Please Remind Me -- Halachic Question

[gnomi]

Hypothetical situation: I have something (say a cake, just for example sake) that requires an hour to bake. Can I stick it into the oven at, say, 45 minutes to shabbat and let it finish its cooking during shabbat? Is there a specific percentage that it has to be cooked before shabbat comes in? Assume timed bake or that leaving the oven on over shabbat is not a problem.

We tend to (a) do cooking Thursday night and just be warming stuff up and (b) be using the hotplate and not the oven, so I haven't contemplated this recently. I seem to recall something about cholent having to be 100% cooked or 100% raw before shabbat, but I'm not at all sure about that.

Comments

asking <lj user="gnomi"> but not on asknomi

[kuroshii.livejournal.com]

this gentile has a really stupid question.

how is using a hotplate OK (when, for example, reading email is not)? hotplates run on electricity, don't they? i thought "not using electricity" because circuitry translates to "work" was the point.

do you turn it on before sundown and then just keep it "on" for 24 hours, like you're talking about doing for the oven? my brain can't help but answer "fire hazard" to that one...

::confooosed::

Re: asking <lj user="gnomi"> but not on asknomi

[cellio]

I can't speak for gnomi, but I put my hot plate on a timer. On Shabbat morning I put my (previously-cooked, cold) food onto the cold appliance and go to shul. Sometime later, the timer turns it on and I come home to hot food.

You can use timers so long as you program them before Shabbat. You can't directly manipulate fire or complete the circuit on Shabbat.

Re: asking <lj user="gnomi"> but not on asknomi

[magid.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much how I do things, too, with the restriction that I only reheat solid foods, not liquids (Ashkenazi minhag (custom); Sephardi minhag is it's ok to reheat liquids).

Re: asking <lj user="gnomi"> but not on asknomi

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Timer. Very nice thing, timer -- I have one of those that has 2 sets of pins, so I can set it to go on and off for Friday night and then on and off again for Saturday lunch. It's not on for more than 4 hours or so at any given time.

Once the device is on, as long as I am not using it to do something that violates the sabbath, I can use it. So, for instance, we have our bedroom light on a timer. It turns off at a time reasonable for us to get sleep and then goes on again in the morning so we can read or whatever in the bedroom. The livingroom overhead light (unless we've got someone sleeping on our couch) stays on for the 25-hour period, but the side lamp is also on a timer.

Re: asking <lj user="gnomi"> but not on asknomi

[kuroshii.livejournal.com]

::mental gears start turning::

wonder if/when someone comes up with a timer rig for a PC...heh. tho computers aren't firehazards to be left on 24/7 anyway, and they're "safe" to be left online so long as you have a decent firewall/router setup. surely there's something that computers are good for that don't violate shabbat?! ;)

Re: asking <lj user="gnomi"> but not on asknomi

[cellio]

You could, in theory, read stuff from your computer monitor on Shabbat, just as you could, in theory, watch TV.

However, there are some limitations. You can't interact with either device -- no TV remote, no keyboard/mouse, etc. So if you want to watch whatever's on TV, or whatever you've programmed your VCR/TiVo/whatever to show you, that's fine. Similarly, you could sit in front of your computer and watch stuff scroll by (that you set in motion before Shabbat), but that might not be what you wanted.

While all of that might be within the rules (disclaimer: I am not a rabbi), it would violate the spirit of the day -- and this, too, is a consideration.

Re: asking <lj user="gnomi"> but not on asknomi

[kuroshii.livejournal.com]

it would violate the spirit of the day -- and this, too, is a consideration.

agreed.

Re: asking <lj user="gnomi"> but not on asknomi

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

And, for the record, there's no such thing as a stupid question when it comes to Jewish law, as a rabbi once told me.

Re: asking <lj user="gnomi"> but not on asknomi

[kuroshii.livejournal.com]

heh. really i meant stupid in the "probably obvious to everyone here but me" sense, not in the lack of intellect sense. ;)

Re: asking <lj user="gnomi"> but not on asknomi

[fjm.livejournal.com]

Nope, still no such thing as a stupid question.

Jewish tradition is really, really clear on this. No question is too simple or innocent to be answered with respect. At Passover four question are asked, and the tradition is that one is asked by the Simple Son. He simply asks to have the Seder explained to him because he doesn't understand it.

There is an old tradition, I don't know how many westernised Jews still practice it, but when a child comes home from school you should ask "Did you ask any good questions?"

Re: asking <lj user="gnomi"> but not on asknomi

[kuroshii.livejournal.com]

heh. thanks. :)

that second part reminds me of something my mom did every morning...as i was leaving, she would call out "learn things!" this because she was a schoolteacher herself, and had gotten tired of my answering "nothing" when she used to ask at the end of every schoolday "so what did you learn"...tho she understood what i really meant (sullen teenager that i was) was, "nothing i feel like talking about with my parents."