Thought for the Day: Traveling and Need a Kiddush Cup -- No Worries, Just Repurpose a Yahrtzeit Candle

Some time ago, I found this cool olive oil store that imported the oil in the original casks. You bought at much as you wanted and paid for that amount. They also sold bottles in which you could take your oil home. Two issues: (1) I had to double-check the reliability of the hechsher (the oils were infused). (2) Did I have to buy the bottles, tovel them, and then bring them back to get the oil?

On the second issue, I spoke with R' Fuerst. We discussed a few options, but at the conclusion, the dayan decided that I didn't need to tovel the bottle at all. How does that work? They want to sell me olive oil, but they need to put it into a container for me to get it home. So I buy the oil and tell them which container I want them to put it in. As far as I am concerned, I am only buying oil. They charge me a fee for the bottle, but I am never really buying the bottle. The bottle is still owned by the goy when it is filled with oil, and the bottle is בטול/completely secondary to the oil after the sale. That makes the bottle halachically not a כלי/vessel. It is not really different than buying jelly or mayonnaise that comes in glass jars. So what to do when it is empty? They don't care; they lost interest. If I decide to keep it, that is my business. Not only that, but when I decide to keep it and reuse it, then I am the one making it into a כלי/vessel. That means this כלי/vessel that I just created—by deciding to keep and use permanently—was never owned by a non-Jew. Hence, it does not require immersion in a mikveh.

On the first issue; sigh... the hechsher turned out not to be reliable, so we couldn't buy the oil. It was interesting to find out about the bottle and all, but it was all theoretical.

Until now. Here we are in Panama with no kiddush cup. I mean, there are leniencies for using disposable cups, but it's just not the same thing. We checked at the local kosher market, and they did have some havdalah sets, actually, but I didn't need a whole havdalah set. Then I remembered the oil incident. I headed over to the aisle with yahrtzeit candles and found one in a nice glass jar for $1.75. A few seconds in the microwave and the candle slipped out easily. I washed the cup—my newly created כלי/vessel—and, voilá, I had a kiddush cup.

Before I go any further... No, absolutely not, no way can you buy a whole stack of 100 aluminum disposible pans and say, "Cool! I just created 100 כלים/vessels and I don't have to tovel any of them. What a clever boy am I." No, you are not. That box of aluminum pans you bought are not בטול/completely secondary to anything. If you bought them with the idea to use them mulitple times, then you bought כלים/vessels and they require t'vila before even the first use. Don't get carried away.

What is the takeaway? Calling a rav and asking "permitted or forbidden" works, sort of; but it also really misses the point. Spending time to understand why it is permitted or forbidden and what the boundaries are may not be of any, ahem, practical importance now, but it broadens your knowledge of how the Torah works. It helps you think more like HaShem wants you to think. And besides, it might help you make a nicer kiddush when you retire.