Everyday Judaism · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of TORCH in Houston, Texas. This is the Everyday Judaism Podcast.

Beautiful Sunday morning to everyone. It's so wonderful to be back here in the Everyday Judaism Podcast. Today we are going to finish up the rest of chapter 42, simon mem beis, the laws of proper conduct for a meal. This is essential. Some of the things that we discussed last week are just like fundamentals, like you don't eat before the person who is more dignified at the table.
And if you're a guest in someone's home, that's the host. You don't eat before the host begins to eat. This is something that is essential. And we said that if you know someone is not going to perform properly at the table, perhaps it's not good company for you. So now the halacha continues, halacha number 16, a woman whose husband is not with her shouldn't be going around drinking wine. It's not appropriate.
So if she's someplace else, not in her home, it's not appropriate for her to drink when she's out and about. And the halacha applies, anything that is of alcoholic nature, anything that is inebriating or intoxicating, however, if she's accustomed to drinking wine, she likes her glass of wine daily, in the presence of her husband, she always drinks, then even if she's not near her husband, she may drink that same normal amount. Now what's the idea of this halacha?
The halacha is concerned that when people get intoxicated, they do silly things. And when people do silly things, it's not good. It's generally, it does not end up wholesome. So the halacha here is giving us guidance of how one should conduct themselves properly. Halacha number 17, it is forbidden for guests to take any food that was put before them and to give it to the son or daughter of the host, because we are concerned that the host may not have any more.
He gave that last piece of chicken to you, and now he's not going to have what to feed you with. And now you just gave it to the child of the host, and now he's going to be embarrassed that he doesn't have more food for the guest. But if there's a large amount of food, there's a whole buffet there. So then you are permitted to feed it to the children as well. One who enters the house of another person, give me food. You shouldn't say, give me food.
I'm hungry. Give me something to eat. But they should wait until the hosts invite them in to eat. Okay, this is, I'll tell you an amazing story. This was Simchat Torah, maybe 30 years ago, maybe even more. We get a knock on the door, and it wasn't an ordinary knock. It was a very loud, obnoxious type of knock. And this guy, I open the door, and this guy says, I'm hungry. Can I have a bite to eat?
So I look at him, and he's got Q-tips coming out of his ears, like still in his ear. This guy looked like he's totally on a different planet. And he's wearing like six coats, and he's like carrying a bag with him. And I walk into the kitchen, I told my mother, I think Elijah the prophet is here. And my mother's like, bring him in. Bring him in. And we sat him at the table, and we gave him a full meal to eat.
And at some point, he just got up and walked out. And the next day, he came again. And for years, and years, and years, my mother fed him almost every single day. And when my parents moved to Israel, my parents told the people who were renting the house from them that this guy may come, his name was Shmuel. And if you can, if you can feed him, just give him something to eat. And sometimes my mother said to him, Shmuel, you can't come to the house now.
You're not clean. You got to shower, you got to clean yourself, and then you can come in. But we'll feed you on the front porch. And he understood. He understood. Sometimes he said, I've showered, I'm clean, I can come in. And he became, he would always be very, very grateful and thankful to my mother who took him in. He knew he always got a warm, nutritious meal, a delicious meal. My mother always took care of him.
And then I asked my mother recently, she's like, she's so sad that he doesn't come by. She doesn't know where he is. He has no idea. We have no idea where he came from. But you would see him walking up the street, coming to our house. And it's like, imagine like of all the homes in the entire community, our home was the lucky one that got to feed him. Right? But that's a special thing.
But the halacha says that one is not supposed to walk into the home and just say, feed me, give me food, I'm hungry. You should wait. And this, by the way, applies when we're a guest in someone's home. We're not supposed to be telling the master of the host or the hostess, maybe we should get the meal started. It's not appropriate. In the host's home, you follow what the host says. You follow what the hosts do.
It is forbidden for the guest to eat from a meal that does not suffice for its owner. When the host does not have enough food to feed himself. Now, let me give you an example of this. This might not be only when you're a guest in someone's house. If you're out at a conference, and you see someone sitting on the side and they're eating a little sandwich, you know something, I also only eat kosher.
You think you have some of your sandwich, I can have some of your sandwich, but it's not enough for him to eat. In such a case, it's called a suda, it's a meal that does not have enough, doesn't suffice for its owner, because this is a trace of theft. He's going to give it to you. He's going to give it to you. Who's not going to give you that little, whatever's left of their sandwich, but now they're going to be hungry.
Even if the host invites him to eat with him, this is a great sin, and is of those sins that is difficult to repent. If one eats whatever is left of your home, whatever is left of your, of your, of your kitchen. Also, let's say smoke is forbidden, by the way, this is just another interesting thing when we talk about, you have to be very careful to make sure, I try to tell my children, like, bring an extra snack to school.
You might have a friend who doesn't have a snack. You may have a friend whose parents are going through a difficult time, and they don't, they didn't realize that they don't have a snack. Look around. If there's someone else who needs a snack, share with them. Share with them. It's an important thing to teach our children to look out for other people, to care for other people. Now, does that mean that they should give their own lunch? No, that does not mean that.
The Torah says you have to take care of yourself, then you take care of your family, then you take care of your community, then you take, means you have to prioritize yourself because if you're not going to eat, you're not going to be around to feed others. It is forbidden for one to leave his place during or after a meal before reciting the blessing after the grace after meals. It means you're not supposed to even get up from your seat until you finish reciting the
grace after meals, and it is even forbidden to go during a meal to go to a different room to finish your meal there. I'm just going to finish it near the TV because there's great news going on, you know, coming out of the White House, whatever it might be, okay? Oh, I just got to watch this, so I'm going to finish my meal there. No, you're not allowed to. You have to stay where you're eating, or he's going there, but he'll come right back to
finish your meal because how many times do we get carried away and we don't finish our meal? When we come back, it's two hours later, like, I can't believe I forgot to come back to my table. Halacha understood this, and that's why our sages teach us, don't leave in the middle of the meal. You're there? Okay, now I want to share with you an amazing story. We said that you follow whatever the host says. You follow whatever the host does.
So it's very, very interesting, the different customs that you have. So I was once by a Sephardic rabbi, Rabbi Jacobian, a very dear friend of mine. I was a guest by him in the summer. My family was in New York, and he invited me to be by them for Shabbos, to stay by him for Shabbos. So it was late Friday night, summer, you start late as is, and it was really, really late. And I grew up, you don't say a word unless the host asks you.
You don't, like, you be gracious, you bring something, you bring a bottle of wine, you bring flowers, whatever it may be, you bring a candy platter, a chocolate platter, whatever it may be. But you don't say, you know, can we move this along? Can we bench now? Can we, you know, can we sing a song now? That's not appropriate. Whatever the, whatever. So at some point he tells me, it's like towards the end, the end, like it is so late at night already.
And he says to me, can you please do me a favor? Can you tell me to bench? Because I'm not going to bench until you tell me to. I said, that's the craziest thing. I said, from where I come from, where the halacha says here, we don't do anything till the host says something. And now you're telling me, he says, no, no, no, by us it's just the opposite. The guest is the master of the home.
And if the guest doesn't say to bench, we're not going to bench. He says, we'll be here till next week if you're not going to tell me to bench. So I said, fine. A few weeks later, I was a guest in someone's home. And the meal was going on for way too long. It was like, the kids are already falling asleep there. It's like, I don't know what to do. So I said to him, you know, I was once barabiacobian. And I told him the whole story.
He says, I got it, okay. So we started benching and we were done the meal. But it was like, but it was, you got to be so careful. You got to be so careful. And I remember when I was a child, we used to have a table full of guests all the time. My parents still do. We try to as well. And one of the guests who was clearly did not learn this halacha, clearly not very educated either. He was new to observance of Shabbos.
And in the middle of the meal, like just in the middle of the meal, he says, can we finish this meal? Can we? I have to run someplace. He had to go to some, I don't know what, some program that he was going to be on that Shabbos. He was going to walk to another program that he was going to. So my father says to him, we're going to finish the meal when we finish the meal.
And my father turns to me and he says to me in Hebrew, sing every song you know. Okay. And he says, I'm going to teach this guy, right? That this is not the way you act at someone's Shabbos table. You don't tell them how to run their Shabbos table. You don't tell them how to be a host. Right? So it was quite an interesting Shabbos meal. Even to just walk outside of the door. And to walk back after and to finish the meal.
Be very careful of this. So a person did violate this and did leave his place. So let's say a person did go, comes back to finish his meal or he doesn't finish his meal. He should not recite again the Hamotzi unless it is 72 minutes since he left. Now let me just give you an example of how this can be resolved. So what's if you have an emergency? I've had this many times. I'm in the middle of my Shabbos meal or dinner meal where we washed Hamotzi.
I got to finish that meal with the grace after meals. And I get an emergency on my radio for Hatzalah. This is a medical emergency. What do I do? I go and I run. I always try to remind my family, please stay seated till I get back. Someone stay there. Why? Because as soon as I get back, if the table's all cleared and everybody left already, I'm going to forget that I need a bench. I still need to say the grace after meals.
So it could be that you can find a leniency and not be required to, especially if it's an extended period of time. Sometimes it can take two, three hours. That's more than 72 minutes last I checked. So that would be a question that needs to be asked regarding that. Now ordinarily, leaving the place in which one recites a blessing upon food is seen as the conclusion of the eating session. And thus the blessing ceases to be effective.
If he would like to continue eating elsewhere, or even if he would return to his original place, a new blessing would be required. As we have seen in the above case, the blessing is still effective. Kitzer now explains why. The key one should cover sudas al hapas since one is eating his bread meal, afal pi shishino hamekomo, even though he changed this place during the meal, mekomokam nechshav hakol l'sud al hapas, nevertheless it is considered as if it's one long meal if he moved elsewhere.
Rak shizor, however, one should be very cautious, lechol lechol hapochos kezayis pas, to eat at least a kezayis, which is the size of an olive, big olive, of bread, v'mokam shivork bekasamos, in the place in which he is going to recite the grace after meals. Aval b'shar devarim ein okayn, however, with regards to foods other than bread, the halachah is not like this. And so what's the recommendation? So if someone eats bread, they're eating their meal, and now they leave, and they come back,
they don't need to recite another blessing on the bread. But the person should be very cautious and very careful to remember to recite the grace after meals. You recite the grace after meals. Now, if a person forgets and it's more than 72 minutes, there's nothing you can do. Now it's already not applicable because you're not connected to that meal, okay? That span of time already now, sort of, you missed the opportunity to do the grace after meals as part of that meal.
You're not required to wash again just to recite that grace after meals. If you're done your meal, you're done your meal. Okay, halachah number 20. If people are eating together as a group, so a family sitting together, and some of them left, just with the intention to return soon to the original place where the others are still sitting, since if even one person stays there at the original place where they all ate, it's considered as if the meal never ended, and when they return, they are considered
to be returning to their original meal, v'lavi efsek, and it's not considered. So that, in that case, would be, even if it's longer than 72 minutes, since they're still sitting there, it's still part of the meal. So you haven't broken up the meal, and that would help in my situation. If I were to go and transport a patient to the hospital and come back home and it's two hours later, three hours later, since someone is still sitting at the table, it's considered
that it's still the same meal, and now you're just resuming your meal. Halachah number 21. We just have three more halachahs to this simmon. Im b'shas berkas hamozi, hoi sedato l'leches acharkach. So this is a very important thing. If at the time that one recited the hamozi, he had in mind, he planned that he's going to continue his meal elsewhere. He's going to finish his meal by his neighbor. He's going to finish his meal in his car. He's on his way to work.
He's like, okay, I make, I'm having in mind now, I'm starting my meal here, but I'm going to continue my meal elsewhere. And I'm going to say my grace after meals there on my transport, or wherever it is. It is customary to permit one to do this, however, one should be, take caution, to eat a little bit over there as well. So imagine like this, friends invite you over for dessert. So now should you finish your meal and then go to eat the dessert, or should you just
continue your meal there with dessert by your friend's house? So the main thing is to remember that you need to recite the blessing, the grace after meal. And as soon as one recites the birkat hamazon, that is, that should be, that should be fine. The laws regarding one who recites one of the daily prayers during a meal. So you start your meal. I've had this a number of times where I've had, I was in middle of my meal and then they
called me from the synagogue, someone knocks on my door and says, we need you for a minion. I had already done it, so I can just stay in and participate there. So now what do we do? When you return, you do not need to recite the hamotzi another time. If someone fell asleep, someone napped at the table, my dad, may he live and be well, at the Shabbos meal, always at some point falls asleep, even if it was for, there was
a nap for 20 minutes, just fell asleep at the table. That's fine. It's not considered an interruption with regarding the blessing of hamotzi. So imagine, if someone needs the restroom, does that mean that now they interrupted their meal? No, you come back. But you need to make sure that you wash your hands and make sure that you're clean after using the bathroom and the like, because whatever activities that they were doing, diverted their attention from the cleanliness of their hands.
So make sure before you come back to the table, you wash your hands. You don't recite, you don't recite the blessing, but you just make sure that you wash your hands before getting back to the table, unless someone was really cautious about keeping his hands clean. You do not recite the blessing, but because one diverts their attention, doesn't necessitate reciting a blessing. You just make sure your hands are clean. We see that the halacha is so cautious about cleanliness.
Cleanliness is of utmost importance to our sages and to us. So when a person concludes his meal, and he decides to recite the blessing, the grace after meals, so now he decides he wants to recite the blessing, he hasn't done so yet, but now he's like, you know what, I want to continue eating a little bit more. I want to drink something. Does he have to recite another blessing? Because he already had in mind that he's finishing his meal.
There are many different opinions about this, a person should be cautious to refrain from such a situation. As soon as a person has intention to recite the grace after meals, he should begin and recite the grace after meals. So this concludes Symon 42, and my dear friends, now we are going to change our broadcast and move on to the Ask Away segment of the Everyday Judaism podcast. Ask Away number 31. My dear friends, I am so excited. Here we go.

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