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We’re pleased to share a new episode of “Lemaan Yishmeu,” the weekly halacha podcast with Rabbi Yosef Yeshaya Braun, Mara D’asra, and member of the Crown Heights Beis Din, brought to you by AskTheRav.com in partnership with the Lemaan Yilmedu Halacha Institute.

Each week, Rabbi Braun explores fascinating halachic questions across a wide range of practical topics — real inquiries that have reached his desk, along with his clear and insightful responses.

You can listen to the podcast on all major platforms, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, 24Six Amazon Music and Pocket Casts

The podcast is also available at https://asktherav.com/podcast/#ep22, where you can see extensive marei mekomos for the answers.

In this week’s episode, the topics discussed by Rabbi Braun include:

A tefillin shel yad cover that won’t come off:

If the cover on the tefillin shel yad is so tight it can barely be removed, are the tefillin still kosher?

Is there a problem of bayis she’eino ro’eh es ha’avir, chatzitzah, or bal tosif, or does the cover take away from the tefillin being square?

Should the cover be removed before making the bracha, and does this apply to contemporary covers that have openings?

Did the Rebbe and the Frierdiker Rebbe use a cover on their tefillin?

Shabbos candles for a widower:

When a widower, lo aleinu, starts lighting Shabbos candles, should he light two, or keep to the number his wife lit?

Where does the minhag of a candle for each child come from, and do its reasons apply to a man as well?

Does he keep up an extra candle his wife added as a knas for missing a week, or one she took on for some other reason?

Since a wife lights as her husband’s shliach, does that bind him to her number, for instance when she is away from home?

Lighting Shabbos candles where you won’t eat or sleep:

If someone is stuck on the way to 770 right before Shabbos, or is helping out at a CTeen program, can they light candles where they won’t be eating or sleeping?

If someone eats out on Friday night, should they light where they eat or where they sleep, and does electric lighting make a difference?

Can we learn from the halacha that a woman may light in the women’s shul in certain circumstances?

What does the halacha of a blind person lighting Shabbos candles tell us about lighting where others benefit from the light?

Tashlumin after going back to sleep without Maariv:

If someone woke up at night, remembered he hadn’t davened Maariv, and went back to sleep because he was too tired, may he make it up with an extra Shmoneh Esrei at Shacharis?

Is he considered a meizid or a shogeg, and does it matter whether he expected to wake up again or was too tired to think clearly?

Does the rule of ones bizman ha’acharon (being held up at the last minute after putting something off) apply to making up a missed tefillah?

Is this like someone who missed davening because he was busy with business, or who davened in a place he didn’t check for excrement first?

Losing your place in a bracha:

If someone in the middle of Asher Yatzar can’t remember whether they said the opening Baruch Atah Hashem, should they start over or finish the bracha?

If someone loses their place in a pasuk that mentions Hashem’s name twice, may they go back to the beginning of the pasuk?

How does safek brachos l’hakel apply when someone is definitely obligated in the bracha?

What if someone started a bracha such as Al Hamichya and then wasn’t sure they needed to say it at all?

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