Rabbi Nachum Chaimowitz - Laws of Shabbat: Shabbat Preparations - Part 4

welcome the topic for today is shabas preparations for warm food what can we do before chabas to make sure that we have hot food on chabas we know that one of the restricted activities on chabas is to cook so how can we have hot food on chabas the Z tells us that chabas is a day of the Soul it's a special day where the soul can experience a connection to God unlike any of the other days of the week at the same time we're also told from the prophets that the body also has to have enjoyment in order to have the full EXP experience of the soul the body also has to be included and you shall add pleasure to the day of chabas there must be physical pleasure as well so on one hand shabas is a day of the Soul on the other hand the body has to have physical pleasure and now we have what seems to be a paradox it's a seeming contradiction we want to do whatever the soul needs but at the same time we want to do what the body needs how can we do that when it comes to cooking for example the Torah tells us we're not supposed to cook we're not supposed to according to that have fresh hot food on chabas on the other hand how's the body going to be very happy if it goes the whole day just eating cold food so this is a sort of paradox how do we satisfy both soul and body together the Tama tells us that long ago there was a group who did Deni the authority of the oral law the oral law is what tells us how to apply the Torah laws without changing the Torah laws at all it guides us how to apply the Torah laws in our situation in the most balanced way the carites deny the oral law they saw what it says in the Torah God says in the Torah Lo you should not burn any fire in any of your dwellings do not burn any fire in any of your dwellings on the day of chabas and they would not have any fire burning they wouldn't leave fire burning for lights from before shabas they wouldn't leave any fire burning to warm up food and they would go the whole day of shabas just eating only cold food the rabbis in the talid strongly opposed this approach they understood that God's intent in the t is that we should fulfill the Mitzvah in a balanced way without taking away from any aspect of the prohibited acts that God ordained it would still be possible to have hot food on shabus and so therefore they instructed all Jewish people people to try their best despite the Restriction to cook on chabas to have hot food on chabas the the great Authority who lived about 400 years ago writes in Simon 257 in or it's a special act a mitzvah to put away food insulated on shabas in order that a person should have some sort of hot food on chabas this is what adds respect it what adds pleasure to the shabas if you want to have pleasure on chabas we need to have hot food but it goes deeper than that because really what we're trying to show is the completeness of toy that the tah on one hand can instruct us to have a totally restricted act and even though we're not allowed to cook we're not allowed to ignite a fire we're not allowed to turn on a fire on shabas Jewish people throughout the generations have still made sure to have warm heated food every shabas and so therefore a lot of the preparations on a of shabas revolve around what can we do in order to have warm food on chabas what we try to do in this study time together is to try and clarify what it is that we need to do practically to fulfill the a lot of times the is confusing there are many variations in different cases there are many scenarios that come up it's hard to remember some people learn they see there's a difference of opinion one person says this one person says that they don't know who to follow so what we wanted to try during this study time together is to reach Clarity on what we need to do practically and therefore it's not our agenda at this time to go through the different scenarios the different variations and of course if there are varying scenarios each person would have to then verify on their own what they need to do but we wanted to go over certain General acts that are practiced by almost every Jewish Family in the world before chabas in order to ensure that they have hot food for shabas so the first point for today is that whenever you want to put away food to remain warm for the entire chabas so you're going to have to leave a fire burning and you're going to have to put the pot of food on the fire from before shabas but this is the thing the first point is is make sure that the food that you're putting away for chabas is fully cooked already before chabas the food that we put away to be used on chabas needs to be fully cooked now that doesn't mean that it has to be made just a few minutes before shabas you could make it during the week today it can be refrigerated Frozen even and then when it comes a few hours before shabas take it out reheat it so that it will reach its heated form and then take the pot and get it ready for putting away for putting on the fire for shabas the food that we put on the fire to be held for chabas should be fully cooked the second point for today is that when you turn on the fire and we put the pot on the Fire it becomes a question afterwards rically if we remove the pot on chabas to take out some food whether we could put it back you want for example to have hot food on chabas morning you put the pot on Friday afternoon before chabas comes in that night Friday night someone wants to eat a little bit of that delicacy a little bit of that food you take the pot off the fire you serve from it and now you have a question but I need it for tomorrow tomorrow I need to put it back on the fire can I put it back and here's the rule the pot would not be able to be put back unless the fire is totally covered the reason for this is because the Sanhedrin were concerned that if a person would take off the pot and then put it back and the fire would totally open if he would see that the pot wasn't completely cooked or it needed a higher temperature he might adjust the fire in the times of the Sanhedrin it meant stroking the actual fire moving the coals nowadays it would mean simply just turning the setting on the stove in order not to come to that the suneden ordained that the fire be covered so therefore the second point that we're learning today is when you take food that you want to hold hot for shabas and you put put it on the fire that it remain warm the fire needs to be covered in order to be able to put back the pot how do you cover the fire so generally it's possible to take any type of nonflammable material make it into a flat plane that can cover the whole surface area of the fire and we also try to cover the adjustments the knob on the stove area with the with the covering this is in order that we don't come to adjust the fire by accident these type of materials whether it be aluminums different types of aluminums or tin are possible to find today in many Jewish communities and the customary name for them is a if you go to in a hardware store if you're go into a hardware store in a in in a pop populated Jewish Community you'll generally be able to find this covering special covering for the fire for chabas we put down the BL before chabas on the open fires we cover the open fires and the knobs and then afterwards we could take the pot and put that on top of the BL so again the second point is once your food is fully cooked now it's right before chabas you want to put it on the flame so you light the flame usually to a low setting because you only want it to stay warm for all of chabas you don't want it to burn you turn on the flame to a warm setting afterwards you put on the blle covering and on top of that you put on the pot of food so that would be the second necessary preparation for having warm food on chabas the third point we wanted to go over is an alternate way of doing this is nowadays we have hot plates crock Poots there are many appliances available to us that do all the warming activity electronically if a person owns a hot plate that has no settings on it or a crock pot without any ability to adjust the temperature it would be possible to put the food on even without any covering remember the point of the covering is that we shouldn't come to become confused and afterwards when putting back something to try and adjust the temperature if it's not possible to adjust the temperature it's fine it doesn't have to be covered so when using a hot plate or crock pot without any adjustments it would not be necessary to cover them with an additional covering we can put the pot directly onto those elements the next point that we wanted to go over for today is warming up water it's important to have hot water sometimes if a person is for example not feeling well and they can't eat the hot food on chabas but they want to fulfill the idea of having hot food on chabas like the raama says it'll be enough to drink something hot on the day of chabas but you need hot water in order to do that so customarily Jewish families throughout the world warm up hot water before shabas and leave it in a warming situation the way that this is usually done today is through a hot water earn hot water earn is generally activated electronically and it keeps the water warm for all of shabas but here's what we need to remember in terms of preparations number one is the water should already be fully cooked before sh chabas in order to put it up for chabas just like we said about food it should be fully cooked the waters should have already have have reached 160° F the water should be cooked before before putting it up in the hot water earn for shabas number one number two is that assuming that there are adjustments on the hot water ear they need to be taped the knob on the hot water ear needs to be taped so that we don't come inadvertently to change the adjustments on chabas if there are other automatic electronic functions on the hot water ear it would be necessary to disable them before shabas for example many ears have an automatic p pouring system it would be necessary to disable that before chabas because we wouldn't be able to use the electronic components of the ear on chabas there are many earns that are manufactured today that come with a specific shabus mode that a person can push one switch and turn the N into chabus mode so once again we'll go over the points that we learned today in order to have warm food on chabas the preparations that would be necessary before shabas are number one make sure that whatever food you're putting up is already cooked fully number two make sure that the element of fire that you use to keep the pot of food warm be covered with some sort of material that covers the fire and the knobs number three you can use a hot plate or crock pot to keep the food warm if they have no adjustments it doesn't have to be covered with any additional covering number four we try to warm up water before chabas in the hot water earn we'll make sure already before chabas that any knobs or adjustments on the hot water earn are are covered or that the automatic electronical functions are disabled there is another technical point in regard to putting up food to warm on shab and that is that the Sanhedrin understood that if a person would totally insulate their pot on shabas it would once again bring them to Desiring to make adjustments in the fire and so therefore when we have a pot before chabas if it's just the pot that's being put on the fire it's not a problem but if the pot is covered afterwards with any insulating material either it's covered totally with a towel or it's covered totally with silver foil and the like it would be wrong it would be restricted to put that pot with its insulated covering on the fire even though it's being put on before chabas the way to solve this issue technically is make sure that the entire pot is not totally covered for example if you have a towel covering a pot so then you open it up a little on one spot so it shouldn't be total coverage if you have a pot being covered by silver foil you leave a spot that's open it shouldn't be total coverage if we're able to do these preparations before shabas and we make sure to try and have warm food available to us every chabas in a certain way we actually reveal the completeness of T whereas other people might look at the T and they'll say look how hard it is you have to keep all these restrictions you have to keep all these prohibitions you can't really enjoy yourself on chabas WE testify that it is possible to keep the shabas to all of its details with all of its restrictions and nonetheless have full amount of pleasure on chabas what we try to do through following all the restrictions is to put up food in the proper way so will be able to benefit and have the greatest level of pleasure on shabas May God help we be able to prepare ourselves for each and every shabas so that we be able to show to ourselves and to everyone around the eternity of tah the balanced way of application of T that relates to all of our experiences in body and soul together