Laws of Leaving Food on the Fire on Shabbos - Rabbi Shneur Zalman Feldman shlita

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to “Lemaan Yishme’u,” a podcast of the Machon Halacha Chabad.

00:09 Speaker 2 Today we’ll learn about the laws of Shabbos, specifically the laws of leaving food on a heat source and returning it to one. The Alter Rebbe writes that everyone needs to be well versed in the many laws of Shabbos, [unclear], because they come up so often—we encounter them every Shabbos. If that’s true of all the laws of Shabbos, it’s especially true of these laws. We encounter them almost every Shabbos, and it’s important to know the details, the rulings, and their reasons, so we can do things properly and, G-d forbid, not make mistakes. Leaving food on a heat source concerns Erev Shabbos, as we’ll soon learn, while returning food to one concerns Shabbos itself. Leaving food on a heat source means that a person wants to leave food over a fire so that he’ll have cooked, hot food for the Shabbos meal. The Sages therefore decreed that food which has not cooked sufficiently, as we’ll see shortly, may not be left over an open fire, lest he stoke the coals. In other words, he might increase the heat to speed up the cooking. So a person must take steps to prevent himself from doing that. The concern about stoking the coals applies specifically to food whose cooking a person might be tempted to hurry along. On the one hand, it has begun to cook, but on the other, it isn’t ready yet. This applies to food that has not reached the stage of ma’achal ben Drusai. In halacha, that is defined as half-cooked, and it’s measured by the degree to which the food has cooked. If, say—

02:55 Speaker 2 a food takes an hour to cook, we don’t simply count half an hour. We go by the quality of the cooking. Once the food is more than halfway cooked—which is usually later than the first half hour—we say the person is at ease and won’t come to stoke the coals, because he knows the food will be ready even if he does nothing. There’s another condition in which a person won’t come to stoke the coals, and that’s the opposite extreme: when the food is completely raw. It hasn’t begun cooking at all. For example, someone puts completely raw meat in a pot. It will take several hours to be ready, so when Shabbos begins, he won’t even try to stoke the coals. He knows it won’t help; the meat won’t be ready for the evening meal anyway. The Sages say that even if he puts in just one piece—he has a whole pot of meat and puts in one piece of completely raw meat—that is enough for him to put the thought of stoking the stove out of his mind entirely, removing our concern that he might stoke the coals. So the concern arises when the food has begun to cook and is no longer completely raw, but has not yet reached the stage of ma’achal ben Drusai. What if someone has food in that state and wants to leave it over a fire so he’ll have hot food for the Shabbos meal? Here the Sages gave two solutions: to make the stove gerufah or ketumah—swept or covered. In their time, fires were fueled by coals, and a pot would be placed over a stove containing coals. So—

05:06 Speaker 2 the pot would sit over those coals. Gerufah means that he sweeps the coals to the side. He doesn’t put the pot directly over the coals, but on the stove itself. The stove was something like a pit where the coals lay, with supports that held the pot above them. In the case of gerufah, he simply pushes the coals to the side and places the pot beside them. That obviously makes the heat much weaker. By doing so, he shows that he isn’t trying to finish the cooking quickly, and he puts the thought of stoking the coals out of his mind. Another option is ketumah. Instead of moving the coals to the side, he covers them with ash, reducing their heat. This, too, shows that he isn’t in a hurry to increase the fire. On the contrary, he’s dampening it somewhat, showing that he doesn’t intend to stoke the coals. Once we’ve made the stove gerufah or ketumah, we may place the pot over that covered fire on Erev Shabbos, on Friday, without the concern that we might stoke the coals. How do all these laws concerning stoking the coals work today? And how do we make a heat source gerufah or ketumah nowadays? We don’t have coal-fired stoves today; we don’t light our fires with coals, so stoking coals isn’t really a common concern. But the underlying concern—that someone might increase—

07:17 Speaker 2 the heat—still applies today to gas flames and electric burners: a person might turn up the heat of a burner or an oven, as we’ll see later. So we need to see how to remove that concern. If an electric appliance has no way to increase the heat, like an electric Shabbos hot plate of the kind we use today, which has just one heat setting—it’s either on or off—then there’s no concern about increasing the heat. Food may therefore be left on that hot plate without concern, because it is itself considered equivalent to a stove that is gerufah or ketumah. It doesn’t matter how hot the hot plate is, even if it’s very hot. Since there’s no way to increase its heat, the concern doesn’t apply. The fact that you can’t see the fire or the heating element is not enough. Even if an electric appliance has several heat settings but its heating elements are covered—as with an electric stovetop, where the heat source is also covered—that doesn’t help. As we said, you can turn up the heat, so the concern that you might increase it still exists. This allowance applies only when there’s no way to increase the heat. To begin with, it is also forbidden to put food over an open fire, even though the concern is that one might stoke the coals to speed up the cooking so the food will be ready for the meal. That is, Shabbos begins and the meal is still—

09:35 Speaker 2 An hour or two. He wants it ready by the time the meal begins. So, seemingly, if someone plans from the outset to eat the food he puts on an open flame only the next day—for example, he puts a pot of cholent on an electric stovetop or an open flame—there should be no concern that he might stoke the coals. By tomorrow, it will clearly be ready even without his stoking them. Nevertheless, the Sages decreed that he might change his mind and want to taste it at the evening meal, so they made no distinction. Any food that is not yet ready when Shabbos begins may not be left on an open flame, out of concern that he might stoke the coals. Even if he intends it for the next day, he might change his mind and want it that night, and come to stoke the coals. When we say that the solution to this concern is to cover the coals with ash, as we said, that means reducing their heat. He does not have to extinguish them completely, or even make the fire no longer visible. Even if the fire is still visible, or he covered it with ash and the heat overcame the covering so that it became a large flame again, it is still permitted to leave the food there. This is considered a fire whose coals have been raked or covered, and food that has not yet reached the stage of maachal ben Derusai may be left on it. The act of raking or covering the coals itself shows that he has put stoking them out of his mind. Once I have reduced the flame, there is no problem even if it grows stronger afterward. A present-day example: someone has a gas stove. Usually, as we will see later, we cover the flame by placing a blech, a sheet of metal, over it. But suppose someone arrives somewhere close to Shabbos without his usual Shabbos equipment, and there is only a gas or electric stovetop there, and he wants to leave the cholent on it for Shabbos. He can take some aluminum foil—not just a single thin piece, but enough to give it some thickness—cover the flame with it, and put the pot on top. That way, he has shown that he has put the flame out of his mind.

11:50 Speaker 2 Even if, for some reason, the foil later falls off or tears and no longer covers the flame completely, he has already performed the act of covering it. He has shown that he does not want to stoke the coals, so it is still all right to leave the cholent on that flame over Shabbos. As we said, covering the coals does not mean preventing the possibility of increasing the flame. Rather, it shows that he does not want to tend to the coals. He is not taking away the poker used to stoke them; he simply reduces the fire somewhat, showing that he has no intention of increasing it and is, in fact, doing the opposite. So today, how should we cover gas flames? We do not need to cover the knobs used to turn up the flame, because that is not the act of covering the coals. As we said, that act means showing that he will not come to stoke the coals by covering the fire itself. We therefore do this by placing a sheet of metal, a blech, over the flame,

14:00 Speaker 2 which does, in fact, reduce the heat somewhat. By lowering the heat a little, we have shown that we have put stoking the coals out of our minds, and the fire has the status of one whose coals have been raked or covered. Some are stringent and cover the knobs as well, but that is not required by the basic law. Covering the flames is sufficient: it shows that one has put increasing the flame out of one’s mind. As we mentioned earlier, with electric stovetops and other electrical appliances on which the heat can be increased, there are several possibilities. Even though the source of the heat is concealed, that does not help, because the concern about stoking the coals remains. Therefore, an oven is still considered an open flame even though its heating elements are not visible. One may not leave inside it food that has not reached the stage of maachal ben Derusai—half-cooked. To permit leaving food to heat inside an oven, we need to create a barrier between the oven walls and the food by placing aluminum foil or something similar along all four sides of the oven. Some halachic authorities consider covering just one side sufficient, but ideally it is better to cover all the sides of the oven, or to put the food inside a metal box that separates it from the oven. In this way, we perform the equivalent of raking or covering the coals: putting stoking them out of our minds. Some hold that setting an oven to Shabbos mode also gives it the status of a fire whose coals have been raked or covered. Many disagree, however, and in practice one should not rely on it,

16:37 Speaker 2 because just as I set the oven to Shabbos mode using its control, I could, if I wanted the food to cook faster, increase the heat with the slightest turn. That is the present-day equivalent of the concern that one might stoke the coals. So merely setting the oven to Shabbos mode does not help here. The proper solution is to cover all the sides of the oven. For a practical example, someone wants to put fish—which cooks very quickly and is ready in just a few minutes—into the oven right before Shabbos. The fish is completely raw. He sets a timer to turn the oven off in twenty minutes or half an hour. This is precisely where the concern about stoking the coals applies. The oven is considered an open flame, and leaving the tray of fish in it without covering the heat source would be a problem of leaving food on an open flame when there is a concern that one might stoke the coals. In such a case, he should cover the oven on all sides with aluminum foil or something similar. Alternatively, the fish must reach the stage of being half-cooked. As we mentioned, that refers not just to cooking time, but to the degree of cooking: more than half the cooking process must already have taken place. Then the concern about stoking the coals no longer applies, because the food will be ready even without it. As we mentioned, once we have performed the equivalent of raking or covering the coals—which today means covering the heat source, such as putting a metal sheet over the gas flame—or put the food on a Shabbos hotplate whose heat cannot be increased

19:03 Speaker 2 The heat it has gives it the status of garuf vekatum—a fire whose coals have been raked out or covered. By the letter of the law, once it is garuf vekatum, any food may be placed on it, even food that has not yet reached the stage of being cooked to the degree of maachal ben Derusai. I can put it on the hot plate or the metal sheet and let it cook over Shabbos, because we have removed the concern that someone might stoke the coals. But the practice is not to rely on this initially. Instead, we are careful to put on food that is already fully prepared before Shabbos, because other problems can arise during Shabbos. If the food is not yet completely cooked—not merely cooked to the degree of maachal ben Derusai, but fully cooked—then even the smallest action that speeds up its cooking on Shabbos is a violation of the prohibition against cooking on Shabbos, which is a serious prohibition. If I move the pot a little on the hot plate to a hotter spot, I speed up the cooking. If I lift the pot’s lid and put it back, I speed up the cooking. In such a case, the food would be prohibited even after the fact, because we helped it cook on Shabbos. So initially, it is better to put on food that is fully cooked before Shabbos. Nevertheless, when there is a need, one should know the halachah: once the fire is garuf vekatum, I can put any food on it. I just have to be careful not to touch the food until it is ready, fully cooked. Yes, I can prepare the chamin, the cholent, and put it on even if it has hardly cooked at all. I put it on the covered fire, and during Shabbos it will cook and be ready. When necessary, this is entirely permitted. There is no

21:18 Speaker 2 problem with it. When we cover the fire before Shabbos to make it garuf vekatum, some have written that one should not turn the flame up to the desired heat after covering it with the blech, because that amounts to two contradictory actions. As we said, the purpose of covering the fire is to reduce the heat: I am putting it out of my mind and am not interested in increasing the heat. If I raise the flame after covering it, I am doing the opposite and showing that I do want to increase the heat. So if I need to set the flame to the desired level, I should do that first and only then cover the fire. We said that one way to permit leaving food on an uncovered fire, without the concern that someone might stoke the coals, is to put on raw meat—meat that has not cooked at all. In that case, he puts it completely out of his mind, because stoking the coals would not help anyway: it will take a long time for the meat to be ready to eat. But that applies only if he puts it on right before sunset. If he puts it on half an hour before Shabbos begins, by the time Shabbos begins it will no longer be completely raw, and the concern that he might stoke the coals returns. Also, this leniency was stated only regarding beef, which takes many hours to cook. When Shabbos begins and the meal is only an hour or two away, there really is no chance that the food will be ready even

23:19 Speaker 2 if I stoke the coals. But with things that cook much faster, even chicken—and certainly vegetables, as we will see later, or other things that take much less time to cook—the fact that they are completely raw does not help. There is again a concern that someone might stoke the coals, because stoking them could make the food ready within half an hour or an hour. We are back to the concern of stoking the coals. So even if the food is completely raw, the fire must be covered so that it has the status of garuf vekatum. For this reason, many contemporary halachic authorities have written that the leniency for raw meat is hardly applicable nowadays. It is difficult to define putting the food on right before Shabbos, and most foods today cook very quickly, particularly on a gas flame, which stays at a constant level. We know in advance how long cooking should take, and even beef can be fully ready within a relatively short, set time. So it is not advisable to rely on this leniency. Any food that has not reached the degree of maachal ben Derusai should not be left on an uncovered fire, but only on one that is garuf vekatum. If I placed a pot on an uncovered fire when it was prohibited—because the food had not yet reached the degree of maachal ben Derusai and the fire was not covered—I must remove the pot from the fire and not leave it there into Shabbos. The Shulchan Aruch cites a stricter opinion that even once food has reached the degree of maachal ben Derusai, it may not be left on an uncovered fire until it is fully cooked and has reached the point of mitztamek vera lo: further cooking will only reduce its volume and spoil it. But

25:25 Speaker 2 in practice, the Alter Rebbe rules according to the lenient opinion: once the food has reached the degree of maachal ben Derusai, it may be left on an uncovered fire, as we mentioned. Even if he had not planned to leave it on an uncovered fire into Shabbos, but intended to take it off before Shabbos and simply forgot—and did not even know the law against leaving it on an uncovered fire—this is still considered leaving it there inadvertently, and the food may not be eaten until after Shabbos, as we mentioned. Once food was left on the fire in a prohibited way, it may not be eaten until after Shabbos. As we also mentioned, after Shabbos one must wait the amount of time it would have taken to cook. Why is that? The Mishnah Berurah explains that the Sages imposed a penalty so that he would not benefit from violating a rabbinic prohibition. We see in many instances that the Sages were strict about their decrees so that people would not come to treat them lightly. In the next section, section 254, the Alter Rebbe continues with this law of leaving food on a fire. Until now we have discussed cooking; here the subject is baking. Just as with cooking there is a concern that someone might stoke the coals to speed it up, so too with baking there is a concern that someone might stoke the coals to speed up the baking. Only when that concern no longer applies is it permitted to leave the baked item, the bread, on an uncovered fire. Halachah defines that point as “when its surfaces have formed a crust on both sides.” This means that the outside of the bread has become firm enough that, if I pull off a piece, no strands are drawn out after it, as happens with dough when you lift a piece and a strand of dough stretches along with it. Once it has baked enough to be firm and no strands are drawn out, that is called “its surfaces have formed a crust.” This must happen on both

27:49 Speaker 2 sides, on top and underneath. The same stringency we discussed regarding cooking applies to baking. If someone put the challahs for the Shabbos meal into the oven before sunset and they had not yet reached the stage at which their surfaces had formed a crust, then if he did so deliberately, they may not be eaten until after Shabbos. Even then, he must wait the amount of time it takes to bake the bread. Even if this means he will have no other challahs at all on Shabbos, he may not benefit from these challahs. But if it happened inadvertently and he has no other challahs, the Sages permitted him to take them for the Shabbos meal and to allow other people who have no challahs to use them during Shabbos as well. Why, in this case, did the Sages permit the challahs when it happened inadvertently and he has no others, even though he violated the rabbinic prohibition against leaving them on an uncovered fire? Because challahs are different from other cooked foods: the other Shabbos foods are only additions to the Shabbos meal, while challahs are its essential part. If he has no other challahs and we do not allow him to use these, he will be unable to fulfill the mitzvah of the Shabbos meal at all. So when it happened inadvertently, the Sages permitted him to use these challahs to fulfill that mitzvah. But this applies only when they are the only challahs he has. It does not apply if he lacks only lechem mishneh, the customary two loaves for each Shabbos meal. For that, they did not permit taking challahs from the oven that had been left on an uncovered fire when Shabbos began. Likewise, if he has other challahs, he certainly may not use these. The Shulchan Aruch cites two

30:07 Speaker 2 There are ways in which it would be permitted to put dough into the oven to bake challahs even when they are not yet done, before their surfaces have crusted over on top and bottom. The first is when the oven has been sealed with clay. In other words, access to the coals has been blocked, and to stoke them he would have to break open the oven. That is such a significant action that, before doing it, he will remember that it is Shabbos and that stoking the coals is forbidden. The Shulchan Aruch gives a second case: if he is preparing the challahs for after Shabbos, it is also permitted to put them in, because there is no concern that he might stoke the coals. We spoke about cooking foods—meat and fish—and then about baking bread. The same rule applies to vegetables: they may not be left over an open flame unless they have cooked to the stage of ma’achal ben Drusai, because one might stoke the coals. There is an additional point with vegetables: the leniency for something completely raw, which we mentioned regarding meat, does not apply. Vegetables take much less time to cook, so even if they are completely raw, he will not put them out of his mind, and it is forbidden to leave them over an open flame. As we said, in practice, today we treat almost everything this way. Therefore, under any circumstances, we do not leave food over an open flame unless it has reached the stage of ma’achal ben Drusai. The same applies to hot water that one wants to leave for Shabbos. It does not help if the water is completely cold: water does not take very long to boil, so even if it has not warmed up at all, there is still a concern that one might stoke the coals. Therefore, the water needs to reach

32:31 Speaker 2 a state in which it is ready. With water, though, it is hard to define what corresponds to the stage of ma’achal ben Drusai. Some therefore take the stringent view that water is not considered ready at all until it has come to a full boil. So, preferably, the water should be boiled before Shabbos. Now, how do we classify today’s Shabbos hot-water urn under the laws of leaving something to heat before Shabbos? Is it considered like a stove whose coals have been removed or covered, or not? A Shabbos urn has several settings—a boiling setting and a Shabbos setting, and sometimes more, with three heat settings. It is therefore not like a Shabbos hotplate; it is more like an oven or an electric stovetop. As we mentioned, it does not help that the heating elements are not exposed, even if they are covered. Since it is possible to turn up the heat, it is considered like an open flame. We must therefore treat the urn as one whose coals have not been removed or covered. The water must be boiled before Shabbos; we should not put in cold water and let it boil during Shabbos. That would raise the issue of leaving something over an open flame, where there is a concern that one might stoke the coals. Even if we block the controls for the boiling setting by putting a sticker over them, that is preferably not sufficient. Although some are lenient about this, it is preferable to boil the water before Shabbos. The possible exception would be if we actually put a lock on the controls, requiring a substantial action to open it. That would be similar to the oven sealed with clay that we learned about, which requires breaking it open, or perhaps bringing a key. Only then might we be able to say that he will put it out of his mind and will not come to stoke the coals. It makes no difference whether we put in the

35:12 Speaker 2 water for drinking, washing dishes, or anything else that requires hot water on Shabbos. We must always make sure that the water boils before Shabbos.