Rabbi Aryeh Lebowitz

Young kids often like to fast.

Even younger kids, if he's healthy, which Rav Shechter said, we all are in America.

The national disease is obesity.

Everyone has plenty of food and is very well nourished.

So you should fast two years before the bar mitzvah.

And the preceding two years before that, you should fast half a day.

But before that, no fasting at all.

And on the minor fast, there's no need to fast whatsoever.

Okay, and that's what my kids did.

They always fasted two Yom Kippur before the bar mitzvah.

So in some ways, they had it easier than their friends who had to fast three fasts before the bar mitzvah.

In some ways, harder because they had to fast that much.

that second Yom Kippur.

Okay, question number two.

Is it permitted to play games of chance for money purely for recreation without a livelihood motive?

Okay, we don't have to go through the whole sugya of Asmachta that appears in Mesecha Sanhedrin.

We know that Mesechik Pekuvya and Mafri Chayonim are Pasol Eidos because a gambler is Pasol Eidos.

So the Gemara has two opinions, whether only someone who gambles

exclusively is pasol edus even just an occasional gambler is pasol edus and those two opinions are whether gambling is a form of gezal midirabanan a form of asmachta in which case it would pasol edus even if you do it only occasionally because you're not allowed to steal even just on weekends even just in a casino every now and then you're not allowed to steal and that would pasol edus

But if it's about Eno Osik B'Yishuv Shalom, that a person is not involved in productive activity and doing things that are useful to society and are beneficial to society, so then if he is involved normally in things that are useful and beneficial to society, but...