27 Speaker 1 buttons. Yes, you should put right over left. Yes. Sure. Um, that's I think what we have for today. And just want to say that next Motzei Shabbos, I hopefully will be in, in New York for the Knessah Shuchim. I won't be able to do it live. I hope to record something before, uh, before Shabbos to, to entertain Yoshkelov and Malkis, uh, in, in these friendly shores. Uh, following that, the week after that, I'm proposing to do the Shir instead of eight thirty to do it eight o'clock. Unless I don't, I don't hear, uh, hollering objections to that, uh, I'll, I'll go ahead with that. So wishing you all a, uh, a Gut Voch. Thank you for joining us. You should have a week of and, uh, Good Voch. Oh, yeah. Good Voch.

1:02:22 Speaker 2 Happy Voch.