Category: Torah Riddles

Posted on

Torah Riddles #223

Question: Why does the logic of zeh vizeh gorem help for if salt was added onto a salted dish on the fire but the logic would not help to allow one to read from a fire that was lit by a non-Jew for a Jew on Shabbos right before his light went out?

 Background:

A. The Mishna Berura (318:9:73) brings down that there is an argument whether adding salt in a kli rishon off the flame is considered cooking on Shabbos, but definitely adding salt onto a pot of food on the flame is forbidden, either way it is permissible to eat the food because the salt is nullified on top of the food. But this is only because the food that was salted before Shabbos because both the salt that was put on permissibly before Shabbos and the salt that was put into the pot prohibitively on Shabbos, i.e., zeh vizeh gorem, one can eat it.

 B. If a person has a candle and because the light is so weak, he can’t read and he transgressed and asked a non-Jew to light a candle for him, it says earlier in the Mishna Berura (276:4:32) that it is forbidden to read from that light.

 Answer: Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach (Dirshu 81) explains that only in regards to salt, that after salt is put on the food it melts and is not recognizable, the Rabbis permitted eating it because zeh vizeh gorem but by the candles, where the added light is recognizable by all, therefore it forbidden to benefit from it.

Posted on

Torah Riddles #222

Question: Why does Rav Elyashiv poskin that if you can’t find the person you decided to give tzedaka to you can give it to someone else?

Background:

A.    The Mishna Berura (694:2:6) says that one should not switch Purim money with other tzedaka. Specifically, the Gabbaim, but a poor person can do what he wants with the money. Meaning that the money collected has to be given out for the needs of purim. The Beis Yosef, quoting Haghos Ashr”i says that money, that one thinks in his heart, he wants to give out to the poor on Purim, should not be changed. The reason is because he holds that tzedaka is like hekdesh and you have to fulfill what’s in your thoughts, even if you don’t say them out.

B.      Aruch Hashulchan (Yoreh Deah 258:39) says that you can’t change only if you decisively decided in your heart to give to a certain person or place, but if you only thought you want to give this amount everyone agrees you don’t have to fulfill what you thought.

C.     Rav Elyashiv, therefore, poskins that one should not decisively think to give money to a certain gabbai tzedaka if you are unsure if you will find him, rather you should think in your mind that you have no decision until it reaches the intended hands. But both the Chazon Ish and Rav Elyashiv poskin that if you decide to give money to a certain poor person and you can’t find him then you can give it to some other poor person. Why?

D.    We say, Erev Rosh Hashanah by hataras nedarim, “In case I forget the conditions of this declaration and I make a vow from this day onward, from this moment I retroactively regret them and declare them that they are all totally nullified and void, without effect and without validity and they shall not take effect at all. Regarding them all, I regret them from this time and forever. ”

Answer: Rav Elyashiv says that because you can rely on the declaration made by the annul of vows on Erev Rosh Hashanah, since the vow was only in one’s thoughts, then you can give it to another poor person because you must not have decisively decided to give it to a specific person as retroactively revealed by the declaration.

Posted on

Torah Riddles #221

 Question: Why does Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach allow teenage girls to sing on buses, like on a class trip if they have a Jewish male bus driver? (Even if one or two girls are singing louder than the rest.)

Background:

A.    The Mishna Berura (75:3:17) says one should be careful to not listen to a woman singing while reciting the Shema, even your wife, but her normal voice is fine. Other than while reciting the Shema a single girl’s voice is technically not considered forbidden, however now a days we treat her as a nidda who is forbidden just as a married woman or any other illicit relation, and even a non-Jewish woman, are all forbidden for men to listen to them singing. The concern is that it might lead to forbidden thought which possibly could lead to forbidden action.

Answer: While he is driving, he is too busy focusing on the road or distracted by his job so we aren’t concerned that he is really listening to the girls singing. (See Dirshu footnote 27.)

Posted on

Torah Riddles #220

Question: Why does the Aderes hold you can say a regular refua shleima, that you would say during the week, to a sick person you are visiting on Yom Tov?

Background:

A.    The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 287:1) says that one can comfort mourners on Shabbos and can also visit the sick. But he should not say to a sick person the same thing he would say during the week, but rather, “Shabbos one should not cry out, and the healing should come near…” (Shabbos hee mi’lizok u’refuah krova lavo…)

B.     The Dirshu Mishna Berura (footnote 1 here) brings a Shevet Yehuda which explains that through screaming out in anguish over one who is sick , one will ask for mercy to Hashem for the sick person. This is considered asking for personal needs which is forbidden on Shabbos. The Mekor Hachaim says the same expression we say on Shabbos should be said on Yom Tov. However the Aderes argues.

C.     We are more lenient on Yom tov to ask for personal need (at least in specific circumstances) as we say the prayer of “Ribono Shel Olam” when we take out the Torah.

 Answer: Since on yom tov we are more lenient to ask for personal needs then on Shabbos that is why saying refuah shleima would be permissible on yom tov, even though we don’t ask for our own personal need at the end of Shemone esray on Yom Tov. We only beseech the prayers that were officially set up by Chaza”l.

Posted on

Torah Riddles #219

 Question: Why does Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach poskin that you should say shehecheyanu on a new tallis after you say the bracha on the tallis but for a new fruit you first say shehecheyanu then the bracha on the fruit to eat it?

Background:

A. The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 225:3) says that one who sees a new fruit formed from year to year blesses a shehecheyanu. Even if he sees it in his friend’s hand or on the tree. Our custom is to make the blessing when we eat it.

B. The Mishna Berura (10) says that the main enactment of saying shehecheyanu for a fruit is because of the joy in one’s heart that one feels over the sprouting (or ripening) of a new fruit. In Mishna Berura (11) he says that the reason for the custom of saying shehecheyanu by eating it is because if one doesn’t get joy out of seeing it he will certainly get joy out of eating it. The Pri Megadim says that ideally one should make the blessing of shehecheyanu first then the blessing on the fruit and eat it, or make the blessing on the fruit, take a small bite then say shehecheyanu, but technically if you say the blessing on the fruit then shehecheyanu, and then take a bite that is fine too.

 C. The enjoyment of a new tallis is a personal enjoyment.

Answer: Since the enjoyment of a tallis is personal then he has to first wear it to enjoy it then he can say shehecheyanu but by a fruit where the shehecheyanu is for the new fruit that sprout which is an enjoyment for any Jew, it’s not personal, therefore the blessing of shehecheyanu comes first even if you will be saying it when you eat it.

Posted on

Torah Riddles #218

Question: Why does Rav Elyashiv say frozen chicken, even if it won’t defrost by itself in a room temperature room is not muktzah on Shabbos?

Background:

A. The Mishna Berura 308:31:125 says that there are people who eat or just swallow raw meat even if not salted. As long as the blood on the outside is washed off it is kosher because the blood on the inside is kosher until it comes out. Therefore, the raw meat is not muktzah. This type of meat that can be swallowed is dove or chick meat. Even if it is spoiled it is not muktzah because it can be eaten by the dogs.

 B. Rav Shmuel Wasner poskins that if the meat was frozen then it is definitely muktzah if it won’t defrost until after shabbos.

 Answer: If one can hasten the defrosting then it is not muktzah, for example by soaking it in water or putting it on a heating element like a heater or anything which wouldn’t cook it. (See Dirshu footnote #127, in the back page 31.)

Posted on

Torah Riddles #217

Question: Why doesn’t a person go blind after taking 500 big steps?

Background:

 A. The Mishna Berura (301:1:1) Says , based on a pasuk, “And he shall honor it from what he does on your ways” refers to the fact that the way you walk on Shabbos should not be the way you walk during the week, for it is the way of people to rush and run to their business. And even during the week one shouldn’t take big steps because it takes 1/500th away of one’s eyesight. It just that on Shabbos there is also a prohibition dating back from the times of the prophets.

B. Tosfos in Taanis 10b “p’sia” says that only the first step will take away eyesight because it’s only 1/500 each big step.

 Answer: Either you can say he gets used to taking big steps so the eyes adjust or every beginning if something is harsh but after continuing then each steps gets weaker and weaker and only takes 1/500 of the previous 1/500th that was lost.

Posted on

Torah Riddles #216

1.       Question: Why do friends of the Chosson put on tefillin now a days (from time of the Rema) throughout sheva brachos even though it’s possible they might get drunk and are then forbidden to don tefillin?

Background:

A. In the Mishna Berura (38:7) the Mechaber writes that a chosson and his friends who are joyous with him and all those connected to the chupa are exempt from tefillin because it’s possible that it will lead to drunkenness and lightheaded atmosphere.

B. The Chofetz Chaim in Mishna Berura (23) says that the Teshuvas Rema (132) poskins that now a days where even the chosson is required to say krias Shema and shemone esray (see siman 70), then automatically the chosson and anyone associated with the chupa are obligated in putting on tefillin. The Olas Tamid and Birkay Yosef poskin like this Rema.

C. Concept in halacha that if you are involved with one mitzvah you are exempt from the other. D. The Shulcham Aruch says 70:3 that if one marries a virgin, he is exempt from saying krias shema the first 3 days of marriage because he is too busy being involved with the mitzva of marriage. But that was originally, but now a days where people normally do not have proper intent in the davening any ways then even a chosson says the shema.

  Answer: The level of fulfilling a mitzvah is lower now a days so just as the chosson cannot fulfill his mitzvah to the biggest capacity so too his friends don’t have the heter to drink since they are expected to fulfill their mitzvah to the highest capacity.

Posted on

Torah Riddles Question #215

1.       Question: Why does Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe Orach Chaim 2:77) poskin that if a Jew purposefully carries keys in the public domain in order to open the shul then the congregants may not enter the shul until it is relocked and opened by a non-Jew, since the congregants walking in are benefiting from the door being opened, however he says in (1:126:3-4) that one is only forbidden to benefit from the prohibition of Shabbos for his own benefit if transgressed but one may benefit if it is for the sake of a mitzvah, like here where they are going to daven in shul? (See Dirshu Mishna Berura 318 footnote 28 and page 39 footnote 9.)

Background:

A.      The Mishna Berura 318:1 says there is a rabbinic fine that one may not ever get any benefit from a Torah prohibition that he himself purposefully transgressed and others must wait until after Shabbos to benefit from it.

B.      The Be’ur halacha (2nd one in the siman) quotes a Chaye Adam that though this fine only applies to prohibitions which caused the actual object to change like by cooking or planting, or lighting a fire but, for example carrying in the public domain doesn’t change the object carried at all, but still you should be strict and not benefit from the object carried, at least until after Shabbos.

 Answer: Because there is an easy solution of ow to fix the problem by getting a non-Jew to reopen it then it’s considered benefit for yourself to walk through the do that was opened by the Jew and not for the sake of a mitzva.

Posted on

Torah Riddles #214

Question: Why when you forget to say Birkas haTorah ahava rabba can count as saying Birkas haTorah only if you learn immediately after davening but let say you slept the whole entire day and didn’t say Birkas haTorah but davened mincha/maariv early with a minyan before it was dark, then the Shema counts as learning after Ahavas olam? 

Background:

A. The Mishna Berura 47:7:13 says the blessing of ‘Ahavas Olam’ takes care of birkas haTorah if you learn immediately after davening without any interruptions. This applies in the morning (for Ashkenazim we say ‘ahava rabba’) or in the evening, for example if someone took a few hour nap in tbe day according to the opinion you have to birkas HaTorah and even those that are lenient it does not hurt to have in mind birkas haTorah when saying ‘ahavas olam’ during maariv.

B. The Mishna Berura (17) says that the reason why you have to learn right after davening is because it’s not apparent you are saying ahava rabba for the mitzva of learning Torah since it’s being said during another mitzvah, of davening. Rav Elyashiv adds that even though Shema can be considered Torah learning but because it’s being said for another mitzvah of krias Shema, which is a mitzva to be recited in the morning and at night once it is dark and the stars are out, and the bracha at the end of ahava rabba does not talk about learning Torah rather the love of Hashem for the Jews then without learning right after davening it’s not apparent it was said for Birkas haTorah.

 Answer: The Dirshu (note 22) quotes a Teshuvas Hisorirus that because you recited Shema of maariv too early and it would have to be repeated once it got dark then it is apparent that the paragraph of Ahavas olam was said for Birkas haTorah and the Shema was used for learning.