Purim M'shulash - Trippple Purim cont. from last week
ZEICHER L'MACHATZIT HASHEKEL, to commemorate the Half Silver Shekel, give before Megila reading. Minimum is a half shekel. Custom is to give 3 half-shekel coins. Also a custom to add to the 1.50NIS to equal the value of the original Silver Half Shekel, 10 grams of silver, somewhere from 8-10NIS. 

Megila. Thursday night & Friday morning, like the rest of the Jewish world. Higher priority than in regular years for reading-hearing Megila with a Tzibur.

Matanot La'Evyonim. To be done on Friday. Without the busy-ness of the Seuda and Mishlo'ach Manot, one can and should do an extra nice job on this important Purim mitzva. Make this mitzva a priority (as it should be every year).

Seuda & Mishlo'ach Manot. Main observance is on Sunday. Because of varying opinions on the subject, some have the custom of giving a token Mishlo'ach Manot (two different food items to one person) on Friday and on Shabbat as well. Similarly, the main Seuda is Sunday. Some also will have a modest seuda on Friday before noon. On Shabbat, the custom is to add something special (extra fancy dessert, side dish, wine) to the main Shabbat meal. Some try to schedule the Shabbat meals to add an extra meal in honor of Purim. This can be accomplished by splitting lunch. Fruit and appetizer, for example, then bench. Go to early Mincha (just a suggestion). Then come back, wash for HaMotzi again (should be on Lechem Mishna) for the main dish and dessert. Token Purim observances on Shabbat should not be too overt. Sunday is the "real" Seuda. Some finish before dark. Others say that there are Kabalistic reasons to extend Seuda into the night even when it is the 17th of Adar.

Al Hanisim Not on Thursday night of Friday. Yes on Friday night and Shabbat, in davening and Birkat HaMazon. One does not go back if omitted. Can be said before the concluding pasuk of the Amida if forgotten in its regular place. Similarly, in Harachaman section of benching. No Al HaNisim on Sunday. Some say it as a Haracham for the Purim Seuda. ENJOY!!!

ASK THE REBBE
from the virtual desk of the OU Vebbe Rebbe 

The Orthodox Union – via its website – fields questions of all types in the areas of kashrut, Jewish law and values. Some of the questions are answered by Eretz Hemdah, the Institute for Advanced Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, founded by HaRav Shaul Yisraeli, zt"l to prepare rabbanim and dayanim to serve the National Religious community in Israel and abroad. The Ask the Rabbi project is a joint venture of the OU, Yerushalayim Network, Eretz Hemdah... and the Israel Center. The following is a Q&A from Eretz Hemdah... 

Question: If the prohibition against meat and milk is based on the Biblical passage: "You shall not cook a kid in its mother’s milk", why does it apply to chicken? We don't get milk from chicken, so how could that ever happen? 
Answer: The prohibition of meat and milk is a chok, a commandment whose reason is not readily apparent. Chazal taught that “kid” and “mother” are examples of meat and milk, but there are laws based on the choice of words. R. Akiva learns from the three-fold repetition of “a kid” that fowl and certain other animals are excluded from the prohibition. R. Yossi Hag’lili says that it applies to any mammal which requires shechita. According to him, only species that have no mother’s milk (like fowl) are excluded (Chulin 113a). R. Akiva and R. Yossi also argue if there is a rabbinic prohibition on meat and milk (ibid., 116a). The halachah is like R. Akiva, that the Torah prohibition of eating meat and milk that have been cooked together applies rabbinically to fowl (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 87:3). The reason for the rabbinic prohibition is that if people become used to eating the meat of chicken in milk, they are likely to forget the aforementioned distinction and eat beef cooked in milk.

Some of the regular stringencies of meat and milk apply to fowl as well. One cannot eat fowl and milk together even if they were not cooked together, cannot have milk on the table when he is eating fowl without a separation (ibid., 88:1), and must wait up to six hours between eating fowl and dairy (ibid., 89:1).

There are, however, some differences. We learn from the three-fold repetition that the prohibition is not only eating meat and milk cooked together, but also the act of cooking itself and deriving benefit from it. When eating is prohibited only rabbinically, then cooking and deriving benefit are permitted (ibid., 87:3). Thus, one could, for example, cook fowl and milk together in order to sell to a non-Jew. (Of course, the pot would then be unfit for cooking food for a Jew).

“Ask the Rabbi” Q&A is part of this week’s Hemdat Yamim, the parsha sheet published by Eretz Hemdah. You can read this section or the entire Hemdat Yamim at www.ou.org or www.eretzhemdah.org. If you would like to receive Hemdat Yamim by e-mail, on a weekly basis, please send an e-mail to lists@eretzhemdah.org with the message Join Hemdatya 
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Hasidic Wisdom, from the book by Simcha Raz (Elkins/Elkins)
Whoever said that one must pray with a whole heart?
Perhaps it is preferable to pray with a broken heart?.
- Rabbi Uri of Strelisk

It is said that stories can help put you to sleep. I say stories can help wake you up.
- Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav

Fear of G-d without joy is not fear at all, but melancholia.
- The Baal Shem Tov

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