Laws of Blessings (Adv.)
Crash Course in Jewish Blessings
9 min read
9 min read
Stirring the pot, and a summary of all the cooking law.
We've now covered how to prepare and serve hot food on Shabbat.1 In our last lesson on Bishul, we'll deal with a few remaining issues.
Stirring the pot – Recall from our earlier lessons that, in halacha, there are many ways to increase the effect that heat has on food. You can raise the flame; cover the pot with a lid; wrap or insulate the food; and so on. One other way is to stir the food being cooked. This action, known as maygis, is not allowed on Shabbat, on the assumption that moving the food around will better distribute the heat, and this would be an act of Bishul.2
The problem of stirring applies when the food is hot and not fully cooked. The classic example would be stirring cholent cooking in a crock pot just after Shabbat began. Although the cholent is at least partially cooked by this time, it might not be fully cooked. It is certainly hot, and connected to its heat source.
Some Sages extend this prohibition to food that is fully cooked, if it is still connected to its heat source. It is good to avoid doing this as well.3
Only stirring or shaking the food is a problem. You are allowed to remove the food for serving, provided that the pot is not on the fire (Point A of the blech, as discussed in Lesson #22), and that you remove the food without any stirring action.4
Too Hot, Too Cold – A common situation we face during Shabbat meals is having a drink or liquid food that is either too hot or too cold for our taste. How do we deal with this within the boundaries of halacha?
"Too hot" – The normal way to cool off hot soup (or tea) is to add ice or cold water. We might instinctively think that this can't be done on Shabbat, because it seems that the hot soup, say, would 'cook' the ice, and this would violate the laws of Bishul. In fact, it is okay to put the ice in, since the soup bowl is, at worst, a 'second vessel',5 and the halacha says that water cannot be cooked in such a vessel.6
Note, though, that we cannot pour hot water over ice – say, putting a piece of ice in a teacup and then pouring in the tea – because of the prohibition on melting ice through a direct act (as discussed this in our lesson on Dosh #9), and also the problem of iruy kli rishon.
"Too cold" – Say you have some cold water that you'd like to heat up. An example: in the winter, the water coming from the tap is often quite cold. When it comes time to wash our hands before eating bread, we might want to take the chill out of the water by adding some hot water.7 Can we do this?
The answer is yes – so long as the hot water will not heat the cooler water to the temperature of Yad Soledet Bo (the temperature at which liquids become halachically 'cooked').8 This means that we need to take care that the volume of cold water is much greater than the volume of hot water.9
Another example: warming up a baby bottle. Babies prefer drinks that are not refrigerator-cold. So how do you take the chill out of a bottle that's been in the fridge? The most common solution is to pour some water from your urn into a mug or small bowl, and then immerse the bottle in that water. Again, we are using a 'second vessel' (the mug or bowl), and also the heat of the hot water is not even touching the liquid in the bottle.10
"Just right" – No halachot here; we just included it for the sake of completeness. ☺
Surprisingly enough, there are some Bishul issues outside the context of food.
First, we should be aware that Bishul can occur with any substance that will be physically changed by heat.11 Bringing metal to the point where it is red-hot is considered Bishul. This, incidentally, is one of the problems with turning on an incandescent light bulb on Shabbat: the filament becomes red-hot.
Hot Water Tank – There is also the issue of using hot water inside your home. When you turn on the hot water faucet, it of course comes out of the hot water heater. To maintain the water pressure, new cold water automatically gets sent to the heater. This new water will then become heated to a high temperature – in other words, halachically 'cooked'. So, we are not allowed to activate this process by using hot water from the tap.12
Solar Heat – In terms of the melacha of Bishul, solar heat is not considered "heat," since it is not a usual form of cooking.13
Therefore it is permitted to cook something directly in the sun. For example, one could use a magnifying glass to direct the solar heat to cook an egg.
A solar water heater is problematic, because typically it also has an electric component for use on a cloudy day. So that makes the entire system generally off-limits on Shabbat.14
What have we learned over six lessons on this most complex of melachot?
We began with the definition of Bishul: "using heat to change the physical structure of an object."
The threshold of Bishul is different for solids and liquids. For solid foods, cooking is achieved when the food is partially edible; for liquids, when they reach the temperature of yad soledet bo (113°F or 45°C).
Stirring a pot of food, putting a lid on a pot, and closing an oven door are all forbidden actions, as this will cause cooking to take place more rapidly.
"Cooking" can still occur when removed from the heat source. In this regard, there are three types of 'vessels':
Iruy Kli Rishon – When pouring hot liquid from a first vessel onto solid, uncooked food, the outermost layer of the food will become cooked. When pouring hot liquid from a first vessel onto a cold liquid, whether or not an act of Bishul takes place will depend on the volume of each liquid.
There are certain exceptions where something gets the status of "first vessel": a ladle, and a hot solid food (davar gush) like a potato.
Once a food is cooked, it is permitted to reheat it. A cooked solid can be put into a first vessel (that's removed from the fire), whereas a cooked liquid that has cooled off to room temperature can only be put into a second vessel.
A food can be reheated only using the same method that was used to cook it in the first place: Something that was previously cooked may be reheated only via hot liquid, and something previously baked/roasted can be reheated only via dry heat.
There are three significant rabbinic decrees regarding Bishul:
Cooked food may be taken from the refrigerator and reheated by placing it on top of a pot which is on a heat source.
Uncooked food can only be put in a place where the food will not reach the temperature of yad soledet bo (e.g. on a radiator).
There are also non-food applications of Bishul – e.g. bringing metal to the point where it is red-hot.
Congratulations! We've not only completed Bishul, but we've completed the entire 'Order of Bread' that we began way back in lesson #3. Our bread, so to speak, has just come out of the oven. Enjoy!