Rabbi Nachum Chaimowitz - Laws of Shabbat: Prohibition of Cooking Liquids

welcome the topic today is not cooking liquids on chabas we know that one of the 39 prohibited activities on chabas is not to cook when we discussed not cooking solid foods we learned that once something is fully cooked it can never be cooked again if you have a solid food that was already fully cooked nothing will affect it further to be cooked anymore but with liquids it's not the same we know that you can heat up water to the point of boiling but afterwards once it cools down there's no difference between that water and water that was never cooked at all so liquids go back to their original state and the question becomes in terms of avoiding cooking on chabas how do we do this in regard to liquids so that's what we wanted to do today in general the prohibited activity of cooking is probably the most practical prohibited activity in our lives each and every shabas we try to have hot food the prophet say shabas has to be a day of pleasure when shabas comes in it's not only about the spiritual experience prayers doing what it's about is also that the body has to be happy we have to have some sort of pleasure on shabas and so how are you going to have pleasure at your meal if you don't have hot food and so kazal specifically instituted that that a person should try to have hot foods on chabas we learned last time what the parameters are of cooking solid foods on chabas and how to avoid cooking them but now what we have to understand is what happens in regard to liquids many foods in addition to the fact that their salad also have a liquid component for example if meat has some gravy with it it's liquid it follows the same law C then as warming of a liquid and that's what we wanted to learn today what are the exact parameters for liquids and if I would say that if it's possible to get this clear a person would really be able to avoid a lot of the confusing aspects that take place in terms of cooking on shops first question is at what point does liquid become cooked what is the minimal point that we would consider a liquid as being cooked the great authority of the previous generation Rabbi mosha Feinstein of blessed memory writes tells us that at 113° fah water or any liquid might already be considered cooked and so therefore we now have to be careful we have to be careful from any liid that's not cooked or in a state of being cold not to heighten its temperature through a heating element until it reaches 13° F now that's not so much we know that body heat is 98.6 so therefore when you touch something and you feel it's a little bit hotter that might that might well be 113 Dees fah and so therefore that would be the point that we'd be careful about and they teach us that the specific point of becoming cooked by any liquid is a point that's defined as y a hand would react by pulling away from it because of its heat yat means whenever a liquid reaches the level of heat where it's so hot that if a person would inadvertently touch it he pull back in order not to be burned that would be considered cooked the level of cooking of liquid the degrees for this according to ra mosha Feinstein is 165° fah if a liquid already reached 165° fenhe it's considered cooked and cannot become cooked anymore according to RHA F to give you an idea of how hot this is the average ear the average hot water earn holds water at 175° fah and so you get an idea that 165 degrees is a little bit about 10° below that by the way the actual boiling temperature for water as we know is 212° but that's when you want to boil the water initially you have to build up the heat of the water until it gets to a boiling State that's 212 it doesn't have to remain at that state in order for it to be considered cooked it's still considered cooked according to of mosha Feinstein at the level of 165° and so therefore what that means practically for us is that if we have a hot water ear and we warmed up water before chabas and now the N is holding the water at 175° F that means that that water cannot become cooked anymore so for example let's say a person has a hot pot of food on the fire customarily by Jewish people we usually leave overnight a food that's called chant if a person has a hot chant hot meat hot potatoes and he wants to add some water he can only add such water that's not going to become cooked because of the heat of the pot the heat of the pot is totally cooked it's coming straight off the fire if I take some water from the faucet to add to it that water is going to become cooked I can't do it but if I take water from the hot water ear that's over6 6 5° that water is already cooked it's not going to become cooked and therefore that water I can add into the chant pot as long as it's 165° doesn't become cooked anymore so this is the definition for cooking of a liquid from 113° fah until 165° is the time that would be considered cooking obviously we cannot take a liquid and put it on the fire on chabas if it's within that range what happens if a liquid was already cooked here's the second thing for today what happens if a liquid was already cooked was already fully cooked and now it went down in temperature with cooking apply and the rule is that it would seem that once it goes below yat once it goes below 165 again cooking would apply to raise its temperature and that's the way many pois the fact that's accepted in general by all ashim is that if fully cooked liquid when down to the level where it's still warm where you touch it and still it's still warm enough that would be comfortable to eat it would be pleasant to eat because of its Warmness it would not be considered cooking anymore you can't you can't wouldn't be considered cooking even if you added to a hot food that's if it's still warm once it gets so cold that a person wouldn't eat it cuz it's cold already then a new level of cooking would apply so what we've learned now is that once you have liquid that's fully cooked it remains fully cooked according to sum until it reaches 165° and according to others even once it drops below 165 as long as it's still edible and its warm form cooking would not apply but here's the third rule for today and here's where things get very interesting the rabbis have taught us and this is reality of physics that when you take water that was heated in a heating element it was heated in a pot or an N that's directly on the heating element that water holds its temperature once you take that water and you spill it over to a second pot or any second utensil a cup the walls of the pot the walls of the cup have a cooling effect it cools down that water so much that the water doesn't have the same cooking abilities that it would have had at the level that it was in the first utensil and so in regard to liquids we now differentiate between a first utensil and a second utensil the first utensil is always that utensil that was directly on the fire the liquids that are in that first utensil are so hot that they themselves could cook if I would pour directly from the hot water ear on a raw food it would be considered cooking even though I never put the food on the fire because the water itself is so hot from the first utensil that it can cook but once that water goes into a second utensil it's not so hot it wouldn't cook everything although it can cook certain foods that are very easily cooked since we're not sure what those food foods are we would not add to a second utensil only such foods that really take a long time to cook the rabbis tell us that the two things that we know for sure take a long time to cook up are water and oil so water and oil can be added to a second utensil it but here we go further and what if you take that second utensil and now you pour it into a third one the the water I'm sorry the walls of the third utensil cause the water now to cool even more now it's got even less of a heat intensity and so therefore it can cook even less and so the rule that we have is that basically or almost nothing can be cooked in a third utensil and so if we want to use water on chabas in a way that will not cause cooking we have water from the hot water ear that's in in the first utensil we pour it into a cup now it's in the second utensil we pour from that cup into a third cup now it's in the third utensil now it can't cook anymore that's the way to use liquids on chabas in a way that will not come to any prohibited form of cooking the liquid on chabas there are two exceptions to this rule in the third utensil we still cannot put the following foods that are so easy to cook they can even cook in a third utensil the two foods are an egg eggs cook very easily as we know and small fish small raw fish kazal have determined such as mackerel maybe sardines if you drop a raw fish so small even in a third utensil would cook but other than that generally we hold that a third utensil does not cook and so therefore if a person wants to make themselves a coffee a tea using raw coffee raw tea on chabas what they would need to do is move the water into a third cup a third utensil and then they can make the tea tea leaves can be put a bag of uh we'll talk about a bag of tea hopefully in another Shear but the raw leaves of tea can be put in a third utensil according to RAB mosha Feinstein and so therefore the way to use the water on chabas is always to try and have a third utensil but here is one more very important piece of information that can really make a big difference to us we said that once a liquid is fully cooked it doesn't lose its status of being fully cooked until it cools off but there is one aspect that remains even after it fully cools off something that was once fully cooked even after it was fully cooled off cannot become recooked if it goes into a second utensil the second utensil is already weak enough that it will not recook liquids that were once fully cooked why is this important to us because so many of the foods that we buy nowadays that are manufactured for commercial use were already cooked and heated to full cooking level in the manufacturing process all the instant powders instant coffee instant chocolate instant tea we all cooked already milk is already pasteurized in the process and fully cooked before it gets to our house ketchup was already cooked and so therefore once we have a second utensil we can add these items that we know were already fully cooked even though they're totally cold and so therefore if a person wants to make an instant coffee he doesn't have to wait to use a third utensil he can even use the second utensil add the powdered instant coffee into the second utensil because it's powder from liquid that was already cooked add the milk into the second utensil because it was already cooked add the sugar if the sugar during its processing was already fully cooked this is the way that we can avoid any aspect of cooking liquids on shabas May God help and we be able to be careful in keeping all the prohibited acts on shabas in order that we be able to experience that wonderful Ultimate gift that God gives us each and every week the gift of being in ganeden the gift of being alone with him in our homes and our hearts