Thought for the Day: Hilchos Tisha b'Av

We started learning hilchos Tisha b'Av again this morning at the vasikin minyan. I would really like to learn those halachos from now on "l'hagdil torah u'l'hadir". So I need to do tshuva. "Wait!", you'll say, "We all need to do t'shuva!" Au contraire, mon frer; the Rambam says in hilchos tshuva that each Jew should look at himself as exactly balanced between mitzvos and aveiros, and his whole city as exactly balanced, and his whole country as as exactly balanced, and the whole world as exactly balanced. One Jew doing tshuva could turn the tide and we could all be on the next set of eagles' wings out of here.

Wouldn't it be great to be that one Jew? Race ya!

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Thought for the Day: Pizza, Uncrustables, and Stuff -- What Bracha?

Many years ago (in fact, more than two decades ago), I called R' Fuerst from my desk at work as I sat down to lunch. I had a piece of (quite delicious) homemade pizza for lunch. I nearly always eat at my desk as I am working (or writing TftD...), so my lunch at work cannot in any way be considered as sitting down to a formal meal; aka קביעת סעודה. That being the case, I wasn't sure whether to wash, say ha'motzi, and bentch; or was the pizza downgraded to a m'zonos. He told if it was a snack, then it's m'zonos; if a meal the ha'motzi. Which what I have always done since then. I recently found out how/why that works. The Shulchan Aruch, 168:17 discusses פשטיד''א, which is describes as a baked dough with meat or fish or cheese. In other words: pizza. Note: while the dough doesn't not need to be baked together with the meat/fish/cheese, it is required that they dough was baked with the intention of making this concoction. ...

Thought for the Day: What Category of Muktzeh are Our Candles?

As discussed in a recent TftD , a p'sak halacha quite surprising to many, that one may -- even לכתחילה -- decorate a birthday cake with (unlit, obviously) birthday candles on Shabbos. That p'sak is predicated on another p'sak halacha; namely, that our candles are muktzeh because they are a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not מוקצה מחמת גופו/intrinsically set aside from any use on Shabbos. They point there was that using the candle as a decoration qualifies as a need that allows one to utilize a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור. Today we will discuss the issue of concluding that our candles are , in fact, a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not מוקצה מחמת גופו. Along the way we'll also (again) how important it is to have personal relationship with your rav/posek, the importance of precision in vocabulary, and how to interpret the Mishna Brura. Buckle up. After reviewing siman 308 and the Mishna Brura there, I concluded that it should be permissible to use birthday candles to decorate a cake on Sha...

Thought for the Day: אוושא מילתא Debases Yours Shabbos

My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class. It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner. I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her. She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver. When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find. (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it. Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא. It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aru...

Michael el Chayil

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