Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Of Onions and Eggs

Look, I enjoy a good s'gula as much as the next guy.  Well... to be honest, that's only true if the next guy is my friend who says that if it were possible to think, chas v'shalom, that HaShem made a mistake, it would be in not referring to the 10 fundamental concepts of existence that are engraved on the two tablets He gave to Moshe as, "The 10 S'gulos".  A guy may come late to davening, be lax with kashrus, and not give a hoot as to the quality of an eiruv; but a s'gula?  That's יהרוג ולא יעבור/die rather than transgress and more.

That being said, I am very, very careful not to eat hard-boiled eggs nor (raw) onions that were left over night.  Those aren't s'gulos, those are straight from Chazal as being dangerous.  Why are they dangerous?  That, as they say, is shrouded in mystery; or, if you prefer to be more frum about it, על פי סוד.  Please note, "shrouded in mystery" is not at all the same is "I don't know".  Philosophically, the phrase, "I don't know", means "but I could,  at least principle know"; whereas the expression "על פי סוד" (I want you to know I a frum, after all) means that we know with certainty that the reason lies beyond the boundary of human understanding.

There are halachic ramifications, also.  In particular, and this is something that על פי סוד does share with s'gulos, that smallest differences mean the danger (or benefit, in the case of s'gulos) has been avoided.  Here are a few examples.  Leave a bit of shell on that egg or a bit of peel (or some root) on the onion, and you are out of danger.  Only whole (and some say diced, as well) eggs and onions by themselves are dangerous when left overnight, so mix them with oil or salt or mayonnaise (eg, to make egg salad and tuna salad) and again you are safe.  Industrial produced hard-boiled eggs  (do a web search, you'll find lots) are not a problem.  (According to R' Moshe, but I have heard that some chasidishe hashgachos disagree.)

As long as we are talking about onions, I'd like to mention a very practical concern that I just saw this morning in the OU's daily halacha email: bugs in onions.  I had never thought about it, but bugs can live in the rooty part of the onion and even inside the top layer or so.  The OU recommends, especially during the summer months when infestations are typically worse, to peel off any loose outer layers and then wash the onion.  They also recommend using onions that are firm, as that also reduces the risks of bugs being in any deeper layer.

Here's one s'gula I really like: if you learn halacha every day, then you are guaranteed olam ha'bah.  That's a pretty good return on investment!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: Love in the Time of Corona Virus/Anxiously Awaiting the Mashiach

Two scenarios: Scenario I: A young boy awakened in the middle of the night, placed in the back of vehicle, told not to make any noise, and the vehicle speeds off down the highway. Scenario II: Young boy playing in park goes to see firetruck, turns around to see scary man in angry pursuit, poised to attack. I experienced and lived through both of those scenarios. Terrifying, no? Actually, no; and my picture was never on a milk carton. Here's the context: Scenario I: We addressed both set of our grandparents as "grandma" and "grandpa". How did we distinguish? One set lived less than a half hour's drive; those were there "close grandma and grandpa". The other set lived five hour drive away; they were the "way far away grandma and grandpa". To make the trip the most pleasant for all of us, Dad would wake up my brother and I at 4:00AM, we'd groggily -- but with excitement! -- wander out and down to the garage where we'd crawl
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: אוושא מילתא Debases Yours Shabbos

My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class.  It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner.  I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her.  She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver.  When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find.  (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every  relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it.  Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא.  It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aruch HaRav that referred to the noise of תקתוק
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: David HaMelech's Five Stages of Finding HaShem In the World

Many of us "sing" (once you have heard what I call carrying a tune, you'll question how I can, in good conscience, use that verb, even with the quotation marks) Eishes Chayil before the Friday night Shabbos meal.  We feel like we are singing the praises of our wives.  In fact, I have also been to chasunas where the chasson proudly (sometimes even tearfully) sings Eishes Chayil to his new eishes chayil.  Beautiful.  Also wrong.  (The sentiments, of course, are not wrong; just a misunderstanding of the intent of the author of these exalted words.) Chazal (TB Brachos, 10a) tell us that when Sholmo HaMelech wrote the words "She opens her mouth Mwith wisdom; the torah of kindness is on her tongue", that he was referring to his father, Dovid HaMelech, who (I am continuing to quote Chazal here) lived in five worlds and sang a song of praise [to each].  It seems to me that "world" here means a perception of reality.  Four times Dovid had to readjust his perc
Post a Comment
Read more