Torah · Halacha YomitIntentional & Kavannah of MelachotRabbi Uri Nahum · October 9, 2026 · 39 Melachot-15Play+30Position0:00—Save⌄ShareDraft. Add a description before publishing.Transcript0:00Okay, rabotai, so we've been talking about the melachot. We said two melachot already, choresh and0:07zorea. Like we said, everything, there's a lot that we could always say.0:10But I want to point out something today, and that is that when we talk about the halachot,0:16and especially, especially halachot of Shabbat, so a lower level of learning the halachot of Shabbat0:23is to just know the exact, exact case, and then you don't know any other situation.0:27But it's also very important that besides learning the actual halachot,0:30is also to know how to apply the halachot to every situation,0:34because it's almost impossible to have the same situation every single time.0:37This case of dragging the chair and dragging the table,0:40I don't think the Shulchan Aruch talks about it,0:42but it's a case that results from knowing certain rules,0:45and a person has to think when these rules apply.0:50So, but picking up from yesterday, and then maybe going back to the halacha we said two days ago,0:54to learn two important halachot.0:57We mentioned yesterday that if a person is sitting on grass1:00and he wants to wash his hands, even though his intention is to wash his hands,1:06it's not to water the grass, but being obviously going to wash his hands directly over the grass,1:10guess what's going to happen to the water?1:12That's right, it's going to fall out of, it's going to trickle out of your hands and go directly on the grass.1:17So why is that1:20asur? So the answer is because this is known in halacha as a1:25psik reisha. To explain psik reisha, we're going to take you back a little bit.1:29In every halacha in the Torah, almost every single place in the Torah,1:35the kavanah, we don't care what the kavanah is.1:38As long as the act is asur, it's asur.1:41I'll give you an example.1:42The guy wanted to eat kosher meat.1:44We said this before, right? If a guy wants to eat kosher meat, he discovers that it was—1:49Non-kosher. Do we care what your kavanah was?1:51The guy took meat that's not kosher, knowing it's not kosher, but I have1:55kavanah, I'm not eating it for enjoying it.1:59I'm eating it because I have no more space in the garbage,2:03and, you know, my wife anyway tells me to always eat those spoiled foods,2:05so I might as well eat non-kosher just because I have no more space in the garbage.2:08Now, I just want to throw it out. I don't care about eating it,2:11and we don't care about the person's2:13kavanah. At the end of the day, there's a maaseh, and therefore the kavanah doesn't play such a role.2:18However, when it comes to melachot Shabbat, we learned all the halachot of Shabbat,2:22all the melachot of Shabbat, we learned them from the building of the Mishkan.2:26And by the building of the Mishkan, you'll see over there that the people who did the Mishkan,2:31they did it, it says in the Torah, melechet2:35machshevet, it was a planned2:37melachah. It was done with intention.2:38It wasn't randomly.2:40For example, they made the bread, right?2:44So there was eleven steps to make the bread.2:46It wasn't by accident all of a sudden, Oh, look at that,2:49hey, we just harvested2:50by, you know, we went to, say, you know, I was trying to throw a frisbee to, you know,2:55Datan and Aviram, and it happened to chop off all the wheat,3:00and therefore we have— It didn't happen like that.3:03There was melechet3:04machshevet. It was done with intention.3:06And so too, the melachot of Shabbat also have to be done with melechet3:16machshevet. What does that mean? That means you have to have intention to do the3:19issur. Now, if a person doesn't have intention, so then the issur is not asur min haTorah.3:25However, that leads us to the next thing, and that is what is called3:30psik reisha. The Gemara says, what is3:33psik reisha? Psik reisha is doing an act that's normally not asur. Right?3:38With the kavanah not to do the issur, but automatically an issur comes out of it.3:43The case that the Gemara says is slaughtering the animal, chopping off the head of an animal.3:49Now, we're going to learn that shechitah, shochet, is one of the 393:55melachot. Why did they slaughter?3:56It says they made leather, so they had to slaughter to get leather.3:59What's the purpose of slaughtering?4:02What's the purpose?4:02What's the intentional slaughtering?4:03And the answer is, to kill the animal, believe it or not.4:06Okay, so the answer, the reason why you want to slaughter is because you want to kill the animal,4:10good?4:11So what if a person says, Okay, I got my knife.4:13I'm going to chop off the head of the animal.4:15I don't want it to die.4:17I don't want it to die.4:18I'm going to chop it off, but I don't want it to die.4:21Remember, Shabbat, the whole thing is that it's based on a person's4:26kavanah, but I don't want it to4:27die. The Gemara says, Psik reisha v'lo yamut. You're going to cut off its head4:32and you don't think it's going to die?4:33It's clear it's going to die.4:34So therefore, in that case, it's inevitable that's going to happen,4:38and that's called a psik4:41reisha. We don't say the whole phrase, psik reisha v'lo yamut;4:43we just say psik4:44reisha. That became psik4:45reisha. That's the prime example of all these halachot.4:48And that is that if you're doing something that, without the kavanah of doing an4:52issur, but it'll automatically cause an issur to4:55happen, and that would be called psik4:57reisha. That would be an issur also,5:00like we said beforehand, everybody agrees this5:03is an issur. The example of this, and we're going to build on this, בעזרת השם, next week,5:06the example of this is, I'm washing my hands on the grass.5:10What's my5:11kavanah? To wash my hands.5:13נטילת ידיים. I'm going to say berachah with5:15kavanot. Yeah, but you're going to wash your hands,5:16it's not going to go on the grass and water them,5:18so that would be called psik5:20reisha. More to come, בעזרת השם, in these halachot.