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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial>From: Doron Beckerman <beck072@gmail.com><BR>>> But RYBS
held that the main reason for covering the Challah was not Shelo<BR>Yireh Hapas
Boshto, but "Ki Heichi D'Teisi Seudasah Beyikra DeShabasa".<BR>Meaning, one
cannot start the Seudah before Kiddush, so the foods, if placed<BR>on the table,
must be covered so as to begin the Seudah by uncovering the<BR>foods. The
other two -reasons Shelo Yireh and Zecher LaMan - he thought<BR>were
Aggadic. According to that, it should be sufficient to have a<BR>see-through
cover. But he held that one should cover ALL the food on the<BR>table, not just
the Challah. [Nefesh Harav page 158]. <<</FONT></FONT></DIV>
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<DIV>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.)</DIV>
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<DIV>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.' " </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 color=#0000ff size=2 face=Arial FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"><BR><STRONG>--Toby Katz<BR>================</STRONG></FONT><FONT lang=0 color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>_____________________</FONT></DIV></DIV>
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