Lechem Mishnah (III)

  1. If a person has both a complete loaf of bread and a sliced
    loaf of bread that he could use for the third meal on Shabbos, he should use
    the whole loaf and save the sliced loaf for his melava malkah because
    the third meal is more important than the melavah malkah. It is best if
    a person can also begin his melavah malkah with a whole loaf of bread.

  2. If a person mistakenly begins to cut his loaf before
    reciting the blessing over bread, it is still considered a whole loaf with
    respect to the mitzvah of lechem mishnah if he can lift the entire
    loaf from the section which has been partly separated by the cut that he
    made.

  3. If a small part of the loaf is missing, it may still be
    considered a whole loaf for the mitzvah of lechem mishnah. Some
    poskim hold that a medium sized loaf is considered whole until it is missing
    a piece the size of an olive—the amount that can be missing from a small
    loaf being proportionate to its size. Others hold that it can be missing one
    forty-eighth of the loaf, the amount that is removed to fulfill the mitzvah
    of chalah. In any case, if a little bit of the loaf is missing, but it still
    looks whole, it can be used for lechem mishnah.

  4. A matzah that has lost a small piece can be burned at the
    edges to make it appear whole. Some are lenient and allow burning the edges
    even of a matzah that has lost so much that it appears to have been broken
    in half.

  5. Rusks are slices of bread that have been re-baked. Each
    re-baked slice is considered a whole loaf. A rusk that has lost a piece can
    be treated like matzah, that is, if one burned the edges so that it appears
    to have been baked as it is, it is considered a whole loaf for the mitzvah
    lechem mishnah.

  6. If a person does not have a second loaf of bread, he can
    borrow a loaf from a neighbor. Even though he cannot eat it and has to
    return it, it can be used to fulfill the mitzvah of lechem mishnah.

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