Q&A: Hate Mail, Carrying Guns & Autopsy Halacha (HaRav Yitzchak Breitowitz)

week was about the six heroes and the fact that in many a Sephardic siddur and there are 10. I just want to go over something here. Uh the idea that you have to mention uh the six remembrances uh comes from the Mekubalim, largely the Arizal and then the Chida. And the six that are in the siddur, the six are remember Mitzrayim, it's to remember every day, remember uh you stood at Har Sinai, uh remember the evil of Amalek, remember the sin of the Agel, remember Miriam and the sin of lashon hara, and remember Shabbos. Now, in all of these cases, the Torah said the word remember, remember, remember. So, that's why we remember. We say them. Now, the Sephardim add uh four altogether. And uh as I looked at as I looked at it more carefully, I have an answer for why we don't include Ashkenazim don't include two, but two others are in Tzarichin. Uh the four they add is a pasuk that says remember uh what you went through in the desert when Hashem gave you the man. That's one that they add. Then they add a general pasuk, remember that it is God who nosein lachem koach, he gave you the power. La'asot chayil, that's number two. Number three is a pasuk in Micha, Micha, remember what Bil'am tried to do to you when Hashem saved you. And the last one they add is uh do not forget that you shall I am im eshkechech Yerushalayim, I should forget my right hand. Now, I understand, I can give you a good answer, I think, why we don't why Ashkenazim don't put in those last two because they only put in the six heroes in the Torah. And the last two, uh one is from Micha, that's one about Bil'am, and one is in Tehillim, so that's not included. Uh but I actually don't have uh I don't remember everything I said last yesterday I actually don't have a good answer why Ashkenazim don't include the man which is in Torah and don't include the pasuk who nosein lachem koach la'asot chayil. So, I can answer why we don't have 10, but I'm not sure why we don't have eight. Two of them we should answer. Okay. So, it's a good it's a good question. Um now, the other thing I want to talk about a little it's a little uncomfortable for me, you know, I I often I talk about hate mail and maybe I shouldn't use this as the forum to uh air, you know, uh my hurts, but um this is the second time it happened and I I want to tell you this. Um I I received over the past few months two very long letters and continuing correspondence about the long letters that somehow it is very, very inappropriate for me to push on baalei teshuvah that they should move to Israel. Uh they say that, you know, I'm tell I'm destroying people's lives, I'm taking advantage of my position when I live here on American money and, you know, I'm doing real comfortable and I didn't come to Israel till I was 56, what gives me the right to talk about, you know, young people who would sacrifice their careers and suffer a life of misery in Israel, which is like I I I'm not even exaggerating who and uh which would therefore condemn them to misery because of my idealism, which I did not take advantage of till I was in retirement. I I I don't really notice that I'm retired. So, um again, I I really apologize for for spending time, but I but I want to make a few points that I think are relevant to the Q&A. And that is number one, I have absolutely never pushed anyone to move to Israel and in fact, when people meet with me, there are people I tell them not to move to Israel. What I said exactly was that every religious Jew is obligated to ask themselves the question, why am I not in Israel? You can have a very good answer why you're not in Israel and I that answer I would respect and halakha would respect. A person might say the parnassah is too hard. A person might say the lifestyle is difficult. A person might say the chareidi world is too polarized. Those are legitimate answers as they apply to your situation. I have never said publicly or privately everybody must move to Israel. I have said and I will say that you have to have a reason not to move to Israel. And you know, there are reasons. Uh but to simply ignore it and simply say that after Hashem gave us Eretz Yisrael, uh we don't even have to think about it, I think is not the ratzon Hashem. Okay? So, I just want to be clear and I thought I was clear. I mean, I'm just I don't understand. I really don't understand this that I am not giving you any Oh, yes, he gave me a whole drasha about uh Rav Soloveitchik would never tell a person what to do. He would always explore the issues. Wow, great insight. Like, you know, like, you know, I tell you what to do. So, the thing is, I am not giving an answer. I am simply saying you must ask yourself the question. Okay? I I thought it was absolutely clear. Apparently, it is not. Uh and it is an important question because if if Hakadosh Baruchu gives us the ability to come back to Eretz Yisrael, then we have to ask ourselves, you know, why not? Yeah, and there may be a there may be a good answer. Einoch chinami, okay? So, forgive me for um being a little upset over this, uh but I am upset. Uh the tone of the letters is ve- I I whatever I I whatever. It's very condescending. I mean, the person gave me a drasha, you know, uh to talk to baalei teshuvah takes special training and sensitivity. Uh so, perhaps, you know, you shouldn't be the per- Okay, whatever. Okay. All right, but I hope everyone gets the point. If they didn't get the point, uh ask the question, talk to your rabbaim, talk to your spiritual advisers, look at your family situation, look at your finances, but don't ignore it. You can't ignore Eretz Yisrael. And to tell you the truth, uh this hate mail is not only hate mail to me, I think it is hate mail to Eretz Yisrael. And this is aim the hate of the meraglim mamash. Uh it's one thing to say that I'm not ready for aliyah, it's not the right thing for me right now. It's another thing to say, how dare you bring it up as something to consider? It It frankly is absolutely astounding. Okay, uh I had to vent, but okay, any any other questions for tonight? Yeah. When a person has struggles in his with his shalom, how does he determine whether or not that struggle is something which is more like a therapy thing which he needs to work on emotionally or just his yetzer hara and he needs to work on it with sifrei mussar? Let's say that he has an anger problem. Is that anger An anger problem, yeah. Yeah, but that's just an exa- an example. How does he know that he needs to be kind to himself and he needs self-care and he needs to work on, you know, self-love or he needs that which would be more like an emotional therapy approach or he needs to be harder on himself and he has to work harder and learn more and things Yeah, th- this is actually a a very important issue that has become more and more uh relevant as the mental health community has grown and as more and more religious Jews are going to therapists, are going to psychologists, going to social workers and the like. And the question becomes, you know, in the olden days, if I had some personality problem, again, your example, I was angry, I was selfish, uh I was depressed, so we talked about mussar and Torah learning and chizuk and spiritually building yourself up. And now we say, you know, go to a therapist either for therapy or go to a psychiatrist for medication. And and the question becomes, when do you look at your struggles, I'm just repeating your question, when do you look at your struggles as spiritual questions that I have to struggle with and when do you simply say, yeah, you know, it's kind of a medical issue or a psychological issue and the like? You know, it's very, very hard to answer that, but the but I think the answer in short would be that um these are not contradictory modalities. I think you have to work on both of them at the same time. Um you have to work on your spiritual chizuk, you know, learning mussar, learning Torah, strengthening yourself, and at the same time you need to explore the psychological aspects of things. Now, in fact, not only are these not contradictory, but if you look at mussar, in fact, this was the Chazon Ish's part of his criticism of mussar. Mussar itself, when it's studied in a deep way, is about understanding yourself. It is about psychology. See, we we make a big mistake. We actually mischaracterize what Rabbi Salanter did. We think when Rabbi Salanter started this idea of learning mussar, we think that just meant you pull out a Mesillas Yesharim and you learn it for half an hour a day or whatever it is. The truth is that's only a small part of what the mussar movement was about. Unfortunately, it's the main part that survived, but there was so much more. It was about group therapy sessions, not with a psychologist, but you would discuss your struggles with other people and each would give chizuk to the other. It was about self-understanding. It was about, why do I behave a certain way? So, in many, many ways, there actually is a tremendous overlap between psychology and uh mussar. Uh so, both can be worked on at the same time, provided you get a therapist who's if not from, I think which would be optimal, at least is respectful and understanding of your of your values. Um This is one In fact, one of the reasons, it's a complicated thing, one of the reasons the Chazon Ish was a little worried about mussar was precisely because mussar was so into psychology, it was not always using exclusively Jewish sources. That I mean that was goof of the Chazon Ish's issue. Um on the on the other hand, uh Rav Volbe, I've mentioned this before. When Rav Volbe was a young man, uh he actually apprenticed himself. He was in Switzerland during part of World War II, which was neutral. He apprenticed himself to Jean Piaget. Now, those of you that took psychology courses in in college, uh know that Jean Piaget was a world-renowned non-Jewish child I think he's a psychiatrist I I I'm not sure psychologist or psychiatrist and uh he wrote a lot about how children develop morality. And Rav Volbe held it was good for him as a baal mussar to try to understand the psychological processes of growth. And he said that even though Piaget was a this is nich lol in chachma ba tamen. Right? So, it is legitimate within a mussar framework. Also, many of you may have come across the very beautiful seforim by used to be anonymous now we know who he is Rabbi Summer Schwartz. Uh those that's the series of seforim that are called the Bilvavi Bilvavi Mishkan Evnecha. It's also in English how to build a relationship with Hashem. Bilvavi. It started off as one book and now uh many many books and websites and everything else. But he wrote a parallel series. So, Bilvavi is how to make a relationship with Hashem, a personal relationship, and he wrote a parallel series called Da Es Atzmecha. Know yourself because he basically says you can't really have a relationship with Hashem until you know who you are. And he actually said most people will want to do the Bilvavi stuff cuz they want I want to be connected to Hashem. But in reality, you need to understand yourself. So, that's where I think psychology and therapy could be very very helpful because you then understand yourself and then you can take the mussar and and and work on yourself. So, it's a very very good question, but I think there is room in life for both things to work at the same time. Yeah. There was an interesting case in Michigan that ended yesterday. Maybe you've heard of it. There was a school shooting about 2 years ago by a sick boy and the parents got charged with involuntary manslaughter, which holds them responsible for the murders. Usually they get charged with some sort of negligence, but this time they're holding them accountable for the murder. It's probably political to go after gun owners, but that's a separate issue. Yeah. So, I was wondering in halakha, how much uh trouble would a parent be in? The background is that the kid they knew the kid was crazy. They bought him a gun on Christmas. That January he went and shot up the school and they didn't tell the school. Yeah, so so so let me just remind you of of of a case in the Gemara itself. The Gemara says if I give fire, if I entrust fire to a cheresh shoteh v'katan, to a mentally incompetent person or a katan a kid below bar mitzvah and they uh destroy something, so I as a parent or as whoever gave it to the kid is chayav in God's law. I'm chayav b'dinei shamayim. But a beit din cannot punish me because I didn't do it. That's why the Gemara actually says um you know, don't mess with a katan because if a katan hurts you, you have nobody to go after. I can't go after the katan and I can't go after the parents. Halakha does not at all accept b'dei adam that parents are liable for things their kids do even if the parents are negligent. But b'dinei shamayim, if they're negligent, Hashem will hold them accountable. But a human beit din would not be able uh to be mechayev them. And even if the kids are above bar mitzvah, uh and the parents told them In other words, if I tell somebody to kill, that's ein shaliach l'dvar aveira. There's no shlichus for sin. So, it's only the sinner that's chayav, not the guy that hired the the hitman. So, uh now what's interesting is this. So, if you're asking me from a pure halakhic standpoint, would there be parental liability for manslaughter? The answer is no. But you could ask the following questions. There are a few questions you could ask. Well, that's under Jewish law, but would things be different under the Noachide law? Because if you're talking about non-Jewish societies, non-Jewish societies are not necessarily going to be governed by halakha. Non-Jewish societies are going to be Well, they're governed by halakha, but not Jewish halakha. They're governed by the halakha of the seven commandments of Noach. So, here it would appear the following. The Torah gives or the halakhic system gives authority to non-Jewish communities, general communities, to impose liability beyond what halakha would say. So, it would be a permissible extension under the Noachide law, although it would not be a mandatory extension. So, in a sense that makes it a political question. In other words, if you're asking me, could the state impose liability on a parent? The answer is yes. Must it impose liability on the parent? The answer is no. So, between a could and a what must is going to be the debate in society. Should? So, I think it would be left to the political process. Again, people are surprised whenever the answer in Judaism is it's left to the political process. But in point of fact, there are issues, particularly under the Noachide code, that are left to society to determine based on what they consider to be just. Now, in truth, some amount of liability, whether it's manslaughter or negligence, you know, that's a separate issue, I think it's very very warranted. And and the very fact that in halakha the parent is chayav b'dinei shamayim does tell me that the parents did something very very wrong. So, for the Noachides to then translate it into some liability or sanction, I think it's a relatively reasonable uh step to take. Yeah. I had a question about bal tashchis. But um I needed to tell the rav though. Okay. These are for the rav. Uh they're parentals. They're absolutely beautiful. Okay. I was thinking since they're so beautiful, I'll make art out of them or something. And I was wondering if that's bal tashchis. Yeah, yeah, yeah, bal tashchis. Uh so, I'll tell you I I had a related question when my son was growing up that um they drew pictures in like second or third grade and they surrounded it with like dried macaroni, colored macaroni. And you know, we just left it around. Then I realized in the middle of Pesach, hey, you know, we got this picture here with the dried macaroni. So, you got to be careful. Lentils, okay, kitniyot are not so bad. You're allowed to have kitniyot. If Sefardim can eat it and Ashkenazim can have it, so at least with this there wouldn't be a problem. So, the question is is it bal tashchis to use edible food items? Right? That's the question. To use an edible food item in an artistic uh situation. Uh now, once again, if the pshat is you could then remove it and eat it, that's fine. I'm assuming your question is that you're going to be rendering it uh inedible. Uh I think there is an issue. There is an issue that um even though it's not purely destructive, it's constructive, but it's constructive in terms of the secondary use and not the primary intended use. An example might be that sometimes uh some people are machmir, they will not feed Let's say you feed your dog. They will not feed um an animal food that is fit for human consumption. Uh because they'll say human food should go to humans and animal food goes to animals and it's a form of destruction. Now, even if you're meikel, that's because it's still the idea of eating. But when you're totally changing it from its normal intended use, uh some would say that that is called hashchasa. Now, I want to bring you a a a um uh maybe a contrary ruling, which may indicate the other way around. Uh the in the time of Chazal and really in the time of the Tanakh, uh when people would die like a melech would die, they used to burn his possessions as an act of homage that nobody else should use them or whatever it would be. Uh they would burn all sorts of things. In fact, they do it in India it's in India the same thing. And uh this discussion is is that called bal tashchis? You're just destroying usable clothing and and other things. And the answer is it's not bal tashchis because it's being done as an expression of kavod for the nifter. And things that you're doing as kavod for the nifter are not called bal tashchis. So, based on that, you could argue that I'm doing something for aesthetic and it's not for kavod, but for aesthetic reasons. So, there is that counter argument. And by the way, this has an interesting ramification in hilchos Shabbos. You know, one of the 39 melachos of Shabbos is to rip rip cloth. Rip. However, the ripping has to be constructive. It has to be kireya. You're ripping with the purpose of sewing it up, meaning you want to make it even. If you stam as I rip, that's called mekalkel. That's a destructive act. And although it's assur m'derabbanan, it is forbidden rabbinically, but it's not d'oraita melakha unless it's done for a constructive purpose. So, the Gemara says if one rips garments because they're furious, I'm so angry, I rip it, that's called a melacha on Shabbos? Like I felt walking in today. Uh that's a melacha on Shabbos because since it reduces your anger, that's called a constructive purpose for melacha Shabbos, getting it out of your system. Okay, maybe I'll take that into account, too. Um okay. So so there are rayos mikana mikana, meaning to say uh your question is not categorically forbidden, but it it would would be better to be machmir on it. Yeah. Yes. Um in just in light of the recent situation with the controversy with autopsies, there was just Yeah. just give an overview of what the what what the halacha is and also when when and if there would be a terumah pack. Yeah, this was again, I guess everybody knows what happened. I mean, tragically tragically and again we we should really be thinking about the mishpacha in um in Beit Shemesh or I'm not Beit Shemesh or I'm on Beit Shemesh itself, yeah. I mean, the boy was the day after his bar mitzvah. And the boy was a healthy boy and Hakadosh Baruchu took him and it's a real a real tragedy and uh we should all be thinking the family should have nachamas and comfort and um and the like uh I guess the boy died without cheit really, you know, I mean, he became bar mitzvah and left the world, so he can't he's coming he came to Hashem in a very good way. Um I don't know all the legalities of Israeli law. I mean, this is an old issue that goes back to the 1950s where Israel was doing autopsies without permission and and the Frum community were trying to desperately stop this. I'll let's I'll get to the answer to your question in a minute. In fact, I'd kidai kach that I remember the 1970s uh there were Chareidim or people who would dress as orderlies or doctors with white coats and they would actually take the dead bodies, they come into the hospital and identify themselves as doctors and they would kidnap the corpses out of the hospital in order to get them a kevura, bury them right away without uh autopsy. And you know, there are stories, I mean, you know, if I want to laugh at laugh about it, but for they they would literally prop up a a corpse, they would dress them up in clothes and they would sit in a ca- taxi with him, you know, and they would just tell the cab, you know, this guy's drunk, our friend is drunk, we just have to take him and you're sitting next to a dead body uh dressed in uh regular clothing. It and this is ad kidai kach that they really they really had to do this. Now, it's interesting that this resurfaced because as a result of all of these protests, the Israeli autopsy law was changed and and basically most of the time religious people have the right to veto autopsies. So I just don't understand the legality of this case, but let me just mention generally the halachic backgrounds. Uh as a general rule, autopsies are absolutely assur al pi halacha and there's a number of reasons why it's assur. Number one, it's assur because it is called nivul hameis. Nivul hameis is disfiguring of a corpse. You're cutting into a dead body, removing burial parts, that is called bizayon, uh degradation of a dead body, that is called nivul, disfigurement of a dead body. Uh so that's one reason that it's assur and this is a lo saaseh d'oraisa because the Torah says even when somebody is executed for a sin and you hang up his body for a little bit so people can see it, you have to take it down right away because that's called a bizayon of that which is in the tzelem Elokim and kal vachomer actually cutting up. So that's one problem. The other problem is there is a chiyuv d'oraisa of kevura, of burial. Every part of a body that you're able to bury, you're mechuyav to bury. So the parts of autopsies are typically not returned to the body. So there are two different problems at least. There is nivul hameis uh and there is the chiyuv d'oraisa of of kevura. So as a result, an autopsy is an awful thing. In addition, it is brought down in Kabbalah that the neshama itself suffers tremendously when the body is not brought to a proper kevura. This is also an issue with cremation, uh similar type of idea. There's a tzaar to the neshama mamesh. That's why I tell people all the time, they tell me, "What do I do? My mother made me swear on her deathbed that I would get her cremated. How can I violate my mother's last request?" And I say, "Always feel free to violate your mother's last request. She will be very grateful for you in Gan Eden. You're not hurting your mom, you're actually giving your mom a lot of happiness in what you do." Now, here is the thing though. There is a famous classic teshuvah of the Noda B'Yehudah, who did Rabbi Yechezkel Landau, the great rav of Prague of the 1700s, where he writes, "Yeah, there's a very big aveira called nivul hameis and the like, but it's not one of the big three, it's not avodah zarah, giluy arayos, v'chlal damim. So nivul hameis is permitted b'makom pikauch nefesh in order to save somebody's life that's in jeopardy." All right, so theoretically, autopsies are permitted if they have a potential life saving benefit. But here's the Noda B'Yehudah's chiddush. He says, "Something qualifies as pikauch nefesh only if there is an existing person, a choleh l'fanenu, in front of us, meaning in our well, in his day it meant in the geographical location, today could be worldwide, but there has to be a choleh l'fanenu who might benefit, meaning he is machalaik between an autopsy that can directly help a person in a life-threatening condition versus an autopsy that is part of long-term medical research that maybe, together with a million other autopsies, might save somebody in 20 years. Uh it is very very rare that an autopsy, I'll give you an example, but that that an autopsy can actually be used to save a person. Now, this might be a hetter for organ donation. A- again, maybe we'll talk about that another time, meaning organ donation, meaning the heart will go to somebody. Okay? But standard autopsies which just yield gene- general medical information generally do not qualify for pikauch nefesh. And the Noda B'Yehudah points out because if you're going to say anything that in the long term could save a life is called pikauch nefesh, then you might as well get rid of the whole Torah. I mean, imagine a medical student. Uh you're a Frum guy in medical school. So you say, "Well, gee, I got to drive to this lecture on Shabbos because maybe I'll hear something about preventing a heart attack that may help me 5 years from now." Right? Or I got to eat this ham sandwich because if I if I if I'm too tired to hear the lecture, I'm not going to be able to save a life. Right? There has to be an immediate situation here. That's called choleh l'fanenu. So as a result, general medical autopsies are absolutely not permitted even if there is a potential, which is usually slight anyway, that will yield some life-saving information for the future. Now, one interesting example where autopsies might be permitted, although we would discourage it, is what is called a forensic autopsy. Let's assume for example that somebody died of foul play, poison, murder. And through the autopsy, we would be able to get evidence that may help to apprehend the murderer. So the poskim say, "Since people who murder are likely to murder again, although you can actually question that, but that's the assumption, they're like rotzchim. So therefore, getting information that can get this guy off the street is called pikauch nefesh." So those types of autopsies would be permitted because they could yield concrete, even though you don't know for sure, obviously you don't know for sure, but it could yield concrete evidence that could get a dangerous person out of commission. So that would fall under the category of pikauch uh pikauch nefesh. And even then, even when the autopsy is permitted, there is an inyan to try to retrieve whatever body parts you can and then put them in the kever along with the the rest of the person's person's body. Um so the general position of halacha is that we are very very very much against autopsies more or less for the same reason we're against cremations uh because it's a bizayon hameis. Now, one other thing, it is important to understand something about bizayon hameis. You know, the Egyptians had a whole culture that almost worshipped death. Now, people sometimes say, "Oh, you know, don't speak evil about the dead." Meaning, when the guy's alive, I can say whatever I want to say about him. When he's dead, it's sacrosanct. Judaism proceeds on the opposite premise. You have to understand something. The reason why we have so many laws about kavod for dead bodies is not because the dead body is more worthy of kavod than a live person, it's the other way around. Since the dead body is like the mantle of a sefer Torah, since it once housed the divine soul, we must show it kavod. So kal vachomer, kal vachomer, how much kavod you must have for a live person. It's not that you honor the dead more than the living. It's the covered of the dead is because it once was living. And therefore you have to learn from covered a mace. The Indian of covered a breeze. But there are classes in absolutely the opposite of the death worship of the Egyptian culture. Yeah. So when you when you have this idea that people who have terrible things done to their bodies that they're suffering from it is there is there some kind of um hatred is not the word but is there is there something that protects them in cases where you know you have horrible atrocities like where all their bodies are destroyed by you know they did nothing wrong but there's some malevolent force that goes after Yeah well yeah I mean obviously the Holocaust would be then outstanding example. I mean there were hundreds of thousands I don't know I don't know if it if the actual people were created were millions but but many many many victims of the Holocaust uh died in the ovens in the crematoria actually they were killed first but they they were burnt in the crematoria of of of Auschwitz. Uh and uh obviously there's no sin there you know people sometimes say according to the strict Halakha people who are cremated you know we don't sit shiva we don't mourn I mean obviously that does not apply to people who were victimized. Uh so the question becomes uh what about the spiritual suffering of the soul? It's a hard question. Um it could very well it may it may depend on another question. The Shulchan Aruch writes that people who die al Kiddush Hashem feel no pain in their death. They only get uh that connection to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So this in turn opens up a huge question whether Holocaust victims are classified as people who died al Kiddush Hashem and does it make a difference if they were religious or not religious? This is a very complicated question. Let me explain why. The typical paradigm of Kiddush Hashem is when a person is given a choice. Like the go over to a person and say convert to Christianity or I'll kill you. And I'm willing to say I am go willing to die before I give up my worship of Hashem. That's called Kiddush Hashem. I am sanctifying God by saying my relationship to Hashem is more important than even my physical life. So that's Kiddush Hashem. The Crusades would be Kiddush Hashem. You know that that would be Kiddush Hashem. The problem with the Holocaust is that there was no element of choice there. Meaning to say even if a Jew were to say I want to become a Christian. So what? That was not relevant. In fact there were nebach Jews who converted to Christianity who died in the Holocaust. Like one of them is a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. Uh Edith Stein was a Carmelite nun I mean she was a Jewish woman who became before World War II a Carmelite nun and uh she was deported to Auschwitz and she died and the Catholic Church canonized her as a martyr to her faith which is a pretty bizarre characterization. She didn't die as a martyr to to Catholic they didn't kill her because she was Catholic they killed her because she was Jewish. Uh so so there were Jews who were religious of course there were Jews who were not religious there were Jews who were Christian but the common denominator I mean I don't mean really Christian but who who professed Christianity but the common denominator was they didn't have a choice. So if you don't have a choice where's the Kiddush Hashem in your death? Is it Kiddush Hashem? Is it Kiddush Hashem when you you didn't have the choice of renouncing God or accepting God? So there's a big shailah here there is lashon ayin in a letter of the Rambam. It's a letter it's not in the Mishneh Torah and I think the lashon is a little equivocal where the Rambam does say or might say that anyone who was killed because they're Jewish definitionally is classified as Kiddush Hashem. Meaning somebody gets killed in a car accident you know that's not Kiddush Hashem but if somebody gets killed because they're Jewish and that would include people who were killed in terrorist attacks uh people who were killed in Pittsburgh remember uh what what happened there? So if some people were saying oh you know I mean some of it I don't know I mean some say there was a a lesbian prison whatever whatever the story was it's not it's not important and uh but some people were saying that's not Kiddush Hashem because they were violating Shabbos and desecrating Shabbos. According to the Rambam if they got singled out because they were Jewish that qualifies as Kiddush Hashem. So that I think has a direct impact on your question in terms of the tzar. By the way this issue that that the neshama feels pain when the guf is mishandled comes up with another issue as well. Uh this is the base one of the bases of the Halakha that you're not supposed to relocate a kever except for compelling reasons. Because it says that when a mace is moved from one kever to another kever there is a lot of pain that the neshama feels. And that gets us into the discussion well what about moving a body from Chutz La'aretz to Eretz Yisrael? Some will allow it but Reb Moshe was not in favor of it. Reb Moshe said that once a mace is buried in Chutz La'aretz that's that's where they should stay. So this notion that the neshama feels tzar when the guf is not handled properly is something that's you know comes up crossing a number of Halakhic areas. Moving a mace autopsies cremation all of these different different things. Yeah. Two questions. Number one is it okay to lean a sefer on another sefer for a stender? Uh number two um Cohen on on Yom Tov when he dochnens when he when he sings is is it okay for him to put down his hands while he sings? Yeah yeah yeah so so the second question is the answer is yes. Uh the chiyuv of a Cohen dochening with his hands spread is only when he is reciting the words of the brakha. The brakha Birkhas Kohanim must be said with outstretched arms. In the Mikdash they would actually they would in the Mikdash they would lift up their hands. Uh outside of the Mikdash they do it horizontally rather than vertically but when they sing between the verses uh he can put down his hands. He could even sit down. I think it'd look funny but he could you know take a little break and and and sit down uh there there as well. Now in terms of the first question am I allowed to put a sefer on top of a sefer and use the sefer as a as a stender? So first of all on one level uh if you have to respect the hierarchy so you couldn't put a Gemara on a Chumash. That much is very very true. Okay so that's given. Uh but what about a Gemara on top of a Gemara or or a Chumash on top of a Chumash and the like? So me'ikar hadin it is mutar it is mutar. Uh some people are machmir I believe I believe I don't want to say for sure till I check it that Reb Chaim Kanievsky was machmir. He was very very machmir. Reb Chaim Kanievsky had well of course he was a great tzaddik as well as gadol but he had certain chumras that he was very very strict on. And kavod of sefarim maybe that's why he remembered everything. Kavod of sefarim he was extraordinarily machmir. For example he would never sit with his back to sefarim. So if he had a bookcase he would always position himself sitting on the side. He would not even put his back to a shas. Which very I mean he's he's probably the only one who was knowing that way. I mean you know we talmidei chachamim uh often sit with their backs uh to a bookcase and the like. So he was machmir but I think me'ikar hadin as long as you're respecting the hierarchy of Chumash and the like uh you're allowed to to do it. Yeah. I just have a second then. The sevara of retzicha being ya'harog v'al ya'avor is from mai chazis. Would this sevara apply to retzicha of also or not? Yeah so just a little background. Uh we know that uh a Jew must be willing to give his life or is obligated to give his life before he murders somebody. So if a somebody goes over to you and says kill Reuven or I'll kill you you are mechuyav to let yourself die before you kill Reuven right? That's a well-known Halakha that you can't use your pikuach nefesh to kill Reuven. Now you can kill the guy that's threatening you because that's rodef that's a separate rule but the non-rodef cannot be killed. Now the Gemara needs a derivation for that. What's the derivation? Who says if pikuach nefesh if I could violate Shabbos to kill save my life why can't I violate murder to save my life? So the Gemara says I'm just repeating the question that we have a sevara. We don't need a pasuk for this. We have a sevara. And the sevara is mai chazis. Who says your blood is any for some reason they always translate who says your blood is sweeter. It's the verb is not sweeter it says who says your blood is redder. Sumka. Mai chazis didama didach sumak tvei. Meaning as Rashi explains the Torah allows me to violate Shabbos and kashrus because the Torah says the value of human life is higher than Shabbos and kashrus. But how could you say the Torah allows me to violate murder to save my life? That presupposes saving your life is more more than his life. Who says? And that that's the svara why shave ya'altasa, you're not allowed to actively murder somebody other than the rodeph to save your life. By the way, that itself is worthy of uh comment. Well, what if, you know, I am more valuable than him. What if What if I mean, you can imagine a million scenarios. Um the the oppressor says, "Kill that drunk drug addict or I'll kill you." Well, okay. Or what if, you know, what if you know, he puts a gun to the head of the godol hador and says, "Kill that, you know, insignificant person or I'll kill you." So the godol hador is supposed to say, you know, even if he's modest, he says, "Who says my life is better than the What about that, right?" Okay, it's a good question. But the basic understanding is that we regard lives of of of being of infinite value and infinity cannot be fractionalized. You can't talk about half an infinity or half an infinity is also infinity. All infinities are, at least in basic mathematics, considered to be equal in that way. So the question that you're asking is a very excellent question. Does that apply between Jews and non-Jews? In other words, what if somebody puts a gun to my head and says, "Kill the innocent, not not the rodeph. Kill the innocent non-Jew or I'll kill you." Now normally, of course, you're not allowed to kill a non-Jew. We're we're not suggesting, God forbid, that that's mutar, but the question is, can I kill a non-Jew for my pikuaḥ nefesh? So this is obviously not a politically correct question. And as a result, we very very rarely address it. Um I'm a little uncomfortable addressing it. Uh the makor that I'm aware of is the Minḥat Chinuch. And the Minḥat Chinuch says that indeed my chiyuv does not apply as a Jew and a non-Jew and therefore although he emphasizes it is absolutely prohibited to kill a non-Jew. I mean, that's a given. But that would be a prohibition that would be pushed aside for the pikuaḥ nefesh of a Jew. There are those who would argue, but but such a svara does exist. In fact, this might even be a little bit of an explanation in the area of organ donation. And I alluded to you know, a short while ago that part of the problem of organ donation is autopsy, but the truth is that was a very incomplete answer. The real problem with, let's say, heart transplants is not the autopsy of taking a heart from a dead body. That that's not really the problem. In fact, most of the time if that would be the problem, that is pikuaḥ nefesh. You have somebody who needs the heart. The real problem is is the donor dead or alive because that basically the way it is is that the legal definition of death, let's say, in in 50 states in the United States and also the state of Israel is something called brain death, meaning the heart is still beating by oxygen supplied by a respirator, but the the the respiratory center of the brain is destroyed. According to secular law in most places in the world, that person is declared dead and we can remove his heart. Under halakha, there's a major controversy if brain death is death or not. Now if you're machmir and you treat brain death as not death, removal of a heart is not autopsy. Removal of a heart is murder. The real problem, the halakhic problem of a heart transplant, is not the same as cremation or autopsies. It is ultimately a problem of the definition of death. And the poskim are are argue over the definition of death. But according to the Minḥat Chinuch, it could very well be that if the donor is a non-Jew, so even if the removal of the heart is halakhically murder, you can murder a non-Jew to save the life of a Jew. So according to the Minḥat Chinuch, that would actually legitimate organ transplantation from non-Jews for the benefit of Jews. As I say, one has to be very careful. I I can't Unfortunately, the the sessions are somewhat public, so I I I I try to be reticent and that's why I sometimes miss the old days of of private communications. Uh one has to be very very careful, but but there is a basis in halakha for that distinction that the questioner is drawing. Yeah. What about the stance on a DNR? Let's say someone who wants to live or or something like that. DNR do not intubate? Oh DNR, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so so here's the thing. Um Do not resuscitate. That means if the person goes into cardiac arrest, you don't do chest pounding, etc. Now obviously, you're not allowed to kill somebody, right? So we're not talking about assisted suicide or whatever. We're talking about shave ya'altasa. Am I mechuyav to provide medical treatment to keep somebody alive or can I let, as the expression goes, although it doesn't really look at it that way, nature take its course? So this is a a major issue in healthcare. Um you know, it's quite amazing that I saw a statistic many years ago. I'm not sure if it's still the same, that something like it's almost unbelievable. Uh 2/5 of the healthcare budget is spent on people in the last week of life. These extraordinary things. An amazing amount of money as opposed to just letting people die at some point. So it's a complicated shaila. The basic rule would be that as long as we're able to keep people alive, we have a chiyuv to keep them alive because of lo sa'amod al dam re'echa. It's not murder, but lo sa'amod. However, Rav Moshe has a teshuvah uh that says that even if you do something, you're only going to be marech chaim less than a year. That's called chayei sha'ah. And the person will be suffering tremendous pain and yissurin, you're not mechuyav to put a person through pain and yissurin just for a temporary prolongation of chayei sha'ah. Now what that means is this, particularly in the elderly, uh a lot of what is done in resuscitation can be extremely painful. Uh when you pound, uh the ribs can can can break. Uh there can be punctured lungs. Uh a lot of suffering and it is generally also very ineffectual because what's going to happen is that like, you know, you keep them alive and then half an hour later you're going to have to do the same thing again. So there are heterim in those situations for a DNR. So it depends on the matzav. That's why I should say the following. Um Agudath Israel of America, which is a very prestigious, eminent religious organization, has prepared a document that is called a halakhic living will. A living will is is also called an advance directive. That's where you specify ahead of time, when you're healthy, what you want, what you don't want. Legally, you could say everything. I mean, legally you could say DNR. You could say I don't want to be fed, whatever it is. But halakhic living will is two things. Number one, you specify that you want everything to be done according to halakha. And you specify the rabbi and the telephone number and the email who should be consulted, so the hospital knows who is the one that is consulted. And then number two, you can also indicate some of your preferences. So instead of simply saying, "I want a DNR," you basically say, "Any issue of DNR should go to this rav for a psak." And then hopefully, you'll talk to the rav ahead of time to get a sense of what what the psak is. So there is room for DNR, but not in every case. Does that same idea still apply to, let's say, putting someone on oxygen like we said before somebody's brain dead? We have a chiyuv to keep them alive. So here we have an interesting psak. We have a very interesting psak from Rav Zalman Auerbach, a big chiddush. Rav Zalman Auerbach did not consider brain death death. In other words, according to Rav Zalman Auerbach, somebody with a clinical diagnosis of brain death is still alive. So if you take an organ, you're a rotzei'aḥ. But Rav Auerbach said, the matzav of brain death removes the chiyuv of trying to keep him alive. And therefore, you would not have to put a brain dead person on a respirator for action. So he's mechayev, a very interesting chiddush. The person's alive. There's an issur of se'ah. There is no chiyuv to prolong his life. Now by the way, again, this is really a whole shiur in itself. I just want to be sure people understand the definition. When I talk about brain death as a the legal definition of death, brain death does not mean somebody in a coma. Even under secular law, it does not mean somebody in a coma. Somebody in a coma is not conscious, but the base of their brain that operates respiration and digestion is fully functioning. A person in a coma or a persistent vegetative state is 100% alive, even under secular law. You cannot take an organ from a comatose patient. Under secular law, not even halakha, you shoot a comatose patient, you will be tried for murder. Brain death is not the same as coma. Do not confuse them. Brain death is a neurological diagnosis that the brain stem is not functioning and therefore there is no respiratory capacity and all you're doing is pumping in air like a bicycle tire through a respiration. That is where you have the machlokes. Dead or alive. But coma is 100% alive. So when I say brain death the problem is people colloquially call people in comas brain dead. Uh that is not at all true. Yeah. The Rambam says in this week's parsha "A machasheifa lo tichyeh." Now I was sort of really I was wondering what's the definition of a sorcerer or witch? Yeah. Yeah, so machasheifa, right? Witches cannot live and generally speaking the Torah itself prohibits the practice of what is called kishuf. Kishuf is magic. So what is that? Is that Is that a reality? In other words, basically a machasheifa to answer your question directly is a woman who practices magic. So the question is what is magic? So the Rambam immediately has a certain problem. I mean many many Rishonim understand that magic is a reality. There is indeed what you might call dark forces forces of evil. We don't really have a sense of what they are in which a person could tap in to these forces of evil and do things and therefore what the Torah is prohibiting is the actual practice of a reality that is called magic. Which would mean today uh it cannot does not it probably does not exist at all. Meaning people who are Satan worshipers or people who are witches Wicca. Wicca is the religion of witches. They have rituals. They may be over They have a votive Zara. That's possible. But they're not guilty of machasheifa because as far as I know they're not doing real magic and perhaps we don't even have real magic. So if you understand that magic is a reality then I think the scope of the issue is is pretty poshut. It has to be a woman who practices kishuf and not just what we call a witch today. The problem we have which you have is the problem that you're raising is much more acute according to the Rambam. The Rambam based on his rationalistic uh tendency denies that there is such a thing as kishuf. Even what the Egyptians did is is uh basically uh optical illusions, hypnosis and the like. There is no such reality as magic just as the Rambam says for example there is no such reality as demons. And the Vilna Gaon attacks him. The Vilna Gaon says the Rambam was led astray by his preoccupation with a cursed Greek philosophy. So here's the question. So if the Rambam says there's no such thing as magic what does the Torah mean when it says thou shalt not practice magic? And people who practice magic get killed. It has to mean even fake magic cuz there is no real magic. Wow. So what does that mean? Uh I do magic tricks in front of uh you know cancer patients in a children's ward? I'm going to be chayav misah? There are in fact from people who do magic tricks. So you have to be magi with this way. Like the Rambam the definition of machasheifa is much more much more problematical. And that is no such thing as magic but somebody who is trying to convey to you that it is a reality. In other words, when I'm a magician and everybody knows it's just tricks that's going to be much or even like the Rambam. You can be a magician, you can do card tricks, you can pull a pull a pigeon out of your shirt sleeve, whatever it is cuz everybody knows it's a trick that takes a lot of skill. But if you are representing yourself as being able to effect these realities so according to the Rambam machasheifa is not uh defined by what you're really doing but it's defined by what you're trying to represent yourself as really doing. The bottom line though is that unless one is representing themselves as tapping into the powers of tumah they are not guilty of magic just because they're doing magic tricks or or whatever. So that does mean that uh schools like Hogwarts, you know, Harry Potter, you know, you wouldn't really would be a Well, I'll tell you one I'll I'll give you a cooler for Hogwarts and a chumra of Hogwarts. The cooler of Hogwarts is that you might be allowed assuming there's no issue of magic just put that aside you might be allowed to do these tricks even on Shabbos. Why? It's based on a Tosafos in meseches Menachos. Uh the Gemara says that Moshe Rabbeinu Uh yeah, I'm going to say Tosafos brings the reason why we say tzidkus tzaddik God's judgments are good and they're three verses Shabbos Mincha because three righteous people Shabbos afternoon and we express a certain mourning for them. It was Yosef HaTzaddik and it was Moshe Rabbeinu and Dovid. So Tosafos in Menachos asks a kasha how can we say that Moshe Rabbeinu died Shabbos afternoon? According to Chazal's understanding on the last day of his life he wrote 13 sifrei Torah. One went into the Mishkan and one each shevet got its own sefer Torah. So 13 sifrei Torah he wrote. If he died on Shabbos how could Moshe Rabbeinu write it on Shabbos? So Tosafos' answer is since by definition this writing was supernatural it was not normal writing so Tosafos says melachos that you do supernaturally b'derech nes are more or less not called melachos for hilchos Shabbos and therefore Moshe could write 13 Torahs b'derech nes. So that would be a heter to attend Hogwarts on uh even on Shabbos. But l'eidaich gisa, the other side of it is there would be an issur d'oraysa of kishuf. Right? So that's also a chiyuv misah. So you're okay for chillul Shabbos but you got a problem with kishuf. Yeah. That's good to see this point uh So do we say that all of the building of the Tabernacle, all the melachos for that were mundane melachos? Like they were like of teva of the world? Yeah, that would be our assumption and indeed there's a good religious reason for that that Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants us to bring the Shechinah into the world by our heavenly efforts. It's einach anami. But not by by our earthly efforts. Yeah. Yeah. Didn't they like pick up the walls supernaturally? Like the For the Mishkan? Yeah. Well it does say that for the seven days of preparation which preceded the dedication of the Mishkan that Moshe Rabbeinu single-handedly was able to pick up and take down take down the walls. Um but it seems that for the rest of the sojourn in the desert once the Mishkan was dedicated it had to be put up b'yedei adam. Yeah. Here's another shailah. At non-Jewish weddings as some of us have seen in the movies the person officiating always says "If anyone objects to this marriage speak now or forever hold your peace." Yes. Since they copied so much of our religion I'm wondering if this was ever a part of Jewish practice. Alternatively if it's 100% of non-Jewish origin why is it antithetical to an authentic Jewish wedding? Yeah, well that's that's an interesting question. I I'm not aware of any particular minhag that existed where the mesader kiddushin or the rav would announce if anyone has an objection. Now the truth of the matter is al libi d'emes if somebody does have an objection they should speak up. I mean if you know that somebody is pasul, you know the woman is divorced and she's marrying a kohen. But I don't believe there was any formal tachnis, any formal ceremony where a person would speak up. Um I don't know the origin of the Christian practice. I'll I'll I'll try to check into it. Uh presumably it arose because of a need. These things don't arise just dam as I. Presumably there were situations where you know marriages were not appropriate and people needed to speak up. So they kind of incorporated and it could very well have been that it was borrowed from a one-time Jewish thing where you know some Christian who had been Jewish or whatever had observed it and then said "Hey, that's a smart idea." and made it into a ritual. But I'll I'll try to research it. I I don't know off the top of my head. Now there's another This just reminds me of something else which is not your question but it reminds me of this. Uh in uh the Ashkenazi communities of Eastern Europe, Poland, Lithuania uh Russia there actually was a common practice that synagogue services would be interrupted on Shabbos before krias haTorah for people to air their grievances. You actually have a situation I mean and women often did this. Women would go into the men's section and they would stop the davening and they would get up in the bimah and they would say you know "My husband abandoned me and you know he left me with five orphans. So what are you going to do about it?" And there's all sorts of teshuvos about interrupting shul, interrupting davening, about women coming into the men's section. This was a fairly common practice where the davening would be interrupted uh in order that the kehilla would deal with a particular grievance that somebody was suffering. Yeah. How do you prioritize doing davening and learning? Like if there's something that goes like like much effort into learning takes away from the davening or vice versa. Well, uh obviously, you know, the short answer is you got to do both. Uh but the question is that uh you're you're davening late and you'll be coming you'll be missing some learning because of the davening. Uh and Uh say what there? Or just effort-wise like, you know, Effort, yeah. It's it's a good question. I I I'll tell you this. The Vilna Gaon says that a person should limit the amount of time he davens, but the Vilna Gaon says that means don't daven more than 3 hours a day. So So as a practical matter, he's not really limiting uh the davening. But I I would say this. I would say that all of the gedolim tell us that the effort you put into davening will not diminish your learning. That's the thing. Because Hashem will open up brachas for you precisely because of your relationship in the tefillah. So even if that would mean that a longer davening might take away from some of your learning, all that means is you will accomplish in less time what would have taken you more time. So uh what you would accomplish in an hour and a half, you'll be able to do it in an hour because of the effort you put in tefillah. So I wouldn't look at it as a contest. I wouldn't look at it like a zero-sum game. That what I invest in prayer will somehow come out of my learning. I think it's the other way around. Uh the tefillah will enhance your learning in a lot of ways as long as you don't go as long as you don't go beyond the 3-hour uh the 3-hour limit. Yeah. I had a question about the ger katan process. Yeah. Um in my research the person is supposed to be asked at age 13 uh and then he is high if he says yes for his entire life. So some questions is 13 seems young to make a lifelong decision, you know, something that's going to affect a person. Second, what if he wasn't asked at 13? What if he was asked at 15? What if he feels he was under duress because his parents were in the room or was in a muster issue and the question was you want to be Jewish, right? I mean, what if after 35 years he realizes he just doesn't like Jews? They haven't been so good to him except for let's say Orson Ma'ayan and a handful of people, you know. Um what if he just changes his mind and what if he was just doing it not to go to hell? Like Yeah. So just again, just be sure everyone has the basic information. Uh normally, in order for a conversion to Judaism to be valid, there are three conditions and all three have to should be done in front of a bet din of three rabbis. Uh there is a bris for a man, there is immersion in a mikvah for man and woman, and there is a formal declaration that they will live their lives in accordance with the mitzvahs of the uh man and woman. Uh in fact, that's done before the mikvah, etc. And those are the three conditions. If those conditions are not met and if and if it's not in front of a kosher bet din, the conversion is invalid. Now, based on that standard alone, the conversion of a child below bar mitzvah would be impossible uh because uh anyone below bar mitzvah is below the age of consent and converting a baby would certainly not make sense. And yet the Gemara in Kesubos legitimates the ability to convert minors. And by a minor, we mean even a baby that's 1 day old. I don't mean a 10-year-old only, a 1-day-old baby based on the idea that even though the katan does not have any intention or any consent, but since being a Jew is a good thing, we can confer benefits on people even without their consent if they're not capable of giving consent. This is called zachin li'adam shelo befanav. How and in fact, that's what's commonly done with adoption. For various reasons, Reb Moshe Feinstein has a teshuvah that if a Jewish couple wants to adopt, it is halachically easier to adopt a non-Jewish child that you convert than to adopt a Jewish child. It's a bigger mitzvah to adopt a Jewish child, but the reason why it's halachically more complicated is that the Jewish child might be a mamzer. You don't know the parents, etc. A non-Jewish child, no matter what the circumstances, even if it was adultery, is not a mamzer. So what we do is we convert a baby. Uh what does that mean? Uh the baby is circumcised if it's a boy. The baby goes to the mikvah. That doesn't mean you throw the baby in the mikvah, but you know, dad will go into the mikvah and hold the baby down uh for a second in his arms. And the acceptance of the mitzvahs is not on the part of the baby, but the parents agree they will raise the child in accordance with the Torah. Now, this is a totally valid conversion. This is called the conversion of a ger katan. But there's one big big big major difference between the conversion of a minor and the conversion of an adult. The conversion of an adult is irrevocable. Once you have decided to become Jewish, even if you change your mind that you're like any other Jew that goes off the derech, you're Jewish. If If a Christian converted to Judaism and then reconverted to Christianity, he is Jewish and there's a mitzvah to be makariv. On the other hand, since the geirus of the katan is not based on actual consent, but it's based on presumed merit, when he reaches the age of 13, the age of adulthood, he has the right to renounce his conversion. By the way, people often say I'm glad you you did not make this mistake. People often say when he reaches 13, he must go to the mikvah again. Not true. He does not have to go to the mikvah again. He certainly doesn't have to have a bris again. That was done bris. Uh rather, he has the right to renounce his conversion and become a And by the way, he could later convert as an adult. That doesn't stop him from going back. So the rule of the halacha is this though. It's a little different than you said. You don't have to actually ask him. It works this way. If he fails to renounce his conversion within a a reasonable time after his adulthood, that is considered to be acceptance. He doesn't have to accept. Failure to reject equals acceptance. Now, Reb Moshe Feinstein once again has a teshuvah. In order for a failure to reject to be deemed an acceptance, the child had to know that he had the right to reject. So Reb Moshe says, if the child didn't know this halacha, he wasn't told this halacha, and he doesn't find out this halacha till he's learning Kesubos in Daf Yomi when he's 45 years old, then he has the right to reject it then. So if he knew the halacha and didn't reject, then he is stuck. Then it becomes an irrevocable decision. If he didn't know the halacha, he'll have the right to reject within a reasonable time, whatever that means, after he he does he does find out. Now, that's why I always tell tell parents of adopted children who converted that be very nice to your kid around his bar mitzvah because if you're if you're being too tough for him and making him, you know, laying a whole parsha whatever it is, he might after you paid for the hall, he might decide to be a and then you kind of lost you've lost your deposit. Uh now, generally speaking, you you almost never hear about a kid who was converted as a katan, you know, saying I don't want to be Jewish. But I actually had I actually had a case like this. Um this was a Russian couple and uh she was non-Jewish, but she converted along with their child who was converted as a minor. And they called me one day. Their child is now uh whatever it is, 13 15 15 and says they don't understand what's going on. They say my child says he doesn't want to be Jewish anymore. Says, I have What is he talking about? They didn't know any of these halachas. And it turned out that the kid learned the halacha when he was 15 about this and he wanted to renounce. But he had a spiritual reason why he wanted to renounce. He said, "Listen, I would rather be a Noachide and get Olam Haba based on the seven commandments of Noach than to be a Jew that's going to get punished for every little aveira. So let me be a Noachide. I'll be a righteous Noachide." Almost leshem shamayim renunciation. So I tried to talk him out of it. I said, "Listen, you know, you're a Jew. Why why are you why are you fooling around here?" Uh but I believe he did I was not involved in the renunciation process per se. I believe he did renounce. And several years later, he reconverted as an adult. And I believe he lives in Yerushalayim with a mishpacha. He's a ben Torah. He's a ben Torah in Kolel. But he did have a lot of problems with the rabbinate. The rabbinate couldn't I mean, the rabbinate anyway has problems with all conversions and they they couldn't really process, huh, you were converted, then you reconverted, and renounced. Well, they they really couldn't understand what was going on. But that's exactly what happened. He renounced his conversion as a minor and then he affirmed his conversion or No, there he had to reconvert. See, that's different. You see? When he renounces and then says later I want to be Jewish, he does have to go through the conversion. So in terms of bris milah, you got to let out some blood. He has to go to the mikvah again. But if he's not renouncing, there's no reconversion that's needed. Now, an interesting shailah of Chaim Ozer Grodzinski raises is what is the meaning of renouncing? Let Let me give you a concrete example. Let's assume you adopted a child and when the child is 13, he decides he doesn't want to be frum anymore. He stops keeping mitzvahs. Is that called a renunciation that invalidates the conversion? So, Rav Chaim Ozer draws an interesting distinction between not wanting to be Jewish and not wanting to be frum. He In fact, it's very common. A lot of people, you know, let's say you have a teenager who stopped uh keeping mitzvahs. If you would ask him the question, um would you Do you want to be not not Jewish? Many, not all, many would say, "Of course I want to be Jewish. I'm a Jew." I don't want to be frum. So, Rav Chaim Ozer says, "Not wanting to be frum is not a renunciation of Judaism. It's a ren- It's a ren- It's a renunciation of the Torah, but it's not a renunciation of wanting to be Jewish. In order to renounce, you literally have to say, 'I don't want to be a member of the Jewish people.' And that is, baruch Hashem, a very, very rare situation. So, the Gemara does not say in front of a beit din, but the minhag is that we we we we do want a formal a formal declaration. Because otherwise, people have thoughts go back and forth. Like, you know, the teenager has a bad day and says, "No, no, I don't want to be Jew- It has to be a serious enough thing that we take this as a commitment. Yeah. Yeah, um assuming autopsies are illegal when you do so, if if it isn't by everyone held that way, and then if if not, if everyone held that way, and you kind of had there for, let's say, to save a life in the future, Right, right. So, so I addressed this earlier. Uh the basic idea is autopsies are permitted if it can yield life-saving information for somebody who's presently in danger. Meaning, you you're not allowed to do autopsies for long-term benefits. Uh there has to be an immediate beneficiary. By the way, I I want to just add something to the autopsy discussion. This was a major issue and it is still an issue in medical school. Uh because the way medical students traditionally would learn human anatomy is they would dissect actual corpses. Now, this is not the autopsy, you know, for a specific medical reason. This is general educational autopsies. And based on the Noda B'Yehuda, the general educational autopsy would be absolutely assur. The interesting question is, do the autopsy prohibitions apply to not to non-Jewish autopsies? Some matirits. This arrived from Rav Bachoras. Uh Rav Cook has a long teshuvah that the yesod of autopsies is is a violation of being made in the image of God, and that applies Jews and non-Jews, b'tzelem Elokim. So, as a result, uh medical schools are trying to move away from the use of cadavers. Uh and the truth is, with uh computer simulations, which are getting better and better and better and better, it's possible to replace, but still, one probably has to admit that there is nothing like the real thing. So, um it's an issue that people are struggling with. Uh halacha does not really allow those types of absolute autopsies. And the question is, uh how do you How does a doctor train if he's not allowed to do those autopsies? Yeah. Yeah. Um so, I do I recently had a scenario where I I know you Okay, yeah, yeah. I recently had a scenario where I matched with a cancer patient to donate um like blood to him, and they flew me out to America, and I wasn't really sure Took like 2 and 1/2 weeks, 3 weeks. And I wasn't really sure if he was Jewish or not. I want to know how How pashut is that scenario to like just take off 3 weeks from the yeshiva to go save a life? Yeah, um yeah, the issue is you be you uh you you go on to a registry. This was a for blood or for bone marrow? Was bone marrow? Yeah, bone marrow Yeah, yeah, whatever, bone marrow registry. And then uh when they find a person who is compatible with you, because the body rejects non-compatible material, so you'll be notified and uh the you know, may take uh may take a while. Uh you may be stuck there. Uh if you're working, you take off from work. If you're learning, you're taking off from learning. And that's a serious thing. Uh so, the question is, uh should I take off my learning? Cuz I can always say no. I can I can say no. So, and is there a difference uh if it's Jew, and the like? So, let's first take the case of a Jew. If it's the case of a Jew, uh you do have a chiyuv d'oraisa to help save a Jewish life. That's l'hatzalah dam r'yacha. But even in the case of a Jew, you have to ask yourself this question, are you the only one? Meaning, there's a general rule for Talmud Torah that you don't take off Torah for a mitzvah that can be done by somebody else, even b'kuach nefesh. So, the question you'd have to know, I don't know if they tell you, is is there somebody else on the list that is compatible? If they are, then you have the right to say no. Uh if there isn't, then you have to go. You have to go. Now, with respect to a non-Jew, it's a little more complicated, really. It's not such an easy question, because halachically, even if you're allowed to donate, and I'm I'm assuming you are allowed. Some people are machmir even on that, but let's assume you're allowed, but you're not chayav to do it, so the question becomes, do you have a justification to be m'vatel Torah for something you're not even chayav to do? Uh technically, the answer is probably no. You shouldn't be m'vatel. But that has to be counterbalanced with what Chazal describe as eivah. Eivah is hatred. Meaning, uh if you refuse to save a non-Jew's life, you may be causing tremendous hatred against the Jewish people and against the Torah, and that would be an override to to go for the 3 weeks. Now, Huh? Well, okay. Eivah is the flip is the flip side. Uh kiddush Hashem is the positive, eivah is the is the negative. But I would just tell you I'm sorry, you you said you already went, right? That's what you said. Yeah, okay. Baruch Hashem, did you know was it Was it a successful uh Baruch Hashem, I think it was. Wow. I have to say I think it was Jewish or not, so No, no, you understand. But But even for for for non-Jews, there's at least the kiddush Hashem as well as the eivah of not doing it. So, uh but you have to be careful that even if I'm away from yeshiva for 3 weeks, I'm still going to be kovea itim l'Torah. I'm not going to just treat treat it as a long as a long vacation. You know, there's a vort from Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky. It's a It's a bit of a bitter sweet vort. You know, it says in Pirkei Avos, ein ben chorin ela mi she'osek b'Torah. The only person who's free is a person who learns Torah. Right? That's cheirus. Real freedom is Torah. So, he says, he understands it now. He says, uh in New York, there's like a chasunah every every night. Every night there's sheva brachos, chasunahs, etc. And yeshiva guys are always taking off. Like, every night seder, there's a wedding in Brooklyn that they go to. He says, uh if you had a job, you couldn't take off from your job to go to this party and that party and that party. But if all you're doing is learning, you can take off for everything. So, he says, "That's the pshat. No one is free except if they're learning. When they're learning, they're l'gamrei ben chorin. They can do whatever they want." And that's uh you know, once again, one has to look. In fact, someone will say, in the morning, when we say birchos haTorah, we say, "Asher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav v'tzivanu la'asok b'divrei Torah." To occupy ourselves with Torah. So, they say, "Osek is also the word for business." La'asok, he says, "Torah is your business. You got to look at it like it's your job." And therefore, you have to treat it at the least, I mean, it should be much more, but at the least as seriously as you treat your job. So, it's something to think about. Yeah. At which point do we say that carrying a gun would be um permitted uh hishtadlus for Yeah, once again, once again, this is a hard this is a hard question. Uh I can just tell you that Rav Asher Weiss, uh shlita, said, didn't say b'feirish, that he thought that more b'nei Torah should carry guns, and he considered it to be a legitimate hishtadlus. Now, obviously, not everybody agrees with that, because you don't really see In fact, I don't think Rav Asher Weiss carries a gun. I mean, you know, I'm It's a little hard to figure out. Uh but you don't you don't see a widespread carrying of guns. I I This can change from day to day to day to day. My own hargasha is that right now, it's it's not yet necessary in regular places like Yerushalayim, but things can change. Things can very, very definitely change, and one has to be attuned to it. And uh some feel that you want to get the training now. So, if chas v'shalom, it gets more necessary, uh you'll be able to step in, because, you know, you can't just get a gun tomorrow. If I decide I need a gun, I can't just get it tomorrow. I have to go through a period of of training. So, maybe it's better to to plan plan now. Uh you know, mineyan l'mineyan, I mean, you know, you know right now that um the US is putting a lot of pressure uh for Israel to give what, a 130-day truce uh to allow Hamas to rebuild. I I The world of absurdity. To allow Hamas to rebuild its military structure uh in exchange for releasing hostages. Uh so, you know, we hope that that's not going to happen, but that can also increase, God forbid, increase uh the dangers. So, it's it's something to be aware of. Uh, yeah. How do we define Emunah Pshuta um in your show, how do you define it? Yeah, the term Emunah Pshuta the the these are often terms that are contrasted. We have Emunah Bederech Chakira. Chakira is philosophical uh understanding of Emunah in which you try to prove the existence of God by rigid and logical, systematic, philosophical thoughts. And Emunah Pshuta is more of the intuitive Emunah that is based on emotion and feeling. Uh, as you know, the Rambam was the great expounder of a an Emunah that was rooted in rational philosophy. Uh, others, actually the Kuzari and much later, of course, Chassidus and Kabbalah were much more emphatic in terms of this intuitive connection. And in fact, they considered philosophy to be a very, very bad thing because it if if you think about it, uh the Rambam created a dilemma that's almost impossible to bridge. The Rambam says, you are mechuyav to philosophically investigate the existence of God and you're mechuyav to come out that you believe in him. Now, you understand there's a problem here uh because if I'm commanded to philosophically investigate something how can I be commanded that I have to come out with a conclusion? Right? You're commanded to be philosophical and come out with the right answer. You know, it's not always possible. So, as a result other than the Rambam, the Mahalach has generally been better not to get into that if you don't have to get into that because you're opening up a Pandora's Box of Apikorsus and Kefirah. And once the genie is out of the box, if I can use the I don't know what is our imagery, it's hard to put it back in. Uh, this is the phenomenon that I've spoken about. I I I I thought I invented the term, but somebody told me it was already being used. I call this the Meer Apikorus. Uh, again, without meaning to single out Meer, but this is the phenomenon, which is a very unfortunate phenomenon, of Bnei Torah, some in Kollel Mamash who after years of learning all of a sudden say, "Uh, I don't know what the proof is for God. I don't know what the proof of the Torah, etc." Because once they get involved, it's like a poison in many ways. Now, that's why which in Ohr Someayach we do not mean to say, but as Rabbi Gottlieb does explore these issues. That's simply because our clientele has already been exposed to them. Meaning to say, you know Richard Dawkins, you know Christopher Hitchens, you know Sam Harris, you know these guys. All right? So, once you have taken the poison so we have to try to supply the an- the antidote to the poison as best as we can, but many have argued it's better not to get into those questions at all because you never know where you're going to come out. So, Emunah Pshuta is based on the notion of I believe in God without having to be philosophical about it. But but but it's important to add the following. People sometimes say that Emunah Pshuta is irrational. It's blind leaps of faith. That is not emes. The emes is even Emunah Pshuta is not necessarily philosophically sophisticated. But it is based on premises of looking at the world, looking at the wonder of the world, looking at the complexity of nature, looking at the miracle of Jewish survival. It is not ignorant of looking at the factors that point to God. It just doesn't develop them in in a rigorous, academic philosophical way. So, there really is no such thing as an Emunah Pshuta that's not based on any type of ration- rationality. Even Emunah Pshuta has its own internal rationality. That's important. Yeah. What what is Daas Torah and how do we know when we are reading the label? Yeah, so the word Daas Torah uh you hear it a lot uh and it it really was popularized really by Rabbi Chaim Volozhin. And and that is the following. Some people have a view of Gedolei Torah that they are plumbers. What What do I mean by that? A plumber is a person with a certain expertise. A plumber knows how to fix sinks. So, when I have a sink that I need to fix I go to a good plumber. But a plumber doesn't necessarily know anything about brain surgery or about fixing cars or about politics or the like. So, some people have a view that Gedolei Torah are experts in Jewish law. So, if I have a shaila in Halacha I go to a godol or a posek or a rav or what- whatever it would be. But when I have a general question about how do I raise my kids or who should we should vote for or whatever it is, so the idea is his my opinion is just as good as his opinion. The chiddush of Daas Torah is that people who learn Torah in a righteous way, I don't mean just scholars, people who learn Torah in their mussar to tell you that, have a special connection to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And because they have a special connection to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, their views on everything are more likely to be emes even if it is beyond the particular area of their expertise. Right? So, Daas Torah is the system that recognizes that Gedolei Torah have a perception which is a form of prophecy, almost a form of Ruach Hakodesh in some ways, that even if they never had experience with certain areas, they'll have an intuition of what the ratzon Hashem is. Now, you understand that's a bit of a controversial idea because some say, "Hey, if a godol spent his whole life learning Shas and Shulchan Aruch then I trust him for things that are in the Shas and Shulchan Aruch, not necessarily other things." Daas Torah says, he's connected to everything. Now, because of this Daas Torah can exist in greater or lesser proportions. Meaning, in a sense every person, even us, every person who learns Torah has a certain amount of Daas Torah. But it's likely to be relatively small. Right? So, it's not that every talmid chacham has Daas Torah at its maximum level, but all of us have something. Rabbi Chaim Volozhin says, "If you have a shaila in life and you're not sure where what to do, you should learn for 2 hours straight. And whatever you feel after those 2 hours is your Daas Torah coming through." So, when we talk about Daas Torah though as a veto, the final word, the final word so we're we're really talking about only the greatest of the Gedolim. So, then you're asking me a question again, how do you define who is a godol, who is a Torah leader? Uh it's a it's a very, very good question. Who defines the godol? This is a live controversy here in Eretz Yisrael. We have, let's say, the Chareidim I'm I'm I'm being simp- simplistic here. We have the Chareidi world, let's say, we have the Dati Leumi world. Now, that Dati Leumi world has some great talmidei chachamim who some would regard as a godol. Within the Chareidi world, they sometimes might not regard them as a godol. So who has Daas Torah when you're not sure who the godol is? Um you know, I can't really answer that because you're kind of because that that that runs us into a circle. Meaning Daas Torah is something that is the province of a godol. So, if you hold he's a godol, then there's Daas Torah. If you hold he's not a godol, it's not Daas Torah. Right? But that doesn't give you the standards. That depends on your kehilla. Now, I will say one thing. I think the Meshech Chochmah said that the sign of who is a godol is whether he is accepted by other Gedolim. It's not necessarily popular vote. It's if other Gedolim see him as a godol then min Hashamayim he probably is a godol. Of course, at some point, you know, you get into a problem of who made them Gedolim, right? You have this issue. On the other hand, there's another Mahalach that actually says Klal Yisrael itself has an intuition to whom they gravitate. Regardless. There was a beautiful interview, I mentioned this before, with Rabbi Moshe Feinstein in the New York Times in the 1970s. It was an article about Rabbi Moshe Feinstein. Actually, somebody actually unearthed it and sent it to me. But like Rabbi Moshe was being interviewed or uh on his 70th birthday or something. And the kind of the question became like "How did you become, you know, the big guy?" Meaning, why why why do everybody go to Why does everybody go to you? So, Rabbi Moshe in his very charming and humble way said, "You know, people ask you a shaila, they see a rabbi with a beard, and they ask a shaila and they like the answer. The answer makes sense to them, so they tell people around, you know, this is Rabbi you could ask. So, you know, so another person asks, so eventually a lot of people ask ask questions, you know, because people gravitate." Actually, I heard from my own rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Weinberg, who grew up on the Lower East Side. He said that Reb Moshe became very popular because most rabbonim charged when they looked at chickens. In the olden days, you have to buy your chicken and a was shochet and you have to inspect it for abnormalities. So, often you have to bring the chicken to the rav. So, every rav on the Lower East Side charged a nickel for looking at a chicken. Since Reb Moshe did it for free, so that itself created a certain popularity. But, there is a suggestion that Klal Yisrael gravitates to So, Reb So, Reb Meir Shapiro says, it's the gedolim that choose the gedolim. Reb Moshe's story seems to may indicate Klal Yisrael chooses the gedolim. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, um yeah, you know, I I I I really respect uh the question. The question is a real real real real real difficult question. And it's a question for people who are even totally committed to be from. They're not even struggling with I'm going to desecrate Shabbos. But, there are people that Shabbos, which is supposed to be the most holy day, the most enjoyable day, the most pleasurable day, Shabbos can be a torture for people. If you're not connected So, if So, if baruch Hashem you like to learn Torah, baruch Hashem you have the bracha of hours and hours and hours of learning Torah, there's no pleasure greater than that. But, what if you don't like to learn Torah? Never could not like to learn Torah. So, you have a davening and you have eating and then you have sleep. But, how long do you sleep? Anyway, you know, kids don't sleep that much anyway. In fact, I remember when I was in ninth grade and I had not been used to taking a Shabbos nap. And now I I do it already, but then I didn't. And the whole Yeshiva was asleep. I remember the whole Yeshiva sleep Shabbos afternoon, I was going crazy. I didn't know what to do. I was like wandering the halls in search of somebody, you know, like nobody was alive. Right? So, Shabbos you can go crazy. Uh in the winter you go crazy Friday night, the long nights. In the summer, maybe it's even worse, you know, Shabbos is over 8:00. So, you're raising an interesting proposal. And the proposal would be, well, let's take something like playing a musical instrument. Now, playing a musical instrument on Shabbos is not one of the 39 melachos. In fact, under Torah law, it's absolutely permitted under Torah law. Ela mi, the chachamim made a gezeirah that you're not allowed to play musical instruments on Shabbos because they were afraid that maybe it would break, a string would break or something and you would fix the instrument and that is a melacha. That's the melacha of make a batish, of making a clay. So, this is the familiar gezeirah form. Don't do X, which is mutar, because maybe you'll do Y. So, your question would be, well, listen, if I have a kid and if the kid goes crazy enough, he'll want to text or want to turn on his uh iPhone or whatever it would be and he might be transgressing melachos d'oraisa. Maybe it would be better for me to permit infractions that are less chamur in order to avoid infractions that are much more severe. Right? That's that that's the old the old issue. So, all I can tell you is uh certainly we would not allow this as a public statement. We would not simply In other words, to simply say, we hereby permit the playing of guitar on Shabbos because we feel it'll prevent more serious transgressions. You cannot make such a psak as a public matter. But, if you're asking me, if I have an individual child that is struggling, is there a makom to permit? The answer is The answer is there might there might be. There might be. There might be a consideration that we're permitting something to avoid something worse. And in halacha, there is such a dynamic. But, it can't be like a public wholesale dispensation because we do not have the koach to matter an issue d'rabbonan. Even if it came from the chachamim, we're bound by those rules until the Sanhedrin comes. When we have a new Sanhedrin, they can repeal these things, but we cannot do it on our own. Yeah. Yeah, so so uh there are two questions here. The The The general question uh is how could it be that tzaddikim who are righteous, right? It says by the malach hamoves, once Hashem releases powers of destruction in the world, those powers will sometimes not differentiate between the righteous and the evil, which means innocent people may in fact be swept up. How do we understand that? Uh that that's not just uh that that's uh doesn't Hakadosh Baruch Hu run the world? And why would Hashem allow that to happen? Uh so, one answer might be that um when you have strict middas hadin in the world, the tzaddik himself is judged at a different level. Meaning, the tzaddik alone would not have triggered middas hadin. But, once the middas hadin is opened up, the tzaddik is chayav in middas hadin because middas hadin is so tough that even tzaddikim fail the standard. On his own level, yeah. That's one way of understanding it. Yeah. Yeah. Now, your second question though is really a pella that the malach hamoves took the wrong guy. How do How do you understand that? That's already a pella. How could it be that God would allow that type of mistake uh to take place. Uh there too, um the only way I could explain it is this. When somebody dies, and this goes back to the Orach Chaim and all sorts of things, there are two ways that could happen. One is God decreed that the person dies. The other is God removed his hashgacha pratit. So, now he's vulnerable to the mikreh utevah. So, it could be that the idea of a mistake was this person did not deserve to die, but he was in a matzav where he deserved a removal of hashgacha pratit. And therefore, whatever happens is whatever happens. And therefore, that's how it would be shach. Yeah. In the past and in the past as well, people in Israel in the Jewish community tried putting together a Sanhedrin. Um I was curious on what the parameters are of first putting together a Sanhedrin and also just today how it is in Judaism with so many different sects that recently in the past 200 years have kind of popped up and become so prominent, how would getting a central Sanhedrin together be possible? Yeah. So, first of all, there there is an organization in Jerusalem right now that is called the Sanhedrin. I mean, almost nobody pays attention to it, but they have a website and check it out. And they have some chashuv people, some less chashuv people on it and the like. But, let me let me was a major issue in Klal Yisrael in the time of Reb Yosef Caro. Uh if you ask me the question why we don't have a Sanhedrin, because if we did, we could repeal all sorts of things. Uh the short answer is a Sanhedrin requires people that have smicha. Now, in spite of the fact that every person who goes by the name rabbi has something called smicha, we are all frauds. We are all imposters. And none of us have smicha. Uh we simply have a heter from our rabbis or our yeshivas to pasken shailos. We do not have smicha. Smicha requires unbroken ordination from Moshe Rabbeinu by the laying of hands. Some say you don't need laying of hands, but it's an unbroken ordination. This was a chain that continued through the period of the Mishna after the churban and even into the period of the Amoraim. But, at one point in the Roman persecutions, the last person who had that unbroken chain was killed before he passed it on. Since then, we don't have smicha. If we don't have smicha, we can't have a Sanhedrin. Now, in the 1500s in Tzfat, there was a great rabbi. He was the rebbe of Reb Yosef Caro, Reb Yaakov Beirav. And based on his interpretation of the Rambam, it's machlokes how to learn the Rambam. The Rambam seems to have created a ruling that if all of the chachmei Yisrael want to recreate Smicha. They could create it Yesh Me'ayin they could create Ex Nihilo. They could create Smicha, ordain people, and create a Sanhedrin. If Yaakov Beirav actually wanted to be Mechadesh Smicha, because he felt as well this would bring Mashiach. Sanhedrin would bring the Mashiach. He actually ordained four Chachamim. With Yosef Karo, the Mabit, and Moshe ben Yosef Trani, I believe the Alshich. Uh these are Rabbis of Tzfat, great Rabbis of Tzfat, and Moshe Galante who must have been a very great man, although we don't know a lot about him. And some of them continued to a second generation. What happened was it petered out after that and it was never continued because the Rambam's condition was that the Chachamim have to agree and the Chachmei Yerushalayim did not agree with Levi ben Chaviv. He's the son of the and Yaakov ben Chaviv, Yaakov ben Chaviv, ben Chaviv held that you can't do it. So as a result, the idea of Chiddush haSmicha discontinued. Now Napoleon tried to create Napoleon created a body, the Napoleon Sanhedrin, but that that although it did have some Chashuve demicham, but that was fake. I mean that did not have the authority of a Sanhedrin under any Ifan at all. It was kind of just a show thing. Uh so basically, unless you would go back to a Yaakov Beirav's Hatz'aa, uh Chiddush haS of the Sanhedrin is impossible. And even the body that's called the Sanhedrin just makes the claim that we are just doing this as a dry run to prepare ourselves when Mashiach comes. So how will the Sanhedrin be established when Mashiach comes? Eliyahu Hanavi has Smicha. So Eliyahu Hanavi is going to ordain the greatest Chachmei haChachamim and they will be on the Sanhedrin. So right now there's no way we could do it. And even if we followed the Rambam, there's no way we could do it because we're not going to get agreement of Chachmei Yisrael. Yeah. Professor, is slavery immoral and if so, why did God forbid or make it assur? Yeah, a very excellent question. Slavery, is slavery immoral? And if it is really a bad thing, then why does Hashem legitimate slavery? Why does the Torah permit slavery? So again, it's it's getting late. I'm I'm going to give you two quick answers. There are two different approaches in the Meforshim. Some say slavery is a bad thing. But since slavery was so common in the in the uh world, the ancient world at the time, if Hashem would have said just don't do it, people wouldn't listen. So instead of forbidding it outright, Hakadosh Baruch Hu regulated it, humanized it, made it better, made it more moral with the hope and the expectation that eventually it would peter away, similar to polygamy. And similar to the Rambam's famous explanation about Korbanos. Remember the Rambam's explanation about Korbanos? That Hashem doesn't want sacrifices, but this was a concession to Avodah Zarah. So seen in this way, slavery was a temporary concession to the imperfections of human nature. Now, I have a big Kasha on that. I have a very big Kasha on that because the Halacha is if you have a non-Jewish slave, you are not allowed to free him. Now my question is if slavery is bad, but it's just a concession, then for heaven's if I want to free my slave, it ought to be a good thing, not a bad thing. Now the other approach, which is not politically correct, uh is given by the Netziv. The Netziv says there actually is a moral basis for slavery. It was a way of civilizing savage and immoral populations. You took captives of war, uh you took over the Avodah Zarah, you took murderers, and you brought them into a Jewish environment and they learned many Mitzvos, etc. And this was a way of bringing them into a civilized environment. Now, Jewish slavery is not slavery. That's the first thing. Now this I'm talking about non-Jewish slavery is slavery. Uh Jewish slavery is simply I mean if you look at it, I mean the Gemara says that he who buys a Jewish slave bought a master. If you have one good pillow, he gets it, he gets the best food. So that's just a way of helping somebody who needs a job essentially. So when people ask about the morality of slavery, they should be thinking about non-Jewish slavery, not Jewish slavery. But non-Jewish slavery, these are the two approaches. Yeah. How do we pasken regarding Lulav Gazul on Yom Sheini, taking into consideration Mitzvah Ba'ah B'Aveira? And can we apply the verdict in a situation of someone stealing money for example to give it to the poor? Um do they get a Mitzvah for giving that money to Tzedakah or do we consider it Mitzvah Ba'ah B'Aveira? Yeah yeah, so this is the Gemara in Sukkah. Again, the Gemara in Sukkah tells us that a stolen Lulav is not Kosher for the Mitzvah. And the Gemara says I understand on the first day it's not Kosher because the Torah says it has to belong to you and a stolen Lulav doesn't belong to you. But on the second day, there's no requirement. I could borrow it. So why would a stolen Lulav be Pasul? So there's a Machlokes in the Gemara. One opinion says you're right, on the second day it is Kosher. But the other opinion says no, even on the second day it's not Kosher, or Chol HaMoed is not Kosher because a Mitzvah that is done through a sin it's not only you have a sin, that's for sure, but you don't even have a Mitzvah. A Mitzvah Ba'ah B'Aveira is an Aveira without a Mitzvah. LaHalacha, we absolutely pasken Mitzvah Ba'ah B'Aveira. And therefore LaHalacha it's a Devar Pashut that a stolen Lulav is invalid every day of Sukkos including Chol HaMoed, first day, second day, every other day as well. And we do apply it. This is a Klal B'Halacha V'Chumra that Mitzvos that are done through Aveiros are not valid Mitzvos. I steal money for Tzedakah, uh etc. In fact, some even apply it to airplane Minyanim. It's a bit questionable. I mentioned this morning that the way you make a Minyan in an airplane can sometimes be a Chillul Hashem because you're blocking the bathroom and you're blocking the the meal service and the like. So some have even suggested you're not Yotzei Davening that way because you're doing your Mitzvah by the Aveira of Chillul Hashem. So it is a Shas Klal, but there are rules, there are conditions to it. So it's a Sugya that you need to look at at length. Okay, we'll stop here and thank you.