Washing Hands - Part 2 - Rabbi Reuven Lauffer

[Music] today we are gathered here today on this solemn occasion to try to learn a few of the laws of handwashing before eating bread uh there are rather a lot of them actually as I just mentioned when we finish this and we move on to the of of you know two having two loaves of bread for chabas you'll see that the is a lot shorter it's it's just an interesting thing how how detailed and how complex theas of washing your hands are um it's best not to wash your hands in the bathroom now we need to try to understand a little bit about the over here of bathroom in general because when the alaka talks about a bathroom it's not it's not really talking about the bathrooms that we have today bathrooms that we have today are very hygienic they're very clean um I'm not talking about dormatory bathrooms I'm just talking about you know a generic bathroom uh they're very hygienic they're very clean there's nothing left there after it's all been Flushed Away uh in the olden days bathrooms were truly you know pretty pretty nasty places to go into um so today it's interesting um is it okay today to go into a bathroom if that's the only sink that's there in order to wash your hands and then step outside to make the broa so the answer is yes it's better not to do it if you can avoid it but if it's not avoidable then that's what's o okay to be done what you need to make sure you do is that once you've washed your hands inside of the bathroom that you come out your hand should still be wet when you come out of the bathroom which means don't dry them off in there and then come out but rather come outside and wash them and then make the brocker outside so for example you know you could be in all kinds of different places where the only sink available is a sink that's in the bathroom so that's what you need to do here for example if you fly right you know as far as I'm aware uh airplanes don't have sinks for natila Shad anywhere not yet anyway not yet right um but uh so how you supposed to wash your hands so you here You' have to wash your hands using some kind of a vessel wash your hands in the bathroom and then step outside and you also have to make sure there's no smell around that's also a little bit of a problem with things like airplanes when you're in a a very uh constricted area and the air is being you're not really getting fresh air over there it's air that's being what's it called re something recycled recycled thank you I saw a woman on L just making nesia dime in the aisle where where did the water should I she P the floor to she pulled she was pouring water out of the cup onto her hands and it was just ping onto the floor okay I I would actually say if this if this lady I'm being serious now if this lady feels I mean there are opinions that that you shouldn't wash your hands in bathrooms good right so if this lady is following the more stringent opinion and she does not want to wash her hands inside of the bathroom I think that's perfectly okay I don't think it's okay to wash your hands in the aisle though which means you know if you want to to don't wash your hands right or if you can have a little container underneath you and just you know just catch the water and get rid of it somehow the keeping the hands wet so you can make the BR part is that just for if you have to wash your hands in the bathroom cuz there's no other option or is that for all handwashing in general cuz I've been I've been keeping my hands wet to make the braa every time no that's good that's great really really you should you should come out hold up your hands make the broa and then dry them afterwards that's the correct way to do it so you're doing the right thing I'm just a lot of people though tend to at least dry off their hands you know get rid of a lot of the moisture before they start making the broccol which is not really the correct thing to do um but as far as there's a requirement is it only requirement if you have to wash in the bathroom or no I I think you should be doing that anyway actually I think it is the the correct thing to do um if possible again it's not going to be possible on something like a uh on something like an airplane but if it's possible you can uh take you can take the water from the bathroom take it out of the bathroom and wash your hands say for example you know the only the only uh sink available is a sink inside of a bathroom but you're eating you're having a picnic and you're going to wash your hands outside you can fill up your Nisha dime cup up from the water from the you know from the tap that's in the bathroom and then step outside and wash your hands but it's problematic to to waste it to the water just fall onto the ground no it's not not for this water only for the water you use when you get up in the morning oh okay right this water is okay um okay what do we do if you want to go you you need to go to the bathroom and you need to wash your hands for the till your dime as well right which very very often happens you're just about to start the Su and before the Su begins you want to just quickly go to the bathroom so what should you do what's the problem the problem is like this if you make the BR of as you come out of the bathroom and you wash your hands and you make the BR of and then you make the BR of then you've made a gap between washing your hands and making the bro if you say and then say the BR the BR you recite when you come out of the bathroom and then you make Comey so you've made a gap between washing your hands and making H if you wash your hands make say and then say and after you've eaten the bread you then say so you've made a gap between having finished in the bathroom and having made the blessing now the truth is like this until when let's just go off on a sid track for a minute until when can you recite the BR the blessing of coming out of the bathroom so until you need to go to the bathroom again because the whole time that you don't need to go to the bathroom again you're getting how know you're getting benefit from the fact that you were there in the bathroom the first time and then you can make the broa the whole time even if you forgot you came out and you forgot and later on you realized but you don't need to go to the back to the bathroom yet so that's okay right but over here what what are we supposed to do over here so again there two different approaches one approach is that you wash your hands and you recite Asha Y and then you wash your hands again and you make uh and then you make the until straight afterwards right that's one option the second option is that you wash your hands you make sure your hands are still wet and you make the Bro of as which is the bro you make coming out of the bathroom and then afterwards whilst your hands are still wet you make the Bro of and then you can go and you can make straight away afterwards okay here just a a little a little what do we say what's yeah d right di is in the plural because you're washing both your hands what BR do you recite when a person if they can only wash one hand so I mentioned the other day that my mother-in-law has broken her wrist and uh she now could only wash one hand when she comes to wash her hands because the other one has got a a a cast on it so she would also recite the BR of why is that we don't change as a rule we don't change the lotion we don't change the language that was used that was introduced at the time of the great rabbis to make a br even when only one hand is being washed over here there is an opinion which says that if only one hand is being washed that you shouldn't make a br at all again that's opinion of the which is the opinion you should follow I think the opinion to follow is a regular opinion which is should make the BR of you make the even though you're only washing one hand but again you know if some didn't didn't make the BR so fine they can rely on the who says that it's okay that's that's actually the better thing to do he says um what what do you do somebody's made the BR until it's di they then they decide they don't want to eat now it is possible it might be difficult for Yesa Bim to be able to relate you know food is food right doesn't matter what it looks like you just got to eat it right uh but it is conceivable that you might have somebody who comes in washes his hands to eat and then realizes that he doesn't want to eat after all for whatever the reason he doesn't want to eat it's a problem what's a problem because you now made what's called AAL right which is what you've said God's name you said the BR for no reason because the only reason to make the BR is to eat bread if you're not going to eat bread then you've made a br for no reason whatsoever so the best thing to do in a situation like that is to eat a little bit of bread and then to at least you've made the hamo you can eat enough bread just to be able to have to bench afterwards and then you've done what you need to have done that's the best thing to do what if you can't I what if you you've made her Moy and then you realize someone says to you oh no this is Mis oh if it's m the truth is if if it's if it's mazonas then that's good news for you because if you eat enough mazonas and you were intending to make a meal out of it so then you should wash and you should say which is good right that's good for you which means that let's say you know you get you get one of these s somebody's giving you a sandwich right so you go and you wash and you come back and then after you see it says in the sand little sticker which says mazus right now uh you know what are you supposed to do with something like that again if you're being if you're making a meal out of this so yeah you should you should wash and bench over it anyway that's a lot less complicated what do you do if you've made an antil dime for example and somebody gives you a roll which is made out of I don't know rice flour which is not that's not uh that you know that's not even though you might make a Maus over it because of the problem with rice but in general it's not something that you can bench over afterwards so then what does one do so you made a Brer that you shouldn't have made but it was made inadvertently it wasn't your fault so it's a lot less problematic then would you bench or not you wouldn't bench at the end if it's something that you're not supposed to bench over right so uh again if you a new BR and then just let it be let it be you say let just get on with things what's happened you've washed on a till your dime and you sat down and then somebody says to you by the way before you started eating somebody say by the way you know that thing over there that you're eating is really Shaka it's glutenfree um yeah then at that point you would make a shakle over it and you would eat it and at the end of having eat it you would just make a regular bot which is the shortest after blessing that there is once you've washed your hands back to washing your hands once you've wash your hands and you made the broa you need to dry your hands very well you should not be making amoi with wet hands okay which means you've got to you've got to the the Lo kazal in the gamar it's the gar in s kazal say that if somebody eats bread with wet hands it's as if they're eating impure bread right because if you remember the reason for washing the hands to begin with is to wash off the impurities if some of the impurities still left on your hands together with the water and then it's it touches the bread so now what have you done um the mishna bah says Ah what about if you use a lot of water to wash your hands with so now it's not a problem all the impurities have gone so he says nevertheless it's a do of mos is considered to be a a disgusting thing to do and you shouldn't eat bread with wet hands you you should dry your hands very well um you should dry your hands on something right which means so either a towel paper towel something like that right oh so say this is all right you should use something to dry your hands with but the ID if there's no other alternative it is permissible to either use a machine right the machines that throw out hot air and you dry your hands by holding them underneath not on shabas unless it's been or or you or you can you can air dry your hands right air dry your hands for those of you who are not sure is going like that a towel that's very wet now this could be a problem here in the yiva for example I imagine the truth is now that they Pro they probably use paper towels nowadays but when I when I first came to Yeshiva nobody used paper tow it was much too expensive and they just had towels that were you know towels that were like they were sewn together on a on a rod and you just have that in Stand they're terribly terribly unhygienic they come of replaced them when the in Yesa for sure they came in rep place them I think if I'm not mistaken I think it was pretty regular they came once over Rish or something and they uh maybe maybe once every other Rish but whatever it was definitely regular for sure replaced it yeah cuz there were things growing on it it was definitely a problem of uh you know sing and uh whatever anyway the the uh every y um if you've got a if you've got a very wet towel then it's it's a problem it it's probably better it's Pro it's probably better to I was going to say to dry air your hands but I won to to Jazz air your hands rather than to use a very wet towel now again bash most places use uh paper towels nowadays which is a a far a far far better thing to do that's for sure um don't dry your hands on your clothing even though you might be tempted to do so if there's no nothing else to use over there certainly not your shirt that's actually brought it's brought down in the H not to do that um so air Dr is preferable to using your clothing yes yes uh the gamor actually says now again it says that W wiping your wet hands on your shirt is causes people to forget their learning again I I don't really understand the sort of like the the the more mystical Dimensions that revolve around this but definitely as far as we're concerned as a practical Dimension it's not something you should do of course if you do dry your hands on your shirt and it causes you to forget your tah learning then you'll be able to dry your hands on your shirt afterwards afterwards without being the least bit bothered by it because wait a minute there's something wasn't there something I can't know what it is anyway um so it's better it's better not to do that that um again like I said you know if you if you don't have any other Alternatives so you can definitely air dry your hands that's okay um you know what one one last for today but uh when you come to when you come to uh make hamo when you come to make the antila dime you come to wash your hands you should make sure that what you need in order for the suda is ready right which means you need the bread right you can't go wash your hands and then go into the kitchen and start looking around for the roll where did you put the rolls and or even start baking uh you know what okay that that's a little that's a little ridiculous but you know you can't to warm up your roll you can't pop it into the toaster oven or something everything needs to be ready right you should have your knife and your salt over there ready to be able to make the broa straight away afterwards because we want to make as small of a gap as possible between washing our hands and making the broer of course we all understand that when you're in a large Gathering so when you're say for example in a shabbaton and your everyone's gone to wash the first people that wash are going to be waiting a while until the person who makes H is able to make H because everybody's got to come and sit down that's okay when the Gap is only to do with the Practical dimension of waiting for the Bro to be recited that's okay however you need to keep in mind that you're sitting and waiting for the h not not to be thinking of other things in the interim it's all this if that's the case it's a problem right I think it's a problem let's say you're having chicken soup okay and by and you wanted to you know you know what let me put some bread I forgot completely about M and everything do you then you remember wait a minute I'm eating bread you make right you should get up even though you've started right you should get up and you should wash your hands you should make you should find yourself a piece of bread that hasn't that hasn't been dunked in the uhp in the soup make hamo and then continue eating the bread you have to be careful you should know that you know they serve croutons right what are croutons bread that's been fried or baked with a little bit of spices in order to put put into things put into salads put it into soup uh you have to be careful because most croutons require you to wash your hands not those tiny yellow ones those tiny little yellow ones are not no they're okay and interesting enough again theas are a little bit complicated but if the thing has been made in order to in order you know it's been baked or fried and cut up and made in order to be croutons it's a lot less complicated so there are croutons that you can buy that are little little cubes of bread actually they they're okay you don't have to you don't have to wash for them but most places right especially when you got to restaurants what what do they do with their left over stuff they make them they turn them into croutons it's it's a very good thing otherwise this thing is going to be thrown away it's going to it's going to go to waste right for that kind of stuff you need to know you know whatever your wife or your mother decides that she's making homemade croutons and she just takes some bread and she however you make it fry it or bake it or whatever it is you need to know that you need to wash over that stuff yeah I think it's a problem once you've washed your hands and you're waiting right all of the all of this all of these conversations that take place with an any woods I don't think there's very much difference between between that and speaking right so the or with the hands right you know all all of that kind of stuff it's a problem because it says that you're supposed to remember the whole time once you've washed your hands you waiting for the BR to be recited you're supposed to be remembering that what you're doing is waiting for the BR to be recited you're not supposed to be doing anything else you're really not so for example it does say you're allowed to ask if there's no salt on the table right and you're trying to get somebody to realize you need salt they're not picking up the hint you can say salt so what you go like this nobody realizes what it is that you're like you know and if it doesn't work so it's permissible even though even though you've washed your hands and you're not supposed to be speaking it is permissible for you to say salt in order to have the salt brought to the table can you say please if you're English no one no one else uses that word it's very Antiquated you know that does somewhat date dates you you know it's like a anyway okay we're going to stop over here it's hasem if you do speak yes like here I was in Burger's bar last night and I washed and then the guy called me over to collect my food and he started speaking to me like I had to speak what should I have then done what what you really should have done is that you should you should have sat down and taken a made made a m take a bite and then go back but okay I didn't so so what I did was I went back and I washed washed game without a broa without BR yeah okay yeah okay but in case especially when you're you know this is Jewish restaurants that they're used to they're used to people not cooperating that's for sure you know how was the burger it was amazing what are the times you [Music] don't