Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: When You Are Doing a Mitzvah, You Are Doing the Lord's Work

While I do not go out of my way to make a point of going to pray in the middle of the day, I also do not avoid mentioning it.  (By the way, that is a huge step forward for me.)  That is, if someone makes note of me wearing a tie/jacket/hat in the afternoon, I will volunteer that I am going to (or returning from) afternoon prayers.  This once happened while I was putting on my tie; since this particular coworker is Jewish (not yet frum) I volunteered a bit more info: that I only have one tie at work because it is important to be dressed properly for prayer, but I don't think G-d cares that it is the same tie every day.  Her response was to question if G-d cares about me wearing a tie at all. To her I just said, "Yes, because I would wear a tie to an important meeting, so it speaks to my attitude about prayer."  To you, my dear reader, I have a bit more to say on that topic.

Film (remember that?) was basically a plastic substrate smeared with a substance that contained minute amounts of silver.  People made businesses, in fact, in reclaiming the silver from the chemicals that had been used to develop the film.  One might think to apply a similar principle to making tzitzis.  One could, for example, go into a field where sheep graze (with the permission of the owner, of course) to collect up the little bits of wool that has been snagged by thistles, thorns, fences, etc.  Before he starts, our entrepreneur would even declare, "Behold!  I stand ready and prepared to collect tufts of wool from thorns, thistles, and what have you; all with the intent that those tufts be used to make tzitzis!"  Or, a garment factory owner could declare, "Behold!  All wool that is used in the manufacture of garments that is cut off as part of finishing the garment shall be used to make tzitzis!"

The technical name for such declarations is "declaration l'vatala".  The Shulchan Aruch (OC 11:5) says not to do that.  The Mishna Brura (sk 25) explains that this is not just good advice; even after the fact such wool is pasul to be used in the manufacture of tzitzis.  Why?  Because of "bi'zu'i mitzvah"... because it is not treating the performance of a mitzvah with proper respect.

Think about that.  You can't tell the source of the wool by looking at the tzitzis, nor can you discern the kavanos of the workers.  Yet, if one acquired such tzitzis and attached them to a garment, he would be met with a very rude surprise when he gets to the Olam shel Emes.  Not only was he m'vatel a mitzvas asei m'di'oraisa for years, he also have thousands of brachos l'vatala added to his balance sheet.  Talk about "oops".
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more