From the Rav’s Desk: 5780-5781

Description

The goal of this Sefer:
This Sefer is the first in a series to compile various practical Halachic queries received by Harav Goldstein relevant to the various sections of Shulchan Aruch, and to document his responses. Many of the Halachos printed in this Sefer have featured on our Daily Halacha email and WhatsApp messages, and website. All of our other books have been written in the form of “Halachic journalism,” in which all opinions on the subject are recorded, and sometimes without arbitration. Rabbi Goldstein’s personal opinion is not necessarily portrayed within the articles and he simply states the Halachic facts and opinions as he understands them. Likewise, the format of the articles is very conservative, being limited only to the facts on ground without further elaboration, similar to an encyclopedia. However, the current book is a compilation of Rabbi Goldstein’s personal rulings as a Rav, which he has answered individuals, and therefore include a clear arbitration in accordance to his opinion, and often contains much more elaboration on the subject in accordance to his understand.

The format of the Sefer:
The Sefer is compiled in a question-and-answer format. The questions have been selected from the thousands of questions Rabbi Goldstein has received throughout the relevant year, both by telephone, email, WhatsApp, and his local community. The questions received have been rewritten and edited for the sake of the formatting of this book in order to exclude any personal details of the questioner, as well as to make the question clearer to our readers. The answer usually includes a quick direct response to the question, which is then followed by an explanation behind the response, which is followed by the sources on which the response is based on. The benefit of this format is that it gives our readers the quick answer to their question without them needing to decipher it from a long explanation, and at the same time provides them background information behind the ruling so they understand its basis, and provides them the sources for further research. While usually when Rabbonim are asked a question and provide a ruling they are not obligated to explain their rulings to a given questioner, and certainly do not have to provide them sources in order for their ruling to be in effect, nonetheless, in order to make the format of this Sefer complete and as user-friendly as possible, we have included both explanations and sources behind each of our rulings. As well, this format is advantageous to the Rav himself, as it forces him to properly research all the sources prior to providing a ruling and as much to his knowledge and at times even affects his initial stance on the subject. The rulings are based on the Shulchan Aruch and sea of Poskim, especially focusing on the ruling of the Shulchan Aruch Harav and Chabad custom. The questions and answers are organized according to subject, and split according to the four sections of Shulchan Aruch, with a miscellaneous section at the end.