Author: Moshe Taub

  • Jews, Judaism & America’s Founding

    Jews, Judaism & America’s Founding

    How Jews, Judaism, and Torah Played a Role In Democracy’s Birth

    By Rabbi Moshe Taub for Ami Magazine, 2026

    I. Huckabee Hucksters

    America’s Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, recently set off a firestorm among the usual suspects when, speaking to a Jewish crowd, he stated:

    “It is your heritage, without a doubt [Yiddishkeit / Judaism]. But it is also the heritage of the United States. Without Israel, without the Jewish foundation, there would not be America. We owe our very existence to what happened in this land.”

    Admittedly, I bristled when I heard this.

    One can certainly argue that this was an overstatement. One may also quibble with the shrewdness of making such a hyperbolic philosemitic comment publicly during this precarious time of mass anti-Jewish hysteria.

    However, no dispassionate student of American history can ignore the shadow of truth peeking through his remarks.

    John Adams famously remarked:

    “I will insist the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations.”

    He also stated:

    “They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their Empire were but a bauble in comparison with the Jews.”

    More directly related to the formation of America, Samuel Langdon—New Hampshire’s delegate to the convention to ratify the Constitution, as well as Harvard University’s president—preached:

    “The Jewish government, according to the original constitution which was Divinely established, … was a perfect republic … some principal laws and orders of it may be copied, to great advantage, in more modern establishments.”

    Even the Liberty Bell, as early as 1751, bore a pasuk [verse] from vayikra [Leviticus]:

    “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof” (25:10).

    In fact, the only thing surprising about that engraving is that it wasn’t in Hebrew, since one of the Founding Fathers, James Madison, went so far as to deliver his valedictory address at Princeton in that ancient lashon [language]!

    But this does not even scratch the surface.

    The connection between Jews, rabbanim [rabbis], and our Torah to the founding of America is extraordinary. Every time I sit down to write, new research opens several doors of endlessly unfolding fractals of connections—whether an important Jew, a prominent talmid chacham [Torah scholar], or a classical Torah source. So much so that my initial draft of this article was close to ten thousand words.

    II. The Sugya That Sparked a Revolution

    In January 1649, the English Parliament did something that had never been done in the history of Western civilization: it put its king on trial, found him guilty of tyranny, and executed him. England would now become a Commonwealth. This experiment lasted barely eleven years before the monarchy was restored, but a fascinating debate emerged from the ashes that would help shape a document signed in Philadelphia 127 years later.

    The king’s execution stunned every royal court in Europe. Someone had to respond in defense of monarchy. That someone was Claude de Saumaise, known by his Latin name, Salmasius. The exiled son of the dead king—the future Charles II, whose own connections to Jews were discussed in my latest book—reportedly paid him a hundred pounds to write a defense titled Defensio Regia pro Carolo I. Written in Latin, it argued that monarchy was a divinely ordained concept and that the English republicans were therefore murderers.

    To defend their actions, the English Commonwealth turned to John Milton, who in 1651 published Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio. This is where the Jewish foundation comes back into the picture. Salmasius had cited a chazal [teaching of the Sages] as proof for his royalist position.

    Rav Yose, together with Rav Yehuda, in Sanhedrin 20b, argues that both Devarim and Sefer Shmuel show that malchus [monarchy] is a positive commandment. Salmasius wrote:

    “In hanc sententiam recte omnino de R. Iose in Gemara Sanhedrin scriptum est”
    [In this opinion, what is written in the Gemara Sanhedrin concerning Rabbi Yose is entirely correct.]

    In response, Milton turned to that same chazal, as well as to the peirush [commentary] of the Abarbanel [Don Isaac Abarbanel, 15th century Spanish chief treasurer, later exiled in 1492]. After Am Yisrael [the Nation of Israel] demanded a king, Hashem [God] told Shmuel [Samuel]: “They have not rejected you; they have rejected Me from ruling over them” (I Shmuel 8:7).

    The Gemara in Sanhedrin 20b seeks to resolve the tension between Devarim—which seems to indicate that appointing a king is a mitzvah [commandment]—and Sefer Shmuel, which implies it is an aveira [sin]. While Rav Yose indeed argues that it is a mitzvah, Rav Nehorai argues there that the allowance in Sefer Shmuel was only a hora’as sha’ah [temporary decree], a reluctant—but sadly necessary—concession, “kneged tarmatan” [corresponding to their complaint].

    Milton marshaled the Abarbanel, who followed Rav Nehorai’s approach and wrote that monarchy is inherently a displacement of the malchus Shamayim [Kingdom of Heaven]. In other words, the Torah’s ideal is a nation governed directly under Divine law, never surrendering its freedom to a lower human power. If this sounds like saying that only Hashem endows us with certain unalienable rights, you would be correct.

    It was this argument, transmitted through Abarbanel’s writings into the Milton-Salmasius exchange, that Harvard political philosopher Eric Nelson, in a landmark 2007 article in The Historical Journal and in his 2010 book, identified as the birth of “republican exclusivism.” This is the idea, entirely new to the Western world in the seventeenth century, that monarchy is not merely an inferior form of government, but an inherently illegitimate one. This concept was previously unheard of in Europe, and it came directly from this Gemara, among other sources.

    One of Milton’s ideological allies was Algernon Sidney, a seventeenth-century English republican who developed this anti-monarchy argument further in Discourses Concerning Government, a work for which King Charles II eventually had him executed in 1683.

    It was this same Sidney whom Thomas Jefferson explicitly cited, alongside Locke, as a primary source for the Declaration of Independence.

    So the next time you read those words—that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by Hashem with certain inalienable rights that no human king may touch—think of Shmuel HaNavi [Samuel the Prophet], the Gemara in Sanhedrin, and the Abarbanel.

    {Milton and Sidney also heavily relied on classical Roman history (Cicero, Livy) and Deuteronomy 17. The Gemara provided the spark that allowed them to call monarchy a sin, but it was not their sole source. In addition, while Harrington, below, explicitly used the Jubilee framework to argue for agrarian laws, Jefferson’s concept of “inalienable rights” in the Declaration was much more directly influenced by John Locke’s secularized theories of natural rights. Connecting it strictly back to the Rambam would be an overstatement.}

    III. Deeper Roots: From Medieval Debates to Modern Liberty

    Jews, Judaism & America's Founding
    Jews, Judaism & America’s Founding

    In medieval England, Christians were forbidden by the Church from lending with interest. Consequently, Jews filled the gap by necessity, effectively becoming England’s bankers. However, when a Jewish lender passed away, his loan books automatically reverted to the Crown. This meant that wealthy barons would borrow from Jewish financiers, only to eventually owe those debts directly to the king.

    A prominent Jew, Aaron of Lincoln (d. 1186), was the wealthiest man in England. When he died, the Crown inherited an estate so vast that it had to create a dedicated government department just to manage it.

    The king’s growing control over these debts became a massive source of tension between the monarchy and the barons. Those financial strains, alongside disputes over royal authority, taxes, and military failures, culminated in the barons’ army overtaking London in 1215. Under immense pressure, King John sealed the Magna Carta that year.

    The Magna Carta is often cited as the genesis of modern law and civil liberties, establishing the principle that not even the king is above the law, alongside an early version of due process. It also planted the seed for Parliament, composed of the “Lords” for nobility and the “Commons” for landowners. While far from representative government in the modern sense, it allowed the king to borrow money in a more open and equitable forum.

    However, the Magna Carta was a brutal document when it came to the Jews. For example, clause ten affirmed:

    “Si quis mutuo ceperit aliquid a iudeis…”

    [If anyone who has borrowed a sum of money from Jews dies, then no interest is accrued.]

    That same year, the Fourth Lateran Council mandated that all Jews and Muslims across “Christian Europe” wear distinguishing badges. This was finally enforced in England by King John’s grandson, Edward I, in 1275.

    This Jewish badge consisted of two yellow felt tablets shaped like the Luchos [Tablets of the Covenant]. Five years later, in 1280, he banned Jewish lending entirely.

    Economically ruined and no longer useful to the kingdom, the king expelled all Jews from England in 1290—close to twenty thousand Yidden [Jews]. Naturally, the Crown confiscated all their remaining assets.

    IV. The Reformation and the Hebrew Scholars

    The spread of civil liberties remained stunted by the Church’s power over European kingdoms until the Reformation in the early 1500s, when kings were able to break away from papal authority.

    This shift brought both positive and negative consequences.

    On the positive side, by the 1650s, Oliver Cromwell could quietly allow Jews to return to England and practice privately, as the Pope’s restrictions no longer applied (see my book, Jews in the New World, for a more detailed account).

    On the negative side, the newly created Church of England led monarchs to believe they ruled by divine right. Kings began dissolving Parliament, sparking a civil war that culminated in the 1649 trial and execution of Charles I mentioned above.

    With the people expressing a clear desire for self-government, political theorists began searching for new models, turning directly to ancient Jewish jurisprudence.

    V. “Mishpat HaMelech” Enters Europe

    In 1625, a German minister named Wilhelm Schickard published a small Latin book titled Mishpat HaMelech [The Law of the King]. Schickard (d. 1635) was a professor of Hebrew at the University of Tübingen and a close friend of the scientist Johannes Kepler. Kepler himself was close with Dovid Ganz, a prominent talmid [disciple] of the Maharal of Prague. This intellectual connection likely helped shape the extensive rabbinic sources Schickard would soon marshal.

    In Mishpat HaMelech, Schickard carefully examined the chazal and peirushim [commentaries] regarding malchus [monarchy], compiling them so a European reader with no knowledge of Hebrew could follow the internal Jewish debate. He fairly presented both sides of the Talmudic dispute:

    Those who held that requesting a king was a mitzvah [commandment]: Rav Yose, as well as the Rambam [Maimonides] and Radak [Rabbi David Kimhi].

    Those who held that it was a sin: Rav Nehorai, Rabbeinu Bachya [Rabbi Bahya ben Asher], and various midrashic texts.

    For the first time, the full range of rabbinic political thought was accessible to European thinkers. Among them was James Harrington, an English scholar who would soon build the century’s most systematic blueprint for self-government from these sources, and Algernon Sidney, who synthesized these ideas for the generation that inspired Jefferson.

    Midrashic and Halachic Contributions to International Law

    Schickard’s compilation prominently featured a passage from Devarim Rabbah 5:9 [a homiletic commentary on Deuteronomy]. This midrash’s position on malchus was even more stringent than Rav Nehorai’s:

    “When Bnei Yisroel [the Children of Israel] saw what befell them under the rule of their kings, they began crying out: ‘We do not want a king, we want our original King: “For Hashem is our King; He will save us”’ (Yishayahu 33:22). Hashem responded, ‘By your lives, I will do so.’ From where is this derived? “Hashem will be King over the entire earth…” (Zechariah 14:9).”

    As Eric Nelson documents in The Hebrew Republic (2010), while previous European political theorists hesitated to label human monarchy itself as inherently sinful, this midrash, transmitted via Schickard, gave John Milton the explicit theological backing to cross that line.

    Aside from Schickard and Milton, two other towering scholars used Jewish law to frame modern political systems:

    VI. Hugo Grotius and John Selden

    Hugo Grotius (d. 1645)

    In 1621, Grotius’s wife smuggled him out of prison, and he spent the remainder of his life in Paris producing works that defined international law. Grotius read rabbinic literature in Latin translation and cited it extensively. His De Jure Belli ac Pacis (On the Law of War and Peace, 1625)—written the same year Schickard published Mishpat HaMelech—became the foundational text of international law. In it, Grotius used the Rambam’s sections of Hilchos Melachim and Hilchos Sanhedrin to reconstruct the constitutional structure of the ancient Hebrew republic, arguing that political theorists should look to Hashem’s model of government to understand legitimate civil authority.

    John Selden (d. 1654)

    Selden went a step further, learning Gemara in its original Aramaic. John Milton called him “the chief of learned men.” Extant notes show that he was in direct contact with Rav Menasseh ben Israel or his printing company: “In libris venalibus apud Menasseh Ben Israel Amstelodam iuxta catalogum impressum” [In the books for sale at the house of Menasseh ben Israel in Amsterdam, according to the printed catalog].

    The Library of Congress explains Selden’s surprisingly sympathetic approach to rabbinic studies:

    “At a time and in a country in which the average man believed Jews to be misanthropic, usurious and dishonorable, John Selden set out to research the sacred texts of rabbinic Judaism with sympathy and interest… His work, De Jure Naturali et Gentium Juxta Disciplinam Ebreorum (1640), was an examination of the concepts of natural law and the ius gentium as they were taught in the rabbinic tradition.”

    At the heart of Selden’s work is a detailed analysis of the Noahide laws (see Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchos Melachim uMilchamos 8:9–10:12). From the Noahide mandate to establish courts of law, Selden generated a universal template for ethics, family law, government, and international law.

    Furthermore, Selden expressed open hope for the Bayis Shlishi [Third Temple]. He believed, correctly, that the Temple of Jerusalem was structurally designed to permit the children of Noah—the mass of mankind who observe the Noahide commandments—to participate in Temple worship alongside the Children of Israel. The detailed engravings illustrating his 1665 Strasbourg edition demonstrate how the Temple served as an inclusive, welcoming place of worship for all nations.

    VII. The Chain to the American Founders

    Through these works, Selden, Harrington, and Milton gained direct access to the Talmudic debates and the midrashic material Schickard had introduced. James Harrington fully absorbed this, drafting a systematic constitution for the seventeenth century in his masterpiece, The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656).

    In his 1658 work, The Stumbling-Block of Disobedience and Rebellion, Harrington explicitly sorted the views of the rishonim [medieval rabbinic authorities] into specific political camps, translating them by name into English for constitutional debate:

    “…Nachmoni [Nachmanides/Ramban], Gerschone [Ralbag / Levi ben Gershon], and others. Kimchi [Radak / David Kimhi], it is true, and M. Maimonides [Rambam / Moses Maimonides] are of opinion, that the people making a King, displeased Gd not in the same matter…”

    Harrington sided firmly with the anti-monarchy camp, famously concluding:

    “He that is for the government of laws is for the government of Gd, and he that is for the government of a man is for the government of a beast.”

    Algernon Sidney synthesized Harrington’s constitutional arguments with Milton’s theological ones in Discourses Concerning Government. As noted, Charles II had him executed for this in 1683.

    Thomas Jefferson later named Sidney explicitly as a primary source for the Declaration of Independence, and John Adams quoted Sidney’s summary of the Hebrew republic verbatim in Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (1787), written while the Constitutional Convention was actively sitting in Philadelphia.

    The chain of transmission from Schickard’s Mishpat HaMelech (1625) to Adams’s Defense (1787) is unbroken and direct.

    VIII. The Ultimate Foundational Truth

    Harrington did not stop at the kingship debate. In Oceana, he turned to an entirely different section of the Mishneh Torah: Hilchos Shemittah v’Yovel [The Laws of the Sabbatical and Jubilee Years].

    What he discovered within those halachic frameworks directly influenced the concept behind the Liberty Bell and guided Jefferson’s definition of “inalienable” rights. It established the core constitutional principle—derived from the biblical concept of “ki li ha’aretz” [For the land is Mine]—that certain fundamental human rights cannot be bought, sold, or permanently extinguished by any human power.

    That profound legal connection, iy”H [with Gd’s help], will be the focus of next week’s column.

    Just as Ambassador Huckabee publicly voiced appreciation for our legacy, we owe a deep debt of hakaras hatov [gratitude] and admiration to this great country for everything it has given us. May its days as a lighthouse to the civilized world continue, and may it long remain a safe haven for Jews and all peoples.

    The Amazing Life & Conversion of Warder Cressin
    Buffalo’s Rabbinical History 1847-1927

  • Shabbos Erev Pesach

    Shabbos Erev Pesach

    Taanis

    Bedika

    Lechem Mishneh

    & Much More

    The Whats, Whens and Hows Of A Pesach That Falls On Motzai Shabbos (Saturday Night).

    If you are overwhelmed and confused about this coming Shabbos, which is Erev Pesach, you are not alone. Even the Shulchan Aruch remarks on the confusing nature of these halachos. To help you out, I will review the most common issues, starting with a more detailed discussion of the uniqueness of this year’s taanis bechorim.

    Taanis Advanced

    Here’s a quick riddle. What are the two occasions where halachah would sanction an Erev Shabbos fast day? Most of you probably know the first one—Asarah B’Teves. But the other one may be more elusive.

    Some of you may be thinking, “It’s a year like this! When the 14th of Nisan falls on Shabbos, we move the fast up to Erev Shabbos.” But this would be incorrect—we actually advance the taanis two days, to Thursday. The confusion is only magnified when we consider the fact that when the 14th of Nisan falls on a Friday, halachah does indeed affirm an Erev Shabbos taanis bechorim. This second case is the correct answer to the riddle.

    Why the distinction? Why not observe this year’s taanis on Friday?

    As mentioned in the Purim issue, not only may one fast on an Erev Shabbos, but the Shulchan Aruch records that some anshei maaseh (conscientious Jews) made it a point to fast every Friday so as to enter Shabbos hungry! However, in our generation we are advised against this practice since fasting all day would cause exhaustion and irritability, diminishing our enjoyment in the seudah and in the overall beauty of Friday night.

    So although we wouldn’t establish a taanis on a Friday to begin with, if either of these two fast days naturally falls on Erev Shabbos, that’s when we observe them.

    As for this year, when the taanis falls on Shabbos, even though we move it up to Thursday, the Shulchan Aruch cites an opinion that bechorim should not fast at all this year! This is because, as opposed to Asarah B’Teves, which is based on a pasuk in Zechariah, taanis bechorim is only a minhag.

    The Rema rules, however, according to the first opinion.

    Nevertheless, certain leniencies are endorsed this year. Some poskim allow reliance on the view that if one attends a siyum on Wednesday night, he is permitted to eat on Thursday; others allow one who can’t attend a siyum to redeem the taanis with tzedakah. Of course, these are for cases where one is otherwise stuck, and they are only for this year. Of course, as always, one should still consult his rav.

    On the other hand, some poskim,such as Rav Shternbuch,urge bechorim to make a second siyum on Friday in addition to Thursday. Other poskim, such as Rav Moshe Feinstein, support this chumrah but without recommending it (4:69).

    Although this chumrah may seem hard to comprehend for a taanis that is only a minhag, it actually has strong support that begs a larger question. In the case of the other taanis that is a minhag—Taanis Esther—the Rema rules that if it falls on a Shabbos, we move it up to the Thursday before. He then adds that if one had a bris that Thursday, in which case he would be allowed to eat, he must make up the fast the next day, Erev Shabbos!

    Consider the similarity to Erev Pesach this year, where one attends a siyum that enables him to eat on Thursday. Wouldn’t he also have to make up the fast on Erev Shabbos?

    Rav Karelitz quotes his uncle, the Chazon Ish, who dismisses the concern about having to make up the taanis bechorim on Friday because this fast is only a minhag. However, can’t one retort that Taanis Esther is also a minhag?

    Nevertheless, as Rav Moshe makes clear, the minhag for a year like this is to attend a siyum on Thursday, without having to make up the fast on Friday. For whatever reason, taanis bechorim is differentiated from a Thursday Taanis Esther.

    Bedikas Chametz

    On Thursday night, the 13th of Nisan, bedikas chametz will be conducted with a brachah at the beginning and Kol Chamira at the end. There are many obvious reasons this cannot be done on Friday night, Erev Pesach—not the least of which is the impossibility of searching with a candle.

    What is unique is the brachah we say before this Thursday-night bedikah. In a regular year, one does not recite a brachah if he makes a bedikah before the 14th of Nisan—for example, if he is going away for Pesach. This year is an exception to that rule, and it comes with the risk of creating a false memory and confusion in future years, a concern of the Shulchan Aruch.

    One may keep chametz that is necessary for the next day’s burning and to eat on Shabbos in a secure location.

    Although many houses become Pesachadik at this point (except for the bedikah bread needed for biur the next day), there is no halachic obligation to refrain from eating chametz until early Shabbos morning (the time to stop depends on your location).

    The one main observance on Friday is biur chametz. However, we do not say Kol Chamira then; instead, we say it before the fifth hour on Shabbos day.

    Obviously, chametz can’t be burned on Shabbos Erev Pesach, but why not do it later in the day on Friday? One can technically eat chametz all day Friday, so it should be permissible to do biur up until Shabbos.

    The Shulchan Aruch explains that this, too, is in order not to create a false memory and confusion in future years.

    What to Do for Lechem Mishneh

    We are confronted with a quagmire about what to do for lechem mishneh on Shabbos Erev Pesach. We must have lechem mishneh for each of our Shabbos meals, but we can’t eat matzah on Erev Pesach. This is a halachah and is not to be confused with the minhag of refraining from eating matzah from Rosh Chodesh Nisan. 

    The poskim offer three options: regular chametz challah, egg matzah, or soaked matzah.

    If your minhag is to use chametz, I would recommend bagels or pita because they don’t have as many crumbs as bread. Make sure to serve it on paper towels, a plastic table cover, or something similar. Each person should eat a kezayis over tissue paper right after washing, and the paper should be flushed down the toilet. If there are too many chametz crumbs to flush, you can pour designated bleach over them in the trash, or you can wrap up the entire tablecloth and place it somewhere hidden and secure, having in mind during Kol Chamira that you will dispose of it properly (by burning, etc.) on Chol Hamoed.

    Some make recite Hamotzi and eat the chametz in a different room. After following the steps above, they eat the rest of their kasher l’Pesach meals in the dining room. If you do this, it is best if the dining room can be seen from the room where you ate the bread. However, it is not recommended that you make the Hamotzi on a porch, a balcony or in the backyard and then return inside to eat the rest of the meal.

    Rav Moshe Feinstein and many others (Ashkenazim only) recommend using kasher l’Pesach egg matzah. Make sure that egg matzah crumbs do not fall on any Pesach utensils or food (even though egg matzah is allowed for the sick and infirm on Pesach).

    According to Rav Moshe Feinstein and others, Ashkenazim must stop eating egg matzah before the time when one can no longer eat chametz. Some (e.g., the Noda B’Yehudah) allow egg matzah to be eaten until chatzos.

    Many Sephardim encourage the use of regular kasher l’Pesach matzah for these Shabbos meals. In order to get around the prohibition of matzah on Erev Pesach, the matzos are soaked—for example, in soup—but not to the point of breaking apart.

    Biur Chametz

    Kol Chamira should be said before the fifth hour on Shabbos moring. Some recommend that one should think but not recite the word “hefker.”

    Shalosh Seudos

    In order to fulfill both the morning meal and shalosh seudos, many people break their early-morning meal into two, waiting several minutes in between.

    Because shalosh seudos should be eaten no earlier than half an hour after midday (according to many), it is recommended that some fruits or other items be eaten after this time as well.

    Others do not split their morning meal into two. Instead, they have shalosh seudos later in the day without washing, making sure not to spoil their appetite for the Seder.

    May Hashem see His nation’s desire to fulfill hilchos Shabbos and hilchos Pesach and send us a shefa tovah!●

  • Purim That Falls Erev Shabbos

    Purim That Falls Erev Shabbos

    When To Eat The Seudah…and More

    What followed was a series of guidelines for the Purim seudah when Purim falls on a Friday.

    But first, some background is in order.

    The Shulchan Aruch forbids one to eat a full meal on Erev Shabbos. Although regular daily meals such as breakfast are fine, once we get to the ninth halachic hour of the day, even those would be forbidden. The purpose, of course, is to make sure we enter Shabbos with anticipation and a healthy appetite.

    Although having a regular lunch, even with bread, is permissible, some poskim posit that in the short winter months, one must be careful not to eat too much even before the ninth hour. The Aruch Hashulchan states that on these very early Shabbosos, one should not have bread at all on Friday and should simply “taste” samplings of food throughout the day. Others are only careful on these early Shabbosos not to wash over bread past midday.

    In fact, the Shulchan Aruch records that some anshei maaseh, very conscientious people, used to fast every Friday in order to enter Shabbos in a state of hunger. Of course, this is not our practice since fasting causes fatigue and irritability (although we do fast when Asarah B’Teves falls on a Friday; all sources above from siman 249).

    But what if there is an occasion for a seudas mitzvah on Friday? The Shulchan Aruch states that one should not even make a wedding feast on Erev Shabbos.

    The poskim explain that the example of a wedding was chosen because it isn’t necessary to get married on a Friday. But if, say, a bris or a pidyon haben—which are mandated by halachah—falls on Erev Shabbos, a seudas mitzvah would be allowed. Even in such cases, however, the poskim lay out many rules and suggestions, such as having the meal as early in the day as possible and not inviting too many guests.

    These concerns are so important that according to some, one must be mindful on the first day of a Yom Tov not to finish the meal so late that he will ruin his appetite for that night’s seudah (Magen Avraham; cf. Biur Halachah 429, but see Mishnah Brurah 471:16).

    With all this in mind, let’s explore best practices for an Erev Shabbos Purim.

    The Rema tells us in Hilchos Purim (695:2) that one may have a morning seudah on Purim even when it doesn’t fall on Erev Shabbos. Although that is not a time most people will choose to enjoy the simchah and achdus of this day, it might be a good idea this year. Indeed, that is the Rema’s opinion. It should be pointed out, however, that when he says “morning,” he does not mean breakfast, but rather, before halachic midday (around 1 p.m. in New York City).

    There is an additional benefit of having an earlier seudah, and that is the fact that too much drinking close to Shabbos risks destroying the Friday-night seudah.

    Along those lines, drinking at kiddush on a regular Shabbos morning has vexed many wives for years. Too often, by the time the husband returns from kiddush, he is tipsy or tired and winds up lying down, ruining the Shabbos meal for the entire family. This concern is mentioned explicitly by the Mishnah Brurah (249:14).

    Some minhagim allow for an Erev Shabbos Purim seudah up to the tenth hour of the day (around 4 p.m. in New York City).

    Of course, everyone should follow the minhag of his parents or rebbi, and in a case of b’di’eved he should speak to a rav.

    There is, however, one more minhag—combining the Purim seudah with the Friday-night seudah. For those who do not have this practice, it is not simple, and one who would like to do so must speak to his rav.

    The way this works is as follows: One has a late seudah before plag haminchah (around 4:30 p.m. NYC time), and at some point between plag and several minutes before sundown (around 6:50 p.m. NYC time) everyone accepts Shabbos—either verbally or by saying all of Kabbalas Shabbos. They would then make Kiddush and continue eating.

    On the one hand, this seems like a marvelous way of enjoying the Purim seudah without ruining the Shabbos meal—and in fact, there is evidence that some Rishonim kept this minhag (Meiri).

    However, there are a number of land mines to contend with.

    It is likely that when you recite Kiddush, will have to omit the brachah of Hagafen because you probably had wine during the Purim seudah.

    Lechem mishneh also becomes complex. Should the challahs be brought out before Kiddush is made, even though you already washed earlier for the Purim meal? Even if you do put out lechem mishneh, you would have to remember not to make a brachah on it but simply cut the challah after Kiddush (see siman 271 and Mishnah Brurah ad loc. 18). And you would have to make sure to eat a kezayis even if you already did so at the Purim seudah.

    This is not to mention questions about bentching, about the fact that Maariv must wait until after the seudah, and about how to do poress mateh—separating the two meals before Kiddush begins. Some say one can do this just by covering the challahs, but the Shulchan Aruch Harav says one must cover the entire table!

    In the end, here is what I wrote to my shul members.

    “We wish to enter Shabbos, which is holier than Purim, in a state of anticipation. It is best to eat the Purim meal earlier in the day, before midday (1:04 p.m. Queens time), thereby allowing hunger to set in before Shabbos. One can accomplish this by starting the meal and completing the majority of it by 1:04 p.m.

    “If this is not possible, or if one forgot to eat the seudah, then a later meal would be acceptable if it begins before 4:02 p.m. (Queens time). In such a case, one should strive to complete the majority of the meal by that time.

    “A rav should be consulted if a conflict with this 4:02 p.m. time frame is known in advance or arises.

    “There is a rare custom to combine a late-day Purim meal with the Friday-night Shabbos seudah (with a break in between). For those whose parents or rebbeim follow this view, a rav should be consulted about how best to navigate the many issues that arise (e.g., how and when to daven Maariv, when to make Kiddush, and when to bentch).

    “May we soon celebrate Purim in the era of Moshiach. Wishing everyone a freilichen Purim!”

    I am extending that brachah to all of you as well! ●

  • My Rabbi/My Candyman

    My Rabbi/My Candyman

    Love: The Most Critical Job Description

      Rabbi Moshe Taub, Feb. 2025, Ami Magazine

    I am my shul’s Candyman.

    This means that troughout davening, kids will mount the few steps to the podium and, depending on their age, will either stick out their hand, request a candy, or say ‘Good Shabbos’.

        If they approach during leining or kaddish I teach them to wait and read along with me, training them in the importance of silence during teffila.

        But that is not my central motive in embracing this role.

     Once a child is of speaking age, they know that they will only get a candy if they name the parshah, leading to some tots yelling out ‘T’tzaveh!’ long before they reach me!

       As they get older, my ‘candy-interrogation’ become more age-appropriate, where I request they share what the parshah about, along with more detailed information and questions.

        While this is a great way to get to know the kids, this too is not why I chose this role.

        Rather, the two main reasons are to create a girsa d’yankusah.

    I. Chibuv

       For one, these are dangerous times. These same children will soon grow into teenagers. The day may come when they will be tested, when two paths will appear before them. Temptation or technology, friends or fascination, may entice one path. Such luring pulls require we implant now equal competitive future forces.

       Should such moments of trial arise, few teenagers will be thinking of a drasha or a rav’s distant words of inspiration.

      What their mind may drift toward is true feelings of chibuv/love. So, while the rav may not come to mind, the ‘Candyman’ might.

     In our day, an earnest sense of affection toward the rav of one’s youth is indispensable.

       A guest once challenged me, “It’s very nice and all, but is this role appropriate for a rav? Shouldn’t a rav present himself more reserved and  distant from such petty matters? Teaching children that a proposed talmud chacham be shown extra dignity is also chinuch!”

       I explained by sharing the purpose of Moshe rabbeinu and Dovid hamelech having served as shepherds. Chazal explain that in that role they had to care for these creatures to the point of cleaning up their dung. This infused them with a model for leadership, training them in the fact that if an act is permissible and purposeful then it is not seen as ‘beneath one’s dignity’.

        And purposeful this is.

    When I was in high school, I heard that a camp friend suddenly left his yeshiva. What happened to him after, and his state of religiosity, becoming somewhat of a mystery. No one in my friend group knew where he was living, let alone how he was living.

        Several years later, I bumped into him by chance in Buffalo. His head was shaved clean, he wasn’t wearing a yarmulka, and the rest of his look seemed to confirm my worst fears.

      After exchanging pleasantries -and without prompt -he opened up about his childhood – one stained with severe trauma. It went unspoken, but this no-doubt offered a glimpse into his stung spirit.

       He then shared something unbelievable:

    “While I wouldn’t say I’m frum, you should know that I’ve never once been michalel Shabbos on a Torah level all of these years”.

       That comment led to many questions, however in these situations one best keeps quiet, allowing the speaker to decide what he wishes to disclose.

       After I nodded alone, and became oddly silent, he shared an explanation.

    When he was a young boy, about seven or eight, his private trauma was unfolding, a rav was asked to consult, Rav Gedalia Felder, tz”l.

      He was little at the time and his awe of the rav and his fear of sharing, of ‘taking sides’, caused him to cry in response to the rav’s first question.

     “I was ashamed to be crying, thinking this was not the time or place.

    “But as I looked up, I saw that the rav was also crying…in reaction to my pain.

    “This only made me cry more.

    “This in turn made the rav cry more.

    “At the end of the meeting all one could observe was two people crying – a child in agony, and a rav aching from that child’s pain.

      “That memory is so fresh, and no matter what I’ve done, no matter where I’ve been, no matter how much I’ve ‘fallen’, whenever I am about to break Shabbos I think of Rav Felder’s tears. I don’t know if I still believe in Yiddishkeit, but I still believe in him because he believed in me”.

            II. Approachable

    This leads to my second reason for serving as the Candyman.

       Not only do I want the children to feel I care about them, I also want them to know I am accessible.

    If they learn to approach me when they are young, it will be far easier when they grow up.

       For this same reason, on my halacha exams at Shevach High School in Queens, I offer an extra credit at the end of every exam -told to them in advance – that each share a shailah they asked their rav, or any rav who is not related to them and who does not work at the school. I urge this because, Sadly, too often, people are too shy or too afraid or feel their question is not important enough to call a rabbi.

       I often share with my wife:

    “I’ve rarely been called on a taanis by someone who feels sick yet for whom the psak is that they must continue Fasting.

    “This is because most people are too shy, afraid, embarrassed, or reticent to even ask the shailah.

    “Those that are sick enough to actually pick up the phone probably should have done so hours ago!”

        In our generation especially, a communal rav being perceived as aloof can be perilous.

    Being approachable doesn’t mean the rav can’t present himself with authority. Rather, that this authoritative presence is not to be kept on a mantle, untouched by the masses.

    The day may come where this young boy or girl is tested, and that fleeting thought of ‘Should I call my rav?’ will be quickly dashed by the sword of unapproachability.

        There is an old saying that as much as a rav is annoyed by getting a call during dinner, he is more annoyed not getting a call during dinner.

        If one wishes to enjoy the rewards that come with rabbanus, he must make the sacrifices too -and let people know he is accessible.

        Such is our task in this role.

       In truth, it is little sacrifice if done out of love – and doesn’t hold a candle to what true gedolim must endure.

    As the Rambam expressed to his student:

       “G-d knows that in order to write this to you I have escaped to a secluded spot, where people would not think to find me, sometimes leaning for support against the wall, sometimes lying down on account of my excessive weakness, for I have grown old and feeble…I cannot but say how greatly your visit would delight me…Yet …Do not expect to be able to confer with me…for even one hour either by day or by night, for the following is my daily occupation [Rambam describes his heavy palace workload, as well as its great travel distance]…Then I am almost dying with hunger. I find the antechamber filled with people, both Jews and Gentiles, nobles and common people, judges and bailiffs, friends and foes — a mixed multitude, who await the time of my return. I dismount from my animal, wash my hands, go forth to my patients, and entreat them to bear with me while I partake of some slight refreshment, the only meal I take in the twenty-four hours. Then I attend to my patients, write prescriptions for their various ailments. Patients go in and out until nightfall, and sometimes even, I solemnly assure you, until two hours and more in the night. I converse and prescribe for them while lying down from sheer fatigue, and when night falls, I am so exhausted that I can scarcely speak. In consequence of this, no Israelite can have any private interview with me, except on the Shabbath. On that day the whole congregation, or at least the majority of the members, come unto me after the morning service, when I instruct them as to their proceedings during the whole week; we study together a little until noon, when they depart. Some of them return, and read with me after the afternoon service until evening prayers. In this manner I spend that day. I have here related to you only a part of what you would see if you were to visit me…”

    (Translation by R. Isadore Twersky)

  • The Mysterious Origins of the ‘Weekly Parsha’

    The Mysterious Origins of the ‘Weekly Parsha’

    &

    -Why Do We Combine Only Certain Parshios?

    -Who Invented, Named,& Separated the “Parshios HaShevua“?

    -Visiting Eretz Yisroel When They Are A Week Ahead

    -Why Do We Wait So Long To Re-Align With Eretz Yisroel?

    -Why Is Our Siyum of Our Yearly Cycle On Shemini Atzeres and Not On Shavuos?

    Rabbi Moshe Taub

    A Merger Of Several Articles Published In AMI MAGAZINE in 2016, 2019, & 2026

    I. Parsha vs. Parsha

    A member of our shul approached me during the simchas torah hakafos one year and asked, “Wouldn’t Shavuos be a more apt time to complete our siyum of the Torah?”

         Another member overheard the question. I could only guess he had been overwhelmed with the simcha of the day when he offered: “It’s because today is Simchas Torah! How could we not finish now! Imagine Simchas Torah without a siyum of the Torah!”

        As soon as he completed his ‘answer’, he realized he was in no state to offer teirutzim.

         Indeed, Simchas Torah is often misunderstood.

         The history behind how we came to commemorate the completion of the Torah on (the second day of) shemini atzeres is fascinating, beguiling,  and furnishes us with a unique opportunity to appreciate certain rudimentary arrangements of our Torah lives.

    • How old is this minhag of Simchas Torah?
    • Is not this siyum haTorah interfering with our separate Torah obligation of simchas yom tov (based on the rule, ‘ein ma’arvin simcha b’simcha‘, we don’t intermingle certain simchos)?
    • Why don’t we complete the Torah on a Shabbos, the day we had leined it until now?
    • Most saliently, who divided our parshios of the week into the names and partitions with which we are so familiar, and through which this special siyum was created?

          I once published a lengthy post titled Chapter and Verse, where we explained the halachic and hashkafic ramifications of the Christian-introduced divisions of the ‘chapters/perakim’, as well as their dividing of sifrei melachim, shmuel, divrei hayamim and ezra, each, into two separate books; even naming the ‘second part’ of Ezra into a newly-named ‘sefer’ called ‘nechemia’ (Cf. Sanhedrin 93b where chazal explain why Nechemia was not to have a sefer named for him!).

        Our mesorah already gave us divisions of our own, called ‘parshios’. These are not to be confused with what we colloquially call the ‘parshas hashavuah’, or the ‘weekly parsha’. Rather, our mesorah ‘parshios’ are breaks/spaces found inside sifrei Torah and come to represent a new subject, event, or simply the pause Moshe was given when being taught by Hashem (see Rashi to Vayikra 1:1 with Toras Kohanim; neviim and kesuvim also have such breaks). 

    There are two types of such breaks/spaces in Torah: pesuchos (represented in most standard chumashim with a large letter pei), and setumos (represented in chumashim with a large letter samech).

    A Stumah: when the new section continues on the same line as the last, but with a space (of nine-letters);

    A Pesucha: where the new parsha begins on a new line, but with a space of the same size.

        These parshios are significant, and a sefer Torah without them, or where they are placed incorrectly, would be pasul.

         Many are already aware of this, and that our parshios hashavuah have nothing to do with the halachic concept of ‘parshios‘. In another post, I discussed the weeks known as ‘Shovavim’ (from shemos–mishpatim) and shared that the parshios hashavuah became universally adopted – along with a yearly Simchas Torah—only about 800 years ago (see megillah 29b and sofrim 16:10, with Rambam, hilchos tefillah 13:1).

          Furthermore, Rav Shlomo Luria (d. 1573) shares that for those in eretz yisroel who were observing a triennial cycle, Simchas Torah would be celebrated once every three-and-a-half years, and that this siyum would veer from city-to-city! (Yam Shel Shlomo, end of bava kama, kuntrus ‘chilukei denim bein bnei e’y u’vein bnei bavel’. See also Otzar Plios HaTorah, emor, p. 931)

    II. Blunders & Parsha Names

    Here is a ubiquitous example of how confusion regarding the above may even lead to real blunders:

       A well-known Rashi – and a favorite of children’s parsha sheets – is found in the beginning of ‘parshas’ Yisro. Rashi quotes a chazal listing Yisro’s many names and their meanings.

    “Yeser [to add]: as Yisro added a parsha of the Torah” (shemos, 18:1)

       This is often erroneously repeated as meaning that Yisro received the zechus to have this parshas hashavua named for him –parshas ‘Yisro’!

       This is a misconception. Rather, what chazal meant, is that Yisro’s urging of Moshe to set up court systems ‘shaped’ a new parsha/section/inyan/subject inside the Torah -along with its own breaks before and after it (setuma/pesucha), i.e. the ‘parsha’ of courts!

       Rebbeim certainly teach this accurately, yet some misunderstand or misremember their words, when in truth it is unlikely that Rashi even ever heard of ‘Parshas Yisro’ as we know it!

            There are more examples, but I trust that the reader now appreciates that this distinction between parsha and parsha is substantial.

    IIa. Parsha ‘Names’

           Some may now assume the other extreme: the parshios hashavuah, while wisely divided so as to complete the Torah once a year, are capricious in nature.

          Rav Tzadok Hakohen teaches that just as our parents gave us personal names – which form/describe our essence -so too the names we have given and accepted for the weekly parshios carry their essence (Resisei Layla, ois 44).

        In fact, the Chasam Sofer (Drashos, Sukkos, p.52; likuttim Tehillim, p. 157) teaches that one should look at the parshas hashevua to find the answer to personal life-questions. This is especially true of the aliya one may receive (see ‘Melech B’yofiuv’ p. 5). Amazingly, Rav Yair Chayim Bacharach (d. 1702) named his famous sefer ‘Chavos Yair’ based on an aliyah he received (Bamidbar, 32:41)!

            Metzorah, mattos, shemeni and more are not named for their first word (‘v’elah shemos’ is indeed how Rav Saadia Gaon referred to shemos), and these accepted names are to be deemed kodosh.

          While we do find some names of our current weekly parshios already in chazal (e.g. ‘kedoshim’ – see zevachim 28a), most names evolved over centuries, many in the days of the geonim (Rav Chaim Kinievsky, Derech Sicha, p. 3; see Yesodei Yeshurin, 4:363ff).

         In fact, we used to divide parshas mishpatim into two parshios on certain years, the latter half with its own name (see Sefer HaChinuch).

         There are some who posit, that our present-day parshios hashevuah were passed down from Moshe or Ezra, and were always seen as the optimal way to read the Torah (see Ohr Zarua, hilchos shabbos, siman 45, Meiri, Kiryas Sefer, maamer 5 perek 1, and Tanchuma to Ki Sisa 3; see also sefer ‘Toldos Simchas Torah’).

       Some go further, asserting that the triennial completion of the Torah was a temporary aberration (Rav Reuven Melech Schwartz, Yemei Shovavim).

    We will delve further into this in V. below.

    III. Why Sukkos?

    Whatever the history, there is no doubt that great sagacity was applied to our current system. So, we must ask: Why do we choose to finish the Torah at this time of year?

        When I was younger, I would surmise that this was because the luchos rishonos of Shavuos were broken, then we did teshuvah, and on Yom Kippur Hashem forgave us making our kabalas hatorah complete with our receiving the luchos sheniyos. The first ‘available’ day after Yom Kippur to venerate this kabalas hatorah – when all are gathered without additional/special mitzvos of the day – is shemeni atzeres.

        Later, I grasped a far simpler solution and, chasdei Hashem, I now discovered that Rav Gedalya Felder (d. 1991) makes the same point (Yesodei Yeshurin, chelek 4, p. 355-365).

        Chazal share that Ezra obligated us in two specific leinings on two precise Shabbosim of the year -no matter the cycle of Torah reading one may be utilizing. We must read the tochecha found at the end of sefer vayikra (in ‘bechukosei’) before Shavuos, and those found at the end of sefer devarim (in ‘ki savo’) before Rosh Hashana (as to why we today lein these tochechos two Shabbosos before these yomim tovim, see tosfos to megila 31b).

        For those that observed the triennial cycle, then, during these two Shabbosos, they would have likely paused their cycle and instead read these tochechos, returning the next week to their cycle. Or they may have read their regular reading and simply added these special readings as a maftir.

        However, for our current yearly cycle of parshios, it not only works out perfectly with this gezeira of Ezra, but it seems to have been arranged around it! We place bechukosei before Shavous, and ki savo before Rosh Hashana, and everything falls where it falls -including our yearly completion happening right after sukkos.

       There are many questions we have yet to answer, such as why do not why to make this siyum on the Shabbos following shemini atzeres, why this isn’t a concern of ein maavirin, who introduced the positions where we stop for aliyos, who decided which parshios are sometimes combined, and how we developed various fascinating minhagim on simchas torah.

    IV. Misaligned Parshios

    I often share that one of the great maalos of rabbanus is the interesting questions one receives. While we all hear great kashos from time to time, only rabbanus demands one to give at least some effort in finding answers.

    I was recently asked a question which I would venture every reader has had in their back of their minds. Even those who have verbalized it may have not taken the time to search for an answer.

    Thankfully, I do not have that ‘luxury’.

    This morning, after shachris, a young member asked”

    “Whenever the 22nd of Nissan fall on Shabbos a strange situation is created. In eretz yisroel it is just a regular Shabbos, although issru chag, and they read the parshas hashavuah. For us in chutz l’aretz, it is acharon shel pesach, which has its own special kriah. Meaning, the next week we read the parsha they had read the Shabbos before.

    “We are out of sync!

    “This continues so that the week you are reading this article, if you are in chutz l’aretz the parsha is Emor, and if you are in eretz yisroel, the parsha is Bahar!”

    This can happen due to Shavuos as well, see Biur HaGr’a and Biur Halacha siman 428 s.v. bamidbar for all the ways the parshios can fall out each year, and why. See also Shaarei Yitzchak end of klal 11. See Magen Avraham ad loc. sif katan 6 and Mishna Berrura 10.

    Before revealing his central concern, we should point out that this observations leads to numerous isues, many of which will be discussed below. For instance, those who were here for Pesach will return to eretz yisroel and suddenly be one parsha behind! What should they do?

    IV. The Visiter

    Let’s pause to discuss this issue. What should a visiter to Israel from America do about his missed parsha should he arrive after such a Pesach or Shavuos?

    • Should they make a minyan of bnei chutz l’aretz?
    • If so, should they lein then both nasso (which chutz l’aretz is reading) and bahaloscha the same week?
    • How would they divide those aliyos?
    • What about the reverse -where over the next few weeks, an Israeli visits America?

    The Strict View

    The Chida discusses a case where people are stuck in a city without a Torah -missing that parsha completely, ruling that they need not make up this missed parsha the next week.

       While a tempting comparison to our case -and the American visitor should just skip nasso -many reject the connection. In the case of the city without a Torah, the next week will not be the time for the missed parsha, while in our case, the missed parsha may be seen as related to that Shabbos since it’s read that week back home!

    This is indeed how many poskim see it. They compare our case, rather, to the shul that read the wrong parsha one week, where we rule that the next week they read the missed parsha plus the parsha of the week (siman 135, Rema based on the Ohr Zaruah).

        In our case, then, a visiting American should read both parshios if when he arrives we are still not aligned (Yesodei Yeshurin, 4, p. 388).

    While the poskim seem to say that in such a case we would read the parshios in order -the missed one and then the regular one -some suggest otherwise (based on the Shu”t Maharsham 1:213).

      Nevertheless, the leining by mincha and Mondays and Thursday will remain like eretz yisroel’s (see shu”t Btzel Chachmah, 1:2-8 where every permutation of these questions are discussed in great detail).

       This is also the view found in Piskei Teshuvos (285:9).

      The Leneint View

      Rav Moshe Feinstein was often quoted agreeing with the above view, obligating Americans to read a make-up leining the first week in Israel.

       However, Rav Fried of Dallas, the author of Yom Tov Sheni K’Hilchoso heard from talmidim of both Rav Shach and Rav Aurbach that they struggled to accept Rav Moshe would ever rule this way.

       He then reached out to Rav Dovid Feinstein who confirmed that this was indeed a false rumor, and that Rav Moshe ruled that there is no need for any leining make-up, as one is to simply to follow the leining of the place one is presently in (as for learning the missed sidreh -a rav should be consulted).

    Rav Sholmo Zalman Aurbach and Rav Elyashiv agreed (see ibid. at length, p. 238-240).

        While Rav Elyashiv looks favorably on such a person hearing a make-up leining of the missed parsha, he says it’s not an obligation.

       For those that are machmir, Rav Elyashiv gives the following procedure – the missed parsha is read first; the first aliya should be for that entire missed parsha; this is followed by the ‘real’ parsha, divided into six aliyos (or with a seventh hosafa).

       As for the Israeli visiting America during these misaligned weeks, he may lein, get an aliyah, and should certainly attend this leining as part of the kehilla.

       These questions are complex, and a rav must be consulted.  For instance, must such a make-up leining only be performed if there’s minyan of Americans, etc.

    V. Why The Long Wait?

    But there is a deeper, non-halachik question that this creates, and it was this that the young man this morning wished to know.

    In some years, we wait until the parshios of matos–massei to catch up! (In that, that Shabbos in eretz yisroel they lein only massei while outside lein both are read).

    There are certainly are earlier candidates! For example, in the year of this writing, chutz l’aretz could have caught up the very first week following yom tov – by merging achrei mos and kedoshim!

    If for whtever reason this was not an option, what about behar–bechukosei -which this year was not merged, but could have been for this purpose!?

    Why then do we wait all the way till the summer? It seems that we are going out of our way to stay out of sync for some time.

    Strange.

    To get an understanding of all of this, we first have to review our unpacking above of the history of the parshios.

    Historically, finishing the Torah once a year was not a universal custom, with some communities completing it only once every three years-three and a half (see Megilla 29b).

    Still in the year 1170 there were two shuls in Egypt –one that leined what we know today as the parshios of the week, and the other that read at a third that pace (Masoas Binyamin M’Toledo, Adler edition, p. 63)!

    Yes, this means that the latter group did not have ‘Simchas Torah’! (See Toldos Simchas Torah, ch. 1)

    At some point, around eight-hundred years ago, everyone began to complete the Torah cycle once every year.

    The system still went through certain revisions, for instance the Avudaram gives us one double parsha that we no longer observe –shelach–korach!

    In fact, the Chida quotes from the Rosh that “The purpose of the divisions of parshios is simply so as to finish the Torah once every year. Each leader of every community separates and combines the parshios as he sees fit, for these are not halachos rather minhag (shu”t Chaim Shaal, Chazah HaTenufa; Kitzur Teshuvos HaRosh 54. See also shu”t Ohr Zarua 2:45 for an interesting communal case where he echoes the same point as the Rosh).

    However, certainly at our point in history we are obliged to follow minhag yisroel.

    With all of this in mind we get an answer as to why we wait so long to be in sync with eretz yisroel.

    [See CHART at the end of article of all possible outcomes]

    The Maharit (d.1639) in a teshuva (2:4) asks this question. He first quotes the above gemara about takanas Ezra, and reminds us that we follow the view of Tosfos (s.v. kelolos) to lein the kelolos two shabbosim before those yomim tovim, so that we have a buffer of one stam parsha in-between.

    Now we can understand why we wait so long to join eretz yisroel. Because of the way Pesach fell this year they will be leining the kelolos with a two week buffer before Shavous. While they have no choice in the matter, we certainly do not wish to join them in being so distant from the takana of Ezra!

    But why this long? We could easily accomplish the above without going through almost all of sefer bamidbar missaligned!

    •  First note that chukas-balak is only read together outside of eretz yisroel, as it’s an invention solely as a means to catch up.

    In a play on ‘yom tov sheni shel golios’, my predecessor in Buffalo, Rav Yirmiyahu Kaganoff, calls that double parsha: ‘parshios shel golios’.

    • Aside for a Friday Shavuos, the other scenario when we become misaligned with eretz yisroel is when acharon shel Pesach falls on Shabbos.
    • However, it is when that occurs during a leap year that we wait until matos-massei to conjoin, even though there seems to be many options to combine prior to matos–massei.

    Why?

    The Maharit explains that we do not wish to alter the norm. Since in most years matos–massei are leined together – and chukas and Balak are leined separately – we seek to maintain this.

               Another approach comes from the Bnei Yissoschor (maamrei chodesh tammuz–av, 2). He wonders why we generally lein chukas and balak separately, while matos and massei are almost always read together.

    He explains that we strive to lein the parshios that speak of chalukas ha’aertz – the division of eretz yisroel – specifically during bein hametzarim, the Three Weeks as a means of hope.

    Since the chalukas ha’aretz is also discussed in parshas pinchas, we separate chukas and balak so that pinchas could also be leined during the Three Weeks.

                This logic of the Bnei Yissoschor may also explain this long wait of conjoining when the last day of Pesach occurs on Shabbos during a leap year. If chukas and balak would be read together -and thus allowing a quicker catch up to eretz yisroel – then pinchas would be read before the Three Weeks.

    In fact, in eretz yisroel, all the parshios during such a year must be read separately to allow for this.

      However, in chutz l’aretz, we avoid this by simply refraining from combining parshios until matos–massei.

      The result is that pinchos, with its topics of chalukas ha’aretz, will be lained during the Three Weeks here and in eretz yisroel, and we will also then catch up.

    Ah, the beauty of halacha and minhag!

    Below:

    While doing research for this topic, my chaver Dr. Shlomo Dalezman, was very helpful. He was also kind enough to prepare the following chart:

    1 –

    – Shavuos on Friday

    In Chu”l shabbos is second day Shavuos , in E”Y it is isru chag and they lein naso

    Date – Chul- EY

    7 Sivan – Shavuos – Naso

    14 Sivan – Naso – Behaloscha

    21 Sivan – Behaloscha – Shelach

    28 Sivan – shelach – Korach

    5 Tammuz – Korahc – chukas

    12 Tammuz – Chukas& Balak – Balak – 

    19 Tammuz – Pinchas – 1st of 3 weeks

    (note it doesn’t matter if was a leap year or not)

    2 –

    Pesach on shabbos in a leap year 

    In chu”l acharon shel Pesach is on Shabbos, in E”Y it is acharei mos.

    Date – Chul- EY

    22 Nissan – Acharon shel PEsach – Acharei

    29 Nissan  – Achaeri- Kedoshim 

    6 Iyar – Kedoshim – emor

    13 Iyar – Emor – Behar

    20 Iyar – Behar – Bechukosai

    27 Iyar – Bechukosai – Bamidbar

    5 Sivan – Bamidbar – Naso  (Erev Shavuos)

    12 Sivan – Naso – Behaloscha

    19 sivan Behaloscha – shelach

    26 Sivan – shelach – Korach

    3 Tammuz – Korach – chukas

    10 Tammuz – Chukas – Balak

    17 Tammuz – Balak – Pinchas

    24 Tammuz – Pinchas – Matos (1st 3 weeks) 

    2  Av – Matos + MAsei – MAsei (2nd 3 weeks)

    9 Av- Devarim – (3rd 3 weeks) 

    3 –

    Acharon Shel Pesach falls on Shabbos in non-leap year 

    In chu”l it is acharon shel Pesach, in E”Y they read shemini.

    Date – Chul- EY

    22 Nissan – Acharon shel PEsach – Shemini

    29 Nissan  -Shemini – Tazria+metzora

    6 Iyar –  Tazria+metzora  – Acharei + kedoshim

    13 Iyar –   Acharei + kedoshim  – Emor

    20 Iyar – emor – Behar 

    27 Iyar – Behar+ Bechukosai – Bechukosai 

    5 Sivan – Bamidbar  (Erev Shavuos)

  • May One Activate Thermal Hand Warmers on Shabbos?

    May One Activate Thermal Hand Warmers on Shabbos?

    Also: Are they muktzah if already heating?

    Originally Published in Ami Magazine -February 2025

    Rabbi Moshe Taub

    I was recently met with a heated reaction when discussing…a heated reaction.

    During a recent post-Minchah halachah shiur, I was examining the halachos related to hand warmers on Shabbos. A rabbi never knows what topic may provoke a vociferous response, and the crowd grew passionate during this discussion.

    “This has to be assur!” implored one.

    “Well, some do see this as an issur Torah,” I responded.

    “Good,” said another, and then added, “Just because we don’t know what the issur is doesn’t mean it’s muttar! I can’t understand why this is even up for discussion.”

    I told the group that the day before, when I arrived at shul for Shabbos Minchah, I had noticed one of these hand warmers lying on the armrest of my chair.

    “I was unsure how it got there, and then I wondered if I could move it out of the way on Shabbos. This led me to speculate about whether one would be allowed to activate such technology on Shabbos. You might ask, ‘What difference does it make why they’re assur?’ So I will start by showing that it actually does make a big difference.”

    Let’s explore how these warmers work and what is problematic about using them on Shabbos.

    I. First: A Muktzah Primer

    Whether such gloves may be activated on Shabbos will be discused below. That issue came about as simply a byproduct to an initial sh’eilah I had: may I move them//are they muktzah?

    Many mistakenly assume that the central premise behind Nechemia’s decree of muktzah is the concern that moving certain items on Shabbos may lead a person to use them for their forbidden functions. For example, a pen is muktzah in order to prevent one from writing on Shabbos.

    Although the fear that one may do a forbidden melachah sometimes plays a role in muktzah (“muktzah machmas issur“, e.g. a lit candle, see below) this is not the chief concern behind muktzah (see Rambam, Hilchos Shabbos 24:12). Nor would such reasoning explain why, say, an expensive painting would be muktzah (muktzah machmas chesron kis).

    In other words: muktza as an invention of a new category that was birthed together with an injunction against its movement, having nothing to do with melacha or its prevention, per se.

    A Simple Demonstration:

    A PEN

    A pen becomes muktzah not because we fear one will forget and write with it, rather, and simply, because we assume that one is not planning to use it on Shabbos, and all items assumed to not be utilized on Shabbos are deemed muktzah.

    That’s it.

    Muktzah, then, simply means hukatz—to be set aside.

    This means that the many categories of muktzah are, in truth, simply the various reasons for the assumption these items were set aside.

    A pen is muktzah, and falls into the category of a kli shemelachto l’issur, something we assume is not planned for its main function since that act is forbidden on Shabbos.

    Because a pen does have some non-abstract uses that are permitted on Shabbos – e.g. as a pointer, to open nuts, etc. – it may be used for those purposes on Shabbos if they arise, as it was never hukatz from those. Indeed, items like this that are muktzah due to their issur status are the weakest type of muktzah, and may be moved if they are but in one’s way.

    So even if hand warmers are assur on Shabbos, I could have moved the ones on my chair.

    But wait! There may be another type of muktzah to consider.

    As mentioned, there is a special category called muktzah machmas issur. This category of muktzah only shares its name, yet is unrelated to classic muktzah and its special injunction. This is when an item is deemed muktzah not because of an assumption of disuse (painting, pen, a rock, etc.), rather because handling this item may lead to a forbidden activity/result. Some common examples are a lit candle – which is muktzah because moving it may cause it to be extinguished; wet clothes – which are muktzah because one may wring them out; and an iPhone – which is muktzah because its backlight may be activated.

    If it is indeed forbidden to activate hand warmers on Shabbos and if it is true that moving them may activate them, they would not only be muktzah by dint of being a kli issur, but also muktzah machmas issur!

    However, according to many, the fear of violating a rabbinical prohibition would preclude an item from falling into this latter category of muktzah.

    II. How Do They Work?

    We have been working under the assumption that activating such warmers would certainly be forbidden on Shabbos.

    Is this true? How do they work?

    There are two types of hand warmers.

    • The less common type is a reusable pack filled with a supersaturated solution of sodium acetate in water (gel). When the small metal disc inside is agitated, it releases tiny fragments of metal that act as nucleation sites for sodium acetate, changing the gel from a liquid to a near-solid state, which releases stored heat energy in a process called crystallization.
    • The more common type of hand warmer is for one-time use. Inside the pouch are tiny crumbs of iron. When agitated, oxygen is introduced, causing a speedy rust process to begin releasing energy as heat. (Other chemicals such as salt may be added to speed up the process.)

    The halachic issues involved are numerous.

    In regard to the first type, we must first consider bishul, which on the Torah level is only a concern at high temperatures that likely do not apply here. If indeed such temperatures are reached, it still only reheats the gel, which is a rabbinic concern (bishul achar bishul), and only according to some poskim.

    This concern may apply to the second type as well, depending on how we define bishul b’chamah and toldos chamah (cooking with the sun and other odd methods of cooking; famously, this is the problem with microwaving on Shabbos in terms of bishul; see, e.g., shu”t Igros Moshe 3:52).

    Furthermore, many people place empty aluminum pans on top of a hot plate on Shabbos. Would bishul even apply to such metals? (See Chazon Ish 37:11, with Chut Shani 22:4.)

    Beyond bishul, there are other issues such as molid, creating a new entity on Shabbos or Yom Tov. Molid is the reason we are permitted on Yom Tov to light a candle from an existing fire, but we can’t kindle a new flame.

    Finally, there is the biblical concern of makeh b’patish, which involves completing or activating an item by adding the finishing touch.

    III. Other Considerations

    The chemical reactions in hand warmers and their halachic applications go well beyond warm hands. They are an issue, for instance, when it comes to MRE self-heating meals, which soldiers use (and which I used during the time I traveled for kashrus supervision). One activates the pouch, places the sealed food on it, returns it to the box and waits (which means adding hatmanah to the halachic mix).

    May one reheat food this way on Shabbos?

    {For those who are interested, Rav Menachem Shimmel published two brilliant essays delving into this technology and its many halachic applications in Yeshurun, volumes 20 and 21}

    IV. Lessons Learned

    Although people should ask their rav about these many fascinating issues, I am discussing all this for reasons beyond l’hagdil Torah.

    I’d like to share what I told the agitated members of my learning group, who were bewildered by the fact that I would even consider investigating the possibility that hand warmers might be permitted on Shabbos.

    Of course we should trust our instinct, certainly in regard to the question of when to ask a sh’eilah. Although it is also true that issues such as zilzul Shabbos can be defined by the era or by one’s feeling (specifically, the feelings of the leaders of that generation; see Chazon Ish), one must still be able to discuss the halachah dispassionately and not just because it has real-world applications for cholim and soldiers.

    Moshe Rabbeinu understood the danger of making decisions while in an agitated state, even though his anger in that instance was righteous (see Bamidbar 31:22 with Sifri and Rashi).

    Knowing the exact status of items such as hand warmers and MRE meals aids us in understanding muktzah, and it may indeed assist a soldier on the field by preventing him from using a much worse mode of bishul. It can also be useful to a choleh or someone who is alone for Shabbos (see Rav Zalman Nechemia Goldberg, quoted by Rav Schimmel at the end of one of his essays).

    Food for thought. ●

  • A Mistaken Dairy Beracha After a Meat Meal!

    A Mistaken Dairy Beracha After a Meat Meal!

    What to do by a mistaken Beracha

    February, 2025

    Imagine this: You finish a delicious schnitzel dinner and bentch. A few minutes later, you are hankering for something sweet to settle your stomach. You rummage in the fridge and cabinets—and then you notice freshly made cupcakes right next to the oven.

    Excited, you lift one out of the tin and recite a heartfelt Mezonos. As you slowly bring the the hot dessert to your mouth, you hear someone say, “You’re gonna love these cupcakes. They’re made with real heavy cream.”

    Oh, no! They’re milchig! You just ate schnitzel a few minutes ago—but you already made the brachah!

    What do you do now?

    A version of this story happened to a bachur in Cincinnati this week. Rabbi Shmuel Botnick, a well-known writer and a friend of mine, is the boy’s rebbi, and they called together to hear my thoughts.

    I teased Rabbi Botnick, telling him that he was not just an anav (which he is) but that he wanted to share the responsibility for this psak with someone else (see beginning of Maseches Horayos).

    Among the most challenging questions that rabbanim face are those regarding hilchos brachos. Over the years we’ve discussed a number of these sh’eilos, such as the real story behind Pringles and whether a Shehakol is the correct brachah to make on them.

    Before we move on to the latest example, I’d like to share a story demonstrating that it is no exaggeration to describe brachos as one of the most challenging topics in halachah.

    Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzinski (d. 1940) was known as a unique iluy among gedolim. Our rebbeim used to tell us that he was able to write two teshuvos at the same time, one with each hand, while he was on the phone answering a third sh’eilah.

    During one of the first Agudah conventions, Rav Chaim Ozer was staying in a hotel under a pseudonym. He was exhausted after his long journey from Vilna and needed time and space to consider the many decisions facing the klal.

    However, a determined young yeshivah bachur did not want to allow an opportunity to meet this gadol baTorah slip by, and he found out where Rav Chaim Ozer was staying.

    The young man knocked on his door. Rav Chaim Ozer did not want to send him away, so he asked him to be brief.

    “I’d like to discuss a sugya,” said the bachur.

    “On what topic?”.

    “Hilchos brachos.”

    Rav Chaim Ozer paused, thought, and then responded, “I just had a very long journey. Please, choose another sugya...”

    In the case of the milchig cupcake, we have several issues to deal with.

    • What exactly is a brachah l’vatalah?
    • How necessary is kavanah? In other words, may the person who made the Mezonos simply eat another Mezonos item that is pareve?
    • What is the reason for waiting between meat and dairy?
    • We need to compare the prohibitions in such a case so that we will know whether it is preferable to make a brachah l’vatalah or to eat thecupcake.

    Chazal tell us that a brachah l’vatalah is a violation of one of the Aseres Hadibros—“Lo sisa Shem Hashem lashav, you shall not take Hashem’s name in vain” (Shemos 20:7; Brachos 33a). It would seem that this bachur has a simple choice—either eat the cupcake and violate the rabbinic rule to wait between meat and milk, or eat a little and avoid violating a Torah law by making a brachah l’vatalah.

    It follows, therefore, that he should eat a little of the cupcake.

    If only it were that simple!

    The Rambam understands this gemara as affirming that a blessing in vain is a Torah violation (Hilchos Brachos 1:15, with Magen Avraham 215:6; see also Teshuvos HaRambam, Pe’er Hador, 105). However, many poskim disagree.

    Tosfos explain that Chazal are not saying that a brachah l’vatalah actually violates the issur of using Hashem’s name in vain. Rather, it is a rabbinical concern that is simply supported by that pasuk.

    The Chofetz Chaim explains this reasoning by reminding us that a brachah is, after all, a praise of Hashem. If one recites a brachah with Hashem’s name, saying, “Blessed are You, Hashem, for creating the fruits of the tree” without intending to eat any fruit, how can that be considered prohibited mid’Oraisa under Lo Sisa? It is a true statement of praise, perhaps no different from saying the Shem Hashem when singing zemiros on Shabbos, as some do.

    Therefore, he and others explain that although such praise would be allowed on a Torah level, Chazal wanted to prevent other inappropriate uses of Hashem’s name by creating the special prohibition titled “brachah l’vatalah” (see Tosfos, Rosh Hashanah 33a, Mishnah Brurah 215:20, Chazon Ish, siman 137).

    According to these shittos, the bachur had the choice of violating one of two d’Rabbanans—eating dairy after meat, or making a brachah l’vatalah.

    But if these options are of equal weight, how does one decide?

    The best option is not to eat the cupcake but to say, “Baruch shem kevod malchuso l’olam va’ed.” This is based on the rule “Shev v’al taaseh adif—an error of omission is better than an error of commission” (see shu”t Yabia Omer 2:5).

    For example, the Mishnah Brurah rules that if on Yom Tov one makes a brachah on an item and then realizes that it is muktzah, he should not eat it (515:5). It would seem that the same applies here.

    You may think that we have come to a conclusion…but we are not even close, because all of this information was given under the presumption that the halachah of waiting between meat and eating dairy is d’Rabbanan.

    Is that true?

    Chazal teach in the name of Rav Chisda that one must not eat dairy after meat (Chullin 105a). Some understand this to mean that one simply needs to wash out his mouth before eating dairy (Rabbeinu Tam, et al.); others explain that one must bentch and clear away the meat meal first (Rif, Ramban, et al.).

    Chazal then give the view of Mar Ukvah, who required waiting “until the next meal” in order to have dairy after meat, and this is the view we follow. The question, then, is how long one must wait “until the next meal.”

    The Rambam is the first to give us a period of six hours, writing, “One who ate meat should not eat dairy until the length of a meal passes, which is approximately six hours because of the meat between the teeth that cannot be removed by kinuach (literally, wiping, meaning consuming other foods)” (Hilchos Ma’achalos Asuros, 9:28; see Gra and Pleisi 89:3, with Shabbos 10a and Pesachim 12b).

    The Rema disagrees with the Rambam, telling us that this d’Rabbanan guideline means that one may eat dairy only if he bentched and his mouth is clean. “The minhag that has become prevalent in these lands,” he says, “is to wait one hour…and there are those who are careful to wait six hours…and it is fitting to do so.”

    Therefore, for the majority of Ashkenazim, who don’t following the Rambam, the bachur had a choice between violating a d’Rabbanan by making a blessing in vain (according to others, a d’Oraisa) and violating a halachic minhag.

    This would seem to mean that he should have taken a small bite after his mistaken brachah.

    That was my ruling, and I was soon able to find many poskim who agreed (Yabia Omer, ibid.; see Psakim V’teshuvos 89, notes 56-58; other say that this is only at least an hour after eating the meat—see shu”t Be’er Moshe 4:24; shu”t Teshuvos V’hanhagos, 2:289).

    What about kavanah, his intention? Once he discovered his error, couldn’t he simply have eaten another Mezonos item in place of the milchig cupcake? According to many, the other food would have had to be in front of him at the time he made the brachah.

    Others would permit this option even if he simply intended to eat the other Mezonos item or was being served another item or under another’s control (see Shulchan Aruch Harav 206:1 and Mishnah Brurah 206:26).

    And we haven’t even discussed the idea of calling a rav to ask a sh’eilah after making a potentially mistaken brachah!

    I think this case suffices as our yearly reminder that brachos are complex and that we must be as vigilant and mindful about what comes out of our mouths as we are about what goes in. ●

  • May One Shave or Get a Haircut On a Taanis (Fast day)?

    May One Shave or Get a Haircut On a Taanis (Fast day)?

    & Other Fasting Imponderables, such as fasting erev Shabbos, Fridays.

    January 2025

    I. Friday Fasting

    I’m writing this on the morning of Asarah B’Teves.

    It seems that every time this fast falls on Erev Shabbos, people forget that it is even possible…even though it happened just last year (2024)!

    This misconception is based on the halachic myth that one may not fast on an Erev Shabbos.

    This inaccuracy is likely inferred from the fact that when we have a nidcheh, a deferred ta’anis, we don’t observe it on a Friday (see Aruch Hashulchan, siman 470:4).

    However, the Shulchan Aruch informs us that anshei maaseh—very conscientious people—had the custom to fast every Erev Shabbos (Orach Chaim 249:3)!

    The Mishnah Brurah states that although it is no longer appropriate to take on this minhag, a person who will enjoy the Friday-night seudah more if he does not eat on Friday is allowed to adopt this practice.

    In our current calendar, Asarah B’Teves is the only one of the four ta’aneisim listed in Tanach (Zechariah 8:19) that can fall on Friday (siman 550 se’if kattan #10 in Mishnah Brurah; see also Meiri on Megillah 2a, as well as the Bach and the Taz).

    HOWEVER….Fasting on an Erev Shabbos could technically apply to any of the rabbinical fasts listed in Zechariah. Rather, in our calendar cycle they happen to never fall on Friday.

    As for a unique quality found only in Asarah B’Teves, the Avudraham (d. circa 1370) asserts that, for this date only (and Yom Kippur), if were to fall on Shabbos itself, we would not move it (see Beis Yosef, siman 550 at end; see also Aruch Hashulchan 549:2)!

    This view is solely academic since Asarah B’Teves could only fall on a Shabbos if Rosh Chodesh Teves falls on a Thursday, which can never happen in our system (Shulchan Aruch, siman 428:2; nor can Rosh Chodesh Teves fall on a Shabbos).

    II. Shaving/Haircuts on a Fast

    Because I am writing this on Erev Shabbos, I have been receiving many sh’eilos about shaving and haircuts. For example, I was asked whether the fact that we don’t cut our hair on a fast day eclipses the requirement to tidy ourselves up l’kavod Shabbos (see Rema, siman 260).

    A similar question was whether it is permissible to taste the food l’kavod Shabbos and then spit it out even though we don’t do so on a public ta’anis (Mishnah Brurah, siman 567:6).

    This is a popular sh’eilah even on a weekday fast. Others included whether it is permissible to listen to music or buy new clothing.

    The sole reference to cutting one’s hair on a fast day (cf. Tishah B’Av) is a famous gemara relating to Chanukah (Rosh Hashanah 18b). Here is the background.

    In galus, Chazal wished to nullify our observance of the days mentioned in Megillas Taanis. This sefer containsthe earliest recordings of 30-plus post-biblical salvations and their commemorations, and it is the original source for the events and laws of Chanukah. Although the other observances were annulled in time, Chazal made an exemption for Chanukah (see my upcoming sefer on Chanukah, iy”H, which explores this in depth).

    Rav Yehoshua ben Levi held that this sefer’s contents were not nullified, and he was therefore shocked when the town of Lud declared a fast on one of the days of Chanukah. His shock is not surprising since the name “Megillas Taanis” was given precisely because fasting is not allowed on most of the days it records (see the hakdamah to the Oz V’hadar ed.).

    In protest, Rav Yehoshua decided to take action to demonstrate to the populace his displeasure with observing a fast during these celebratory days. He got a haircut!

    Evidently, haircuts were known to be forbidden on a fast. Can we infer from here that it is indeed forbidden to cut one’s hair on a fast day?

    Well, the Shulchan Aruch states that all inuyim—discomforts such as not bathing and not anointing oneself—which are prohibited on Tishah B’Avare permissible on other rabbinical fasts (siman 550).

    The Mishnah Brurah adds that although it is permissible to do these things, “baal nefesh yachmir,” meaning that a conscientious person should be strict about abstaining from them—with the exception of wearing leather shoes, which even a baal nefesh wears on standard fast days.

    The Biur Heitiv states similarly, “Perhaps we should be machmir in these areas on the other fast days as well,” implying a more universal chumrah (siman 551, s.v. mei’rosh chodesh).

    But haircuts are not mentioned specifically, nor is the story about Rav Yehoshua. Wouldn’t this be a clear source, and also demonstrate that haircutting is not simply a chumrah?

    Enter Rav Chaim Pilagi (d. 1868), who ruled that it is forbidden to have one’s hair cut on a taanis, even citing the above gemara as his source! He states further that one should not even get a haircut the night before a taanis.

    He does say, however, that when a taanis falls on Erev Shabbos, a haircut would be allowed (Ruach Chaim, siman 566:4; see also shu”t Lev Chaim).

    But if the gemara is so clear, why do many say it is only a chumrah not to have a haircut on a weekday taanis? And if, for whatever reason, it is allowed, why should we establish a chumrah?(See, e.g., Rav Tuvya Goldstein in shu”t Emek Halachah, pg. 175, where he permits haircuts on a taanis but leans toward acting strictly.)

    The Acharonim point out that the above gemara is actually the source for both the allowance and the chumrah!

    Rav Yehoshua’s decision to have his hair cut on a taanis always seemed curious. If he wanted to protest the taanis, why not just eat and drink?

    The Shaagas Aryeh (d. 1785) lived over a hundred years before Rav Chaim Palagi and was the rav of the Ashkenazic community, as opposed to the revered Lev Chaim, who was a Sephardic leader in Izmir, Turkey. He raises many questions about Rav Yehoshua’s decision (Turei Even on Rosh Hashanah).

    To explain it, he interprets the gemara brilliantly, stating that Lud’s ta’anis must have been institutedby its own rabbanim, binding everyone to it—including rabbanim such as Rav Yehoshua who might have vehemently opposed it. Therefore, the only form of protest available was ceremonious in nature.

    The obvious conclusion, then, would be that this gemara and Rav Yehoshua’s decision are proof that a haircut is perforce allowed on a rabbinic fast, except that it is not in the spirit of the day. (Cf. Ritva, who also asks why Rav Yehoshua didn’t simply eat as a protest. He answers that Rav Yehoshua wanted to do something publicly. Perhaps the Ritva understood that Rav Yehoshua wouldn’t eat in a public domain, which the gemara compares to the behavior of dogs.)

    In summation, there is no clear prohibition against shaving or having one’s hair cut even on a weekday taanis (with the exception of Tishah B’Av). Rav Chaim Palagi’s opinion is a singular one.

    Nevertheless, and although it is not a halachah, we should try to be strict regarding haircuts, music, and other activities that may counter the spirit of mourning on a fast day (Dayan Fisher, shu”t Even Yisrael 7:28). ●

  • Bentching With Both Retzai & Yaaleh V’Yavo?

    Bentching With Both Retzai & Yaaleh V’Yavo?

    Bentching on a Motzai Shabbos Rosh Chodesh

    March 2024

    I. A-typical Timetable

    In a separate post, we shared how this year (5784- the year of this writing) is unique in that we will be leining the haftaros of Mikeitz, Tazria, and Kedoshim.
    Amazingly, the last time the haftarah of Tazria was last leined was in 5763- a gap of 21 years!

    This gap alone is a rarity: such a lengthy “drought” has only occurred three times in history —ending the years of 4180, 5537, and now, 5784.

    Statistically, the haftara of Mikeitz is leined in only 10.1 percent of years.

    But haftaras Kedoshim is the real anomaly, leined in just 5.8 percent of years, with a potential 44-year gap between readings! It’s leined only in a year exactly like this one—a 383-day leap year, when both Kislev and Cheshvan are 29 days, and Rosh Hashanah is on Shabbos.

    Typically, when Shabbos is Erev Rosh Chodesh, we lein the haftarah “Machar Chodesh.” However, this Erev Adar Sheini we didn’t because of Parshas Shekalim.

    I wondered how unique it is not to lein “Machar Chodesh” on a Shabbos Erev Rosh Chodesh and learned that it is surprisingly common, occurring on average 55 times every 100 years, and only when before Rosh Chodesh Nisan, Elul and Adar (I and II).

    However, unless a shul leins haftaros from a klaf, all of these curiosities don’t pose much of a challenge.

    But there is another calendar query that fools many people into thinking it’s rare when it’s actually relatively frequent.

    II. The ‘Commonly Rare’ Shaila

    The issue to which I refer occurs 182 times every 100 years, or 1.82 times per year. (Of these times 182 times, “Machar Chodesh” will be omitted 55 times.)

    I’m referring to the dilemma of a Sunday Rosh Chodesh.

    {Note: this issue can only arise in Nisan, Iyar, Sivan, Elul, Cheshvan, Kislev or Adar (I or II)}

    Each time this occurs, the same routine unfolds. The sponsor for the shul’s shalosh seudos lifts up the kos to lead the zimun, and the gabbai calls out, “Rabbi, it’s long past shekia. What should we do—say both Yaaleh V’yavo and Retzei? Or should we skip one of them?”

    Often, someone will wisely recognize this issue even before we wash. “Should we make sure to eat a certain amount of bread in a certain amount of time so as to minimize the sh’eilos with Yaaleh V’yavo?”

    III. The Rabbi’s Changing Mind

    The answers to some sh’eilos—especially those with no reigning ruling or minhag—can change based on the slightest nuances.

    For me, this was true with our bentching problem where, each time I go through all the technical issues, I seem to arrive at different conclusions. 

    The ambiguities of this case is whether the period of time ‘after dark, but before benthing’ should be treated as Shabbos, thus demanding Retzei, or whether it is Sunday, thereby Rosh Chodesh, and in which case Yaaleh V’yavo should be said.

    Why not just say both?
    Well, this is because they can’t both be true, as one is on Shabbos and the other on Sunday!

    Such dualities are often termed “tarti d’sasri,” or self-contradicting (see the very first Tosfos in all of Shas and to Beitzah 14a, s.v. “tarti”; see also Chayei Adam 118:5).

    The Shulchan Aruch rules (199:10; soo also 188:32) that a Shabbos or Yom Tov meal that extends into the night, when it is already technically the next day, is considered to belong to the time when the bread was first eaten. This would mean that it is still considered to be Shabbos (or Yom Tov). 

    (Based on this, many assume that they may continue eating after shekia, so long as they washed and began eating before. While this is true, many rule that it is only true for bread. Making a mezonos or another beracha before shekia may perhpas not allow one to continue eating similar-berach– items after shekia. Some are lenient for women. See siman 399, with achronim)

    This continuance is only active so long as one hasn’t yet davened Maariv; in fact, even saying, “Baruch hamavdil” before bentching should be avoided (see Shulchan Aruch Harav 188:17, Chayei Adam 47:24, and Mishnah Brurah 273:7. Regarding Al Hanissim, there is some debate).

    IV. Rosh Chodesh or Shabbos: Psak

    Based on the rule that the ‘day’ is tethered to the start of a meal, our question seems answered—so long as one began eating before shekia, if shalosh seudos extends into  the night, even though it is Rosh Chodesh, we consider it Shabbos and we say Retzei.

    If it were only so simple!

    The Chofetz Chaim writes that it’s possible in such a case for one to say Yaaleh V’yavo…and not Retzai!

    How? He was referring to a case where a person also eats a kezayis of bread after dark.

    The Choftez Chaim then writes that others disagree, ruling that one should say both Retzei and Yaaleh V’yavo in such a case (Mishnah Brurah, siman 188:33; see Magen Avraham on simanim 271:15 and 419:1).

    Perhaps we can now understand why the rabbi seems to change his mind from case to case!

    One may be thinking, “If this is such a common issue, just follow the great poskim.”

    Well, Rav Moshe Feinstein and others ruled that at such a shalosh seudos, if one eats a kezayis of bread only before dark  and not afterward, then he wold only recite Retzei.

    So why wouldn’t a rav announce this psak?

    The reason is that some people come late, or they don’t hear the announcement, or they may simply forget and eat more bread—commonly done without thinking, during the rabbi’s devar Torah.

    On top of that, Rav Moshe was not saying that this is the only option. He seems to say that one may instead choose to eat bread both before and after dark – and then say both Retzei and Yaaleh V’yavo!

    In fact, some poskim actually encourage people to do just that (Shulchan Aruch Harav, shu”t Be’er Moshe 1:5, all based on the Taz).

    Confusing matters, Rav Ovadia Yosef and others disagree, ruling that one should always only recite Retzei; explaining that the idea of not eating bread after dark is only a precaution to avoid a doubt and would not change the outcome.

    Rav Elyashiv agrees, also urging one not to eat bread after dark.

    However, both he and Rav Yosef rule that should one mistakenly eat bread after dark then he should in fact add Yaaleh V’yavo.

    Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach agrees with Rav Elyashiv but adds a leniency. He states that if one eats less than a kezayis after dark, or even if he eats more than this shiur but over a span longer than nine minutes, he would still be in the “Retzei only” camp.

    It comes out that in the average shul, where many eat a kezayis of bread both before and after dark (both times within the nine-minute window):

    • Rav Moshe would require both Retzei and Yaaleh V’yavo;
    • Rav Yosef would require only Retzei;Rav Auerbach and Rav Elyashiv might view this as a b’di’eved but still advise that both be said;
    • Chofetz Chaim would advise that one say only Yaaleh V’yavo!

    My “inconsistent” psak is dependent on what’s happening in the group. When I realize there is a concern about bentching, I reply based on what people may already have eaten and what can still be prevented.

    The Be’er Moshe (ibid.) records that he witnessed the Divrei Chaim of Sanz go out of his way to eat shalosh seudos early on such a Shabbos in order to avoid any question!

    May the zechus of investigating this matter be a protection from error! ●

    I wish to thank Rav Yosef Yehuda Weber of Toronto, who lent his expertise on the calendar; all mistakes are my own.

  • Is It True That One May Wait Less Time Before Eating Dairy on Shavuos?

    Is It True That One May Wait Less Time Before Eating Dairy on Shavuos?

    As Well As The Source For 6 Hours, Five Hours, Three Hours, etc.

    Shavuos, 2023

    Rabbi Moshe Taub

           My daughter is seriously allergic to all dairy foods. Her younger sister once turned to her and said, “I’m so jealous of you!”.

     “Why?” she asked.

    “Because you can never have milchigs”.

    “Wait, you’re envious of me for the fact I can never have milk, or cheese or even pizza?!”

    “Yes! Because that means that you never have to halachicly wait before eatinganything! That must be amazing!”

        We have all had that moment. We make the perfect coffee with cream, or that hot pizza arrives, and as we excitedly get ready to consume it, we suddenly remember that we are fleishigs.

           The halacha of waiting after the consumption of meat is unique in many ways. Rare is such a common day-to-day halacha observed in so many ways. Some wait one-hour, other six, and still others at all points in-between.

         Further confounding matters is the surprising view of some poskim who posit that on Shavuos one need not wait as long they would the rest of the year!

          In honor of Shavuos, let’s bring some clarity and focus to this often-misunderstood subject.

          It will also help demonstrate to the reader how our poskim sail the deep waters of the yam hatalmud so to provide to us what appears as ‘simple’ halacha.

    1. The Source

            ‘Not Eating Cheese After Meat’ is the Shulchan Aruch’s title (to siman 89). He opens, “One who eats any meat (even fowl) mustn’t have dairy after until six hours pass. Even if one waited this time, any meat found between one’s teeth must be removed…”. The poskim do not demand that we check for such meat in our teeth, unless there’s reason to assume it’s there (Darkei Teshuvah, et al.).

        Although this halacha as written seems pretty clear-cut, the original source is famously murky, leading to the many opinions we’ve all heard of.

         Rav Chisda states that while one may eat meat after eating cheese, one mustn’t eat dairy after meat (chullin 105a). Some understand this to mean that one simply needs to wash and clean out their mouth before having dairy (Rabbeinu Tam, et al.), while others explain that one must bentch and clear the meat-meal first (Rif, Ramban, et al.).

          Chazal then share the view of Mar Ukvah who required waiting ‘till the next meal’ in order to have dairy after meat. This would seem to support the second view above, that all that is needed is a separate meal (and washing one’s mouth).

          However, most other rishonim see this second statement as instructing us in a novel facet to Rav Chisda’s original rule: one must wait the length of time between meals; namely between the day and evening meals (Rambam, Rashbah, Rosh, et al.). And, even then, one would still have to first bencth and clear the table from their meat meal before eating dairy (Yam Shel Shlmo, Taz).

          II. Six Hours?

      Now we understand why the Shulchan Aruch, whose goal was to share just the simplified final halacha, just shares a ‘timeframe’.

          But how did he get to ‘Six Hours’ specifically?

            The Rambam is the first to give us this length, writing, “One who ate meat should not eat dairy until the length of a meal passes, which is about/approximately six hours” (hil. maachalos isuros, 9:28).

            Great, but where did the Rambam get this timeframe from? We all must remember -especially this time of year -that the Torah was only given once, and everything we do in our halachic lives must be based upon a mesorah of Torah sh’bksav u’baal peh. The Vilna Gaon and Rav Yonasan Eibishitz demonstrate that the Rambam learnt this from chazal who had already alluded to six hours being the standard length between meals (at least for Torah scholars, see shabbos 10a and pesachim 12b with Pleisi 89:3).

             However, there are other opinions.

      III. One Hour

        The Rema comments right after the words of the Shulchan Aruch above by sharing the view of Tosfos -that so long as one cleared the table, bentched and rinsed and washed one’s mouth, dairy is allowed immediately!

              He then codifies the halacha as follows: “The basic minhag in these parts (Ashkanaz) is to wait one hour and to bentch (and also clean-out mouth, Taz; cf. Shach), however, there are those who are careful to wait six hours after eating meat to dairy, and this is fitting to follow”.

                Because generations ago most readers’ grandparents accepted this latter view, it has become a true minhag, and the poskim offer harsh words to those who undermine it(Chachmas Adam, Aruch HaShulchan). However, in certain cases, like for someone ill, many poskim are lenient to allow a ‘six-hour’ person to wait just one hour.

              While it is unclear how the Rema came to the length of one hour (as he otherwise adopted the ‘bentching/washup’ view of Tosfos), most suggest that this hour was a protective measure(see Badei HaShulchan #21; cf. Biur HaGra).

             Many Dutch Jews keep the one-hour timeframe.

        IV. Three Hours?

              Many German Jews wait three hours after meat. Many are confounded as to the source of this length, as it is neither like the view of the time between meals, or the view of simply physically separating from one meal to the next.

                 A likely source for this minhag is the Pri Chodosh (d. 1698) who posits something fascinating. Even if we accept the six-hour view, it was not referring to the universal sixty-minute hours (shaos shavos), rather seasonal hours (shaos-zemanyos).

                To explain, ever wonder where ‘sixty minutes to an hour’ comes from?

                   Twice a year, during the equinox, every place on earth (save for the poles) experiences a day and night that’s of exactly equal length. Chazal taught us (and the world!) to divide that day’s light by twelve in honor of the shevatim (Pesikta Rabbasi 4:1). That is where sixty minutes come from!

             Shaos zemanyos, however, would demand that we ignore that twice-a-year ‘perfect day’s’ hour and rather divide each day’s own daylight by twelve, resulting in shorter ‘hours’ in the winter and longer hours in the summer. This is what we do for zman krias shma and many other halachos.

                 In Amsterdam, where the Pri Chodash lived (while collecting for the Kollel Yerushalaim), the shortest day (December 21) would only have a 38 minute hour or so, leaving us with a waiting time of 3-4 hours!

              However, some wonder if this would mean in the summer one would have to wait based off a 70-80 minute hour (see Pleisi)!

          V. Five-Plus/Five-and-Half Hours

              As we saw, the primary source for the six hours was the Rambam above. If one reads his words carefully, he states, “approximately six hours”. The Meiri even writes “six or five hours” (Magen Avos, inyan 9). Rav Ovadia Yosef reminds us that they didn’t have such sophisticated time measurement devices back then, so that these measurements certainly had to be approximations! (See shu”t Yabia Omer, 1: end of 4).

                Rav Ahron Kotler set as Lakewood policy a five and half hour waiting period to allow their learning schedule to work (Pesakim V’Teshuvos, #19).

                 Everyone must follow their custom, of course.

          VI. Shavuos

             The Rema shares the minhag of eating dairy on Shavuos (in past years we delved into the many fascinating reasons). Many of our halachos above now may become activated. For instance, may one start a dairy meal (not hard cheese) and rinse-up and then serve meat without bentching? The Mishneh Berrura allows this (494:16), as the obligation to bentch is only after meat (new cloth/dishware would still be needed). Others disagree (see Shlah, shavuos, s.v. ‘shavuos’).

                But what happens if one is invited out on a second night of Shavuos and the host is serving dairy, when the guest explains that it hasn’t been six hours from their meat seudah. The host explains that they only wait three hours!

             The guest may have what to rely on, as the Elyah Rabbah (d. 1712) and others bring from the 14th century Kol Bo that on Shavuos one need not wait the full six hours!

                Some sefarim quote Rav Elyashiv as accepting this allowance if one slept and only ate poultry (Piskei Teshuvos, new ed. Siman 494, note #127 from shu”t Yisah Yosef, oh”c 2:119), whearas others quote him rejecting this allowance (Dirshu, ibid. end of note #20).