15 Mar Your Turn to Speak
FOUR QUESTIONS
Dear Editor:
I have 4 questions on Purim whose answers can be found in the Megilla.
1. How do we know that the people in Shushan were deaf?
2. How do we know that the people in Shushan had telephones?
3. How do we know that Shushan had only one toilet?
4. Which drink did they serve in Achashveirosh’s palace?
Ben From Boro Park
Editor’s Note: Nu, tell us the answer! We can’t wait in suspense until the Seder Night!
ENGAGEMENT
PICTURE
Dear Editor:
It’s not the first time, but I saw this week that you had engagement pictures and the Chosson and Kallah are touching. It’s a real issur. It doesn’t belong in a frum paper. If people do an issur, even if many people do an issur, it doesn’t make it muttar. It’s much worse than putting in the television schedule. A chosson and kallah and not supposed to touch and there should not be a picture like that in your paper. Thank you.
A Fellow Yid
Editor’s Note: Agreed. Some pictures may be deceiving. Try to be melamed zchus.
IT’S PROHIBITED
Dear Editor:
In a recent Dvar Halacha that appeared in The Vues (week of March 12), Rabbi Steinfeld started his column with the following assertion: “When one writes with his left hand on Shabbos, he is not committing a transgression.”
With all due respect to the rabbi, this assertion is completely untrue. When one writes with his left hand on Shabbos, if he is a righty, he is committing a grave transgression – although it is only a rabbinic transgression, since the melacha is being done with a shinui (in an abnormal/ unusual fashion). If he is a lefty, then he is actually committing an even graver transgression, which carries the death penalty, or the penalty of kares.
Later on in the article, the rabbi writes in the name of the Elya Rabba that on Shabbos, it is “allowed” to erase something using one’s left hand, if one is erasing “one word among other words.” Again, the Elya Rabba never said that this is “permitted” or “allowed.” It could be that this is only a rabbinic transgression – but to use words like “permitted” and “allowed” is extremely misleading, especially to people who may not be familiar with the laws of Shabbos and who may come, G-d forbid, to write or to erase on Shabbos Kodesh with their left hands, which – as mentioned above – is a grave transgression, and in the case of a left-handed person, would constitute chilllul Shabbos m’doraysa according to all opinions, G-d forbid.
I would respectfully ask that the rabbi should issue a retraction and clarification of this article.
Thank you.
Michael Bavalsky
Dear Editor:
Good Morning. I’m calling with regard to Rabbi Berach Steinfeld’s article that appeared in your paper on hilchos Shabbos, “Is left right?” He starts off his article by saying that when one writes with his left hand on Shabbos he is not committing a transgression. With all due respect to this Rabbi, this is completely false and untrue. It’s forbidden to write on Shabbos with either the right hand or the left hand unless it’s mamesh pikuach nefesh. He writes that you are allowed to erase with the left hand. He brings from the Elya Rabba that it is permitted to erase something with the left hand. This is completely untrue. It’s forbidden to do a melacha on Shabbos even with a shinui; it’s forbidden m’derabbonon. Maybe the Rabbi meant something else, but it wasn’t clear what he meant when he said it is allowed, everyone knows it’s an issur m’derabbonon. So please issue a clarification or retraction of this article because it makes no sense. And you are misleading people and you may chas v’shalom come to cause people to be mechallel Shabbos when they read this and think that they may write or erase with their left hand. This is completely, completely untrue unless it is an emergency of pikuach nefesh, there is no permission to write with either hand or to erase with either hand. Thank you.
Editor’s Note: Rabbi Steinfeld has notified us that he never said it is “muttar” he just wrote that you do not transgress if you write with the left hand. There is a differentiating between saying that something is allowed and stating that there is an issur m’dirabbonon.