Yom Kippur is behind us. We hope everybody had a good fast. Nowadays people say, “Have a meaningful fast.” When we were young, they used to say, “Have an easy fast.” What is wrong with saying that, by the way? Now people make you feel guilty if you wish them an easy fast, as though you have to watch your tongue: “No, no—have a meaningful fast.”
What does “a meaningful fast” even mean? I am going to the synagogue and praying for twenty-five hours. It will be meaningful. But I also want to have an easy fast. I do not want a headache. I do not want to feel as though I am dying. I do not want to suffer from going without caffeine.
This is what has happened in our generation. Our parents always said, “Have an easy fast,” but now it is apparently not religious to say that. God forbid a person should have an easy time with anything! Suffer—but it should be meaningful.
I do not know who changed it, but I have not bought into it. I do not buy into these new things. Your father said, “Have an easy fast.” Your grandfather said, “Have an easy fast.” That is what you say. There is nothing wrong with it. Why can you not wish someone an easy time? You should not get sick; you should not be hurt; you should make it through. “Have a meaningful fast”—that sounds like a Hallmark item. I do not buy into that.
This is the Haim ben Mazaviko Mizrahi edition, dedicated by his sons to the study of daily Jewish law. We are studying volume seven of Dania Koel, and today’s learning is in memory of Karen Mizrahi, dedicated by her children.
Marshall has a good custom: every year he donates about five hundred sambusak pastries for breaking the fast in the synagogue. Last night, that table of pastries caused all the bottlenecking on the way out, as everyone took a couple. The point is that he does this in memory of his mother, and today we are learning in her memory as well—back to back. Karen Mizrahi was a good lady.
We really cannot ask too many questions until we finish all twenty-eight rulings. Once we have gone through them, we will have to put together some kind of review to see exactly what we do. For now, we are adding another element. We are up to ruling number eleven, so let us go slowly.
We said that in certain cases, when you change locations, you have to recite a new blessing. In most of the cases we discussed, we applied the principle that in cases of doubt concerning blessings, we rule leniently. In some cases, however, we said that according to all opinions you must recite a new blessing.
For example, consider a beverage other than wine, or an ordinary fruit—not bread or one of the seven species. If you ate in one place and moved to a different location, you would have to recite a new blessing according to all opinions. The question then becomes: What is considered a different location?
He says that someone who goes outside the building where he is eating, or leaves one house for another, is considered to have changed locations. As we just said, the practical requirement to recite a new blessing will not apply if he ate bread, cake, or fruit from the seven species. More precisely, it does apply according to the Shulchan Aruch, but since it does not apply according to the Rama, we rule leniently in a case of doubt concerning blessings and do not recite another blessing.
To oversimplify this complicated law, the requirement we are discussing applies to ordinary fruit—not fruit from the seven species—and to beverages other than wine. Therefore, if you were eating fruit or drinking, left your house, and returned, the fact that you returned does not help: you have to recite a new blessing.
Now, suppose you only stepped outside for a moment. You did not go out for a long time. The halachic authorities disagree about this. Some say that even if you did not remain outside at all, but merely stepped beyond the doorway and immediately returned, it is considered a change of location. You went outside for a second to get some air and came right back in—it still counts. That is what the Mishnah Berurah says.
Others say that you have to remain outside long enough for it to be considered that your attention has shifted away from the eating or drinking.
Now we can return to all our practical situations. Someone goes outside for a moment to hand another person an envelope, to get the mail, or for some other brief errand. He says that, in the first instance, you should take the first opinion into account and should not leave your house even for a moment.
We have now added another detail. If you drank coffee and want to step outside for a second and come right back, do not do it. But if you did, you do not recite a new blessing.
Suppose you left something in the car: “The drinks are in the car; let me get them.” It is something for the meal, and you are out for only a couple of seconds to retrieve it. What is the measure here? I am still dealing with the vagueness of it.
Look at note seventy-eight. The Mishnah Berurah states emphatically that a person loses his connection with the eating or drinking session immediately upon stepping outside, even if he returns immediately. Rabbi Yaakov Emden, however, firmly rejected this ruling. One is emphatic, and the other rejects it firmly!
Rabbi Yaakov Emden claimed that this ruling comes from trying to decide the law directly from the Shulchan Aruch without studying the Talmudic sources. In effect, he is saying, “What are you talking about? That is not how to study it. If you examined the sources carefully, you would realize that it is not so.”
He insisted that the rules of changing location apply only if someone goes somewhere from which he can no longer see the place where he had been eating or drinking, or if he stays away for a while. Of course, once you are outside, you often cannot see the original place.
Someone who returns after a moment cannot be considered to have changed locations. For example, a friend calls someone outside to speak just beyond his door—perhaps on the porch. That might not be considered a change of location unless they become involved in a lengthy conversation. He is saying that time matters.
Hacham Ovadia brought support for the second opinion from the Dibah, who writes that if someone goes outside to speak with his friend and intends to return immediately, it is not considered an interruption. That source clearly says that if the return is immediate, there is no problem. Hacham Ovadia cited this passage in Halichot Olam and added that this is likewise the ruling of Pe’ulat Tzadik.
The Im Pikudat, however, expressed amazement at the decision of Mor Uketzi’ah and insisted that it appears that Maran ruled that the requirement applies even when the person changes location only momentarily.
That is the back-and-forth. From Maran’s wording, it sounds as though even a second counts. Rabbi Yaakov Emden says that whoever reads Maran that way is not studying it properly: you have to examine it in depth and go back to the Talmud. Then the Im Pikudat from Munkach comes along and says, “I do not know what he is talking about. Maran is Maran.” According to that reading, even a second counts. Changing location means going outside, and once the person has gone outside, the connection is broken.
In practice, we must avoid stepping outside. That is a significant point.
We have not discussed the bathroom. When you go to the bathroom, you have not left the house; you are still in the same building. We are talking about going outside the building for a second to tell the security guard something, for example.
I cannot give you an exact amount of time. Suppose someone asks about moving his car—in Brooklyn, for example. I do not know. How long is a “lengthy conversation”? Is it more than three words? What counts as lengthy? What I do know from here is that if it is simply in and out, we do not require another blessing.
We have therefore narrowed another aspect of the laws of changing location. Now look at the next case: moving from room to room within the same house.
Even if you go from the basement to the attic, even if you did not have that move in mind when you recited the blessing, and even if you cannot see the place where you began from your new location, you do not recite another blessing.
Again, leave the bathroom aside; I have not discussed it. There seems to be an infatuation with the bathroom this morning! We are discussing moving from room to room, which happens all the time. We begin our coffee in this room, then go to the lobby, then upstairs, and then to the office. We move throughout the building. The practical rule is that one blessing covers all of that. This is very important.
The Beit Yosef ruled that when someone moves from one room to another, even within the same house, the rules of changing location apply. The Shulchan Aruch says that they apply. So why are we saying otherwise? Because in cases of doubt concerning blessings, we rule leniently.
According to Maran, if you began here and went over there, you would need a new blessing. Several later authorities concurred, including the Magen Avraham, Kaf HaChaim Sofer, and the Ben Ish Chai. Imagine—the Ben Ish Chai, who is so careful about blessings!
In truth, the Ben Ish Chai contradicted himself. First, he says that as long as a person began eating with the intention of moving to the second room, he may do so, and it is not considered a change of location. Later in the same ruling, he writes that it is considered a change of location even if the person intended all along to move. Hacham Ovadia addressed this contradiction and suggested a resolution.
The Mishnah Berurah remarked that it is very difficult to observe this law if we follow the Magen Avraham’s opinion, and very few people observe it in practice. He then demonstrated that the Maggid Mishneh explained that, according to the Rambam, moving from one room to another is not considered a change of location.
He continued that this is likewise the opinion of the author of Halachot Gedolot, Rabbeinu Chananel, Alfasi, and many others.
On this basis, the Mishnah Berurah concluded that people should try to avoid moving from one room to another while eating unless they intended to do so from the beginning.
When we come to class, we do intend to move. We know it automatically; we are not limiting ourselves to this room. If you recite Shehakol downstairs at breakfast and are coming upstairs to class, you already have in mind where you will be going.
If someone moved from one room to another without having had that intention, he must not recite another blessing, based on the principle that in cases of doubt concerning blessings, we rule leniently.
By the way, do you know what I would tell someone? Suppose he moved from one room to another without having intended to do so, and now someone else is reciting a blessing over his coffee. I would tell him to ask, “Have me in mind.” Why not? It does not hurt. If I need another blessing, I have fulfilled that through him. If I do not, I have answered “Amen.” That is hardly the worst thing.
We will get to the festival booth; that is coming up, and it is a very good question. If you are eating bread, you cannot eat it outside the booth, so the situation cannot ordinarily arise in that way. If it begins to rain, that is another case: then we know that you continue in the house.
But suppose you were not eating bread. You were merely having a drink in the festival booth, stepped out for a moment to get something, and returned. Were you outside the whole time? Not really—you were inside the booth. We have to see exactly how that works.
I am not even asking about going from one festival booth to another. I am asking about going from the booth to your driveway. We will have to see. And now we are back to the bathroom—a bathroom in the festival booth!
Returning to moving from room to room, he says not to do it without having intended to do so. Below, in footnote eighteen, he recommends that people always have in mind when they begin eating that they might move. That is the best approach, and that is what we should do.
He also presents a suggestion concerning people who snack at home, beginning in the kitchen and continuing in other rooms. They might have the status of people who eat while walking down the road, to whom the rules of changing location do not apply.
When you snack as you move around the house, you never establish a fixed place for eating. It could therefore be that the entire law of changing location does not apply: you had no fixed place to begin with. You started in the kitchen, but you were standing, walking around, and then eating outside.
That is different from our case. We come here, sit down, and spend an hour studying and drinking coffee in this room. That is an established place. You have settled here, and this is the room in which you recite the blessing.
Every morning I recite Shehakol here in this room. Before that, I walk around with the coffee, but I do not drink it. Really, I should have the intention that the blessing will cover me if I move.
So let us state it now: from now on, whenever I recite a blessing in this building, my intention is that it cover me in every room. I suppose one such intention for your lifetime should suffice. Now everyone knows my intention.
You should do the same. Establish that intention now: “Whenever I recite a blessing in this building, wherever I end up, I intend to continue relying on that blessing.”
The new point we learned today—and I would not have known it—is that if you step outside for a second and come right back, you do not recite another blessing. I would have said otherwise. I always understood that even stepping out for a second breaks the connection, as Maran says and as the Mishnah Berurah says.
But Rabbi Yaakov Emden is effectively saying, “Wait a moment. Open the books. What kind of studying is that? You cannot simply say, ‘That is what the Shulchan Aruch says, and that is that.’” There is a substantial disagreement.
Some follow Maran’s wording literally: it does not matter how long you are outside. Others say that Maran did not mean that. Therefore, if you step out for a brief conversation, pick up an Amazon package from the porch, take the mail from the mailbox and return immediately, or certainly retrieve something from the car that is needed for the meal—food or something similar—you do not recite another blessing. At the very least, we apply the principle that in cases of doubt concerning blessings, we rule leniently. That is very important.
The second point is that, according to Maran, moving from room to room in the same house or building requires a new blessing. In practice, we do not rule that way. What do we do? We have in mind from the beginning that the blessing should cover us wherever we go within the building.
Even if you did not have that intention, you still do not recite another blessing. But what does he say at the end? In the first instance, do not move from room to room and enter this uncertainty unless you had a clear intention at the beginning.
So I am establishing that intention now, for the rest of my life: whenever I am here, my blessings apply in every room of this building.