Avodah Mailing List

Volume 44: Number 4

Tue, 20 Jan 2026

• 1. Re: hashmaat kol (Isaac Balbin)
• 2. Re: Normal People Don't Care About Those Things (Ilana Elzufon)
• 3. covering tfilllin shel yad (Joel Rich)

?R? Joel Rich wrote:

> What?s your understanding of the trigger level for noise which
> evaluating hashmaat kol on shabbat?
As I recall, R. Moshe writes that if a sound is audible in an adjoining
room, it constitutes hashmoas kol. I do not recall any explicit definition
of this in the Gemara, and it appears to be a subjective concept. For
example, if one lives alone, it could be argued that the sound would need
to be audible outside the house to qualify. On the other hand, one could
equally argue that even within that house it constitutes a zilusa
de-Shabbos to operate loud implements.

Moreover, the air conditioners extant at the time when the Minchas Yitzchak
permitted, under certain circumstances, asking a gentile to turn on an air
conditioner would likely have generated more noise than many contemporary
appliances. A related issue arises today with respect to robotic vacuum
cleaners. As I understand it, they generate the most noise when expelling
dust into the receptacle. I am not aware of any posek who has defined
hashmoas kol in terms of decibel levels.

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On Thu, Jan 15, 2026 at 9:26?AM Meir Shinnar via Avodah <
avo...@lists.aishdas.org> wrote:

>
> 1. the first person I know who is explicit about actions being primary is
> Mendelson. While he is viewed now by many as Reform,in his lifetime he was
> viewed by most to be Orthodox.
>

To the best of my knowledge, Rav Moshe Mendelssohn himself was most
definitely Orthodox (although that term may be a bit anachronistic?), even
if his ideas later became important in the development of Reform. The view
that he himself was somehow Reform seems to be based primarily on ignorance.
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In a recent Q&A session Rabbi Shmuel Fuerst mentioned that while there
is no requirement to cover your tfillin shel yad, the practice is to
do so by pulling down your shirt sleeve immediately after putting on
the tfillin shel yad. He quoted sources that a number of gdolim were
reported to do so but did not quote a reason for the general practice
or for doing it immediately rather than after putting on the shel
rosh. I would have thought reducing the time between putting on the
shel yad and rosh would be a factor.

I had heard in the name of the R'YBS that one should return to their
original dress state (eg not have one sleeve of the jacket on and one
off)


Have you heard any reason for either practice or how common they are?

KT
Joel Rich


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