Q & A Forum

Question

I write to the Rav with complete humility and respectfully request that my words be accepted with patience and understanding. If even one letter is disrespectful or causes even an iota of embarrassment to the Rav in any way, I humbly apologize and ask for mechilah (forgiveness). I write to the Rav privately to avoid any potential public humiliation. However, I believe that what is written here echoes the feelings of many other readers and that the Rav’s response will help other readers and even perhaps prevent others from posting disrespectful messages. I ask that the Rav post this message in its entirety with an appropriate response but I leave it to the Rav to make that decision. I have become an avid reader of this site and have spent hours reading the archived Q&A’s. The Rav’s teachings have so profoundly inspired me that I have found a new excitement for learning and for recapturing the true essence of our precious religion as it was meant to be practiced! I have become so passionate about the Rav’s teachings that I have had countless conversations at various Shabbat meals on the Upper West Side of Manhattan where I have espoused the Rav’s views and have asked others to visit this site with the hope that they too would find a rejuvenation of their beliefs. However, I feel I must echo some of the frustration that others have expressed on this site in the past. I am trying to reach a higher madrega (level) in my learning and my practice. My knowledge of halacha and certainly of Hebrew transliterations is limited and I, like so many others on this site, look to the Rav for guidance and inspiration, especially in light of the Rav’s unique views and the unfortunately deficient alternatives in our communities. I find that many times we carefully word our questions and oftentimes we elicit only yes or no answers and sometimes less than that. I fear that sometimes these answers provide us with vague and even (G-d forbid), incorrect or incomplete understandings of the halachot (laws) in question. To wit, this past Friday afternoon, (1/21/03) the Rav posted a response to a question entitled “alarm clock on Shabbat” regarding whether one may turn off an alarm clock on Shabbat before or after it sounds if s/he forgot to do so before Shabbat began. The question posted was replete with transliterated Hebrew and unfortunately I didn’t understand any of it. The writer of the posting did not explain his references and the Rav did not either. However, the Rav unequivocally held that turning off the alarm on Shabbat is permissible both before and after the alarm sounds. Not three minutes after I had just finished explaining this to my Shabbat guests, my clock radio sounded very loudly from the other room disrupting our Shabbat meal and our discussion of halacha. I had set it to wake me for work Friday morning and had accidentally set it for PM instead of AM. Almost as a show of confidence in my belief in the Rav, I turned off the alarm and returned to the table and emphatically uttered the words “Thank you Rabbi Abadi!” Needless to say, it made quite an impression on my guests. I then began to think about whether I had done the right thing. After Shabbat I re-read the entire posting. I realized that I could not tell from the Rav’s response to the question whether the Rav’s answer only applied to the specific fact pattern posed in the question (specifically whether the alarm had to be set to sound for the entire Shabbat). I realized, perhaps I could have closed the door to block the sound from the dining area. Perhaps the alarm clock would have turned off after an hour or so if I let it sound. I berated myself for having made a hasty decision without a full understanding of the halacha and I realized that my zeal might have caused me to be mechalel (violate) Shabbat. I take full responsibility for my actions and if I have sinned, I will have to answer to G-d and ask for forgiveness. However, I feel that if perhaps the Rav had been clearer in his explanation of the halacha, I might not have erred. And thus, I felt compelled to write to the Rav and ask for his patience, for his knowledge and please G-d, for his clarity in his responses to our questions. Please translate Hebrew quotations and transliterations. Please explain them and what they teach us about halacha. Please provide us with specific citations to sources (page and verse) so we can look things up for ourselves. Was I mechalel Shabbat? If so why? If not, why not? What is the halacha? Am I wrong to ask the Rav to be patient and take the time to teach us when his intentions were to do so from the outset? If so, does the Rav mochel me? Humbly yours…