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The Everyday Judaism Podcast (formerly Living Jewishly Podcast) is dedicated to learning and understanding the laws and basic how-to of daily Jewish living. Presented by Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe in a simple and concise manner, easy for anyone to understand and connect.
This Podcast Series is Generously Underwritten by Marshall & Doreen Lerner.
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of Torch in Houston, Texas. This is the Ask Away series on the Everyday Judaism podcast. To have your questions answered on future episodes, please email askaway at torchweb.org. Now ask away.
Good almost afternoon, everybody. It is so wonderful to be back here for Ask Away number 36. To those of you watching and listening online, please send your questions to askaway at torchweb.org and we'd love to address your questions in an upcoming episode. Ron's got a question. He's got a three-part.
Three-part question. Perfect. First part, can you summarize the history of Torch? Happily. Second part, what is the connection between Torch and Chabad? Third question, what are Torch's plans for attacking Iran? Okay. Great questions. So first is the history of Torch. In 1998, let me start even earlier, 1992, I believe it was, there was a foundation of a new organization called Project Seed. Project Seed would send yeshiva boys out to different communities, outlying communities
outside of the New York, New Jersey, densely populated religious communities. And they would send yeshiva students to various communities to help inspire and to learn with people. And I did that in 1999. I went to Memphis, Tennessee. Had a magnificent time. Lifetime friendships. It was absolutely remarkable. We helped establish a full-time learning COLEL when we went to Memphis. That was the outgrowth of our program was that the community said, we got to have scholars like this throughout the year.
It's not enough to just have it over the summertime. Houston had it for several years. And it was probably the first meeting that they had to discuss about the founding of TORCH was actually in my house, which only 20 years later became my house. But in 1998, they established an organization called TORCH. Who's they? There are five members of the community, Dr. Monk, Gedalia Pollock, Eitan Merwiss, Rabbi Wender, and Cameron Sassoon. These are five members of the Young Israel community.
They were enthralled by having these young yeshiva students come to Houston and to learn with them over the summers. And they were just the inspiration and the energy was just palatable and everyone wanted to have more. So what happened was that they decided we're going to bring in four rabbis with a new organization that they founded called TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. And we're going to bring those rabbis in and they will learn with us and they will do great
things for our community to help build it up. And four rabbis were hired. And those four rabbis very, very quickly got involved not only in the community over there in the Young Israel community, but got involved in the broader community and realized very quickly that there's a great need in Houston and in other cities for there to be a lot of Jewish exposure for people who are thirsting for Jewish knowledge. People who are thirsting for Torah wisdom, for understanding about Judaism, for connection to God.
And TORCH made it its mission to do outreach throughout the community. I moved to Houston not in 1998. I moved to Houston in September, in August, the last day of August in 2005 with the intention that on January 1, 2006, I was going to replace the director of TORCH who was going from the nonprofit sector into the for-profit sector. And since 2006, I have been privileged to be part of this magnificent organization. Just so that you understand, we are only involved in Houston directly. That's our mission.
That's our goal. We are involved in Houston, bringing Torah wisdom to Jews of every stripe, every color, every shape and size, of every affiliation or non-affiliation, making it accessible, making it inclusive, and making it welcoming and hopefully enjoyable for every Jew to connect to. At the end of 2006, we decided that we were going to open up a full-time kolel. Not an outreach kolel, not guys who are going to go do outreach in the community as well,
but just like it's basically a residency for rabbis where they get training, they learn full-time and this is like a doctor does. You go learn under another doctor before you become a doctor, a full-fledged doctor. Same thing with rabbis and that's what a kolel is. It's for married couples. We brought six couples in and about four or five years later, that full-time kolel was taken off the plate of TORCH, off our budget, and became its own independently operated kolel.
So there is a kolel here in Houston today which has about 15 or 20 rabbis, beautiful scholars who are learning full-time in the community and really they're the engine of our community's growth. And TORCH is very proud to have been privileged to found that project. Okay, today, now for me, 21 years later and since the founding of TORCH, almost 28 years since its founding, have seen thousands and thousands of people who have learned and grown in their Judaism.
Some have become Shomer Shabbos, some have become mitzvah observant, some have become influenced to make a decision to marry Jewish, some were influenced to have their children go to Jewish day school. For us, our measure of success is strictly Jews feeling a connection with God. That's our goal, that's our mission. With regard to our connection to your second question, with regard to what's our relationship with Chabad, our relationship is that we're all one nation, one soul.
TORCH is not affiliated with any movement except that we're all brothers, just like I am brothers to members of the Reform Movement and the Conservative Movement and the Orthodox Movement and the Modern Orthodox Movement, we're also affiliated with Chabad. It's like we're brothers and it doesn't make a difference what stripe or hat or no hat people wear. It doesn't make a difference. We're all brothers and when we received the Torah, the qualification wasn't what membership
you have, the qualification wasn't what Hasidic dynasty you were from, but rather you're a member of the tribe, that's the unity that we share with everyone else. With regard to our plan to attack Iran, you're a week and a half late. We already started our attack last Saturday morning and we're on it. We've got full control and thank you Tucker and Candace for bringing awareness to our involvement in that. Yes, I am busy all day when I'm not here teaching Torah, I'm busy strategizing with Pete Hexeth,
our Secretary of War, with the head of the IDF, I'm very close contact, which is why I don't have enough time to teach more classes, I'm just busy strategizing and building tunnels under our, I can't talk about it, okay. But we're very busy, we're very, very busy with that. So I hope I sufficiently answered your question, but you have a follow-up. I just put together a brochure about TORCH and we list the majority of the things that
transpired in Houston since our founding by members of TORCH and it really is a very, very remarkable list of accomplishments and we're very, very proud of them. Thank you. So thank you. Thank you for being here and thank you for asking that question because I don't really get a chance to talk about TORCH that much and I love TORCH so much, so I'm really honored. I really consider it a tremendous, tremendous privilege to be here in Houston with TORCH. All right, next question.
My first question in regards to the laws we were studying, does the 1 to 60 law apply if there's some residue in your sink and this is after the cooking and stuff starts, so not when you first. So you're not talking about a mixture in the food, you're talking a mixture on the surface of the sink. So by mistake you poured your milk into the meat sink. What do you do in such a case? So that's a different story.
That really depends on what the qualification of that meat sink is. Let's just give that example. So you have a meat sink and by mistake you poured your cereal milk into the meat sink. So first is, was that sink used with steaming hot, meaning hot enough that you can burn your hand on it, meat liquid in that sink in the last 24 hours? The answer is most likely not. Second is, is that what you spilled in there hot? No, it's cold milk, right?
Now if it was hot milk, it's a different story. I would probably recommend that you kosher that sink, but since it was cold, you wash it down and that would be sufficient. Now my wife is listening to this and she says, you're out of your mind. They have to kosher the whole kitchen, turn over the kitchen, right? Okay, regarding the letter of the law, you would not be cold and cold. You will not need to kosher it. So it's the same as normal? Correct. Okay.
However, you should wash it, clean the area well so that that residue doesn't affect things later because when you're dealing with chicken, you're dealing with meat and other things that are in that sink perhaps, you wouldn't want that mixture to be there as well. Okay. Okay, my next question is, does hypnosis include rice? Okay, so yes. The custom that we have today is that beans, all legumes and rice are all included as part
of kidneyos, corn as well, and are not eaten by the Ashkenazi community during the eight days of Pesach. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. Rabbi, another one in 60 question. I was listening very closely and I think I understand what you said. Please correct me. If you find the offensive item one, the ratio of 60 of okay, before the day of Pesach, you can apply the one in 60 rule.
But if it's after Pesach begins, you cannot do that even if you throw out the one offensive item. Right. So here's the thing. Again, let's just give an example, okay? Imagine you have chicken soup and a piece of your middle of chopping your chicken soup, it's hot, it's bubbling, okay? You're in the middle of cutting your cheese, your brick of cheese that you have, any type of cheese, feta cheese, whatever your favorite cheese is, and the cheese goes right into your soup.
That's not a liquid and liquid, that's a solid. Solid is a different law, okay? It's a different understanding. You have to take it out, yes. Right now the residue that was left, if it's visible and if it's something that you can take out, you still have to take it out. You know, the question that we would ask to just clarify this is, okay, liquid and liquid, it's a mixture right away. But a solid and the mixture, you got to take out the solid.
Solid and the liquid, you got to take out the solid. Liquid and liquid, again, it's mixed in. So it's bottled with shishim. It is nullified by the 1 to 60th ratio. But what happens if you have 60 cans of tuna and in that mix, one can of something not kosher got mixed in? The tuna are all kosher, they don't have their labels. One can fell in there, it looks exactly the same, is now in that mixture. Now that's not a liquid mixture, that's a solid mixture.
You have no idea, any one of those cans could be the non-kosher. So the halacha would say that you take that one, any one, throw it out, and now what's left is kosher. Each one is in a jar. It's a closed jar. So you take one jar, no, but you don't know which one it is. It's mixed in there. You have no idea which one it is. You take the jar and you throw it out. One jar, any jar.
You take one of the 60, you throw it out, and the assumption is that you threw out the one which is the non-kosher. Only if you discover it before the day of Pesach. On the day of Pesach it's too late, you've got to throw everything out. Those are just the laws of 1 to 60th ratio regarding laws of kosher. Now regarding Pesach, right, you're correct with that. If you find it before Pesach, the mixture of non-chametz to chametz, then correct.
Before Pesach the law would be different than on Pesach. Okay. Thank you for the clarification. Pass it on to David. Rabbi, when you were talking about a piece of bread in the well and that tainted all the water in the well, so what happens with the walls of the well and everything else? I mean, is there a special cleaning procedure you would have to do? You mean for next year, or?
No, like when you're talking about for Pesach now, if a piece of bread got into the well, the water, that you have to negate all that water, right? You just can't use that water on Pesach. By the next year it'll already have cleansed itself. Okay, so you could use it later. Typically there's no need, I don't know why bread would fall in, but imagine someone was in the middle of eating their lunch when they're about to draw water out of the well and they
drop their sandwich in there, right? So now the whole well is hummus, right? By the time next year comes around it should be not done. You have to wait the full year. Well this year it's already not good for this year. And that's why, by the way, people have these stringencies on Pesach with regarding vegetables, with regarding the real serious stringencies that people have with regard to Pesach, these eight days of Pesach, about making sure that they are performing the mitzvah of Pesach
in the absolute most pristine way. Could you use that water after Pesach? Yeah, yeah. Okay, you don't have to wait 365 days. No, no, no. So as soon as Pesach is over then you use it. The only concern is regarding the bread that's in there. There's no restriction to eating bread after Pesach. Okay, got it. But I would just recommend that they nullify that bread because you don't want it to be chametz sho'aval over Pesach, which we'll talk about, chametz that has been passed through
Pesach in the possession of a Jew. So if, for example, a Jew has a distillery where they produce beer, which is not kosher for Passover, or bourbon, which is not kosher for Pesach, or whiskey, which is not kosher for Pesach, and it's owned by a Jew over Pesach, it's a big problem regarding purchasing that. There are actually bourbons, my son knows exactly which ones, he knows, he studied it, and there are some bourbons that are owned by Jews and are not sold to a non-Jew for Pesach.
So let me just explain this just so, because once we're at this topic. So what do you do? You get rid of all the chametz in your house? No, you don't get rid of all the chametz in your house. Sometimes it's impossible, sometimes it's a big loss. You can throw out, you have 25 boxes of cereal, you're going to throw them out now because it's chametz? No, what you do is, you go to the rabbi, and the rabbi will sell your chametz for you to a non-Jew.
So during the days of Pesach, that chametz does not belong to you. We have on our cabinet that gets sold to the non-Jew, it says, sold, it does not belong to us. All of the whiskey is covered, and it does not belong to us, it's not ours. And if we get a knock on the door by a non-Jew who says, I'm the guy, here's my contract, I bought the alcohol from your rabbi, welcome in, you can take his alcohol, it's his. True story. Okay?
That's the way it works. And in every single home, in the form, we'll have those forms here before Pesach. In those forms, you will have a list of all the areas that are being designated as sold. So it could be your pantry, it could be your freezer in the mudroom, it could be your alcohol in the bar, it could be, you know, different things that, you know, these are the things that we're selling. You have to tell them exactly where it is. Where is it located?
How do I get it to the house? You give them all that information. It's not a joke, it's a real sale. It does not belong to you. It belongs to the non-Jew. And then after Pesach, the rabbi will go back to that non-Jew and say, would you be so kind and sell it back to me? And if he says no, it's his. And if he says yes, you say, thank you very much. How much would you like for it?
And you pay him back for all of the stuff that he wants back. Now, if he wants it at a premium, then you're gonna have to pay it if you want it back. He doesn't have to pick it up. He can leave it in your house. He's not picking it up. So the non-Jew's not coming to your house to pick it up. He can leave it at rent-free if he wants to pick it up and enjoy it.
Now, most people that you find as non-Jews to purchase that, understand that it can't belong to the Jew during these days. But if they can, if they decide to, go and enjoy, feast on their non-kosher for Passover food. Okay? Excellent question. Thank you. Okay, so let me, okay, so there's something called Haggalah, okay, which we discussed previously. We're going to discuss it more in depth, hopefully next week. Haggalah means as follows.
Let's say, if I understand your question correctly, let's say I have silverware that I use throughout the year. I have my Becher, my Kiddush cup or goblet that I use for Kiddush every single Shabbos. Now, that is on the table with non-kosher for Passover things the entire year. You have challah on the table. You have other non-kosher for Passover foods. So now, I want to use it for Pesach. I don't have many goblets. I want to use mine. So what do I do?
It was used throughout the year with non-kosher for Passover. So what you do is, use something called Haggalah. Haggalah means that you boil up water, and the HK used to be Torch exclusive. Now it's HK that does it. And they have an entire morning where you go, you bring all of your items that haven't been used in 24 hours, has to be a 24 hour period of it not being used, has to be fully
cleaned, and they'll take that silver goblet and put it into that boiling hot water that's bubbling water. And now it's like brand spanking new. It's brand new. It's now like it's never been used because anything that was perhaps on it, not kosher for Passover, has been burnt off by the boiling water. So that's one. You can use that for your cutlery. You have silverware that you use. Disposable stuff. Yes. Okay, very good.
So they actually have, if you go, you ever wonder like, why does silver foil need to be kosher? Why does plastic plates and disposable cups need to have an OU, a kosher certification on it? That's because they don't make those plastic cutlery out of thin air. They make it from something. What are they making it from? Sometimes they could use oils and fats from non-kosher sources. So that could be a problem.
So what you can do is you can go to the store and you can find, I'm sure if you go to the Harova market, you'll find kosher for Passover disposable stuff. You'll find pans that are kosher for Passover. You will find plates and bowls and spoons and knives and all the cutlery, everything that you need, which is kosher for Passover because it was made by a Jewish company who is aware of this and is ensuring with a supervision of a rabbi that they're not using non-kosher
for Passover components in its... You may be able to, you just have to look up. There are unbelievable resources online. I think the CRC, the OU, there's Rabbi Blumenkrantz has a book, which is the Pesach Guide. It's a beautiful book. They've been publishing it for like 50 years. Every year, new information because there are different companies that use different methods. You ever see like new packaging, same great taste. Sometimes new ingredients, same great taste. What are those ingredients?
I have to find out what's going on in there. Sometimes they use new methods. You have to... That's why it's important for every year to be updated in what is and what isn't okay. In those books, they will talk about it. You look under disposable, you'll be able to find the full list of what is and what isn't, what company, what brand, everything, every single detail is on there, hopefully. The idea that we don't eat matzah is because we want to come to Pesach and have an appetite
for matzah. Okay. And if we're going to be eating matzah all the way to the date of Pesach, we're not going to come in with an excitement and with an appetite to eating that matzah, said matzah. So we want to ensure that we are doing everything we can to be clean from matzah till Pesach, from Rosh Chodesh, those 14 days. I can have a matzah in my house for Rosh Chodesh if it's still... Even if it's open. No, but I can have it for Passover.
Can I eat that matzah if it's closed off? Just that the only restriction is eating. The only restriction is eating. There's no restriction in having matzah. There are people who love matzah, they have it throughout the year. There's also non-kosher for Passover matzah, so just be aware of that. There's also non-kosher for Passover matzah because they're using ingredients there which are not kosher for Passover. So it's matzah, which is a Pesach food, but it's not kosher for Passover.
You have to be careful, make sure that it is kosher for Passover, the matzah that you purchase. Okay, so I just sell it with my hummets? Yes, sell it with your hummets, yeah. All right. Okay, great. The honey and the spices. If it's Passover but I open it before Passover, can I still use that with hummets? With hummets, yes. It's the same honey for Passover, even if it's for Passover.
So the custom of the Jewish people has been that the food for Passover is only food for Passover. Okay. The ingredients for Passover are only ingredients for Passover, and we keep them completely separate from our non-so if you, let's say you have salt and pepper and paprika and chili powder or whatever it is that you have, which is kosher for Passover, but you use it for during the year, you don't use the same ingredients for Passover. You have separate ingredients.
We have an entire shelf in our freezer, which is sealed off from year to year, which is all of our Pesach ingredients that's not used for the rest of the year. We take them out for Pesach and we use them for Pesach. And then when we're done Pesach, we put them right back in the freezer to ensure that they're not being used for any other purpose. Now what some people do is they start, if they know it takes them about a year to get
through it, they buy it for Pesach and then use it from Pesach to the rest of the year. And then every year they buy it new for Pesach. But the idea is we don't use what we use during the year for Pesach, okay? So if a person is born, well, I say like this, that when you get married, God willing, make sure you marry a Sephardic Jew. So then your customs will be Sephardic. Yeah, I would say that you follow what your sponsoring rabbi teaches you to do.
And then when you get married, hopefully you get lucky and marry a Sephardi boy and then you can eat all the rice you want on Pesach. But it's a good, it's actually a good question to ask your sponsoring rabbi. So I would recommend you do that. Can I sell my hametz by myself or I need to do it through the rabbi? I normally do it through the rabbi, but I just want to know. Yes, every person can sell.
There's no reason the rabbi doesn't need to, there's no rabbi tax on it. You know, it's like you can sell it yourself. The thing is that they have a very specific contract that they write to the non-Jew to ensure that the proper halachic parameters of the sale are fulfilled. And that's very important. It's better to go through the rabbi, but it's not an obligation, definitely not. It's just like things that are not under HKA can still be kosher, right? You don't have to buy lettuce that says HKA.
You can actually grow the lettuce in your own backyard and check it for bugs. And it's kosher, kosher not by HKA, local Houston Kosher Association. It could be kosher by me, by you. You understand? It doesn't need to be, there's no monopoly on kosher. Kosher is, God decides what's kosher or not. They're helping us in that process of, it's easier, no question, it's easier. Terrific, thank you. Thank you. Let's pass the microphone. Back for more. One more. One more.
Today being the special day that it is, and... So just remind me, what's the special, every day is special. Well, today's a special day in which... We change the clock? We change the clock. Okay, yes. Benjamin Franklin did not exist during ancient biblical times. He created it. So how does the difference between daylight savings time and central regular time affect what we do for Pesach and Shabbat? Well, the times really, it just, the only thing that changes is that we have more time
on Friday to prepare for Shabbos. We also have, why, you have more time during the day. Well, if you wake up the same time, your day is a little bit longer with light. Well the times for prayer change slightly, the times for Shabbos coming in and out is changed. So we have, it's an hour later that we begin the Shabbos, and an hour later that Shabbos departs. But the determination when Shabbos or a holiday starts... It's based on sunrise and sunset. That's right.
It's not related to it at all. No. So it's not changing anything in our observance of it, it's just the time actually changes. But we always go by the sunset and sunrise and stars out. Right. So it doesn't matter what the clock says. Doesn't make a difference. Correct. The clock will be adjusted to the actuality, not the actuality to the clock. Correct. Okay. Good question. Thank you. And now, Carlos, go for it.
The rabbi, he taught us to see Hashem in everything. Correct. So what was the point of Hashem saying on that time, on that day, I will hide my face? That's part of sometimes when a parent says to a child, no, a child can sometimes learn more than from the parent saying yes. Sometimes we learn more from the no than from the yes. And it's part of, you know, I'll give you an example. My rabbi asked, well, everything is for a purpose, Hashem creates everything for a purpose.
So what's the purpose of a mitzvah that has no meaning? It means there is a purpose, but we don't know what the purpose is. Like the red heifer, which we just read this past Shabbos, parashat Parah, right? So the red heifer, we don't know the meaning for it. So what's the meaning of having something that has no meaning to us? Well, the meaning is, is that we just follow what God says, even if we don't understand it.
That means we don't only observe things and do things because God is shining a light on us. We do things because Hashem commanded us. And even if we don't see the light, Hashem still loves us. So if a parent punishes their child, does it mean the parent doesn't love the child? No, they love, because they love the child, they punish the child. Now if I'm putting on my parenting class hat on, I'll tell you that avoid punishments for your children as much as possible.
The best thing you can possibly do for your child is not punish them. Punishment is a last, last, last resort. There was a rabbi who came to my grandfather and said he just got promoted to becoming principal of a school, and he wanted to know at what point can he punish students. So my grandfather gave him a non-answer, and he asked him in the process, which school, who's your superior, he asked him all the information, as soon as he left he called
up the principal, he says, get rid of this guy. Because all he wants to do is punish the students. That's the question you're asking? When you can punish? That's not a good educator. But when there is a punishment, when there's a tremendous amount of love, a child can learn a lot. And us children of Hashem, when Hashem punishes us, that's the time, sadly, when we learn the most. We're compared to the olives. The olives, when does it bring out the best of its oil?
When it gets smashed. Sometimes we learn most, we become the best when we get smashed. That's why the only oil that was used in the temple was olive oil, pure, pristine. Because it was a reminder every day, when you get crushed, sometimes you bring out the finest fruit. You bring out the finest results. My dear friends, any other question? My dear friends, have an amazing week. I look forward to continuing our learning and our growing.
For those of you online who want to be part of this program, please email your questions to askawayattorchweb.org. We look forward to hearing and responding to your questions in a timely fashion. Have a great week, everyone.
You've been listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe on a podcast produced by TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. Please help sponsor an episode so we can continue to produce more quality Jewish content for our listeners around the globe. Please visit torchweb.org to donate and partner with us on this incredible endeavor.