catching up on a few things

Catching up on a few things from Pesach:

1) We bought a few different brands of shmurah matzah and one of the boxes had this printed on it:

For those like myself who are unfamiliar with this teshuvah of the C"S, it is a letter to the Jewish community of Trieste in Northern Italy (historical background here) in which the C"S bemoans the fact that their standards have fallen when it comes to matzah production.  C"S then mentions some of the hakpadot that he has, among them this point of not leaving the dough alone for more than 2-3 min.  

Is this now a thing?  IDK.  I do know that long before the C"S lived there was a chumrah from the Geonim not to leave the matzah unworked for even a minute (see Rosh Pesachim 3:6).  Perhaps that will make it onto a matzah box next year.

2) On the same box I found the following:

I have no idea what the "last date of consummation" means with regards to matzah, but it gives new meaning to  

האוכל מצה בּער״פּ כאילו בּועל ארוסתו בבית חמיו

(that's a bad joke, isn't it?)

3) My daughter is an olah chadasah, officially a citizen of Israel, but was by us in chu"l for Pesach.  She was thinking of cooking string beans for herself for the 8th day, Shabbos, which for her was no longer Pesach.  My wife objected.  The gemara (Pes 47) has a machlokes why one is allowed to cook on Y"T for Shabbos: either because צרכי שׁבּת נעשׂים בּיו״ט, or because הואיל ואי מקלעי לי׳ אורחים, if guests were to come on Y"T they could eat the extra food, so the cooking is really a tzorech of Y"T.  My wife pointed out that if guests were to come, they could not in fact eat the string beans because it was still Pesach.

This issue is an old argument between heavy hitters.  The custom in Pozna, R' Akiva Eiger's hometown, was not to eat dried fruits on Pesach (see Rama in OC 467) except on the last day.  R' Akiva Eiger thought it permissible to prepare such fruits in advance for the 8th day if it fell on Shabbos, but sent the question to his son-in-law, the C"S, to get his opinion.  C"S disagreed, and argued (Shu"T C"S OC #79, second to last paragraph), as my wife did, that you cannot apply ho'il because the food cannot be eaten on the day it is prepared.  The fact that a choleh is allowed to eat it is irrelevant, as even if one argues that there being some choleh in a large city is not "lo shichiach," but who says the choleh wants or needs to eat string beans?  

(Take a look at the last paragraph of the teshuvah as well for some nice derush).

4) Another issue that came up regarding a ben E"Y in chu"l: could my daughter, who only needed to hear kiddush for shabbos, be yotzei with my kiddush on Friday night, which included insertions for Y"T?  Or would those insertions be a hefsek?

The Bikrei Yosef (OC 213) deals with a similar issue: can someone who has a safeik whether they said a bracha achrona on mezonos (al hamichya alone) be yotzei with the bracha achrona of a friend who ate both mezonos and fruit (al hamichya + al ha'peiros)?  

He quotes a teshuvah of Radbaz who writes that a person who missed maariv can be yotzei their tefilas tashlumin by listening to chazaras hashatz of shacharis.  Radbaz was not concerned that kirkas kohanim added in shacharis (in EY and Sefard) but not maariv would be a hefsek.  Birkei Yosef adds that based on Radbaz, in our case the Y"Y insertions do not count as a hefsek either.

An issue that comes up far more frequently but that involves the same safeik: many women recite she'hechiyanu when they light neiros for Y"T.  When their husbands recite kiddush, they add she'hechiyanu in between the kiddush and drinking the wine.  Are those added words a hefsek for the women who are being yotzei through shome'a k'oneh?  Can you pick and choose which words you want to be yotzei with when you relying on shome'a k'oneh?

There are other examples as well...

5) Chazal say that "az yashir," in future tense, alludes to techiyas ha'meisim.  Why did the Torah couch such an allusion davka here?  

We started Shmos with the words  וְאֵ֗לֶּה שְׁמוֹת֙ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל הַבָּאִ֖ים מִצְרָ֑יְמָה.  When we read the shirah,  אָ֣ז יָשִֽׁיר־מֹשֶׁה֩ וּבְנֵ֨י יִשְׂרָאֵ֜ל אֶת־הַשִּׁירָ֤ה הַזֹּאת֙, it's the conclusion to the story.  It's the same  בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל, the same children of Yaakov Avinu, who are now singing shirah!  These great souls came down to become one with their children and share in the simcha of finally leaving Egypt.  And so too, adds the Sefas Emes, whenever we experience such simcha, the souls of our ancestors come down to be one with us in celebration.  

That's the yesod of techiyas ha'meisim.  Souls will come down to the world once again in order to experience and rejoice in the hisgalus of Hashem.

A beautiful Sefas Emes to take out of the chag, esp for those saying yizkor on the last day and thinking about those no longer here.

6) This is an amazing piece by a NYU Law School student (see here for some background if you are not familiar with the controversy).  Read the whole thing.  Her concluding paragraph:

All of you have done more than I ever could to convince my fellow Jews that the left doesn’t just have a Corbyn problem or a Tlaib problem or a Farrakhan problem. It has a big, fat Jew-hatred problem right in its ideological core. This time it happened to rear its head at one of the best law schools in the country. One where the name Steinhardt adorns the buildings and about a quarter of the students are Jews. Yes, even here. Especially here. 

Yes, thank you to NYU's students for letting the cat out of the bag.  But is it enough to convince our fellow Jews?  Are any members of our community listening?