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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.
Welcome back everybody. Welcome to Ask Away number 35. It is so wonderful to be here this afternoon, Sunday afternoon, in the beautiful Houston, Texas. What a day. Go and enjoy the beautiful gift Hashem has given us. Today we're doing Ask Away number 35 to hear everyone's questions.
To our viewers online, our listeners on the podcast, please send us your questions at askaway at torchweb.org so we can address your questions. We are looking forward to having you participate in our class, even if only virtually. Today my dear friends, we begin with Anna. Anna please, ask away. Okay, so your question is whether or not after the Megillah, do we have to recite a blessing? Because we mentioned in our learning that you should come home to candles lit. Should you recite a blessing for that?
The answer is no. You do not. However, because it's a festive day, we want to make sure that it has the festive aura in our home and that is done with the candles that are lit. So what is proper is that many people will light the candles before they leave to synagogue for hearing the Megillah and that way when they come home, it's all beautiful and lit appropriately. Okay, your next question. So what do you do with a surrogate child? Can they have a bris?
So there's an entire halachic dilemma whether or not the child who is surrogate, so imagine they have the sperm from the father, the egg from the mother put into a surrogate who's going to carry the baby. Is that child a Jew? It's very difficult. Does it go by who's birthing the child by the incubator or does it go by the source of the sperm and the... It's a complicated question and one that there's a lot of discussion about.
I'm not proficient enough in this topic to give a coherent answer. I will tell you what I know people have done and the little bit that I've been involved in cases like this, what they do is they do something which is called a gerus, a conversion of chumrah, extra added stringency, whereas because we're unsure whether or not it is an actual Jewish child, well, it depends. If the parent, the donor of the sperm and the egg are Jewish and the surrogatism is
a Jewish, then for sure the child is Jewish, not even a question. The question is if the surrogate is not. Right. So then what they would do is they would do a gerus chumrah which is a stringency conversion and I know someone who had that here in Houston and they took the baby to the mikvah and gave the baby a conversion at birth, okay, so not a minute after birth, but and then they do the birth on the eighth day, yeah.
So they would do the conversion before that though. It's not such a traumatic thing, don't worry. We're not out to hurt children, little babies, definitely not, but there's a proper way for it to be done. Right. It's a topic of great controversy in Jewish law. Again, this whole surrogacy wasn't something which was common in previous generations. Now with the advancement of medicine it is something which is possible and is an unbelievable miracle for parents who aren't able to bring their own children into this world, they can
have someone else do that for them. It's really, really special. So again, it's something which is happening in our generation, something I know people who are the parents who had surrogate children and I know the children who are surrogate who were born to a surrogate mom. So yeah, it's definitely a complicated halakhic discussion. I would defer to people who are far greater than me by millions and millions of miles ahead of me in halakha and knowledge like Rabbi Yitzhak Berkowitz, my rabbi, Rabbi Breitowitz,
Rabbi Osher Weiss, people who deal with this on a regular basis and know all the intricacies of this halakha. So my answer in short, I don't know. But it's a great question. All right, next question. So I recently heard that when somebody was reading Torah for their bat mitzvah, that they cried and their tears fell on the Torah. What happens in that case? So you're asking, can a girl read from the Torah to begin with? Or that wasn't the question, you're asking about the tears.
There were enough tears that there were smudging. There were smudging, yes. And that's a very big problem because that can render the Torah not kosher, invalid. And that's a big problem. It's a totally different question whether or not it's appropriate for a girl to be reading from the Torah. I would say that like this, from the classic learning of the Jewish law about it, a woman can read from the Torah in front of women.
But she should not be, it's not appropriate for a woman to be reading from the Torah in front of men. And I can just tell you this from people who have told me where they have female cantors or female chanters of the Torah, and the guys have told me in the most inappropriate way that they think they're very attractive and that it's perfect for their congregation. I don't think that that's the role of, it's not why people come to synagogue, all right?
People come to synagogue to connect to God, not to look for attraction of the opposite gender. So I think that that's the reason why our sages tell. Now, if it's a women minion, a group of women, which is not commonly done, and they want to read from the Torah, that's their prerogative. But it's not something which is commonly done, definitely not something common. Now regarding the Torah scroll being, yeah, if there's one smudged letter, the whole Torah scroll is invalid. It's a big problem.
Yeah, it's a very, very big problem. You have to understand that when we talk about the laws of a Torah scroll, that applies as well to tefillin, which is also a scroll that's written just like a Sefer Torah, ink on parchment, and as well mezuzah. A mezuzah that has a smudged letter is also not valid. You have to bring it to a sofa and have it fixed or replaced. It's not a simple thing.
Now, just so you understand, there are three things that are very damaging to any type of scroll, whether it be a Torah scroll, a Megillah, or a tefillin, or a mezuzah. And that is heat, water, cold. These are three very terrible things for why. Parchment is not like paper. You see, when you print with ink on paper, it gets absorbed into the paper. But when you write with an ink and quill on a parchment, it sits on top of it. It dries on the parchment.
So with hot, it smudges. With water, it smudges. With cold, it pops off. When it freezes, it pops off, and it's worse than the heat. Some people think like, oh, it's so terrible, my mezuzah outside of my door is going to get ruined because of the heat. It's much worse when it's cold because it'll just pop, the letters will pop off of the parchment. It's a big problem. The person needs to take care not to leave their tefillin in their car.
If you realize, sometimes I come here from synagogue, I bring my tefillin inside. I don't want it to sit in the car, bake in the sun. It's not good. It can smudge the letters. That's why you need to have your tefillin, your mezuzahs checked twice in every seven year period of time. And it's important. It's important for a person to be really, really cautious about it. I had a student in one of our classes who brought me his tefillin that he got from his grandfather.
I brought it to the, he wanted to know if it was kosher. I brought it to the scribe. The scribe opened it up and he said, there's not anything kosher about this. That doesn't mean it wasn't kosher. He took offense, like what do you mean? My grandfather's. My grandfather wore these tefillin every day. Your grandfather probably wore kosher tefillin, but you wouldn't eat a candy that was from the 1900s either. You understand? So just because it was his tefillin doesn't mean it wasn't kosher.
It probably was kosher for him. But today, after so many years, it probably is no longer kosher. And in that case, it wasn't. So a person needs to know that. I got, someone gave me a Torah scroll from the Holocaust. He gave it to me. He said I can have it as a gift. I brought it to the scribe. The scribe says, you can't use this. It's not kosher anymore. It's not kosher.
He says the amount of work that it would take to repair it would cost you more than a brand new one. Because basically the entire thing needs to be rewritten on the original ink that was there. And it would be too costly and too expensive, not worth it. So again, it's a very good question you're asking about, in general, the laws of any type of writing that's written on a parchment. Okay. My other question is, so specifically you mentioned fasting and diabetes.
So if you're diabetic and you're prohibited from fasting, can you fast something else? So I don't think a diabetic should ever be fasting. They need to have, you know, their insulin and everything that needs to be for their homeostasis, for their body to be balanced. They need to do what they need to do. And any time, the halacha never interferes with medicine. So if the doctor says you need to do something, listen to your doctor.
Never ever say, well, the Torah says that I, well, thank you very much. The Torah says to live. Don't get dead. Okay. So that's a very important thing. A fast from eating and drinking is a very important fast because our sages tell us that all of the, like for example, if you get a migraine from fasting, it's a tikkun, it's a repair for any thoughts that were improper. If your stomach is aching, it's for anything that we may have eaten that was inappropriate,
that was not kosher or not up to, right? There's a thing about each part of our body that gets affected by that. If someone isn't able to, they're not allowed to. Okay? If a person wants to, if a person is able to only to midday, great. So do it to midday. If a person is able to for three, four hours, fast for three, four hours. And Hashem considers it as if you fasted the entire day.
Now, if a person wants to have a fast from anger, they should do that their whole life. All right? But if a person wants to, a person has to be careful and know what they are capable of with regard to physical fasting and not eating. All right? That's a great question. Okay. Last one. The $1.50 that we talked about. Oh, the half shekel. Yes. That everyone gives prior to the reading of the Megillah. Yes. Who are we giving it to?
So it goes to the local charity. In every synagogue, they'll have a plate with the three coins taped together. So basically, you'd put your $1.50 or some people put $5 or $20. They put it for their whole family and they'll lift it up and put it back down. So they lift it up. Now it's theirs. They bought it. And then they give it to the charity. All that money is then taken and given to poor people so they can have food to eat.
Each individual is obligated to give it to the shul in like a Zadarka box? Right. So they'll have a special basket or plate that they gather all of those shekels in and then after disperse it to the people in the community who are destitute or poor. Every congregation has to make sure. The rabbi will generally take care of it to ensure that everyone has the privilege of doing that mitzvah. So it doesn't necessarily go in our gift of food to? It does not go.
This is not part of it. Okay. Right. Just to answer your question, to give for those who were not listening to the previous episode of Siman 141 of the Ketzer Shochanach where we discussed the laws of Megillah. We discussed that every, the custom is that we give the half shekel to the community just like we gave the shekel in the times of the Temple for the offerings. So we give the half shekel and the half shekel is then distributed to the poor people.
This is done on the fast of Esther, the day preceding the reading of the Megillah. We're going to read the Megillah. A few hours later we read the Megillah in our synagogues. All right. Next question. David. So Rabbi, we hear a lot of times that Hashem is in the sky and Satan is below the ground. Is there anything in the Torah that actually kind of specifies that? Yes. There's actually a verse that says, Hashemayim, Hashemayim lehashem, v'ho'oretz nosan levnei adam.
God is in the heavens and mankind is on earth. God gave us the earth. So that doesn't mean that God is not here with us. That does not mean the concept of like, oh, God is up in heaven and, you know, and no. But it does refer to the evil people that they're in Tohom, that they're in the abyss down deep in the earth. We have to understand what that means in a very general concept that, yeah, we look up when we're inspired.
We look down when we're sad. The no good, I told you once here in the parking lot right outside the torch center, I saw a bumper sticker on a car and it had a picture of grass and above the grass it said good and beneath the grass it said bad. Yeah. When we're on this earth, it's great. We have opportunity to do mitzvahs, to do great things. When we're beneath the earth, it's all done. It doesn't mean it's bad, but we don't have the opportunity anymore.
We're done with opportunity. And that's what we strive and hope for every single day is to fulfill our lives, to fill our lives with good deeds, with good actions, and hopefully we merit to be very, very close to God in heaven when we pass on from this world. Up in heaven. Yes. So shomayim, shomayim la Hashem. Hashem, He has the heavens. Or it's the son of the Adam, but He gave us the earth. We should do good things. We should build.
We should do acts of kindness. We should be kind to one another. We should make peace on earth. God willing, Hashem should bring us all the merit of fulfilling these great things in our lifetime. I mean, good question, David. Okay, this is more political than anything else. Politics. I don't know anything about politics. It's not really politics. I know. I know. I'm just asking for your opinion.
Iran sent a ballistic missile which hit the Temple Mount the other day, did not hit the Dome of the Rock. If it hit the Dome of the Rock and destroyed it, what is your opinion that could Israel then go ahead and build the new Temple there? I think Israel can build the new Temple anytime. Israel doesn't need anybody's permission. It's our land. It's a promise to us by God to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to the tribes, to Moses, to Aaron, to David.
I mean, it's literally God repeats the promise. This is for you. It does not say it for Ishmael. It does not say it for Esau. It does not say it for the nations. It's our land. We can do with it what we want. It's not even a question. If you look in the Torah, you look in the Bible, it says it clearly. It's my world and I decide who I give it to. And I gave it to the Jewish people.
And yes, for those of you asking about the Tucker Carlson interview with Mike Huckabee, our magnificent United States ambassador to the state of Israel, he said yes, the promise that the Jewish people have from the Nile to the Euphrates, if they want it, they can take it. The Jewish people never took it. If they want to, they can. The Jewish people decided that Transjordan, because Ruvane and God and half the Shavuot of Manasha and half the tribe of Manasha wanted more land for the grazing of their animals
in Jordan. It's theirs. We can do it. We're not stealing it from anybody. You're lucky we let you live there for 3,300 years. But it's our land. We can do with it what we want. We can build the temple today. We have to go with bricks and start building it. That's it. I understand that. But in your opinion, what do you think the government of Israel would do if Iran actually destroyed it? Okay. So, you know, I always had a question.
After the Six-Day War, the Jordanians ran. They literally left their sandals at the Temple Mount and ran back to Jordan. And the state of Israel had the keys to the Dome of the Rock, to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and everything over there that's on the Temple Mount. It was theirs. And they gave it back. And the question is, why did they give it back? Are they dumb people? Like, what's wrong with them? What's wrong with them? Why would they do such a thing?
Because our sages tell us, L'ev mulachim v'sarim b'yad Hashem. The heart of the leaders of the Jewish people is in the hands of Hashem. The hands of all world leaders is in the hands of Hashem. The Jewish leaders in the hands of Hashem. If you think that President Biden knows what day of the week it is, okay, he doesn't. And if you think that Obama gave the billions of dollars to Iran and he knew what he was doing, he didn't know what he was doing.
And if you think that Trump is acting out of his own will, you're mistaken. It's the hand of Hashem. Hashem is making these things. Netanyahu, Bibi, King Bibi, whatever. He's a great guy. I love them all. They're all great. Fabulous. It's in the hand of Hashem. We have to realize this. We have to realize this is the hand of Hashem. And they will both, both Bibi, both Trump, will be rewarded that it was sent through their hands.
That means it could technically be anyone. You have to want it. You have to will it. But it's the will of Hashem that he's putting it through their hands, through the U.S. Army, through the IDF, the IAF, the Israeli Air Force, that Hashem is bringing this blessing. But we have to be very, very, very careful, very careful of thinking kochi ve'otzem yodi. It's my strength. It's my might that brought the success. It's all from the hand of Hashem.
And that's, I think, the biggest, the biggest thing we have to be concerned about is that we look at Twitter and we start reading these newspapers and we're like, oh, the U.S. military, IDF, oh, so great. Be very, very cautious of that because that's our downfall when we don't realize that everything is from Hashem. Every single thing is from Hashem. Hashem is the one who's giving us the ability that when we had hundreds and hundreds and
hundreds of flights flying to Iran from Israel, do you know how much maintenance is required? I heard this from a guy in the Israeli Air Force who does the maintenance on these planes. You're talking about these F-22s, the F-35s, the F-16s. Do you know how much maintenance is required on each one of these planes for every flight? Hours and hours of maintenance. These flights that were taken to Iran and dropped bombs and came back for more didn't need any maintenance the entire time they were being used.
Not once. Not a single screw needed to be tightened. Why? How is that possible? Hashem is the one who says, we have some gifts for Iran. We have some gifts for Persia. Let's go drop them off and go back and get some more gifts and go back and get more. We don't have time for maintenance now. It's something which is, it's unheard of in an air force that not a single bolt gets loosened from such a flight.
Everything was intact perfectly between flight and its next flight. It's an unbelievable miracle. We have to realize this is the hand of Hashem. And when a ballistic missile does hit, and it hit and devastatingly killed nine people this morning in Bechemesh, we have to realize that Hashem is waking us up. We're so confident. Oh, David's sling, iron dome, dah, dah, dah, whatever it is. Remember it's the hand of Hashem. Remember it's the hand of Hashem. We cannot forget. It's the hand of Hashem.
Every single experience that we witness is the hand of Hashem. It's a great question, Ed. And we wrap it up today. Carlos. It's a quick question. If I'm reading the Megillah by myself, I have to wait for the stars at night? Yes. What about next morning? What's the earliest I can read? Sunrise. Sunrise. You can start reading the Megillah. Yeah. Everyone's welcome to my synagogue. I'll give the information here right after we go offline.
Find a synagogue close by that has a Megillah reading. Go enjoy. It's such a beautiful time to be part of a community. It's such a beautiful time. It's not so far from each of you. Come. You're welcome to my synagogue. You're welcome to any synagogue that has a Megillah reading. You won't regret it. It is such an enjoyable experience. You might want to bring earplugs because it's loud, but it's enjoyable. All right. One more question. Mark.
You mentioned that like, you know, everything comes from the hand of Hashem and eight, there were eight casualties in Beit Shemesh. At what point can the Jewish people stand up and be proud of being Jewish and not have to- Every day. Every day. Because every time we try to like, we get too close to the sun, we get burned. No, we only get, no. Every day we have to be proud of being Jewish. Every day we have to be thankful to Hashem. Thank you.
We say this every day. Thank you Hashem for giving us the privilege of being Jewish. But every time we get too close to the sun, we get burned. But every- Why can't we just be- No, no, no, no, no, no. Why do we always have to be so humble all the time? No, no, no, no, no. Not every time we get too close to the sun, we get burned. It's every time we get too close to the sun, we think that the sun is us.
Okay? You, we each have to be careful and cautious every single day to ensure that we recognize that everything is from Hashem. We started, we just did part one of our prayer podcast on Hodu. Hodu Lashem Kiru B'Shmo Hodiyu B'Amim Ali L'Osof. What do we say? Thank you Hashem. Thank Hashem. Sing songs to Hashem. Compose songs. You're a musical guy. Sing songs to Hashem. And let the nations know of Hashem's greatness. That's our job.
Our job is to let the nations know. Let them see the greatness. We have to share that. Share the miracles with the nations of the world. You see great things that Hashem does? Share it with the world. Let the whole world know. My dear friends, have a wonderful, magnificent, beautiful Purim. I look forward to seeing everyone for the Megillah reading tomorrow night and as well for the upcoming classes this week. Till then, my dear friends, have a magnificent week.
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.