| If the flames or
electricity has gone out from under my pots, may I take the pots to a neighbor’s
blech or hot plate? Yes you may. Since you
never took your mind off heating the food, it is as if you are standing all the time
holding the pots in your hand with the intention of returning them to the fire.
If the cholent is burning, what may be
done to save it?
Option #1. Move the cholent away from the heat source, or
place a metal plate below the pot. [1]
Option #2. According to the Sephardim: there is a machlokes
amongst the poskim as to whether one may pour boiling water from the urn into
another pot [2] that is on the fire. According to
the Ashkenazim: it is mutar to pour hot water from an urn on a blech,
or from an electric urn, directly into the cholent pot. HaRav Shlomo Zalman
Auerbach Ztz”l [3] holds
that it is also mutar to pour from the urn into a cup and from the cup into the
cholent pot. Whatever happens, the cholent must be on a blech or hot plate in order
for one to add the hot water to it.
If the fire extinguished under the
blech, may I ask a non-Jew to relight the fire?
Dealing with issues addressing non-Jews is always a tricky
one, since many are under the pretence that everything is mutar. One may not ask a non-Jew to relight the fire because lighting
a fire is an issur d’oraissa (a Torah prohibition) and the halacha
is that one is forbidden to ask a non-Jew to do an issur d’oraissa even
for the sake of a mitzvah, unless in dire circumstances, where a Rav should be
asked. If a non-Jew relit the fire on his accord and the food was still warm, it
may be eaten. [4]
Food was cooked for an ill person,
is it mutar for someone healthy to eat the leftovers?
Food may be cooked on Shabbos, when necessary, for a choleh
sheyesh bo sakanah – an ill person in life danger – but other people who are
not in that category (even other sick people but are not life threatened) may not partake
of that food. The reason is that Chazal were afraid that others would take
advantage of the fact that food is being cooked and add food to the pot. [5]
May one eat that food after Shabbos?
Yes, and one need not wait the usual bichdai
sheya’asu – the time it takes to cook the food [6]– because the food was cooked
in accordance with the halacha. [7]
If a non-Jew cooked the food, does
the rule of bishul akum [8] apply?
The ill person may definitely eat it on Shabbos. As for
eating the food after Shabbos (the sick and the healthy), we find opposing opinions in the
Mishna Berura, [9] and a shaila (a question
posed to a Rabbinical authority) must be asked.
A Vort for
Chanukah
It appears that
the famous miracle of the candles burning for eight days was totally superfluous. The
eight day delay for new oil was due to the fact the existing oil in the Temple was impure,
and eight days were required to bring new, pure oil. However, the commentators point out
that the halacha is that it is permitted to use impure oil when the general public
is also impure, so why did they only light with the pure oil (which the finding of was in
itself a miracle) and not utilize the impure oil?
HaRav Sternbuch answers that when laying a foundation for
yiddishkeit, the best has to be used without any compromises. One cannot erect a tall
building on weak foundations; no shortcuts can be taken there.
Therefore the Hasmoneans knew that in order to eradicate
the impressions left by the Jewish-Greeks, they had to instill in themselves and the
nation that for Hashem – only the best is good enough.
Food
For Thought
Is it mutar to put a chalah, wrapped
in foil, into the oven before Shabbos (and the oven is either on or off)?
What is the halacha regarding
switching on an electric Shabbos urn close to Shabbos?
If boiling water was poured onto a
tea bag, may one drink the tea?
How does one prepare tea essence
before Shabbos?
Answers coming next week.
Iggeres HaGra
Do not lust after imaginary honor, for it is worthless,and
time is a traitor: it is like scales, which lift the light and lower the weighty. The
world is like one who drinks salty water: he thinks it quenches his thirst, but it only
makes him thirstier. No one leaves the world with even half his cravings fulfilled
(Koheles Rabbah 1). "What profit does one have from all his toils under the sun"
(Koheles 1:3)? Remember our predecessors, all of whose love, desire and joy have ceased to
exist (see Koheles 9:6), but who are being judged severely for them.
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