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Office Supplies: Permission from Boss
If your boss gives you permission to take or use things in an office where he is not the owner, we assume the boss has the authority to allow you to do whatever he tells you.
 
Introduction to Kiddush Levana: Thanksgiving
Kiddush levana expresses our thanks to God for having made the moon, which affects our lives (tides, weather, crops, biological clocks) and provides us benefits in many ways (light at night, basis for determining our calendar and our holidays).
Taste (Ta'am) Transfer: Spicy/Charif: Non-Kosher Utensils
A non-kosher fork, knife, or spoon may not be used to eat or cut spicy/charif food, such as tart pineapple. (If the food is not spicy or hot, you may use a clean, non-kosher utensil on an ad hoc basis.)
Example A non-kosher implement (fork, knife) that is stuck into a spicy/charif or salty food, such as a spicy pickle, will make that pickle non-kosher immediately.
Suggestion Cut onion, garlic, and other spicy/charif foods on a pareve board and with a pareve knife.
Taste (Ta'am) Transfer: Spicy/Charif: Pressure: Utensils Absorbing Taste of Food
If you use a neutral/pareve utensil with pressure on a gendered spicy/charif food, you may not use this utensil with food of the opposite gender unless they are all clean and less than 120° F (49° C) and even then, only on an ad hoc basis, not as a regular practice.
Muktza by Hand
Muktza (“set aside” in one's mind) is an item that normally has no permissible use (or no use) on Shabbat. Muktza items may not usually be moved by hand on Shabbat—even if your hand is gloved—except for certain Shabbat needs, such as you need the space or the item. However, it is ALWAYS OK to move muktza items with any other part of your body.
 
ORIGIN
Chazal instituted muktza rules to make Shabbat special by requiring that actions be done differently on Shabbat than on weekdays. The basis for the idea of muktza was when Moses/Moshe instructed the Children of Israel in the wilderness to prepare the mun for Shabbat in order to eat it on Shabbat. Chazal extended the idea to prohibit moving by hand on Shabbat anything that was not prepared in one's mind before sunset on Friday.
CATEGORIES OF MUKTZA
The several categories of muktza vary according to their purpose and their permissibility to be moved.
 
Muktza Machmat Melachto L'Issur: Standard Use Forbidden on Shabbat
Purpose Item whose normal purpose is forbidden to be done on Shabbat.
Permissibility To Be Moved You may move this item by hand, without using a shinu'i:
  • If you need the space where it is resting, or
  • For a permissible use.
   Examples
  • Using a hammer to open a coconut.
  • Using pliers to crack open nuts.
  • Using a portable radiator to prop open a window.
No prior preparation or thought before Shabbat is required.
Note You may not move it just to protect the item.

Muktza Machmat Gufo: No Use
Purpose An item that has no use. This item is not normally ever designated for use; for example, a rock or stone. However, an item in this “no use” category is rendered non-muktza and usable on Shabbat as long as you had intended--before Shabbat or the festival began--to use it for a permitted purpose. As long as you intended that, you do not even need to use a shinu'i. If you did not intend, before sunset on Friday, to use this normally unusable item, then you may only move it using a shinu'i.
Permissibility To Be Moved Unless you prepared before Shabbat to use it for some permitted purpose on Shabbat, you may not move it by hand even for a permitted use and not even in order to use the space where it is resting.
Note You might need to use the item regularly for the non-standard purpose because for just a one-time use, it might not be permitted. Consult a rabbi.
Exception Garbage has no use. You may move garbage within your house (example: push the garbage across the room with your foot), but if you want to dump your garbage outside and you have a private domain or an eruv, you may pick it up and carry it outside.

Muktza Machmat Chisaron Kis
Purpose A valuable item that you are concerned may be damaged.
Examples Passport, porcelain china, or other expensive and fragile or difficult-to-replace objects.
Such an item may not be moved except for its designated purpose and you may not move it once you have finished using it. But once you are already holding it, you may take it to a place where you want to leave it and you do not need to drop it where it is when you finish with it.  

Basis L'Davar Ha'Asur

Purpose Muktza item resting on a normally permitted item makes the lower item muktza too.
Example A candlestick will render the table on which it stands muktza (unless there are one or more other items that are more valuable than the muktza item, in which case the table does not become muktza).
Situation There are multiple objects; some are permitted and some are not—for example, in a drawer.
What To Do If the permissible objects are more valuable than the non-permitted objects, you may open the drawer.

Non-Muktza on Top of Muktza
If you want a non-muktza item that was left on top of a muktza item from before Shabbat started, you may use it without restriction.

 
Situation
You discover you have coins in non-patch pockets of your pants that you will wear on Shabbat.
What To Do
You may empty coins out of non-patch pockets if you need to use the pants, but not by taking the coins out: you must dump them out of the pockets.
Note If you have coins in a patch pocket, the whole garment is muktza, unless you forgot that the coins were there or if you intended to remove the coins before Shabbat began but forgot to remove them (in which case you may shake the coins out of the pocket and the garment is not muktza).

Non-Patch Pockets
Situations
Pants with muktza items in the pockets are on your bed and you want to sleep on Shabbat afternoon.
What To Do
You may move the pants off your bed using any body part including your hands; no shinu'i needed.

Item that Becomes Muktza
If you are holding a permissible item and it becomes muktza, you may put it in safe place; you do not need to immediately drop it or put it down where you are.
Example You are holding a pot from which you dispense all of the food. The empty pot is now muktza, but you may take it to the kitchen to put it down.

For More Information about Muktza

To see the TorahTots article on muktza, click here.

Introduction to Taste (Ta'am) Transfer
Gender/Kashrut Status Transfer
Foods and kitchenware (pots, pans, dishes, utensils, and containers) can absorb taste from each other and so adopt a new gender or kosher status. They can change from:
  • Kosher to non-kosher,
  • Kosher pareve (neutral) to kosher dairy or kosher meat, or
  • Kosher Passover to kosher (or non-kosher) non-Passover.
 
Note You can sometimes change a utensil/container to kosher-pareve (see Kashering, below), but you cannot change a
  • Gendered food to neutral-pareve, or
  • Non-kosher food to kosher.
 
Taste Absorption
Taste gets absorbed in three ways: Heat, pressure, and soaking. 
 
Heat
To absorb taste, and therefore gender or kashrut status, through heat, a food or utensil must be heated to 120° F or more while:
  • Steamed with a halachically “liquid” foodor
  • In wet physical contact with the food or utensil.
Examples
  • Two hot pans, which are clean on their outsides, only transfer taste from one to the other if they are wet on the outside and are touching each other.
  • A hot utensil placed onto a counter only transfers gender to the countertop if there is liquid or food at the point of contact.
Note  All liquids plays a major role in facilitating taste transfer.
NOTE Taste, gender, or non-kosher status do not travel upstream into the utensil that food is being poured from. Even if you pour hot liquid (pareve or of one gender) from a pot onto a non-kosher or opposite gender food, the genders are not transferred back through the stream of liquid to the pot, even if any or all of the elements are more than 120 degrees.
Situation You pour hot liquid from some pareve vegetables into a non-kosher sink that had hot in it within 24 hours. There are dishes or utensils in the sink.
Status The dishes do not change gender unless the hot liquid fills up from the sink onto them. If so, the dishes or utensils become non-kosher. But no gender change occurs through the stream of liquid back to the pot of vegetables.
 
Note If the non-kosher sink had not had anything hot (120 degrees or above) in it for at least 24 hours, no change of gender or kosher status happens at all.
 
Note On Passover, gender and chametz status DO get transferred through a stream of hot liquid.
 
Pressure
To absorb taste, and therefore gender or kashrut status, through pressure or short-term soaking, one of the items must be spicy/charif.
 
Soaking
To absorb taste, and therefore gender or kashrut status, through long-term soaking, the food must soak for specific amounts of time.
 
Note If the food or utensil is not hot (120° F or more), is not spicy/charif, and is not soaking for a long time, there is no gender or kashrut-status transfer.
Examples
You may use a non-kosher utensil for any cold food of the opposite gender, so you may:
  • Eat cold (kosher) cereal out of a meat or non-kosher bowl, or
  • Use a meat or non-kosher spoon to eat kosher ice cream.
Note Even though these are permissible, they may not be done regularly but only on an ad hoc basis.
 
Food and Kitchenware: Which Influences What
Hot or Spicy/Charif Foods
With hot (more than 120° F) or spicy/charif foods:
Foods and utensils/containers transfer taste to each other.
 
Cold or Non-Spicy Foods that Soak
With cold (less than 120° F) or non-spicy/charif foods that soak:
  • Foods do not transfer taste to utensils/containers;
  • Utensils/containers do NOT transfer taste to foods.


NOTE No substances (not salt, or any food...) absorb gender from the open air.
 
 
The 24-Hour Rule: Eino ben Yomo
Torah Law: Reverts to Kosher-Pareve
By Torah law, a utensil/container always reverts to kosher-pareve after 24 hours (since the taste of any absorbed food becomes ruined with time). 
 
Rabbinic Law: Must Be Kashered
However, by rabbinic law, the utensil/container must be kashered before using.
 
NOTE Even by Torah law, a hot or spicy/charif food can revive the milk-meat or non-kosher status of another utensil/container (see below) even after 24 hours.
 
Accidentally or Intentionally
Food Hot and Accidentally Placed; Utensil Not Hot for 24 Hours
Kosher food hotter than 120° F (49° C) remains kosher if accidentally placed into a non-kosher, clean utensil that has not been heated to 120° F or more for at least 24 hours.
REASON After 24 hours, b'di'avad, the utensil has reverted to being kosher-pareve.
NOTE If the utensil had been “used” (heated to 120° F or more) within the preceding 24 hours, the hot food that accidentally entered the utensil would be non-kosher. Ask a rabbi for possible exceptions.
 
Food Hot and Intentionally Placed
If the hot food had been put into the utensil intentionally, the food would not be kosher.
REASON Chazal made a rule (takana) that if you intentionally place food of one gender into a utensil of the opposite gender and heat it to 120° F or more, the food is not kosher.