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

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

And while we're asking halachic questions, an interesting question occurred to me. Can the same chanukiah be used twice in one night, first by one person and then by another?

[magid.livejournal.com]

I think there's an intermediate state where it's cooked enough to be edible, but not necessarily done, in which case it's ok to have the heat continue into Shabbat ("ra-oo-ee achilat Drusai" comes to mind, but more particulars don't).

Possibly relevant: there are some opinions that one cannot reheat in the oven (due to 100% wrappage, if I'm remembering correctly).

Technical point: on my oven, at least, finishing a set time bake cycle triggers a beep that keeps beeping until turned off (which involves electricity). Worth checking if you're not sure one way or the other.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Why would it be a problem, unless Person B put out Person A's lights in order to use the chanukiah?

[queue.livejournal.com]

And another technical point: leaving your oven on over Shabbat caused it to break.

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::

[cellio]

I have also heard that food must be cooked to the point of being edible but is then allowed to cook longer. I don't have a citation, though.

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.

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

yes. I asked this in a shiur recently.

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).

[magid.livejournal.com]

Maybe. Or maybe it was about at the point of wearing out anyway. The repair guy's opinion had a whatever-that-part-was life of 5-7 years, and I got around 10 out of mine.

[lucretia-borgia.livejournal.com]

As I understand the halacha, the "close enough to cooked" principle applies only to meat, as ben Darusai would eat his meat...well, basically once it was back up at body temperature. (I sympathize, since I too like it very rare.) I believe other materials need to be fully cooked by the start of shabbat, unless there's a chunk of meat in there to exempt the entire pot (i.e. put a pile of raw veggies in your crockpot and toss on a chunk of raw meat -- now you can cook the whole damn thing, even if it's totally raw at the start of shabbat, provided the meat is totally raw. The reasoning there is that you will not come to stir to hurry the cooking, since there's no way it'll be done in time for shabbat dinner, regardless of what you do). I'm assuming that you're not interested in tossing some meat onto/into your cake.

But in a pinch you could turn off the oven at candlelighting, and light with the tenai that the cake would still be cooking til the end of the 18 minutes. Dunno if your 45 minutes included the buffer time, but if it didn't, 45+18=a cooked cake. You would need the tenai, however, to be permitted to eat the cake if it's still cooking after you've lit. You could also be sure that MAB isn't taking on shabbat at the time that you light, and consider him to be the baker. If your 45 minutes included the 18, I think you're screwed. Start the oven at a higher temp, and turn it down -- you might have a slightly crunchy top, but I think it'll come out ok.

I'd rule differently on brownies (were I a rabbi), however, since brownies can be eaten in any state, including as raw batter. In fact, off to make my brownies. :-)

Re magid's comment about reheating, sethg_prime and I were worrying about that last week due to a conversation with Andrea about the new rabbi's class on "the shabbat oven." Rav Scroll and Eider both rule you can't (though if you use an oven liner, maybe you can) reheat even fully cooked dry food in the oven. That was Friday night. On Shabbat I took a poll of knowledgeable people at about our observance level, and some a bit frummer, and every single one of them takes a kugel or a chicken out of the fridge before shul and puts it right into an unlined oven. I'm still not sure what's going on there.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I don't know why it would be a problem, but I don't know why it wouldn't either.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Aha! I knew someone would know.

Any details behind the answer? I'm curious.

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.

[lucretia-borgia.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I realized the meat stuff was unclear, but don't want to go back and edit.

Raw meat in a pot at the start of shabbat may be cooked under conditions where it'll be used, e.g. for lunch. A single piece of raw meat exempts an entire pot of raw veggies. The reasoning is that there is no fear that you will stir because the definitely raw meat is never going to be cooked in time for dinner, so why would you be tempted to poke at it?

Things that are "cooked" are not subject to further cooking, i.e. if they continue being heated (or are reheated, provided you do it right) there is no infraction of shabbat. Meat is considered cooked once it's 1/3 cooked, i.e. to the level that ben Derusai would eat it.

(Yeah, gnomi, I know you know that all, but in case other folks read this stuff.)
I wanted to clarify because the meat rules I referred to in my comment above were dealing with two very different situations, but taken juxtaposed make absolutely no sense at all. :->

Good shabbas!

[fjm.livejournal.com]

As far as I am aware, as long as you don't interfere with it, ie stir, you can let it continue to cook through. This is what stew is for, and is also why straw boxes were popular. My grandmother put the tzimmes on the stove Friday afternoon and served it when shabbas went out.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

On Shabbat I took a poll of knowledgeable people at about our observance level, and some a bit frummer, and every single one of them takes a kugel or a chicken out of the fridge before shul and puts it right into an unlined oven. I'm still not sure what's going on there.

Yeah, I don't know what's going on there, either, but everyone I know does it, even those on the frummer end of the scale from us. So, yeah.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I don't see how your situation is any different than one person using the same chanukiyah on subsequent nights, though.

reheating in the oven

[magid.livejournal.com]

This is one of the things I learned in my hilchot kashrut class a decade ago in Jerusalem. I believe the teacher was very black hat, so presumably he held this way, but I've not known people in the States (that I've had occasion to notice their oven on Shabbat) to worry about it (or possibly even know about it).

(I don't reheat in the oven, but that's because I can't bring myself to leave the oven on for all of Shabbat in a room that gets far too much bright sunlight as it is.)

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

And in this case, "meat" means actual meat only, right? Chicken wouldn't count here, if I recall correctly.

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.

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

well, the first part of the answer is that it doesn't actually NEED to be re-lit if the original lighter had in mind that he/she was lighting for the entire household. Apparently it is preferable that either the husband OR the wife light a menorah (not both) since when they are married they become as one. Other members of the household still light their own, if possible. While it is preferable for someone to light their own menorah if they miss lighting with the family for whatever reason, it is not strictly necessary.

As for re-lighting, the menorah itself isn't the mitzvah. You could use standalone candles as long as the flames were the same height when you lit them. The mitzvah is in the lighting, the menorah is only enabling you to do so and in some ways beautifying the mitzvah as well (I can't remember the Hebrew term for that). There's nothing that keeps you from relighting the menorah with new candles or oil/wicks.

Er, that still doesn't give you a whole lot of detail. But that's as good as my migraine-plagued-head can come up with right now.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Still, this is more detail than I had before. Thanks.

[magid.livejournal.com]

beautifying the mitzvah
hiddur mitzvah?

Relighting

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

As I recall from when this came up in Daf Yomi a few months back, the chanukiyah has nothing to do with the mitzvah -- the mitzvah is on the oil (or candle). If you're desperate, you can grab a single tea lamp, put it on the table, light it as your chanukah light, and you're done. Everything else is hiddur mitzvah.

And I think that if your light blew out accidentally (in a spot which normally doesn't get a draft) there would be nothing wrong with someone else relighting it, with a bracha, and fulfilling the mitzvah. The mitzvah is on lighting a lamp that will, under normal circumstances, last the half hour. Once it's lit, even if it goes out immediately, you're done.

(I did a bit of research on the latter topic when the Daf was talking about Chanukah and I got to wondering about the halachic implications of "haneirot halalu kodesh heim" and what to do if your light goes out.)