Rabbi Mendel Agranovich
This article is dedicated to the memory of Rabbi Yehoshua Eitan, who was taken from us before his time on 6 Nisan this year. May his memory be a blessing!
The subject of today’s article is relevant to every family almost every Shabbat.
How can we warm food properly on Shabbat while taking all the finer points of halachah into account?
So, first of all, let us make this clear: only “dry” food that was fully cooked before Shabbat may be warmed. If the food is not fully cooked, or if it is liquid and has cooled to the point where people no longer regard it as warm, there is no way to reheat it on Shabbat. This falls under the Torah prohibition of cooking.
Once this condition has been met, we can say the following: even when the Torah prohibition of cooking no longer applies, the rabbinic prohibition against placing food on the heat on Shabbat—whether the flame is exposed or covered—still applies if the food was not on the heat before Shabbat. The source of this prohibition is the prohibition against returning food to the heat if it was removed and placed “on the ground”: that is, it had been on the heat since Friday, then was removed without the intention of returning it and placed on the floor. As we have already written, it may not be returned to the heat. All the more so does this apply to a pot that was never on the heat before Shabbat. We will call this prohibition “placing food anew” on the heat on Shabbat. The name implies that returning food is permitted if all the conditions we listed earlier are met, whereas placing it anew is forbidden, even if the food is fully cooked and even if it is hot. Let us adopt this as a term.
The Rashba explains the reason for this prohibition: such an action looks like cooking. That is, whenever a person takes food out of the refrigerator and puts it on the heat—even covered heat—on Shabbat, this is perceived as cooking. The Sages therefore prohibited it, so that on another occasion a person would not cook something and violate a Torah prohibition. It is very easy to become confused in such a situation: after all, what is the difference between taking cold food out of the refrigerator and warming it, or cooking it for another five minutes until it is fully done? Both are perceived as: “Five minutes, and everything is ready!” The Sages therefore ruled that food may not be reheated in the usual manner on Shabbat.
How, then, can food be warmed on Shabbat? Must everything really be left on the heat before Shabbat? What if it is a tender schnitzel, a casserole, or mashed potatoes? Wouldn’t they be impossible to eat after spending 14 hours on the heat? Take it easy, friends! Have patience! There are almost always options. Let us take this step by step.
The same Rashba draws our attention to the Talmud’s statement: “Warming food opposite the fire is permitted.” In other words, placing food on the fire on Shabbat is forbidden, but placing it opposite the fire is permitted. What is the difference? It is very simple. Putting food on the fire is a standard way of cooking; placing it opposite the fire is not. That is, the Sages prohibited heating by methods that resemble ordinary weekday cooking, but did not prohibit exposing matter to heat. Warm it up? Certainly. Put it on the fire? No, under no circumstances.
With regard to the Rashba’s example, we know clearly: placing food on the fire is forbidden; placing it to the side, a little distance away, is permitted. This is what the Rosh (Rabbeinu Asher) writes on this same passage of the Talmud in tractate Shabbat (40b). But what about our situation? We have either a hotplate or a blech, so how do we determine what counts as “opposite the fire” and what counts as “on the fire”? Let us assume we know what “on the fire” means—but what is “opposite the fire”?
Interestingly, we already find two laws in the Shulchan Aruch that relate directly to our question. The first law: a fully cooked, cold meat pastry may be placed on top of a full pot to warm it (253,5). The source of this law is the Rashba’s opinion. The reasoning is that this is an unusual way of warming food, which does not look like cooking and does not fall under the rabbinic prohibition (the Vilna Gaon and the Mishnah Berurah, ibid., in their commentaries on this passage of the Shulchan Aruch). Thus, the food does not necessarily have to be positioned to the side of the fire. Even if it is above the fire, but a pot of cholent separates the fire from the pastry, the pastry may be regarded as warming “opposite the fire,” rather than on it.
We have already described the second example in detail in the article discussing the blech. There, we quoted the Shulchan Aruch in subsection 3, whose source is the Hagahot Mordechai: “Someone who gets up in the morning and notices that his cholent is burning may take an empty pot and move his pot from the fire onto it (the empty pot).” In other words, one may take a pot, turn it upside down, and place the pot of cholent on top. However, one may not set the pot of roast down on the ground, but must keep holding it and return it to the fire covered by the empty pot. Thus, as we explained, it is possible to create a covered fire on Shabbat itself, even if before Shabbat we neither sprinkled it with ashes nor raked the coals out of the stove.
Comparing these two laws, the Mishnah Berurah asks: what is the difference? In both cases, the way the pot is positioned appears similar. Why, in the case of the pastry, may this be done—placing it there to warm—without any conditions apart from those described in parentheses (provided the pastry is fully cooked and contains no fat that will melt and run out in large quantities), while in the case of the cholent it is permitted only if the pot was not placed on the ground?
Our teacher, the Chofetz Chaim, writes that he found an elegant explanation for this contradiction. In the example of the pastry resting on top of the pot of cholent, the pastry is not considered to be on the fire at all. In the case of the pot that is burning, however, we are simply placing it on a fire that has been covered on Shabbat, and must therefore observe the conditions for returning food: not placing it on the ground, and so on.
This explanation served as the basis for the Chazon Ish, who quoted the Chofetz Chaim and added further reasoning. In section 37 of his book, subsection 9, he writes: “In fact, when the lower pot is full (of food), it absorbs all the heat of the stove, and the pastry is then heated by that pot. When an empty pot serves as a barrier, however, the heat rises upward.”
The statements of the Mishnah Berurah and the Chazon Ish indicate that the main difference between the two cases is that subsection 5 of the Shulchan Aruch (about the pastry) discusses a full pot, whereas subsection 3 (food that is burning) discusses an empty pot. On this basis, food may be reheated on the lid of a full pot, but not above an empty pot standing on the fire. This is precisely what the authors of Orchot Shabbat and Rabbi Menachem Aryeh Schlesinger wrote in his book Tavnit HaShulchan, citing the Mishnah Berurah and the Chazon Ish. But while there is no doubt about the Chazon Ish’s words, the Mishnah Berurah’s opinion is open to debate. None other than Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach held that the Mishnah Berurah’s prohibition against placing food to warm on an empty, upside-down pot is limited to a case where the fire had not been covered on Friday, and only the empty pot separates the food from the fire. However, when the fire is already covered and the upside-down pot serves to demonstrate that this is an unusual method of cooking, even our teacher, the Chofetz Chaim, would agree that food may be placed to warm above an empty pot without the conditions for returning it anew, as we have termed it. In other words, just as in the case of the pastry.
His reasoning is as follows: the issue is not whether the pot is empty or full, but what function it serves. When it covers the fire, food may not be placed on it unless it is full, because only then is it clear that this is a method of warming rather than cooking. When the fire is already covered, simply adding an upside-down pot is enough to show that this is not cooking, since people do not, in fact, cook on the lid of an empty pot. The Shulchan Aruch is discussing a situation in which the pot serves as a prototype for the blech, and this is the case the Mishnah Berurah had in mind.
All we can add to this debate is that the very question comparing the two cases shows that the distinction between “empty” and “full” was not sufficient, even though it is obvious on the first reading.
Practical Conclusions
1. Food may not be placed to warm on Shabbat on either a blech or a hotplate if it was not on the heat on Friday, or if it was removed from the heat without meeting the conditions for returning it.
2. If food was placed on a hotplate and warmed up, it may be used. This refers to fully cooked, dry food or liquid food that is still hot (based on the opinion of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, who held that a hotplate is not a place for cooking; one may rely on his opinion only after the fact, since many great sages of our generation disagreed with him, including Rabbi Auerbach, Rabbi Elyashiv, and others).
3. The food described in point 2 may be warmed on the lid of a kettle containing water or a pot of cholent (Orchot Shabbat, subsection 64, chapter 2).
4. In many homes, it is customary to warm food on a blech or hotplate by placing it above an upside-down empty plate and pot. The Chazon Ish prohibits this method of warming, but those who follow the lenient practice may rely on Rabbi Auerbach’s authoritative opinion.
Shabbat Shalom!