Hilchos Genizah: Printed Sefarim, Torah Recordings, Newspapers, and Disposing of Divrei Torah

Transcript

This Torah class is brought to you by TorahAnytime.com. Today, be'ezras Hashem yisbarach, upon request, we're going to speak about genizah. Anything which is Torah, there's an issue that once you don't need it anymore, it needs to be disregarded in the proper form, in the right way, in order not to be mechalel, not to desecrate it. So we're going to discuss what exactly is the chiyuv genizah, and when and where does it apply. So first let's begin with the actual chiyuv genizah. Where does it come from? Where is it rooted? And it's actually rooted in the Torah. Torah tells us that when we come into Eretz Yisrael, it's in Devarim Yud-Beis, pasuk gimmel. When you come into Eretz Yisrael, you need to destroy all the mizbechos and matzeivos that you'll find upon entry of Eretz Yisrael. These are psilei eloheihem, degadeion. You got to destroy all the avodah zaras, vibadtem shmam, and you have to even erase, annihilate their name, and lo yizacher, there should be no commemoration whatsoever of avodah zarah in Eretz Yisrael. Pasuk daled: Lo sa'asun kein laShem Elokeichem. So lav, you're not allowed to do so to Hashem. What is this referred to? Not supposed to do the same to Hashem. So the Gemara in Shvuos, daf lamed hei amud aleph, as well as the Gemara in Makos, daf chav beis, from here we learn out, from this pasuk we deduce that there's an issur of stiras kodesh, which means to destroy anything which has any sanctity. It's kodesh, kodesh laShem. It's heilik to the Ribono Shel Olam. What's included in this? Two things: stiras kodesh Beis HaMikdash. Just like you're not allowed to destroy, just like you're mechuyiv to destroy any mizbeach of avodah zarah, in reverse, lo sa'asun kein laShem, anything that has to do with the Beis HaMikdash had to be protected, the kedushah. You have to protect the kedushah and not destroy it. Another thing that the Gemara says is included is being mochek Shem Hashem. Any of the sheimos of HaKadosh Baruch Hu may not be erased. That would also be included in the issur of lo sa'asun kein laShem Elokeichem. Now, we can have a whole discussion, sheimos Hashem, that would be a shiur for itself. What's included, sheimos Hashem, we can do that at a different time. But the Gemara does say that a Sefer Torah definitely falls into this category. So Gemara Megillah daf chav-vav amud beis, the Gemara says that even a Sefer Torah shebalah, even a Sefer Torah that is now not—it got ruined, it's finished, it's worn out, it's... Still, there's a chiyuv to protect its kedusha, its sanctity, and then there would be a chiyuv genizah, which means you would have to bury it in a klei cheres, which means you would take an earthen utensil, put the Sefer Torah that's bala, that deteriorated into it. Like this, you protect it, and then you bury it. Halachically, I think Reb Elyashiv, I believe I saw this b'shem Reb Elyashiv, that we don't do today with, when there's a Sefer Torah shebalah, we don't do it with klei cheres; we do it with plastic, because today the plastic preserves, preserves just like the klei cheres in the olden days. So they use a plastic container to put a Sefer Torah shebalah. Chas v'shalom there's a fire in a beis medrash, the Sefer Torah got burnt. It's a tremendous tragedy. There's a levayah, there's a kevurah, but first they take the Sefer Torah and it has to be put, placed into something that'll preserve. Where do you bury the Sefer Torah? So the Gemara, and it's so codified in halacha as well, you bury it eitzel talmid chacham. You bury it next to a talmid chacham. The Mishnah Berurah says that for this you don't need a, what we call talmid chacham in the letter of the law of what the—

Halacha says a talmid chacham shesho'eloisei b'chol makom, a gadol baTorah, a posek hador. You don't need that. Anyone that learns Mishnayos, Braisos, someone who's a slick learner and he's holding in learning, that's enough of a talmid chacham. But we don't put it next to an isha, we don't put it next to a woman, we put it next to a talmid chacham. Or, of course, for that matter, someone who didn't learn or was not so observant in mitzvahs, we definitely don't bury the sefer Torah next to. Today, it's almost impossible to bury next to a talmid chacham because every kever is taken. You know, you can't walk into Har HaMenuchos and start burying sifrei Torah there. There's no room to find any extra space for even talmidei chachamim who are related to the talmidei chachamim. You can't find the makom kevurah. So it became the minhag to bury it on the outskirts of the kevarim, the outskirts of the beis hakvaros. Issue came at hand recently, you know, in many of the places in Europe. There's no such thing as a special beis hakvaros for Yidden. The Yidden are in one location, and around them, on the outskirts, goyim. For example, in France, that's the way the beis hakvaros are, which brings us to the issue: how do you bury a sefer Torah? Because you really shouldn't be burying a sefer Torah next to goyim. Going to leave the shaila to be resolved and answered by the poskim of those communities that have to, if they—and unfortunately maybe sometimes have to, and hopefully they don't have to deal with this shaila. Okay. Al kol panim, so let's make a one-minute chazara. The chiyuv genizah. Which means that you can't disregard, in a disrespectful way, dvarim shebikdusha is actually rooted in the Torah. It's a pasuk. It's min haTorah, lo sa'asun kein, laShem Elokeichem. Included in this, the way the Gemara brings it down, is Kodesh Beis HaMikdash and Kodesh askaros, the names of the Ribono Shel Olam. Sifrei Torah, if Hashtaitzach, might not be Kodesh Beis HaMikdash, but it's Kodesh askaros. The question is, what about something that's not a sefer Torah? What about Tanach? What about sefarim that are peirushim on the Tanach? So the Rambam says it's also included in this issur: Tanach and its peirushim. The Rambam is in Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah, perek vav, halacha ches: Kisvei HaKodesh kulan ufeirusheihen ubiureihen asur lisorfam o le'abdam biyad. Vhame'abdem biyad makin oso makas mardus. So here we have a halacha that Kisvei HaKodesh and its peirushim, ubiureihen, which means sefarim that are written on it. So Tanach is, of course, Kisvei HaKodesh, and any sefer that's written on Tanach would be the biurim. So you would have an issur to, A, burn, and, B, or le'abed in any other form to destroy them in any other way. The question is, is it de'oraisa or de'rabbanan? That's a big machlokes in the Acharonim. There's a tashbatz about it, because the Rambam in Sefer HaMitzvos, I believe it's mitzvah samach hei, there the Rambam seems to imply that it's maybe more de'rabbanan, maybe more de'oraisa. It's a question how to learn the Rambam there. Al kol panim, the Tashbatz comes out and says that it's only de'rabbanan, and the raya is from makas mardus. The fact that if you do it, you only get makas de'rabbanan. Mardus is only malkus d'rabbanan is a raya that it's only d'rabbanan. So then we have right now a very important basic halacha, yesodisdike halacha, that Torah, and of course keilim of the Beis HaMikdash, which we don't have today, right, would be d'Oraisa, that you would get regular malkus for. Tanach u'peirusheihem, Kisvei HaKodesh u'peirusheihem, that's possibly what? Only mid'rabbanan. Okay. What's included in that? So, of course, we all know Tanach was written by hand on a cloth, b'ksav Ashuris, right? That's how. Today we don't have sefarim like that. Today our sefarim is not handwritten b'ksav Ashuris; it's printed. What happens since the printing, the printing press came out and sefarim are printed, how does it apply, this halacha, in our days? So this was a big discussion, a big discussion.

The Taz, all the way from the Taz, going down, Reb Kiveiger, and then afterwards, Aruch HaShulchan, and then Chazon Ish. It's a big discussion. Most Acharonim say that we can't be mechalek. Once the printing presses became available and we print sefarim, sefarim are included. So it doesn't have to be Torah, ksav Ashuris, Kisvei HaKodesh, ksav Ashuris, beiurim written by hand. Even if it's printed, it would be also what? A problem of lo sa'asun kein. And therefore, the way you deal with Kisvei HaKodesh shebala would have to be in a way that you're protecting its dignity and sanctity. Let's discuss. So what happens b'zman hazeh to thousands and thousands of sefarim? You know, it's interesting. You know, how many sefarim could have already been written by hand? So every person who wrote a sefer, wrote it maybe three times over again. How many times can you write the sefer? Today, right away, thousands of copies, thousands of copies. And how many times people before Pesach, they want to clean up the sefarim that they have, thousands of sefarim sometimes, you know, pamphlets and booklets of sefarim. What happens to all the chiyuv of genizah by those sefarim? So there was a time and a place where genizah was literally genizah. I don't know if you know that the word genizah does not mean to bury. On a sheimos box, you'll see the word genizah. Geniza does not mean to bury. Geniza means to begeines, to put away in a protected, in a secure way, right? So the way they used to do it is bring it to the Ezras Nashim, and they would put all the old sefarim that you didn't need or they couldn't use in the Ezras Nashim. But now that the printing presses came out, thousands of sefarim, there'd be no room for people to daven. So what do you do with sefarim? You can't do the old form of geniza. You know, it's an interesting note of history. Geniza, the library of Cairo. I don't know if you know, the big library of Cairo was geniza. That's what it was. It was a geniza where people used to bring the old kisvei yad there. Chacham Ovadia spent many a day in those, in the library of Cairo till, of course, today I think they destroyed the library of Cairo. I don't think it exists anymore. Still exists? Probably, they probably destroyed it. Al kol panim, many, many, you know, I heard a very nice story, brother, beautiful story. I heard it from someone who was there, witnessed it with his own eyes. Someone came to Chacham Ovadia and he asked for haskamah for his sefer. Rav Ovadia, you know, quickly, diftef, he pushed, and he went through all the papers, the pages, and he says, I can't give you haskamah. Why not? He says, You stole the sefer from me. You took my sefarim and you polished it up and you're printing what I... So the person asked, How do you know a thing? How could you? Why are you being choshed me? Why would you say that? Because I'll tell you why. You see this Rishon that you quoted over here? It's not in print. I found it in the library of Cairo, in the sheimos over there. I studied the whole thing, memorized it, and years later I put what it says there into one of my sefarim. There is no way that you could have seen it unless you saw it by me. So I know for sure that—and he didn't want to give me haskamah. He refused to give me haskamah. He says, You came and you took it. This is the genizah, the great genizah of Cairo, all right? But like I said, you know, it's not practical today. The shuls will be filled with sefarim. A lot of people do, by the way. They bring all their sefarim to the shul, and they don't realize that the shul doesn't keep it in the shul. They have to pay to be gonez. It costs a lot of money to bury it, and they throw these responsibilities on the shul. Bakol panim, what were you supposed to do? So there was a mahalach that the Shvus Yaakov came up with and said that if I'm burning it to destroy it, that would be asur. But if I'm burning it like burial, in place of burial, that would be mutar. So he wanted that they should burn the sheimos. The Knesses Yechezkel argued vehemently. There was a back and forth, and it seems like the—

And he said that that was not an option. You look at the Magen Avraham in Kuf Nun Daled, se'if katan tes. Magen Avraham says that sheimos is not allowed to be buried, even if it's meant as a way of doing genizah. So the option of taking it and burying it, cremation, right? Just like by a meis you can't burn and make ashes, the sefarim, the same thing. So the question is, what do we do? What do we do? Now you have to understand the basic issue of the printer. You know, the printer, who does the writing of it? The printer does the writing, meaning the machinery does it, which brings us to a big issue. Whenever machinery does something, who's actually doing it, the person who starts the machinery or the machine? This was big discussions when it came to matzos, u'shmartem es ha-matzos, shimur, and then lishmah of matzos. It was nogea to tzitzis, the din of lishmah by tzitzis, right? You need a din lishmah to make the tzitzis. Yeah, but the machine is doing it. So most Acharonim held—Rav Chaim Ozer wrote about this, many Gedolei Yisrael, I think the Netziv has teshuvos about it—that whoever flicks the switch, whoever puts on the switch to start the machinery, so his kavanos go into the product of the machinery. In a few moments you'll see the significance of this in the printing of sefarim. Let me begin by telling you a lot of information that's necessary to fill in the gaps of the shailah. First of all, If a apikores writes a sefer, not only is there no issur to burn it, but it becomes a chiyuv to burn it. It's a chiyuv to destroy. For example, even a Sefer Torah. If an apikores would write a Sefer Torah, you're mechuyav to burn this. This the Rambam brings in that previous halacha that I mentioned to you. Rambam says, Mipnei... ma dvarim amurim b'kisvei hakodesh shekasvu Yisrael b'kedushah, aval apikores Yisrael shekasav sefer Torah, sarfin osah im hahaskaros shebo. Even though it's a Sefer Torah and has kedushah, and even if it has the sheimos of the Rabbeinu Shalom, haskaros, you have to burn it. Mipnei she'eino ma'amin b'kedushas Hashem, v'lo kasvoi lishmah, ela shehu maleh b'da'ato shezeh k'shar hadvarim, v'ho'il v'da'ato kein, lo niskadesh Hashem. Very interesting. The Rambam doesn't seem to say that there's a problem with an apikores because it's bad. He's putting bad things into his writing. But what is it? It's just, it's missing kedushas Hashem, because since he's not doing it l'shem kedushah, l'shem... So you see intent plays a very important role. Now, when the printer prints, are they Jews? Are they goyim? Are they apikorsim? I don't know. It can be anything. Does he have intent that should have kedushas sefer? So that could really be an issue in the kedushah of modern-day sefarim. Who's doing the printing? And even if, let's say it is a Jew, right? He's doing it l'shem kedusha. He's doing printing. It has nothing in mind. I don't know what he's thinking. I don't know who's—what he's thinking. It's interesting, the Rambam does bring it; the Fagei does it. The Rambam says, V'chein kisvei hakodesh shebalu, o shekasvan ovdei kochavim. Yeah? He says—no, I'm sorry, last line. U'mitzvah l'sarfan, k'dei shelo hanichu l'shem hakodesh l'maaseihem. Aval im oved kochavim kasav Hashem, gonzin oso. If a goy writes it, V'chein kisvei hakodesh shebalu, o shekasav ovdei kochavim, yignazu. So even if a goy writes it, still it has kedusha. So if a goy writes a Sefer Torah, there'd be a chiyuv to be gonez the Sefer Torah, even if the Sefer Torah now is not able to be used. So we have a major chiddush, right, that the goy—so if a goy would print a sefer, not a problem. But if a non-Jew would print a sefer, now how about a mechalel Shabbos? I don't know. Mechalel Shabbos has a din of an akum and has a din of not be'kairus, so I don't know. So let's say you have the—these are all issues in the printing of sefarim. Will it take on kedushas sefer, kedushas kisvei hakodesh? So like I said, even if we'll take on—even if we'll take on that sefarim...

That are printed, have a din of sefarim and kisvei hakodesh. But maybe we have to find out who did the printing and who turned on the printing button. Maybe it may make a very big difference. Maybe it's important to know. Maybe it's an apikores who's doing it, right? Maybe it's a mechalel Shabbos. It would take on a very big nafkamina lahalacha. Okay, let's discuss the kedusha of our modern-day sefarim, so to speak, okay? So now there's an interesting yesod that I think we have to talk about, and that is a lot of times when you write a sefer, you'll have rough drafts, rough drafts. So you correct the papers, you give it back. Now what's supposed to happen with all these extra papers? What's supposed to happen? The rough drafts that you gave back. Now if it's wrong, all right, so, you know, then maybe it doesn't have kedusha. But sometimes the Torah is right. Just, I don't know, one word here that's misspelled, one word there that's misspelled. So what happens to those rough drafts, lahalacha? Are you allowed to throw them out? So in the teshuvos, there's big discussions about this. Some say, listen, it wasn't miskaven lekatshe. Remember I told you, the Rambam tells us that it's very important, the intent, that there was no intent for this to be a sefer. This is just a rough draft that you should correct. So therefore some say you can just take it and throw it out. Even though a normal book sefer is not allowed to be thrown out, it has to be genizah, these rough copies that you need were given to you as correcting for correcting, that would not have a problem of chiyuv genizah, because there was no intent to be makdish. Others say, who cares? It has nothing to do with intent. And then you have a problem of genizah, unless you l'hedya have in mind it shouldn't be kodesh, and that might work. Even if you hold that if a person did it and he didn't have in mind to be kodesh, it's still kodesh, but if he had in mind it shouldn't be kodesh, then it would be. And you'll soon see the significance of newspapers and little booklets that they send. You know, are there a chiyuv genizah on all these, like Divrei Torah in the newspapers? L'maaseh, in the teshuvos it's brought down that since these issues are very complicated and there's no clear resolution, so it's better maybe a goy should dispose of these extra papers that are given to you, the rough draft. And I saw it's interesting, which I'm not even 100% clear, a goy, a katan. That's a lot in the teshuvos when they get to genizah, a goy, a katan. I don't know why. Maybe it's because a goy might also have a chiyuv lo sa'asim kein. So you have a goy, a katan. So they want that maybe a goy should just dispose of it and it'll be okay. L'maaseh. There's another issue, and then you'll soon see how it all ties back to the original question of understanding why the printing press's books that are printed is or is not an issue, and that is: on top of every sefer you'll find margins. Are those margins kodesh, and have a chiv genizah? What would be the nafkamina? A lot of times you have a book. You want to take off a small piece of paper to write a telephone number, or even if you don't want to rip it off, you just want to write something on top of the telephone, on top of the margin. Are you allowed to do that, or maybe that's what a chisaron of disrespect for kisvei hakodesh? Some want to say that, listen, I was mekadesh text, the letters, and the place where the letters are, but this is the margins. Margins are not included. So lahalacha, I'd be able to write by the margins. It would be mutar. Other acharonim say that no, it's part of the book, part of the sefer. Anything which is part of the sefer might have a problem. But they say it could be, it all depends if you did end up learning with it. If you never learned with it yet, so it's still not niskadesh. The fact that it's printed still didn't make it kodesh yet.

Once you learn with it, then it becomes kaddish. R' Moshe zatzal, or shiva zatzal, held like that, that once something is learned from, that itself gives it the kedusha. So even if we're going to come and say a printed book is still not a sefer, once you learn from it, then it becomes a sefer. And you'll soon see how this is relevant again to the discussion at the end of the shiur: what do we do with the newspapers today that are full, filled with divrei Torah? So I heard that there are those that want to make this nafka mina. I don't know why that would be a nafka mina. Torah is Torah. I don't think so. The truth is, I mentioned this, you know, in the past to the oilam. I saw Reb Chaim Kanievsky told people that Hebrew sefarim should be on a different shelf than English sefarim. Interesting. Either way, it's definitely sefarim. I don't think he's denying that English sefarim are chiv genizah, right? Sefer is a sefer. It's hard to believe that just because it's written in English. Now, I know that there's a sugya called Ashuris, but I don't think it's relevant to once it has divrei Torah on it. I think divrei Torah is divrei Torah, and the halachos of kedushas kisvei hakodesh and sefarim apply to it. I want to tell you an interesting question which I've dealt with in the past, dating back to when I was in yeshiva. Today we don't find it as much as years ago. Every sefer had many pages empty in the front and in the back, a lot of extra papers. Now, sometimes those extra papers are just hakdashot, which means, you know, in memory of this one and thanking that one and— And then there's sometimes just plain empty papers. Does that have a din kedusha, as does the actual sefer? Is there a chiyuv genizah? For example, can I doodle on it? Can I rip it out to use it to write a telephone number? So originally, I wondered why it's done. I'm not even sure why they do it. I know for sure that a cover of a book is there to protect the book, and that would be called tashmishi kedusha, and then again it would have a chiyuv genizah. No issue about that. What about these papers? What are they there for? They're there to protect the book. And when I wrote my sefer, I learned what it's really all about, and people would be surprised to know it's because there's something called boigen, which means every sefer has a certain amount of sections, and there's just this extra paper. It has to, let's say, there's 30 pages to every section. That's why you'll see in the old sefarim there's something called sheloy lahashir niyar chalak. In order not to leave the paper blank, I'll put in an extra kasha, teretz, pshat that has nothing to do with the sefer. Why just don't put that paper there? And the answer is that paper had to be, because that's how the sefer could be. It doesn't really have kedusha sefer. It's just, unless you look at it the other way around, that since every book needs a certain amount of papers for the binding, so that does become part of the book. Originally I thought it was mutar, and I told people you could rip it out and write a telephone number on it. And then I've seen recently that Rabbi Elyashiv said not like that. They quote from Rabbi Elyashiv that even the extra papers in the front and in the back. You're not allowed to rip out and use. He brought a raya from a Mishnah in Yadayim, where the Mishnah over there says the gvilim, which are before rosh hasefer, before the book, before the sefer, have a din of the sefer l'tamei hayadayim, just like a sefer is metamei, kisvei hakodesh is metamei yadayim. The gvilim, the parchments that precede the actual sefer, are also metamei yadayim. Now, I don't really understand that, because that's going on a Kisvei HaKodesh proper, that's going on a Tanach. It could be the parchment that starts the Kisvei HaKodesh, that has a halacha of Kisvei HaKodesh, right? What are you going to say, you're allowed to cut out the front part of the Sefer Torah, that front parchment? Is it the same as a book? I don't know, but it seems that they're quoting Rabbi Yoshiv that said that, and it's something that over the years I've said differently, which to me is a point that I have to bring out, that I've said it in the past that it's mutar to do, and I saw from Rabbi Yoshiv that it's not mutar to do. Which brings us to the modern-day she'eilah: the newspapers and the pamphlets and the Shabbos in the shul, those...

Dvar Torah things. What are you supposed to do with all that? And how about the homework? How many times do kids come home with homework, with papers, and what happens to all that? Okay. Let's go back to the original issue that we spoke about, how a sefer gets its kedusha because you have intent for it to be kodesh. Many acharonim want to say, well, here it's different because the intent is that it shouldn't be kodesh. It's meant to be a newspaper. It's meant to read and throw out. So since it's meant to read and throw out, you don't have a chiyuv genizah to be protected. No. Of course, you can't be mevazeh it. You can't just throw it out by throwing it in the garbage. So what you would do is put it in a plastic bag, right, and respectfully dispose of it, but in the garbage, okay? That's one shita. That's one derech that's brought in Acharonim. You're allowed to throw all these things out. Rabbi Reb Elsky didn't hold of it much. Surprisingly, the world took it on recently, but when I was growing up, people frowned on it. Reb Elsky even showed the teshuvah of my alter zeide, nishmas Gan Aharon, chelek aleph, siman tes, showed it to me, that my grandfather was very against this concept, that just because a pamphlet or a booklet was not written and published and printed with the kavana that it should be a sefer, doesn't mean it's not Torah. Memeila, I have reservations by telling you simply throw it out. But I got to give you a little more information. There's a Chofetz Chaim, the Michtavei Chofetz Chaim, siman pei gimel. Says a chiddush, that printed and never used, there's no chiyuv genizah. Remember I told you this, that this is a big yesod, that could be the only time a printed thing gets its kedushah? Only once you learn from it. The Chofetz Chaim, in his Iggros, writes this, that that's the halacha, that you have to... Okay. Rosh Yeshivas Atzarah, Moshe, in the Iggros Moshe, Orach Chaim chelek daled, siman lamed tes, seems to argue with this, and he says that Gemaras and everything you learn from—he doesn't, maybe he didn't see the michtevei Chofetz Chaim—but he says an interesting chiddush in the reverse. What happens if I had a Gemara that now cannot be used because it got root? You ever see Gemaras sometimes mold, or they get tattered? Rosh Yeshiva held that that's no problem; you could throw it out. There's no chiyuv genizah on it, because its kedushah is only kol zman you're able to read it. So it's the Chofetz Chaim's yesod, but in a different context. The Chofetz Chaim wants that a sefer should only be kadosh if what? If I used it. And he's saying, the Rosh Yeshiva, in the teshuvos Orach Chaim chelek daled, siman lamed tes, that its only kedushah is kol zman I could read it. So in itself, inherently, it doesn't have kedushah. He says that's only by Gemara. Torah shebal peh, but Torah shebiksav will always have its kedushah. So a Chumash or a Tanach, even if it can't be used anymore, even if it's tattered or moldy, you still have a chiyuv genizah. What is the shiur? What is the shiur of, I can't use it anymore? I don't know, that's a good question. Today a kid won't use anything that's a little bit, you know, moldy. I don't know. In those days, the Gemara is, you know, it's yikara metzius. I don't know what that means. I guess it means nobody would use it. Maybe that's what the Rishonim means. I don't know what the shiur is. Like, how do you evaluate? I mean, it's moldy. It means you can't read it, or he means, ein hachanami, it has to be that tattered that nobody would use it. I don't know. But that's what's brought down in the teshuvos, that a Gemara that lost its usage could be thrown out. A Tanach, which means Torah, Nevi'im, Kesuvim, you can't throw it out. Okay. According to this, let's talk about the pamphlets and the papers, right? So we could come and say it's another reason why it's mutar. Just like a Gemara, not using it anymore, not meant to be used now, meant to be, so maybe it loses its kedusha. But then unless you could say maybe not, maybe I could still use it. I could still go back and read a newspaper.

With the divrei Torah from a few years ago, right? L'maisa, sometimes you have newspapers that quote you with the name of Hashem. They'll write the word Hashem in it, right? I don't know if that's going to help you. All this is not going to help you if it has the name of Hashem. I know Rav Moshe has a teshuva. Shevuos HaTzalah's teshuva, you shouldn't write Baruch Hashem on top of a paper. Why? Hashem is one of the kinuyim for the Shem Hashem, and there would be a problem of disregarding that paper and throwing it out. So he writes clearly, you should write beis samach daled b'siyata dishmaya. This is in Igros Moshe, Yoreh Deah chelek beis, siman kuf lamed ches. You need to be careful, to be careful, not to write Baruch Hashem on a paper, but to write beis samach daled b'siyata dishmaya. There's another teshuva from the Rishiva zatzal, in Igros Moshe, Yoreh Deah chelek beis, siman kuf lamed hei. He says a mechudash. You have a siyah on the invitations. He gives you pesukim, right? Kol sason v'kol simcha, kol chassan v'kol kallah. Moshe says you shouldn't write it, because they're going to throw out the invitation, and it's a pasuk. Now, it's definitely not meant to be printed b'kedushas sefer, right? But that was Rav Moshe's chiddush. Rav Moshe's chiddush is that pesukim of Tanach and Shemos Hashem don't need to be printed l'shem kedusha for it to carry its kedusha. Rebelsky told me that there's two mahalchim what to do it, because in the old invitations, it was almost a must to write, otherwise the whole invitation... Let's see if it's possible. It's פסול, like in the kesubah. If you don't write kol sasa v'kol simcha and have an emblem, what do you call it, a monogram of the chosson and the kallah, ois. So he said that one of two things: you should leave out the vavs, kol sasa and kol simcha, not kol sasa v'kol simcha. Leave out the vavs. Kol chasan instead of v'kol kallah. So you're not quoting a pasuk; you're borrowing words from the pasuk, okay? Or, he said you should do it in two columns. I remember there were times that people did it: kol sasa v'kol simcha, one thing; kol chasan v'kol kallah. And if you're artistic, you can make a whole, like a canopy out of it, I don't know, you'll figure it out, okay? Al kol panim, the yesod is that kisvei hakodesh, which means Tanach, has an issue whether or not you printed it for the sake of or not. It wouldn't make a difference, okay? Let's discuss one of the most complicated topics, and then make maybe a one-minute chazara, and then I'll give you a minute or two to ask me questions, okay? Tapes, to erase a Torah tape. Are you allowed to erase a Torah tape? Now, there was a whole discussion, the Acharonim, if you're allowed to even make these tapes in the first place. Why? Let's say you make a bracha on a tape. Baruch... and you hear the way the Rebbe says, mamish screaming the bracha, Shehecheyanu, v'kiyemanu, v'higiyanu lazman hazeh, right? Okay, he said it at the time. He had the chiyuv to make it. Now every time you listen to it, right, you listen to a bracha that doesn't really exist, right? It's something that happened on Sukkos. It didn't happen today. Should you answer amen to it? You shouldn't answer amen to it. These are very interesting discussions, to the point which led the Acharonim to say, well, maybe it's not live, it's not really there, it doesn't really exist, huh? Imagine a guy plays—let's say a person would play over and over again because he likes the way the Rebbe said, or the Rosh Yeshiva—I don't mean any Rebbe, I don't mean anything personal, Rebbes, roshei yeshivas, rabbanim, whichever one—over and over again, you like the way he said it, so you play again. Again and again. Are you over bracha levatalah because you're repeating? Acharonim talked about all these shailas, to the point that they had to come to the conclusion it's not live. All right, so if it's not live, it's only on a tape, am I allowed to erase it? It started a whole new avenue of shailas: am I allowed to erase it? Okay. Rav Moshe, teshuvos haTzal, teshuvos Yoreh Deah, chelek aleph, siman kuf ayin beis, is quoted as saying that you're not allowed to erase it. The truth is he never wrote that. That's not what it says there. He's quoted as writing it, but it's not.

It's written there. It's written there is it's probably not a problem, mechikas Hashem, to erase it, right? But it's the wrong thing to do because it looks like you're being mochek Hashem. He's matir it if I want to re-record. I want to record over other divrei Torah. Now, this came up a lot, for example, in schools. You have a blackboard, and the teacher goes and writes pesukim because he wants the kids to write the pesukim. Is he allowed to go and erase it right away? So the nidon became, well, it's not really meant for kedusha. Yeah, but then maybe pesukim doesn't need that, right? But then maybe you could come and say, yeah, but even the form of the way it's written, it's written in a way to be erased. Some wanted to say tapes is the same idea. It's tape, I put it on, I put it off. Do you know that smart magidei shiurim who put their tapes out do something very tricky. You know what the trick they do? What do they do? Now today I talk about tapes. A lot of the oilam sitting here saying, What? What'd he say? Like Scotch tapes or Mystic tapes? Because they don't know what tapes are. By the way, it's making a comeback, you should know, just for your information. They're telling that it's better to go back to tapes. One day they're going to go back to tapes. Yeah, it's the newest, could be it's a way of making money. All right, we'll talk about that at a different time. Al kol panim, you hear, today everything is CD, right? So the question is, the tape, remember those things from the Stone Age? Tapes, remember tapes from the Stone Age? Well, cassettes, yeah. They used to do something very smart. They used to knock out the tops, so you can't record on top of it. So you can't come and tell me that they had in mind, like a blackboard, that you should erase it. They bedavka went, recorded, and made sure that you don't erase it. So, the blackboard heter, there's another heter that maybe it doesn't really exist. It's only digital. It's not mameleches. So, Rosh Yeshiva zatzal held that if I'm redoing on top of it other divrei Torah, it's mutar, okay? But l'maaseh, you shouldn't erase it. It's the wrong thing to do. Reb Avadia, in his teshuvos, screams very sharply against this. He uses very sharp language against this, against R' Moshe, that he says if he would learn the Acharonim, he would see it's nothing. It's not true. It's not real. It's not—if on a computer, for example, if I close my computer, what's that? I'm moichek? Erased by itself, right? So there could be, I didn't do the erase button. If I don't press the erase button, then it erases itself, just because I didn't press the reserve button. I'm talking a little bit like an am ha'aretz, but I think I pretty much got it, right? If you don't press the save button, I didn't erase it. The computer erased it. But what happens if I delete? So Reb Avadia says all this is nothing, because it doesn't really—what? It doesn't really exist. If you look at the teshuvos, he screams very highly against this. Where is the nafka mina, an interesting nafka mina? You know, I have tons of these tapes, tons of them. Can I throw them out? So if you learn that there's an issur mechikas Hashem, and the heter is only to what? To re-record on top of it divrei Torah, maybe then I'm not allowed to throw it out. Unless maybe that there's another sugya. And rabosai, I want you to pay close attention. There's one thing by erasing something direct. This is in a plastic. You're not taking mamish the dvar Torah. You don't see it, you don't. Maybe it's not as, what do you call it, direct, throwing it out. I could hear that it's a jump by saying, you know what, erasing maybe you shouldn't do, throwing out in—don't forget, a tape is within a plastic. I don't mean the plastic cover, I mean the actual tape has a plastic. I could hear where someone could say it's not as direct as erasing, where erasing, even Rav Moshe never said clearly that it's a problem. So you'd be allowed to throw out these tapes, which brings us to one more interesting topic. Is there an issur to leave it out in a way that it'll get destroyed by itself? Reb Chaim Ozer held that there's no problem of leaving sheimos out to get destroyed by itself, grama. Reb Chaim Ozer said that grama, by this, would not be a problem because I'm not doing it direct. Rav Moshe, Igros Moshe, chelek daled.

Yoredei chelek daled siman lamed tes held that it's aser even al yedei grama. The nafkamina would be, can I leave out the sefarim? Pesach, I do my Pesach cleaning, I'm cleaning up, I don't want these sefarim. Can I just leave it out for the garbage collector to come and pick it up? I didn't do anything, I just left it out. So is that a problem of grama? According to Reb Chaim Ozer, it'd be mutar. According to R' Moshe, it's not mutar. Okay, so this would become an issue: am I allowed to leave a tape out that I know that the tape eventually is going to end up in the garbage? That's another shaylah. He says two questions: can I take an old Torah tape and throw it out? Or for that matter, music. A lot of times you have mamash pesukim, they're singing pesukim. The only thing is they're not saying the shem Hashem; Sefardim say the shem Hashem. You know, when they sing songs, they say the shem Hashem. So maybe you have the heter of avadi, that anyway this is not called real kisvei kodesh. But if you want to follow the chumra of the Acharonim that this is called kisvei kodesh, you have pesukim, they say the shem Hashem. So the first question is, am I allowed to erase it? And then the second question would be, am I allowed to throw it out? And the third question is, am I allowed to leave it in a way that it will get thrown out? Or I'm mechuyav to do what? I'm mechuyav to do genizah. So this is a good question. Now I want to tell you there's another mahalach that was used in taking care of sheimos, and that's called recycling. Many Acharonim held that I could recycle, and that's not a problem of... Of, you take the papers and you destroy it so you could rewrite the Torah again. That's not a chisaron and a problem of genizah. Rebelski told me that that's also, we hold that that's not mutar. How does recycling—it could be it has to do with re-erasing the tape, right? It's a way of recycling, no? If I pre- I have divrei Torah on it, and I recycle, yeah, and I recycle by writing other divrei Torah, maybe it's mutar. The nafkamina would be very interesting. You want an interesting nafkamina, Nissan? Let's say I erase the tape to leave it blank so I should be able to—I'm not erasing it with other divrei Torah. I'm erasing the tape so I can have it blank. And then when I use the tape eventually, I'll put other divrei Torah on it. Would that be part of the heter that Rav Moshe uses? Maybe I could directly take a tape and erase the context with other divrei Torah. Can I erase a tape, keep it blank, and then a month or two months from now I'll use it for when I need it for divrei Torah? It's a nice question. Now another thing, rabosai, people don't realize: when you have a notebook for chidushei Torah—now I know that in Israel they bring you back that stuff, you know, they bring it to you. Notebook, it says on it chidushei Torah. You never saw it. It was a shtick that they did years ago. He remembers it. You know what the funniest thing is? Most of these notebooks remain the way they got it, you know, empty notebooks, right? Yeah, but maybe it was mukdash to write divrei Torah in it, huh? So let's say we forget about the mukdash. Let's say we say that the guy did it, and whoever printed it thought it, whoever made this gimmick figured, okay, maybe one day they're going to use it for who knows, for telephone numbers and recipes, maybe. But once you start writing divrei Torah in those notebooks, what happens to the notebook? And don't forget, it's not even printed, it's written. You're writing beautiful pieces of Torah in it. What happens to those notebooks? Many Acharonim hold that those notebooks have a din of sefarim. So would I be allowed to doodle? Would I be make pictures of my monster mother-in-law? Or am I allowed to make pictures of my brother, who I hate, with fangs, right? Am I allowed to do that? Nobody does that here, right? Nobody doodles, okay. So am I allowed to doodle? So on the margins, remember I told you, the margins might be more of a problem because the margins of a book have halacha of the book itself, right? How about the pages after? That could be a nice question. You see, when you print a sefer and there's extra pages, huh? Could be that's part of the sefer. But if I only used half a notebook, can I doodle on the other half of the notebook? I just hope that when you doodle—

You don't come and say that that was the shiur; that itself is what you gained from the whole shiur. A lot of people walk out of a shiur and you look at them, what did you write in the shiur? And you see what he wrote in the shiur. That's his way of understanding the shiur. Maybe that's what he walked away from the whole shiur with. Okay, al kol panim, you hear, there's an interesting teshuvah from the Roshiva Zatzal, Rav Moshe, in Yoreh Deah chelek beis, siman ayin hei, that mareh mekomos in a notebook is not going to be makdish the notebook. A lot of times you write ayin here, ayin there, ayin this, ayin that, right? Look here, right? Mareh mekomos, mareh mekomos is not going to be makdish the notebook. If you write out divrei Torah, so that would be makdish the notebook. But mareh mekomos alone, that itself is not going to be makdish the notebook. So let's make a one-minute chazara, yeah, good? This shiur is what is interesting to you? All right. So let's make a one-minute chazara, and we'll be able to get mitaklerkeit, all right? So let's begin by telling everyone that the halacha is that there's a chiyuv genizah on kisvei hakodesh. Lo sa'asun kein laShem Elokeichem tells me that you have to preserve and not destroy, preserve and not destroy anything which is laShem Elokecha, kodesh. Now, yes, in the Gemara it seems it's only talking about Beis Hamikdash objects and things that have haskaras Hashem's name. The Chachamim brought the pasuk and the issur of the Torah to mean all kisvei hakodesh. Perusheihu beureihem, which means all sefarim. The question is, what happens when these sefarim are not handwritten the way it was from the Torah's time, printed? It becomes a very big discussion. Some want to say, who cares? It's printed. Or we could say, wait a minute, the intent, who did the printing? Was it a goy? Was it a Yid? Was it apikores, a mechalel Shabbos? It's a big sugya, right? There's a big issue in that. L'maaseh, there are many that want to say that printed sefarim need that you should learn from the sefarim in order to what? To it should become kadosh. You know, there would be a very big nafka mina according to this. Let's say you have a printed magazine, newspaper that has divrei Torah in it. Now, the divrei Torah, like I said, maybe it's only once you read it. Let's say I didn't read the divrei Torah. Maybe you have that heter, you could just disregard it because it has to be what, like the Chofetz Chaim, even a Gemara. For example, let's say a store has 50 newspapers that nobody touched. Could they throw it out or they have to give it to genizah? Maybe there's a heter since nobody read it. You see? To understand from regular sefarim to printing sefarim, to what you print and how you print it will make a very big nafka mina if there's a chiyuv genizah. So again, many hold that it has to be with the intent that it should be a sefer and it should remain and it should be kadosh. Newspapers fall under that? No, it was meant... That's what they used to have today, to take a newspaper, put it in a plastic bag and put it into the garbage, right? To put it directly and wipe the chunk with it, right? And put it together with the dirty diaper, of course you can't do, because it's Torah, right? But if you put it in a plastic bag, then it would be mutar, unless you learn that anything that was read, and we don't care about the intent that it should stay, then you have a problem. What about if it has pesukim? What happens if it has the Shem Hashem? It becomes more complicated. Gedolim in Eretz Yisrael used to cut it out. They used to cut out every time it said a pasuk where the Shem Hashem, they would cut it out of the newspapers before they threw it out. The other way to deal with it is to put it in genizah and to come and pay for it. It costs money, the genizah. And like I said, that this changed because of the printing, because in the old days you just—genizah—you just brought it to the shul and that was it, a box in the back of the shul. People have thousands of sefarim today, you know, it's a whole different... So the question becomes, what do you do? I want to tell you an interesting—let's say you have sheets from school, the teacher, I don't know.

Maybe it's more like a blackboard. Intent, unless it's like hagahdah. You ever notice that they give a hagadah and they want you to save it? Maybe something that was meant as a book to be saved, maybe sheets from a school, in that manner would have a din of kisvei hakodesh. But sheets for homework that were meant to be disposed of, again, with respect, which means that you would have to take it and put it in a bin. But that's what I would conclude from the whole halacha, that since it's not meant to be a sefer, and since it's not meant to be kept, it's not meant to be kept, right? So, m'meila, I think, I think I would say that this could be disregarded, of course, b'derech kavod, and be thrown in the garbage. I know a lot of people are careful that they hold it and they keep it, and then they try to bring it to genizah and they pay money for it. But this, l'choira, would be the nidon of the sugya. Then I would say maybe have another heter: just leave it out and let it by itself, which means just let it... which means put the box out. Instead of throwing it in the garbage, I would say put the box out and let the garbage people come, and then you have Rav Chaim Ozer's heter of what? Of grama. That may be another mahalach on how to deal with all the, what do you call that, the issues in between, like the, is it pamphlets, you know, newspaper. I do know there are people who save, there are people who save from Shabbos all these divrei Torahs. Do you think people who print it think that people are going to save it? You think they think they're going to throw it out? They don't think either way, so that would be the stam. Okay, so this is basically the halacha l'gabei the genizah that you asked me, and this is the answer. Okay, we'll stop here. Okay, Nissan, yeah, good, this is what you're looking for. You've just experienced another Torah class, brought to you by TorahAnytime.com.