Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Olives, My New Rosh Chodesh Treat

If you like olives and you don't care about forgetting your learning, then you may want to stop reading now. Take your time; I'll wait.

Ok, so either don't care for olives or you do care about remembering your learning (or both). I like olives. Growing up I only ate pitted, black olives. They were also a fun food, as the fit quite neatly over the tips of child sized fingers. I did not like green olives. Then I grew up and discovered martinis; which contain a pitted green olive -- filled with either an almond or pimento -- as garnish. Quite tasty end to the martini. More recently, I have discovered spiced and pickled Mediterranean whole olives; they come in an assortment of sizes, colors, and tastes; quite delicious. Then I went to R' Fuerst's shiur yesterday; Sunday, July 14, 2024. A day I shall not soon forget.

The shiur is entitled: Interesting Shailos: Haircut/Shave/Shower Before Shacharis, Shaking Off Dust from a Beged on Shabbos and more. It is available on TorahAnytime.com. That word "more" in the title is what changed my life.

Chazal tell us (Horiyos, 13b) that eating olives regularly can cause one to forget his Torah learning. There are several other things that also adversely affect one's memory: eating leftovers from an animal (I mean... he only ate half that hamburger!), wiping your hands on your clothes (pay attention to that one, kids), using your clothes as a pillow. There are others, see this nice article by the OU: Forgetfulness.

Where was I? Oh, yes... olives. While olives are a problem for one's memory, the same Gemara says that olive oil is good for one's memory. R' Fuerst started by mentioning that R' Yaakov Emden says that olives are only a problem straight off the tree, but pickled are fine. R' Shlomo Zalman Auerbach says that if you dip the olives in olive oil (or make olive dip, seems to me), then the negative effects of eating the olives is counteracted by the positive benefits of the olive oil. Whew; safe.

Then R' Fuerst concluded with the p'sak of R' Chaim Kanievsky: olives in all forms. R' Chaim says that he never saw a Chazal that gave the advice of pickling or mixing with olive oil. It says olives, it means olives; finished. I asked how we hold. He said the halacha is like R' Chaim. After all, there is an actual Torah prohibition for a man to do anything that could cause him to forget his Torah learning, so one must be stringent.

Note that olives are a problem for Torah learning. Eating olives won't make you forget math. Also, olives are only a problem if eaten regularly, but once every 30 (or, according to some, 40) days is no problem. Olives can also cause women to forget their learning, but they do not transgress a Torah prohibition by doing so.

I spoke to R' Fuerst later in the day and he told me that he has a leniency that he didn't want to say in public. You can ask him yourself, if you like. However, R' Fuerst concluded his comments to me, "But why would you want to take a chance on forgetting 70 years of learning?!"

Hence, olives are now a rosh chodesh treat for me.

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.  That is, even th
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 Aruch HaRav that referred to the noise of תקתוק
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 Shabbo
Post a Comment
Read more