HALACHIC AND HASHKAFIC ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY by By Rabbi Anthony Manning

good morning everybody roov thank you for coming uh it's wonderful to be in the shes when I walked in this morning I I didn't quite understand what was going on I thought we'd brought a whole new festive field to the shear downstairs um also confused me because I knew half the people in the room at the bris and didn't exactly know what was going on but we should always be moved aside for Simas um and uh hopefully we'll have a good share here if I could just reiterate um people should be careful with the drink if they have any I got a special header to have some cold water up here but uh that's hopefully all that we have I also have an announcement to make uh I was given a very last minute dedication for this year which I didn't even get a chance to print off um but I will be very happy to read to you if I can find it this should remind me also to ask you please to turn off your phones um the sponsorship is by Linda and Harry Brookner in memory of Linda's mother fager Yen Al shalam which Vilma Hollander whose yite is today I don't know if uh the brookers are here are they here excellent I don't know everybody's names so wonderful thank you very very much thank you for your sponsorship we really appreciate and the we better learn some good Torah uh on that basis if I could also announce in advance please um I will be away for the following two weeks um but in my place next week you will have another Mal inesh because you will have Rabbi konigsburg who is the Rob of the SCH here who will be speaking to you in this slot next week and the week after so I strongly encourage you to come along for that and then three weeks from today there will be I will be back hopefully and there will be a special morning of liim in preparation for khah it's called a y and I'm just the warmup act on that morning you have RAB wine speaking and other people speaking as well it should be a very exciting morning I'm looking forward to it very much that's 3 weeks from today okay now today's sh is a little bit different from normal because what I'm doing with you this week as promised is I'm going through some of the issues that the Ethiopian beta Israel encountered halachically when they came to erit Israel last week we looked at the background we looked at the history um but as I said last week the the beta Isel were a Torah observant Community for centuries if not Millennia but when they came to erit Israel they found a halakic system which was on the whole completely foreign to them they did not have a system of um they had obviously a tradition that was passed down from family to family from Kess to Kess a lot of that tradition was in their Coan the Kim and we'll talk about that too and many questions arose and I've written some of these questions are they allowed to continue with their traditional practices in Israel even though it goes against the are they Bound by the if they are allowed how long are they permitted is it just the first generation should the second generation be actively conforming with the halakic system um should there be any difference between Ethiopians who were born in Ethiopia and can connect that system may be more traditionally and people who were born here what like Ethiopia is just in the history for them you know my great grandparents came from Lithuania I'm okay I suppose I'm you know Lithuanian in certain minhag but I don't really connect with entirely what was going on there um are they Bound by the we'll see soon that's a question even if they're Bound by why should they be getting the from the they're not Asim and they're not or are they did did they take on if like the uh the halic practices of rabadi because of their connection with him we talked a little bit about that last time and if not from the where where should they get their from what about the rambam well they're not yemenites the yemenites very much connect with the rambam for historical reasons or or are they yanites maybe there is an ancient connection with the tamman community maybe we should be going right back to the Babylonian talmud even if we say yes you have to conform with halaka who said the halaka is mishura or or or rav's chuat um maybe we should be going back to the Babylonian talmood and we'll talk a little bit about that okay so let's just start with a little bit on the literature of the BET Israel they have no books other than the Orit the Orit which of course is connected with the word the Arabic word or meaning the Torah theit is actually not a pentat it's an octat okay so they have five Books of Moses of plus and and Roots why Roots well we're used to connecting roots with the other mot it comes later in the tanak with est and Etc but of course Roots chronologically speaking is part of seph or is connected with seph it's all happening at the time of seph so how they have that as the Orit but that tanak which is much bigger of course than the ORS the tanak includes not just the 24 books of the tanak that we have but it also includes many more books there are actually 68 books in their tanak and they comprise not only the books of our tanak but also many of the books that found their way into the Septuagint now there's a lot of history here the Septuagint was a translation tumim of the Torah into Greek now there are many different accounts of how the Septuagint was was produced there's one in the gamarra Pho has a different one Josephus has a different approach to this there are midrashim but the septu includes many of the books that now the Christians called or later academics called the Apocrypha and the pseudepigrapha the Apocrypha are books that didn't quite get into either the Old Testament or as the Christians would have at the New Testament and there are many apocryphal books that found their way into the Beta Israel's uh tradition for example the book of bar the book of the makim uh the book of the book of tvia toit The Book of udit and many of these books by the way are referenced by kazal some of them Ben is referenced by kazal and yud is referenced by the ramban but they also have from the pseudepigraphy the pigra are other books that were written around that period that for various mean reasons didn't get into the Apocrypha either they're are a collection of books for example the book of jubilees saim and that's going to be very important for us today I don't know how familiar you are with saim I'm a little bit familiar but not very for many centuries the only translation we had of the book of jubilees which is a second temple uh book from the 2 Century BC the only translation we had was from G from the Ethiopian language because they are the ones that that protected and maintained these books not just them but the Ethiopian Church don't forget the ethopian church also uses the septo and they also use gays as their lur iCal and canonical language and therefore the church which protected many of these books were only protected by the Ethiopians for years they're in ethiopic so the BET Isel also connect with saim and we'll see soon this has a real impact on their halic approach to things like Shabbat Etc now as I mentioned they use this language g g is not a spoken language um by the Ethiopian people the Kim the priests know it they learn it they read it and then they translate it into Amharic and into languages which the Ethiopians speak but that itself means that a lot of the learning is restricted to the to the priests because they are the ones that really have access to the books in the original to to all of the tanak that they have but the most of the people are really going to the priests for that there are legends that the BET Israel had Hebrew books but they nonexist non- remain um and uh and what they have is what I just described they also have a somewhat smaller Cannon of what we would call midic material and we're going to quote from one of those called I'm probably pronouncing this wrong theat which talks mostly about Shabbat and it's a kind of midrash where Shabbat and God and the Jewish people are talking to each other about Shabbat oriented things and there are 22 lines in there which we need to look at which is there if you like Shabbat laws that they that they bring down as well um okay fine so let's let's jump into it there are two uh real places that I would suggest that you look for further reading as I said they don't have um the gamorra they don't have the mishna they don't have the G they don't obviously have the rim that happened Theon since then they were cut off in many ways the Ethiopian tradition is a living ganesa it's like we discovered this repository of Customs rol bin is very interested he's R is a very you know interesting person generally uh and he likes innovating in certain way way he was my son's madik kushin where which was a whole experience in and of itself many of the Ros Yesa in the room watching were watching with some consternation as raviol was innovating Newman Haim at the wedding that that's a whole that's a whole conversation in and of itself um but the Ethiopians are very much like a a Ganer that emerged um from from an ancient time and just appeared so we can see in some way ancient Judaism represented in their practices which we may be used to do to some degree but then moved past as the Torah shabal peras the oral law developed Hal um and there are two books which I recommend to you one of them is this one this book uh is called from sin Ethiopia it's by Rabbi Shon Shalom who I bumped into I mentioned last week in America and have connected with this book is also in Hebrew this is an English translation a very good English translation of the book he gives the history in the background to Ethiopian jury and he also includes something called it where he calls a theit is their law the is like the new um of the Ethiopians and he says look it's not necessarily for everybody but he's basically for the first time recorded the following the Ethiopian practice the halakic practice on those areas and then his suggested compromise for the Ethiopian Community when they come to Israel which we're going to see some of those very interesting once today so that's one book that book is actually available free on safaria if you're if you ever Ed safaria safaria is growing at an exponential rate and they uploaded many books and his book obviously with permission I'm sure his book is there so you can just go on to Safari and just put from Sinai to Ethiopia you can read the whole book online um the other book which I recommend is a book called or orer and or writer in the book is written Orit with the other letters spelling or writer which is by RAV M Solomon who is another RAV both of them came through gusion uh he wrote a book about um on based on the parer but bringing in lots of Ethiopian ideas the two have very different approaches and what I want to do with you today is I want to first of all read you what I've called the Conformity approach which is I've extracted six or seven pieces from r m Solomon's book where he says that his approach is basically the Ethiopians have to tow the line they have to come in they have to keep they have to keep Jewish minhagim where Poss possible and they can keep their own only where they don't contradict the so basically they're like any other Jewish community that is banned by the with a few exceptions Rabbi sh Rabbi Shalom has a completely different approach and you'll see some of theakim he gives a very uh Innovative where he feels that the Ethiopians should continue their practice at least into the first generation when they come here they can't be required to just you know turn on a dime if you like and go from being you know Jews who felt they were keeping tath for thousands of years potentially and suddenly be placed in Israel and being asked to do things which according to them are completely prohibited completely prohibited for example having a Brit mean Shabbat they say is completely prohibited fasting on Shabbat is completely prohibited it it for them carries the death penalty even when yonip falls on Shabbat what are you going to do with that and therefore we're going to see some examples from uh from Rabbi Shon shalom's book um and we'll see how that goes but first let's look together um quite a lot of the sources are in English today because I brought them from this book I didn't feel there was any point in us getting through them all in Hebrew um but I brought you RF Solomon in Hebrew here have a look at number one so he starts off by saying let's be clear he says we have a very ancient tradition says RAF Solomon about the Ethiopians number one SE this is not the book here but this is his book or writer I've written this book for my family we should we have to move onwards this amazing tradition he says there such an ancient amazing tradition that's not belittle it the many of the the the they throw lights without any question they give us a window onto what we as a Jewish Community used to do before kazal if you like um developed rabic Judaism in the way that we know it today this represents therefore for other communi like like I said a living from a past age many of the that I'm going to talk about in this book you can find hint of them in the pre mishic books the like the PO books books even some ancient and I would mention this as well saim the book of jubilees contains within it some of what we came later are called midashim that we find in the mid we find them 3 four 500 years earlier in the seph Yim meaning though life did not start with the midashim the MIM reflects older practices he says you see this with the Ethiopians okay many times we we've forgotten this old picture from our Collective conscience and it looks to us that they're coming to us with a completely strange which came from somewhere else the and that's not justifiable meaning don't think that oh who are these Ethiopians they've just picked up all this stuff from living on their own in 2,000 years in Ethiopia they represent an ancient authentic Jewish M however number two a sa and again he has this all in different places in the book I've collected them all together for you AA there is on the other hand no question there is no question that um they they they have developed if you like many which are not really relevant to Ethiopian Jews at all to our great pain the the gut the the person persecutions and the the communities they lived in have forced them if you like like every other K you know the sparin picked upot from North Africa and the ashin picked up stuff from Poland do we and they also picked some stuff and therefore the Ethiopians for sure are coming with things which do not reflect the ancient Jewish tradition they reflect stuff they picked up in Africa so how how are we going to that and today he says we now have to they have to make big big efforts to get rid of all of the false gods just like yov did in his time he's being here in on the par when yob tells his family to put aside all the false gods and then to hang on to all the authentic stuff I I feel a little bit like he's a gnik speaking here as well uh because he is a gnik as well and he's saying like have to get rid of all theot all the all of the uh um the stuff which is uh um you know superstitious Etc I know I grew up in a very polish Lithuanian ashkanazi home all sorts of weird stuff my parents did my grandparents did and they do this and they touched this and they threw this and and they never cut anything on me and they made me wear my shirt backwards and I have to wash this hand and then a lot of the stuff was nonsense a lot of the stuff was real so he said the the what we need to to cut through here is to get to the real Mas and and throw away and jettison the stuff which is not real okay good number three sorry this is slightly smaller print but this is a very important paragraph and he says here many of them in that came later from the Jewish community apple and honey Som Galia Galia it's interesting he puts apple and honey together with some Galia you know apple and honey is comes like very is in the okay fine they didn't keep any of that and he makes an important point the only people that really learned Torah in the sense that they had it even were very were individuals not the general population for and they really had no oral law they only learned the written law the regular people they didn't learn because they felt the Torah was too holy okay they had a very uh you know I might say Catholic rather than Protestant if you know what I mean attitude that the priests learn the Torah they have the traditions and we do what they say and we don't have we shouldn't have maybe personal access to the scriptures ourselves they didn't read them they didn't speak gays they didn't read gays etc etc so he says that's a reality which is very different from us very culturally different the rabbis introduced in in ter shabal maybe even this was the case before a very broad access to a democratization of Torah learning everybody should be learning Torah even when raang gam if you remember the goras was trying to keep the yeshivas more Elite that everyone who came to Yeshiva had to be kubar had to match pass a certain bar of ethics and virtue etc etc when they got rid of rabang gam when they deposed him the famous story there gar and bras they immediately open the doors of the Yeshiva everybody who wants to learn can learn ah you're not such a big sadic okay you'll become a big sadic through learning so we have a very broad we take it for granted that we have a broad access attitude to Torah says they didn't have this from some perspectives the Torah Ethiopia um stayed where it was but it didn't develop it didn't move on from the time of it didn't develop and they didn't get into the depths ofas of of the and they certainly didn't have the revolution of RAB who brought the mishna and more importantly the idea on which the mission is based which is the what is the justification for writing the oral law developing the oral law producing the whole system that the mission and the Gomorrah produces and the way produced it it's the rabbis understood in we have to act forem because otherwise the Torah will be lost that itself is very radical the Ethiopians just didn't have that they had the but they didn't inter interpreted in that way so the whole attitude of what we take for granted as being Judaism they didn't have that at all they were very very conservative from this and by the way you can trace this perhaps even to the debates between the Pharisees and the Sadducees the pushim and theim and theim were much more conservative and they wouldn't interpret the suim and they took much more literally what was going on in the Pim who became K were much more Innovative and H and shamai there's a lot of history to talk there they very much represented the Mas from what was Shai and not that St him themselves but that whole approach have a look here second paragraph and therefore when we're trying to work out how to keep there's it's not possible for we they didn't have that therefore very many differences developed in Min between us and Them [Music] we had all these influences for thousands of years they were completely foreign to Ethiopia and therefore we the the rest of the Jewish people which come who come across you know this new way of this Ethiopian way of doing things we fill in all sorts of details that they never had because of their great Detachment isolation although however they didn't have this this familiarity this depth of learning that we have the Ethiopians in the god of Israel okay was absolutely CL Crystal clear the Jews of Ethiopia were they they sacrificed what was the most dear to them they died to stick to their faith the way they kept the way they kept Etc their own practice they really wanted to do it right Etc um and now in Israel we've seen a different way so he says you shouldn't for one second think that the Ethiopians hadn't given their their very lives to keep this Torah they shouldn't be critiqued in any way for not having developed it but at the end of the day what are we going to do F so now you'll see his approach in number four my Approach is as follows now which is he dealing with here on the Festival of which they celebrate on the 29th of and usually on the afternoon it'ses so no one says Tak I mean they didn't really have takon anyway but none of us say Tak because it's when Sig falls on Shabbat they bring s forward to the raban said bring it forward to Thursday so they bring it forward to Thursday okay so it's Thursday so should when they D on should they say very technical question so look at what said look at number four it seems to me whenever it comes to the of the Ethiopian people if the contradicts you have to follow the has to go except for very unusual cases but in this particular case so he says what is Sig C is not just one big party they they eat afterwards a lot but it's a day of it's a day of it's not really a he says in the way that you think of I don't know as a and therefore you have to say now I found this remarkable in in Judaism more broadly especially with every single excuse they have to drop T ton is the first thing that goes you know I've been to airports so many sometimes You' have in the JFK coming back to Israel and it's always the that make them in you never say I was like why today what's going on why are we not saying Tak there's always this and there's always that on once one guy said to me we're all happy we're getting on a plane going back to AR Isel we're not going to say now again R Solomon is a briska I mean he's he's he's a lak Ethiopian he's coming out of the the Bas of Med in G and he say no no I'm sorry you've got to say even you can't drop everybody else drops ton no even ton he really applies it all the way through what about that number six the Ethiopians have a number five rather completely different way of daving they didn't have the same structure of that we have uh in the rest of the Jewish World now we have a clear and now and they do that because not everybody knows how to DAV have given us fixed pray so the Ethiopians have to fall in line what about their traditional prayers what about the things they've been saying for thousands of years or at least hundreds of years he says but we can't get rid of our completely the Ethiopians can of course work in spontan their own spontaneous look like they did in ethiop meaning whenever we're allowed and not only allowed but encouraged and we don't always do this to put our own private spontaneous prayer in he said of course they can and they should but where must Min Ethiopia fit within the if the allows you to say spontaneous prayer okay you can say you're Ethiopian minhag our Ethiopian mhag he's Ethiopian but if it doesn't no I'm sorry so again he's allowing the minhag but only in very strict uh in very strict guidelines where it can actually uh fit in with a a very clear halaki practice with with almost no compromises number six this our last quote from RAV Solomon he is a product of G but he's a product of R Lev R Lev you may or may not know H he was my son's Rosa my son went through the Cola in harion and he is a brilliant brilliant haist he's the son-in-law of r ra David Levi from the the chief Rabbi in Tel Aviv I think it's coincidental they have the same name um and but he's a very down thee line Hally conservative little sea poek he does no the gush sometimes has this name for being who like anything goes they do all these Innovative things yes very much in tanak but not so much in leaving RAV uh as side for now okay I remember one particular expression of this I mentioned this before um actually I'll tell you exactly when it was many years ago when when Barack Obama was coming to the end of his tenure and there was this whole question as to there were there were resolutions coming up in the in the United Nations security Council that they were trying to to get in quickly before Donald Trump took over very very similar to the times we live in now and there was a whole question are they going to pass a bad one a worse one a better one etc etc and there was a really bad one planned in the end there was a not so great one passed anyway but they were going to do something worse and uh it was vetoed not by the Americans I think the Egyptians pulled it or something like that I don't remember exactly and r y been was so excited Ra raon was away that chabas he and he'd asked ra R to give Thea he stood up on stage and he said this is such good news for the Jews even if it could all go wrong again next week which to some degree it did um he said he says I'm going to stand up and I'm going to say and he stood up on there in front of the sh he said he said sh this and ra mosha liin couldn't contain himself he was sitting there listening he went no like this like this like it was unbel and then everyone and you had this battle of the Titans and afterwards they very good natured you know talked it through so I'm just sharing that with you was a very remarkable situation um so so you have coming out of the gush different ideas and r the rash was relatively you know conservative look at number six now almost everybody in the Ethiopian world is well informed what's he talking about here the Ethiopians had a practice when they used to greet each other men and women they used to shake hands and they used to kiss on the cheek now they had very clear guidelines of snut in a very natural sense they were very dignified and very mod people and this was considered a completely non event you know everyone just kiss on the cheek and a shake of the hand squeeze of the hand he said now everybody knows the even though the Ethiopian Jews find it very difficult to pull away from this we have to do everything we can this was great back in Ethiopia ethiop now things are different Israel is a very different place Israel is a land which is exposed to Western prits it's not like it was in Ethiopia things are different here if you want to shake hands when you say hello to to kiss on the cheek and this was part of a much bigger that they they kept very carefully there that shake of the hand that kiss on the cheek had no connotation of anything sexual at all in the very different atmosphere we're in Israel with the incident everything excuse me in all of the media exposure now people will explain a kiss on the cheek as uh something which is uh potentially sexual I mean you could argue with this even in today's world as to whether a kiss on the cheek is necessarily or not necessarily sexual that's a different question not getting into now certainly You could argue a handshake and there are many gim V and major poim that will absolutely insist that a from man will shake a hand of of a woman suddenly when she puts a hand out leaving that aside and therefore he says so told me on this issue the Ethiopians are not allowed to touch people either now together with that and then he says if there going to be it's going to be insulted maybe it's different but if he's just bringing in the regular here especially he says with elderly people where there's clearly no connotation of of anything sexual so but he's bringing inim that anyway apply to everybody when it comes to these issues but in principle he says they absolutely need to keep the and the kiss on the cheek which the Ethiopians will'll see soon from ra Shalom the the the Ethiopians were very upset when they said you can't do that they said what do you why are you telling us that you you you you're accusing us of inappropriate behavior how dare you we've been doing this for Millennia no one ever had a we have better better sne than you could ever dream of and now we can't give each other a kiss on the cheek ra sh Shalom says no you can he disagrees completely with this approach and says for the Ethiopians it's okay so we'll see in a minute how that works so what we've seen so far is a very interesting approach by R Solomon which is very conservative that'll see follow the keep your only where they fit completely into the halakic system now let's turn to ra Shalom ra Shalom writes an introduction where he sets out his 13 rules for how he's going to apply Ethiopian let's have a look at these quickly and the rest of the sh will largely be English but let's have a look at this here Source number seven on page four he says was written out of a person need a way to sear serve God thus the reader should not consider this work as intended for the public okay you know that's what all authors say I'm sure he wants people to read it but he is a very humble person I know him personally still some may find it useful for Paving personal Parts within their respective spiritual Worlds the goal of this work is to collect the customs of the BET isra community and to preserve Customs that were transmitted orally three this book presents a halakic method that Returns the crown of glor its ancient glory for Ethiopian Jews so that's already a big departure he sees this work as going back restoring the Ethiopian minhag to its rightful place it does not intend to negate other methods meaning I'm not going to argue with Rabbi Solomon if he wants to do that then that's they know each other obviously four to show the connection between different Customs I give the outside the alongside the Ethiopian Customs it's a very good summary actually of our number five Ethiopian Jewish Customs are very ancient apparently preceding T era th Terah Scholars can use them to study talmudic issues now that's interesting using the Ethiopian lens to understand understand better ancient Judaism and rinic Judaism then um number six preservation of these Customs is a value while keeping them is an emotional need therefore we should not feel obligated to keep customs in any situation we sometimes we do have to drop things seven this work intends to remove barriers and promote friendship not to create obstacles therefore in case of conflict Unity precedes other considerations now that's interesting using a sort of met says where one of the major factors is going to be is this is my going to create this Unity eight in this work educational social concerns are factors in hierarchic decision of whether to keep a custom or anull it nine a custom that creates conflict between a married couple should be annuled we'll talk about that soon number 10 if a custom creates a conflict among me members of the Ethiopian community and there's no solution other than to anull it then the unity of the community takes precedence and the customs should be annuled number 11 the first generation of Ethiopian Jews in Israel will continue to practice their customs without consideration for other issues that's a very interesting comment that means you're going to have Ethiopian Jews eating chicken in a cream sauce in the privacy of their own home first generation okay we must demonstrate maximum understanding towards these Customs the second generation should be permitted to consider that continue their ancestral Customs but with other considerations applying number 12 some customs that were practicing Ethiopia should be ceased completely even amongst first generation Ethiopian immigrants among these are certain Ethiopian Customs to give precedence to keeping mitzvot over saving a life we'll see the Egyptians gave precedence to mitzvot the Egyptians excuse me the Ethiopians gave precedence to mitzvot over in any situation over life no the other way around no guess that way around sorry getting confused keep the Mitzvah even if you're going to die because if you if you're going to die that's what Hashem wants Hashem wants you to do the Mitzvah and if that God forbid results in a death that's very tragic that's very unfortunate but the Mitzvah takes priority he says that has to be dropped because of we have to even though that's a rabic understanding and lastly the talmud not the takes presidence as aak guide for Ethiopian jeury which actually very interestingly is a throwback to the ashaz strange as it seems when the sh was introduced largely the the popular reception of the sh was largely the theim the spim sory because it was primarily aardi work ra yosf Caro is the is the the vast majority of the sh and of course the bet that came before it this idea of drawing a line under the previous moving forward with a new system based on his according to the majority of the ri the rambam and the Raj theim really kind of bought into this the ashkenazim were very unhappy many of them if you look at the M you look at the maharal if you look at the B they're very unhappy with the Innovation they say the way that we work in as is we go back to the talud you master the whole talmud you work out from the immense complexity of the talud what the should be and if you can't do that you ask someone who can and that becomes the and you don't just look it up in a book putting everything in a book it's going to it's going to crystallize it's going to freeze it it's not going to allow it the kind of innovation so interestingly ra Shalom is suggesting for the Ethiopians what the original ashkenazim after the sh wanted to do all along I don't know if he's doing that consciously in the end who won the or the as I actually think the ash in one no thear was not according to those people I mentioned the was part of the problem not part of the solution he made it a little bit better but the what did the ashim do to the they turned it back into the talm meaning the original was meant to be just a little handbook it was in your pocket you review it every 30 days and you do what it says now you open a and it's got 25 commentaries all around it almost every single one ashkanazi that's how they riged their revenge on the sh they accepted it but turned it back into a work of limo that's how they they won in the it's actually very very interesting how they did that um and it's a peculiarly ashkanazi thing okay let's get into some of these mitzvot Shabbat so as I mentioned to you one of the few written texts that the Ethiopian Jews had as a h let's call it text is these 22 two lines from theat which talks the mid about Shabbat let's read it together number eight these are the Commandments of the Sabbath that I wrote for thee and all the laws and prescriptions of the Sabbath now this is not from the Torah this is from their text six days shalt thou labor but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord now already you recognize this this is from Ten Commandments in it you shall do no work neither you nor your women nor your sons nor your daughters nor your men servants nor your maid servants nor your cattle nor your family nor the strangers that are with you he who labors in it shall die so far no big surprises that's basically what the Torah says says two he who profanes this day shall die okay that's breaking Shabbat could I ask you just to turn off the phone please thank you very much whoever can find it and turn it off okay well I'm sure it'll it'll it'll get there okay uh number three He Who Lies with his wife on the Sabbath shall die what are we going to do about that he who argues or speaks aloud or seeks a quarrel He Who buys or sells on that day shall die meaning there's no rabbinic level here there's no it's Assa but it's Potter it's either allowed or it's death that's how it works again maybe what was more the case in the the kind of pre rubinic interpretation age um he five he who draws water from a streaming spring or who argues or curses or blasphemes on that day shall die you have to watch how you talk on shabas and again many of these ideas came into of course we have to speak differently on Shabbat but it's not for them it is he who prepares not what he will eat drink or give on the Sabbath who lies or who lies shall die seven he who carries anything who takes something from his tent or brings something into it shall die eight thou shalt do no work whatsoever on the Sabbath but use that which you prepared on Friday Sabbath is the day on which to eat to drink to be satiated to be filled with drink to rest to study to lie down to be quiet to celebrate and to worship without doing any work nine he who works on my Sabbath travels or goes on a journey does any work in his field or his house Kindles the fire sits in the sun shall die if he doesn't die from sitting in the sun already I suspect number 10 he who rides on any Beast or travels in a boat he who strikes or kills or fornicates shall die now just for a second there's a very interesting gamor where the Sanhedrin took a man who was riding a horse on Shabbat and they gave him the death penalty and the gamorra has a whole analysis how could that be it's a draon and they come up with a well they had to make a point for a very specific situation and they had to do that it's not normal well here you see actually there was a whole stream of thought that if you ride on a horse that is a death penalty event was that part of it as well that's an interesting example maybe of using the Ethiopian practice to relearn how where the tal mod was coming from 10 uh we just did that 11 he who fasts on the Sabbath shall die 12 he who does any manner of work on my Sabbath shall die thus shall the children of Israel be holy and celebrate the Sabbath according to the Commandments as they are written on the two tables which or tablets which God gave to me that I might write down the law from for thee from now on and throughout all generations and the Sabbath says to God a little bit more mik I was with thee when that created the he did create the heaven oh Lord give me thy consent and send me not meaning I don't want says the shabas the following people on my shabas the unjust the slanderers the quarrelsome the treacherous drive me not away towards those who strike me with their spittle can't spit who sit in the sun who wash not with water you didn't you didn't go to the Mikvah before shabas who lie with women who purify not Their Manners who cover not there it's not clear what that word should be who throw away their spittle quench not their fire meaning you've got to put your fire out on Friday you can't have your candles or your fire burning on shabas and accept not my Commandments as to the women and here's the complaint they need their dough they cook they draw water they Crush in the mortar they shout they neglect my Commandments and they rebuke their neighbors interesting all things which are not allowed on Shabbat some of these of course Mal cooking and and crushing which is interesting as well so what are we going to do by the way this is comes very clearly uh from this the book of jubilees I brought you in the footnote in number seven the wording at the end of the book of jubilees where which which this seems very much to be connected with so let's look at some H issues shabas candles the Ethiopians didn't have shabas candles obviously they put them out because they can't have fires burning they didn't like them it's not that they put them out they put all fires out what should they do now should they light candles number nine rabbi Shalom lighting shabas candles has become a very special MIT for the Jewish people one that is much loved by those who perform it the candles bring calm and peace to the home create a special spiritual atmosphere and lead to family togetherness lighting candles is a clear sign of a Jewish hope thus Ethiopian Jews who find it very difficult to light candles may continue the custom of not lighting but those who understand that this practice has special import particularly to the younger generation should light especially since the lighting takes place before Shabbat begins okay so basically what does he say try light candles if you really can't then you can't what about hot food the Ethiopians had no hot food on Shabbat the is very concerned about this because this was a karite custom and we have all sorts of minhagim that we've innovated in order to have hot food on Shabbat chalant no who's quite sure where chalant comes from but it may come from the two French words show and laun which is hot and slow which makes sense a way that you can have halachically permissible hot food on Shabbat um we now have NS and we have platters and we have all sorts of timers and this and that and the other but the Ethiopians didn't want anything of that they actually considered to be totally prohibited and when the kessin came R Sharon says rasham says when the Kim came and they saw these hot plates coming on on chabas on tyus or or or they were astounded that the Jews didn't know how to keep chabas number 10 one who considers use of the electric hot plate or of the source of he's violation of shabas say was the case in Ethiopia may continue to follow the ancestral custom this should not be considered a caride practice meaning let them be C on shabas ah it looks like you're a caride no since their motivations are different as the radas wrote we saw last week they're not carides in any case the Ethiopian Jews consider use of a hot plate like use of a real fire in the world of Ethiopian jewy what counts is the end result and not the method of warming well for the sages debate on this issue focus on the manner of warming the food don't forget our gamorra is very conceptual very abstract it's not just that they didn't have the details of the gamarra they didn't have the methodology of the gamorra we turn turn H into a very conceptualized area it's not it's not what you it's not the result it's the method Etc they they don't have any they just don't think that way it's heating it's heating still the second generation of Ethiopian Jews who have become accustomed to reality in Israel will consider eating cold food to be detrimental to the enjoyment of Shabbat and they therefore they can warm things up and they're not called violating their Ethiopian Min okay good wine the Ethiopians Associated the Ethiopian Jews Associated wine with a VOD of Zoro and the church and they they were most sish to keep themselves apart from the church and obviously they didn't produce wine there in Africa it wasn't a a grape uh Harvest uh location and they said wine bore evil spirits they said anyone who drinks wine is an idol worshiper so should they make kdes on wine number 11 says Rabbi Shalom the first generation of Ethiopian Jews who denigrate wine as a symbol of aara are not required to say the blessing of wine on Shabbat but the second generation has only got a transformation and they can use wine if they want to continue to say the blessing on bread they can do so don't forget you can make hot on bread you can make Kish excuse me on bread certainly on Friday night you can make kesan bread so you want to make kesan bread make kesan bread and then you avoid the problem shabas morning you don't even have to have wine you could have a Medina you could have another drink you could have a cup of tea a cup of coffee if you really want to so there are other opportunities to do KES and therefore he tries to make this sure but what are we going to do about marital relations on Shabbat that the Ethiopians were horrified by and considered to be a death penalty um uh event how are we going to do that look at number 12 says ra Shalom because the prohibition is mentioned in the book of jubilees and early work and it source is an ancient custom practiced amongst Jewish groups in the sages times I would like to propose a new reason for specifying the teror scholars should have relations on Shabbat um basically he then says that he thinks that kazal said that Shabbat is a good time to for a husband and wife to have sexual relations in order to go against groups factional groups uh that's uh that's heterodox groups like The sadim Etc that that were fighting them on many other areas in summary second paragraph We may say the strict observance of the laws of Purity which led the BET Israel to prib this practice was followed by certain sect during the second temple time thus we should not disparage Ethiopian Jews who today continue to refrain from relations on Shabbat what was their problem the problem was Tuma they kept the laws of Tuma and Tara very carefully and a couple who engages in sexual relations become tame now for us we are used to being tame we're all tame all of the time we don't go to the B of mdash we don't bring coras we don't eat kin we manage perfectly well being T so there's no there's no there's no na There's no practical difference if a couple become more t or less T they were very very careful they were running to the river all the time to go to the Mah every time they had an interaction with a non-jew they went to the Mikvah and therefore you're going to tell me on shabas the the most holy day of the year holier than y Kipper we're going to make us become tame that's an outrage and therefore he says okay so you know something don't don't you don't have to have relations the sages opposition should be understood in the light of the struggle against the kides but today is not a heretical custom so we should permit those who wish to prefer their ancestral customs and then says on the other hand those who say they don't want to keep that and they do want to follow the the rinic approach on this that's okay as well but that's very very interesting um in a minute we'll get to an even more uh stressed issue which is the issue of Nida and what they did and how they're going to do it now they live in Israel Over the page page seven according to the traditional Ethiopian practice Shabbat could not be broken to Save a Life no Mitzvah could be broken to Save a Life okay even a Brit Mila if the baby was not well no the Brit Mila has to be done on the eth day unless it's Shabbat so it's actually everything opposite the Brit mil could not be done on Shabbat for them it had to be delayed whereas do it on Shabbat but a br on an unwell child had to be done because if God wants the child to live the child will live what do we do about this in if you did that it's t amounts of murder you know someone even even ask a Shila on Shabbat should I break Shabbat to save this person's life it's as if they murdered them they should just save it act now and ask a Shila later if if if time is of the essence so look at what sh Shalom says number 13 although the Ethiopian custom is based on an ancient method the sages writing on the value of Life have penetrated the depths of Jewish Consciousness very interesting here he says well Jewish Consciousness says you can't do this this is absolutely forbidden to continue to follow the Ethiopian custom and the beta Israel must immediately adopt the general Jewish custom for all issues of saving life I think that's very interesting because like why uh he could say look you know why why is their consciousness of who lives and who dies necessarily any different from our Consciousness we're very but he says no that's an issue on which there has to be a change um we're not going to be uh sympathetic or tolerant of Ethiopian minhagim however on other issues we are They Carried money on Shabbat they had a they used to give stalker on shabas they used to you know give money on shabas I mean that occasionally happens we had a situation in London where some American G came and they gave him an air and he wasn't observant and and the Gaba asked him you know would you like to make a donation to The SCH so says fine he whips a checkbook out in his pen shabas you know in the sh says how much shall I write no no not quite now so the the uh the Ethiopians carried money to sh they didn't have Muka Muka is a rabbi construction so he says number 14 in various locations in Israel in synagogues of the Ethiopian communi the congre bring cash to the synagogue those who follow the want to follow the customer bringing should continue to bring so if you go to an Ethiopian sh maybe you you know they people have the cash has the money is designated for use on chabas in the Ethiopian World which is based on trust we do not suspect that the person might use this money for other purposes on shabas we believe that the individual wishes to serve God and one who did not want to do so would not attend synagogue in our world suspicion is a foreign world word that that's also interesting the kazal created a whole raft of Hal for people who would look at other people and suspect them you can't do this even though you're not doing anything wrong because it's or people are going we're very judgy he says the Ethiopians just didn't have that nobody looked at somebody else if they had cash nobody even thought that they'd be buying something if they were going to buy something they wouldn't be in the community because they wouldn't be part of it very interesting very pure sistic religion he says so let them bring the cash and for some reason umbrellas were very important I imagine the sun was part of it but the Ethiopian Jews particular the Kim walk around carrying umbrellas all the time and he said therefore they can carry an umbrella on chabas and if it's raining then you know it also Reigns in Ethiopia by the way maybe the umbrellas were for the rain and therefore he says Ethiopians can carry umbrellas on shabas even though they other people don't it's not entirely clear by the way why we can't carry umbrellas on shabas if we open them before shabas and that's a whole share that I gave about umbrellas on chabas but he says they don't need to worry about him so if you see an Ethiopian in the street with an umbrella on chabas then don't be surprised muas they didn't keep mza no one knows why maybe they didn't have houses that they felt were you know warranted a muuza they had constructions obviously now he say they have to keep muuza we're not sure why they didn't keep it then Fillin they didn't wear tfillin seems to have got lost although he says his grandfather wore a kind of sort of amulet with black straps which is very interesting in fact the word fatory in uh in English means more like an amulet or a Talisman of some kind so he said no the Ethiopians should now wear Propet fill in or at least those ones that they used to wear in Ethiopia which of course are not Kosher 300 ah yeah there's no kabad houseis but there probably is now probably is out so you can read about that let's look at toita and family Purity page eight the beta Israel were very observant of Tom and Tara and basically um this applied not just to menstruation but to childbirth uh sexual relations like I've said before contact with non-jews contact with non kosha food they considered made them T contact with the dead obviously and therefore a woman was considered to be impure if she menstruated for 7 Days that's the law of Nida in the Torah and if she had a baby 40 Days for a boy 80 days for a girl so what did they do all Jewish villages in Ethiopia had a a Hut which they called the the house of blood or the Hut of the curse that the women when they were menstruating or when they were tamy after having given birth they would go down and the only people allowed there were women um and nursing babies because obviously there were a lot of women in these places with newborn children I was thinking as I wrote this how did anybody sleep when the the entire place was full of screaming babies you know all in one place I'm sure they just managed and they did just fine but they they the women went down there family would bring food gifts stand outside there was a stone wall between the the rest of the village and this fence um husband and wife separated for seven days at the end of the seventh day after menstruation the wife went to immerse in the river and purify herself and then came home um they didn't have any of the seven clean days which we have today today our need is is a combination of Nida and Zava where a woman gets a he seara stops bleeding she keeps seven clean days they didn't have that that's in the gamorra and therefore what should they do now and of course don't forget when the Ethiopians came and people said to them well if your wife is needa just separate the beds that's fine was horrendous to them are you serious how can we we going to share the same bedroom not even like move bedrooms what about going to a move out of the house to someone else's house and therefore he says number 18 says ra Shalom the women of the Ethiopian Community should continue to immerse themselves on Seventh day after Sunset which is not when women go to the Mikvah today they getar and they wait another seven days seven Clean Days in the final analysis this is the biblical commandment and the community didn't take on the Tamil districy the second generation May adopt it the goal of marital Harmony and National Unity has a great value which supersedes other values that's very interesting these women are keeping therefore what you might call n or writer which was the seven days and this has become a whole discussion as to is that ever a legitimate option for anyone else uh which the rabbis are very clearly the answer is no but the Ethiopian community and ra Solomon I'm sure would say no but the the r Sharon says yes as far as the nidah Hut is concerned he says the BET Israel may continue to follow the ancient custom however they should realize that reality in Israel is different from the reality they enable the practice of this custom today it's almost impossible for a mother of a family to leave the home for an extended period therefore it's preferable not to remove the woman from the home for educational or familial reasons as an alternative we may propose sleeping in separate beds and in this manner the Customs preserved while the family Unity is unharmed if the family educational system of marital Harmony permits we may even propose sleeping in separate rooms the Ethiopian Jews are permitted to follow their custom and this is not problematic okay very interesting has you have to find a Pasar you have to find a way through also what about Mika They didn't accept Mikvah they said that the nid has to go to Mikvah to toal I should say in flowing water in May so they're going to turn around to our mikas in Israel and say not Kosher we're not going to do that we're going to go to the Sea now they can go to the Sea it's not so straightforward so go to the m and the Sea logistically and hierarchically but what should they do and he says they should basically be educated to try and follow Mikvah as we know it today uh in fact the opposite today to go to to mikah in a river in a flowing river could actually be a problem Hally but he wants them to fall in line with Mikvah and he said actually it's a problem because there are Ethiopians who won't use the Mikvah and therefore don't use anything and it's turning into a worse problem because they're not going to the Mikvah at all because they don't like the setup of the Mikvah they're not used to it and he says therefore they need to fall in line I brought you number nine a little bit about Miler page nine rather bris on chabas we talked about um a woman mile very interesting the uh the Ethiopians only the women did pra so what happens if they want a woman a woman moed if that's the word he says fine because they should have a woman M if they can find someone who's qualified meaning you know seora was a Moet and a woman although seor was aan which might make it a little bit different not for now but he said if they can find a lady who's qualified then um then no no problem at all coming of age he said the Ethiopian coming of age was age seven and they made the kids fast on yum ker from Seven he says they should follow the general practice today and make it 12 and 13 um just very quickly just the last couple of things I'll mention to you um the kissing and shaking hands he was he's very unhappy with the approach we read before he said no it's not a problem if they want to continue to do that they should be allowed to do that it's honestly not sexual at all um castas is very interesting they didn't have castas of meat the way we do they didn't salt it and soak it they used to um cut it into little pieces wash it and hang it up to dry now that's just tra as far as we're concerned can they continue with that so you'll read what he puts in 25 he actually says some people can which is very interesting meat and milk um they didn't wait between meat and milk why would they wait between meat and milk and they ate chicken with milk so what should they do so he said they shouldn't really eat chicken with milk and if they do it should be inside first generation indoors and as far as waiting is concerned they should wait but they can wait one hour so all of those young women who say to me I want to marry a Dutchman so I can wait 1 hour I'm now going to advise an either a Dutchman or an Ethiopian certainly with with Rabbi Shalom as his RAV that's going to be that's going to be your answer um interactions with non-jews he encouraged them to to go further and let's just to uh to to go beyond their previous approach and let's just finish with a segue into khah look number 29 he says should they keep Kaneka they never heard of Kaneka he says the B Isel should follow the general Jewish custom today the entire communities got to this beautiful custom of Kaneka so we observe haneka candles lit in Ethiopian homes as well the phenomenon proves the distinction of the rvas May between the eth J Ethiopian Jews and the karides in other words when the Ethiopians return to the land of Israel they will not object to accepting Mitzvah that were handed down or through the mission in the tal and the Mitzvah of khah is a good example of this willingness and with that we will segue because RAB goad is here we will segue into khah in 3 weeks from now um please come next week to hear um to hear the sh here even though I'm not here um andem we will see you in 3 weeks from now