Rabbi Dovid Goldwasser Part II

A young man approached Rabbi Dovid Goldwasser with an interesting sheiloh. He davens at a certain shul that has benches with an open compartment all along the back where people put away their chumashim and siddurim when they are done using them. Naturally, a number of the seforim are invariably put in upside down. Is he obligated to stop by each one and turn them right-side up. There are occasions when it can take a considerable amount of time to walk through the bais medrash fixing each sefer.

Is a person mechuyav to check all the seforim, or can one merely avert his gaze and not look for problems as he walks through the bais medrash?

When a person finds a sefer that is turned upside down, he should reverse it to its proper position. When the Maharil would find a sefer turned wrong side up, he would turn it around and kiss it.

Even if it will take some time for him to complete the task, he should still do it, because it is considered kovod haTorah.

It is interesting to note that it is not permitted to turn a sefer over on its pages. The Chidah writes that he has seen a number of people who, upon getting an aliyah to the Sefer Torah, turn over the Chumash that they’re reading on its face. He states “heim asidim litein es hadin – in the future they will be judged concerning this.”

If a number of seforim fall to the ground at once, a person should first pick up all the seforim and then kiss them, so that the seforim should not remain on the floor even for an extra moment.

One should be careful with seforim and siddurim that were not printed under Jewish auspices. Many have suggested that these seforim should not be used. certainly not a sefer or siddur that had been printed on Shabbos.

The Igros Moshe addresses books that were printed by missionaries that contain pesukim. These should be discarded and not be allowed to remain in the house even temporarily.

The Chayei Odom cites that a sefer should not be bound by using pages of old seforim. I was once learning these halachos with a young man who could not understand how a sefer could be bound in this way. I then reversed the Sefer Chayei Odom that I was learning, showed him the binding inside the spine of the sefer and, lo and behold, there were pages from an old sefer used to bind that copy of the Sefer Chayei Odom!

Concerning utilizing seforim for other purposes, the Avnei Nezer writes in his teshuvos on Yoreh Dei’ah, that a person has to be careful not to use the pages of sifrei kodesh for any mundane function. Sometimes an individual may be looking for a place to hide something valuable or important, and it would seem as though an obscure sefer on the top shelf would be the perfect place. This, of course, is not permitted.

The Kaf HaChayim writes that a person should not hide a pen or other object in seforim. If a person is correcting the print in a sefer, then it is permissible to leave a knife, pen, or ink on the sefer in order to have the materials necessary to correct it in an efficient manner.

Some have the practice of placing hairs of their beard that have fallen out between the pages of the sefer. The Sheilos U’Teshuvos Torah Lishmoh writes that it is a bizoyon, an embarrassment, to the sefer to do so. The next person who opens the sefer and finds the hairs will be repulsed by it -- the exact opposite reaction that one should have when opening a sefer. He includes in this even one’s personal seforim, private property that is used exclusively by the owner himself. The Torah Lishmoh states that a heilige sefer is not a sack of genizah. The Sheilos U’Teshuvos Bais Yisroel relates a maaseh in which a niftar appeared in a dream to his son and cautioned him to gather all the hairs that he had placed in his seforim.

One should not write or doodle on the margins of the pages of the sefer, unless they are chiddushim or writing that has to do with their learning.

It is certainly permissible to use a “bookmark” and leave it in a sefer so that a person will remember where he last left off. The bookmark should be plain, however, without any type of secular message.

If one receives a sefer in the mail that was not requested, he is not obligated to pay for it. The Maharsham paskens in his Sheilos U’Teshuvos that the recipient is not even obligated to pay the return postage for the sefer. It is known that when HaGaon HaRav Yaakov Kamenetsky zt”l would receive a sefer in the mail, he would inquire as to its cost, record the amount inside the sefer and make sure that the mechaber received the money.

Also included in kovod seforim, one is also obligated to restore seforim lying around, or those outside of the bais medrash, to their proper places.

When a sefer has not been used for a period of time dust will gather. One should try to gently remove the dust from the seforim. When one returns a sefer to the shelf one should do it in a gentle and refined manner, not throwing the sefer back onto the shelf. Anyone who is mechabed the Torah, will himself be honored by the briyos.



On Erev Rosh Hashonoh 1940, the Nazis y”s entered the city of Kamenitz, where Reb Boruch Ber Leibowitz lived. It was well known that the first people to be rounded up would be the roshei hayeshiva and the rabbonim. One of the talmidim of the yeshiva was able to persuade a local official to allow the rosh yeshiva to escape. They found R’ Boruch Ber at his home, in his room together with his seforim. The talmidim rushed in and told the rebbi that they had secured his safe passage and he must leave at once. Reb Boruch Ber heard them, but he was unable to leave. It was pikuach nefesh, a matter of life or death, He asked the bochurim to please allow him to sit alone with his seforim just for a short while. He looked at his seforim with great love, every sefer – how he had pored over it, and how he gained chochmas haTorah from them. How was it possible to leave his seforim? He rose from his seat. He took out the Rashba and started turning the pages of the Rashba. He looked at the letters, the chiddushim, the foundations of Shas. He took out the Rambam, the Tur, the Ketzos HaChoshen, the Ritva. How could he possibly tear himself away from them? Half an hour passed. The talmidim came knocking at the door. There was no answer. They opened the door slightly and they saw the rebbi longing for his seforim. The talmidim said to him, “Rebbi, we have to go!” He answered, “I’m not able to.” A strange silence prevailed in the room. The talmidim said to each other, “This is pikuach nefesh. We must take our rebbi.” The talmidim stood on either side of their rebbi, lifted him slightly, and then led him gently away, while tears flowed freely from their eyes.