As we count the flames, which numbers take on a life of their own?

Project Coordinator: Rachel Bachrach

We all have numbers that stand out — maybe it’s the number of days the hostages were in Hamas tunnels, the number of months you gave as a deadline for shidduchim, the number of years you donned your bar mitzvah tefillin before they got lost, or the number of days
the doctors gave your parent to live.

1 Halachah

By Rabbi Binyomin Friedman

Down the Drain

MY

father never learned in yeshivah. His father, my zeide, hired melamdim for him, and as he got older, he learned from local rabbanim in his hometown, what was known as “the old northside” neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The plan had been to send him to yeshivah in Chicago, a ten-hour train ride away, upon his bar mitzvah, but when the time came he was scared to leave home.

His weak background in learning left my father feeling very unconfident about anything having to do with Torah. He was afraid to repeat a devar Torah for fear of bungling it. He would never pasken even the most straightforward halachah. All halachic questions, even the most basic, were always directed to the rav.

All halachos that is, except one: that a Yid is not allowed to milk a cow on Shabbos, but if he must, the milk must be discarded. My father told me this with complete confidence, and I found it strange, as it was totally out of character. Of course, there was a story behind this halachah.

Upon arriving in America, my zeide’s first career was as a cattle trader. He had a half-brother in the business and a brother-in-law who was a shochet, so it was a good fit. Zeide would travel from farm to farm, buying a cow on one farm and selling or swapping it on the next one. If he had a cow on his hands at the end of the day, he would bring it home and look for a buyer. If they couldn’t find one, Uncle Sam Levine, the shochet, would be summoned to shecht the cow, and they would sell the meat.

Milk cows must be milked two to three times a day, or they will suffer great pain or even die, but milking a cow on Shabbos is clearly assur. The halachos governing what to do with cows on Shabbos are enumerated in detail in Shulchan Aruch.

The accepted practice among Jews who lived in proximity to non-Jews was to hire one to milk the cows on Shabbos. My zeide followed this approach, and a non-Jew would come every Friday night and Shabbos day to milk the cows.

One Friday night, the non-Jew got drunk and didn’t come to milk the cow. The family was sitting at the Shabbos table, and the cow started lowing. The calls of the distressed cow grew louder — but the non-Jew still had not come. Finally Zeide turned to my father, who was eight at the time, and said, “Quick, run to the rav, tell him the goy didn’t come and the cow is in distress. What should we do?”

My father ran out the door to the rav’s home. He could hear his footsteps in the deserted street, and he was scared. This was the first time in his life he had been out of his home on a Friday night, and although the streets were familiar to him, he had never seen them totally empty.

He knocked on the door, and the rav, a musmach of the Volozhiner Yeshiva, opened it. My father remembers him as a handsome man with a trimmed beard who wore a frock, a tall yarmulke, and horn-rimmed glasses.

Gasping for breath, my father presented the situation to the rav, who promptly answered, “Go tell your father to milk the cows, but all the milk must go down the drain.”

My father ran home as fast as his legs could carry him. Upon arriving home, he shared the psak with his father.

Wordlessly, Zeide rose from the table. He went to the back porch and emerged a moment later wearing the milking apron over his Shabbos clothing. The family was shocked at the incongruous sight.

Zeide headed for the barn, and Bubbe and the children followed silently behind. Seeing this entourage, the family cat also fell in line.

When milking a cow, the first milk that comes out, the foremilk, is always discarded to improve milk quality and detect potential health issues. In my father’s home, the primary beneficiary of this process was their cat. He knew the drill. As the milker would begin milking, the cat would stand up on his hind legs with his mouth wide open and the milker would shpritz the hot foremilk right into his mouth. Tonight, however, was different. Tonight was Shabbos, and the rav had said that all the milk had to go to waste. Zeide bent down to milk the cow and all the milk flowed straight into the drain on the barn floor.

The scene left an indelible impact on my father. Half a century later, he could vividly describe the cat standing on its hind legs with his expectant mouth wide open, being denied that which he had come to claim as his own. And half a century later, that was the one halachah my father would repeat with confidence.

Rabbi Binyomin Friedman, a founder of the Atlanta Scholars Kollel and longtime rabbi of Congregation Ariel in Dunwoody outside Atlanta, now serves as rabbi emeritus of the kehillah.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1090)