Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Immersing a New Pot On Shabbos

The Shulchan Aruch (323:7) brings a machlokes whether or not it is permitted to immerse a new pot (that was bought from a non-Jew and thus requires immersion before using it to cook food) on Shabbos.  We typically don't worry about tuma nowadays, so when we think of immersing keilim, we are usually thinking about pots, pans, hot water urns, and the like that we recently acquired or received as a gift.  In order to understand this machlokes, however, we need to be more broad minded.  There are two basic factors that contribute to this machlokes.  First, while pots and pans are keilim, so are blankets and sofas.  Second, there are two reasons one might want to tovel a keili: (1) remove the tuma; (2) allow a cooking utensil that was acquired from a non-Jew to be used.   (More details about what a keili is and under what circumstances it need to be immersed can be found here: A Deep Dive Into T'vila.)

The biur halacha (d.h. mutar l'hatbil v'chulu v'yeish osrim v'chulu) explains the machlokes based on the four reasons given (TB Bei'a 18) that Chazal forbade immersing tamei keilim (vessels/clothing) even on Yom Tov:
  1. Raba says it is a hedge (g'zeira atu) against carrying in a public domain on Shabbos (ie,  against not even within an eiruv because sometimes there isn't an eiruv; not even on Yom Tov because folks sometimes mix up what is allowed on Shabbos with what is allowed Yom Tov).
  2. Rav Yosef says it is a hedge against wringing out clothes after immersion (not even non-absorbent keilim because of absorbent keilim).
  3. Rav Bibi says it to prevent people from keeping tamei pots around their house till they have all that free time on Yom Tov and Shabbos, and in the meantime forgetting themselves and cooking up some yummy t'rumah in a tamei pot.  T'ruma cooked in a tamei pot needs to be destroyed; a serious offence.  (So all Jews because of cohanim.)
  4. Rava says because is similar to repairing a vessel.
The Ri"f brings only the reasons given by Rav Yosef and Rav Bibi.  Note that neither of those reasons apply to pots and pans that need to be immersed before first use.  Rav Yosef's reason doesn't apply, because pots and pans are not absorbent and never need to be wrung out.  Rav Bibi's reason doesn't apply because cooking food in an untoveled pot does not assur the food.  It is certainly forbidden to use that pot (perhaps even d'oraisa), but the food is not damaged in any way.  (Good to know if you are offered coffee cooked by a non-frum Jew using their untovled coffee maker.)  Therefore, the Ri"f paskens it is permissible to immerse pots and pans for first use, even on Shabbos.

Ro"sh paskens that the issur is due to the reasons brought by Raba and Rava.  Both those reasons -- a hedge against carrying in the public domain and because it looks like fixing -- have nothing to do with the use of the keili or why it needs to be immersed.  Hence, the Ro"sh paskens that it is forbidden to immerse pots and pans for first use, even on Yom Tov.

This seems to be one of those cool cases where you can see reflected in halacha l'ma'aseh how the rishonim learned a gemara.  The Ri"f is learning that the four reasons given apply to specifically to the immersion of keilim to m'ta'her them; therefore he only brings the reasons of Rav Yosef and Rav Bibi when it comes to the immersion of new keilim for cooking.  The Ro"sh, on the other hand, is learning that (to paraphrase a not-so-recent-ad-anymore) "keilim are keilim"; the g'zerios immersion to m'ta'her apply equally well to immersion of new cooking vessels.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: Pizza, Uncrustables, and Stuff -- What Bracha?

Many years ago (in fact, more than two decades ago), I called R' Fuerst from my desk at work as I sat down to lunch.  I had a piece of (quite delicious) homemade pizza for lunch.  I nearly always eat at my desk as I am working (or writing TftD...), so my lunch at work cannot in any way be considered as sitting down to a formal meal; aka קביעת סעודה.  That being the case, I wasn't sure whether to wash, say ha'motzi, and bentch; or was the pizza downgraded to a m'zonos.  He told if it was a snack, then it's m'zonos; if a meal the ha'motzi.  Which what I have always done since then.  I recently found out how/why that works. The Shulchan Aruch, 168:17 discusses פשטיד''א, which is describes as a baked dough with meat or fish or cheese.  In other words: pizza.  Note: while the dough doesn't not need to be baked together with the meat/fish/cheese, it is  required that they dough was baked with the intention of making this concoction. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: What Category of Muktzeh are Our Candles?

As discussed in a recent TftD , a p'sak halacha quite surprising to many, that one may -- even לכתחילה -- decorate a birthday cake with (unlit, obviously) birthday candles on Shabbos. That p'sak is predicated on another p'sak halacha; namely, that our candles are muktzeh because they are a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not  מוקצה מחמת גופו/intrinsically set aside from any use on Shabbos. They point there was that using the candle as a decoration qualifies as a need that allows one to utilize a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור. Today we will discuss the issue of concluding that our candles are , in fact, a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not מוקצה מחמת גופו. Along the way we'll also (again) how important it is to have personal relationship with your rav/posek, the importance of precision in vocabulary, and how to interpret the Mishna Brura.  Buckle up. After reviewing siman 308 and the Mishna Brura there, I concluded that it should be permissible to use birthday candles to decorate a cake on Sha...
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 Aru...
Post a Comment
Read more