After last week’s successful shiurim around the world, Dirshu has this to report: In Boro Park, the Skverer Dayan, Rav Yechiel Michel Steinmetz ,was asked whether a yeshiva bochur is responsible to ensure that his room is free of chometz and make a bedikah or is it the responsibility of the yeshiva who owns the building? Another thought-provoking question was what happens if a person made the bracha on bedikas chometz in one room but started checking for the chometz in another room? Is relocating from one room to another between the bracha and the checking considered a hefsek?
And then there was the question regarding women and their eating of matzoh. Women are not obligated to recline, but must they sit while they eat the matzoh or the afikomen? Rav Steinmetz ruled that if they get up because a baby is crying or they want to take care of food in the kitchen while eating the matzoh, it is very likely that they are not yotzeh unless they eat the matzoh sitting in one place.
Rav Reuven Feinstein spoke in Baltimore and addressed the ideal of preparing for the final geulah through the Haggadah in the month of Nissan. He spoke of how the Bnei Yisrael had to undergo a profound transformation of mindset when they left Mitzrayim. Until that time, the way that they had made their decisions was based on, “What is good for me?” “What does my mind dictate, my emotions dictate?” All of a sudden they left Mitzrayim and they had to start thinking differently. It was no longer “What does my mind think, but rather, what does Hashem want from me? This was the purpose of the forty years in the midbar. To transform Klal Yisroel from self-focused individuals to a Hashem-focused nation and it wasn’t an easy transformation!”
HaGaon HaRav Zev Smith spoke in Lakewood and asked, “May one use the hot water faucet on Yom Tov, because by using hot water it allows for cold water to come into the tank to replace it? Is one permitted to take pictures on Chol Hamoed? Is taking pictures a form of kesiva, writing?”
In Eretz Yisroel shiurim were held in major Jewish centers. HaGaon HaRav Moshe Shaul Klein, gave over the halachic rulings of Rav Wosner. Among them was why the bracha of Al Hagafen is not recited after the first kos, even though the wine will certainly be digested during the time it takes to recite the haggadah and eventually wash for Hamotzi. In Bnei Brak, HaGaon HaRav Yitzchok Mordechai Rubin went through the tens of halachos of bedikas chometz that are not explicitly set forth in the Shulchan Aruch, showing how today’s modern-day questions can be answered by precedents set forth in the Shulchan Aruch. The shiur in Beit Shemesh was delivered by HaGaon HaRav Shmuel Yaakov Borenstein, who mixed his classic lomdus with halacha. In Beitar, HaGaon HaRav Shmuel Eliezer Stern, spoke about an interesting question addressed by the Chasam Sofer. If someone sells his chometz utensils to a non-Jew is he obligated to toivel, to immerse his keilim in the mikvah when he buys them back after Pesach, because he is now acquiring the vessels from a non-Jew? In London, England HaGaon Harav Shraga Kallus, covered the areas of Pesach and hilchos Yom Tov.
By Chaim Gold
