[Avodah] See-Through Challah Cover

[T613K at aol.com]

From: Doron Beckerman <beck072 at gmail.com>
>> But RYBS  held that the main reason for covering the Challah was not 
Shelo
Yireh Hapas  Boshto, but "Ki Heichi D'Teisi Seudasah Beyikra DeShabasa".
Meaning, one  cannot start the Seudah before Kiddush, so the foods, if 
placed
on the table,  must be covered so as to begin the Seudah by uncovering the
foods.  The  other two -reasons  Shelo Yireh and Zecher LaMan - he thought
were  Aggadic. According to that, it should be sufficient to have a
see-through  cover. But he held that one should cover ALL the food on the
table, not just  the Challah. [Nefesh Harav page 158]. <<

 
>>>>
 
 
This explains something my father was makpid on,  and that I  absorbed 
unthinkingly, by osmosis:  he was makpid not to have any food on  the table 
(other than the covered challos of course) when he made kiddush.   No salads, 
gefilte fish, nothing.  I thought it was an esthetic preference  -- that the 
table doesn't look formal enough, honorable enough, for kiddush, if  there's 
all kinds of stuff all over the table.  But I now realize what must  have 
been his real reason!  (He was a student of RYBS, I don't know if he  learned 
this from him or from other sources.)
 
I similarly saw other things in my home that I only realized years later -- 
 and only by reading Avodah! -- had a halachic basis to them.  E.g., that 
he  himself picked up the phone on Shabbos to call the doctor when my  little 
brother got sick -- rather than ask anyone else in the house to make the  
call ("the most chashuv person present....").  And another example, he  
invariably pointed to the becher on the table just before making kiddush and  
said to me, "Shvenk ois."  ("Rinse out.")  I always wondered why he  was so 
concerned that the becher be clean, did he think it got dusty while he  was in 
shul?  As I said, I learned that there was a reason years later, I  think 
from Avodah.  Now I have my own personal Shabbos minhag, which is to  say to 
my kids each week, "Zeide always used to say 'Shvenk ois.' " 

--Toby Katz
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