Special Features I Didn't Know That! Not really a good excuse for doing the wrong thing halachically, and education can help out a great deal. I would like to review (partially) a little known area of halachic detail related to Birkat HaMazon. The mitzva comes from this week's sedra and is done by many Jews, quite often. Let's start with Shabbat. What follows applies to the Friday night meal and the main Shabbat day meal. (Some of the rules will apply to Seuda Shlishit; others will not. If there is room, we'll get there too.) On Shabbat, we add R'TZEI to the Birkat HaMazon. A person eats his Shabbat meal, benches, and leaves the table. Half hour later, he realizes that he forgot R'tzei. What does he do? Benches again. Whole thing. Hopefully remembering R'tzei this time. Same question for a woman. Same rule. Whole benching over. Back to the man. After he finishes benching, he's not sure if he said R'tzei or not. Benches again. Woman? If she's not sure, she does NOT repeat the benching. (The difference has to do with a dispute as to the status of obligation of a woman to bench - D'Oraita or D'Rabbanan. The conclusion is that it's a maybe. And that affects the other maybe situation of not being sure whether she said R'tzei or not.) Benching without R'tzei (remember, two main meals of Shabbat) is like not benching at all. In either case, one has 72 minutes from eating to bench. After that time, it is too late to correct the situation. Side point. What if three guys eat Shabbat meal together and all forgot to say R'tzei? They each bench over, but without M'ZUMAN again. That they got credit for, so to speak, the first time around. Okay, let's continue. It's not a half hour after the meal. You are still in Birkat HaMazon. Just past the point where R'tzei should have been inserted. U'V'NEI YERUSHALAYIM. If you realize that you forgot to say R'tzei and time until you say G-d's name of Bonei B'Rachamav, you just go back to R'tzei, and continue from there. No problem. Once you say G-d's name of the bracha, there is a problem. Most poskim agree that if you have said Baruch Ata HaShem, and at that point you realize your omission, you say these words - LAMDEINI CHUKECHA, which completes a pasuk in T'hilim (119:12) which saves your utterance of G-d's name from being in vain, and then you go back to R'tzei and continue from there. If you said even one more syllable - BO, then you finish the bracha - BONEI B'RACHAMAV YERUSHALAYIM, amen. Now before continuing with the next bracha of Birkat HaMazon, you say a special Shabbat bracha which takes the place of the R'tzei you skipped, and does not render your Birkat HaMazon invalid. The bracha is: BARUCH ATA ADONAI ELOHEINU MELECH HA'OLAM ASHER NATAN SHABBATOT LIMNUCHA L'AMO YISRAEL B'AHAVA L'OT U'L'BRIT. BARUCH ATA ADONAI M'KADEISH HASHABBAT. This bracha can be used only when one has finished the first three brachot of Birkat HaMazon, but has not begun the fourth one yet. If the situation just described arises and you know this bracha, or your bencher has it, then you say it. If you don't have the bracha and don't know it, then you must start benching all over. In other words, three wasted brachot, the act of taking G-d's name in vain can be avoided by knowing this bracha. If one has "begun" (a term to be defined) the fourth bracha, it is too late to say R'tzei, too late to say "Asher Natan Shabbatot"; one must bench again from the beginning. And this is so, even though there is an other reference to Shabbat later in the benching. We have a Harachaman for Shabbat. It does not take the place of R'tzei, because it is not within the first three Torah-fulfilling brachot of Birkat HaMazon, nor is it attached to them as is Asher Natan Shabbatot, if said before "beginning" the fourth Rabbinic-fulfilling bracha. I'm sure that some readers have given up on this "tidbit" by now, but if you are still with me and you read carefully, you should get something out of it - and not just the details (which are nice to know). There are concepts invoved that guided our Sages through their halachic thinking. Let's now tackle the question of what constitutes "beginning" the fourth bracha. One could argue that saying the word BARUCH, with intention to continue with the fourth bracha, is enough to make you go back to the beginning. Others might argue that you can "divert" the word BARUCH to the special Asher Natan Shabbatot brachaand no wasted brachot will result. In fact, there are other situations where saying even one word, with specific Kavana, "commits" you to continue as you meant to. [Just as an example, if at Havdala, one makes the wine bracha and then turns to the candle, curls his fingers towards the flame (that tells us his intention) and says BARUCH, then he must continue with the candle bracha, and then go back to the B'samim. We don't say that his BARUCH is also the beginning of the B'samim bracha he should be saying, so let him pick up the B'samim and continue with ATA and the rest of its bracha, and then say the candle bracha. So even a single - not G-d's name - word with intention commits one to continue and finish.] Although there is such an opinion in our case too, we don't accept that ruling because the invalidation of the first three brachot is involved. To avoid bracha l'vatala (bracha in vain), halacha allows us to divert the BARUCH and ATA to the special R'tzei replacement bracha. What about BARUCH ATA HASHEM, with intention to say the fourth bracha of Birkat HaMazon? Some say NO, too far. Not only Baruch and Ata, but G-d's name too, with intention is a commitment to the fourth bracha, and it is too late to say Asher Natan Shabbatot. One must bench again. The Chayei Adam, with the Mishna B'rura leaningin his direction, says that even if one said Baruch Ata HaShem Elokeinu Melech HaOlam, with intention to be saying the fourth bracha, he can still divert those words and continue with Asher Natan Shabbatot. This is not an ideal situation, because one should have the proper Kavana for which bracha he is saying from thebeginning, and certainly from when he says G-d's names and Kingship, but here the trade-off is saving brachot from being wasted. Only if one have gone one more word of the fourth bracha - HaKeil... - is it impossible to "apply" the words said to the Asher Natan Shabbatot bracha, and one must repeat the whole thing. Look at what goes through the minds of our Rabbis in developing and applying halachic principles! They are charged with protecting the honor of the Shabbat, the sanctity of a bracha and G-d's name, and sharpening our appreciation for the whole halachic process and all the concepts involved. I have purposely not tried to fit every thing in to this tidbit. Still to come are the differences between the two first shabbat meals and the third, the whole issue of Yaale V'Yavo on Chagim, Chol haMoed, Rosh HaShana and Rosh Chodesh. There are diferences and nuances all over the place. B'HIZDAMNUT, as we say. But I hope you got something positive out of all this. Even if one will pay more attention never to forget R'tzei on Shabbat so as not to get involved with all this, that will be good too. Mitzva Watch Today, there is a very uncomfortable feeling about the idea of swearing. We are taught to avoid swearing at all costs. It is common to strike out the word on legal forms and substitute the word "affirm", which has the same legal affect as an oath, without the religious overtones. We know how serious it is to swear falselyor in vain. Yet, the fact of the matter is, that it is a mitzva (according to the Rambam and others) to swear - in a proper Beit Din situation - to the truth. There are many situations when G-d lent His Name, so to speak, to us so that we can find the "truth" of a situation and have it accepted in society. Basically, aperson SHOULD be accepted for his word. But this is not always possible, especially when there are contradictory versions of the truth. In some specific cases, one party to a dispute is allowed/required/expected to swear in G-d's Name. Assuming the person in question is reputable, he should swear to the truth. The situationof doubt will them be cleared up. The Ramban disagrees with the Rambam. He says that one never needs to swear, if he does not choose to. We have PERMISSION to swear to the truth - neither an obligation nor a mitzva. Another word about Davening... Taking the Ramban's viewpoint, the Torah did not command us to daven - the Sages did. But it is clear that they were inspired to do so by the Torah. In addition to the references to "Serving HaShem" and "Service of the Heart", there are also the many references to prayer. The Avot prayed. Moshe Rabeinu prayed. What we have then (in this way of looking at things) is an example (there are others) of G-d saying, so to speak, "I don't have to tell them this time; let them look and draw the obvious conclusions themselves". It might mean more this way. Sometimes we don't have to be told - we can figure things out for ourselves. KOSHER KOLUMN Items culled from the OU's Webbe Rebbe in answer to Kashrut questions posed via email. Some items developed in consultation with the OU Kashrut team in Israel and with other experts in the field of Kashrut. First I would like to say that sifting through hundreds of email responses to kashrut questions, one gets the overwhelming feeling of the complexity of Kashrut in our times. Manufacturers use a myriad of ingredients and additives to improve taste, shelflife, quality of their products, and to reduce costs in countless ways.Many of these additives produce kashrut nightmares that are beyond the imagination of the kosher consumer. We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the many people who work hard to provide us with kosher products. Licorice candy such as Twizzlers use a significant amount of flour in the candy. On the question of bracha, the psak that the OU follows is to say SHE'HA'KOL, because the flour is used as a binder and not for taste or nutrition. UPDATE on the Cheese flavored Pringles. A while back, cans were showing up in Israel together with several OU-certified kosher varieties. The cheese ones had no hashgacha, but were being sold with the same Hebrew sticker claiming an OU. It turns out that P&G at one time had OU certification for cheese-flavored Pringles, but decided against continuing it. The changed plants and continued producing a non-acceptible flavored Pringles. All the other flavors were OU. The point is, a company can make changes of this type whenever it wants to, and a kosher public can get caught off guard by the changes. This, says the Webbe Rebbe, underlines the need to always look for the OU as an integral part of the packaging, not merely a stick-on label, and not by someone's say so. Things can change. This point was made in a similar reply to a question about certain foods that do not need Hashgacha. The best the OU could say is that "as of today", such and such a product is kosher without supervision. But since that could change tomorrow, they will not make that statement even today. Here's a complicated issue, but it relates to the gelatin issue presented in Kosher Kolumn a few weeks ago. Apparently, when sugar is refined, the processing includes a filtering operation through a filter that uses "bone char". This is a product that has a non-kosher origin but through processing is rendered unfit for a dog" (to eat). Its use as a filter, then. does not present a kashrut problem. But what about gelatin? Also rendered unfit for a dog during its processing? The answer is that by making a decision to eat it, one restores its CHASHIVUT (significance as a food item), restoring the kashrut problem. The bone char is not eaten, not treated as a food, and is not problematic. Here's a Shabbat question handled by the Webbe Rebbe. Osem Croutons are baked and therefore cannot be put into very hot soup on Shabbat, because there can be "cooking after baking". If the soup arrives in the bowl from the pot via a soup tureen, meaning that the bowl is a Kli Sh'lishi, one can add croutons. Not easy. More to come. [The Eikev Homepage]
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