Last week, we discussed ways of
reheating food on Shabbat morning that had already become cold. A related question (and
the original source of the e-mail inquiry that got me going on this topic) was what to do
when we are at someone else’s house and see that they have clearly not followed these
rules.
At first glance, this would seem to create problems. The Shulhan Arukh rules that if
someone knowingly and deliberately cooks (or performs any other Shabbat-prohibited
activity) on Shabbat, the person who cooked it may not eat the resulting food ever, but
others may eat it immediately after Shabbat. If the person cooked be-shogeg (a term
we’ll define in a moment), then no one may eat the food that day, but everyone may
eat it immediately after Shabbat.
Interestingly, here we do not require waiting bikhdei she-ya`aseh, a concept that comes
up in other halakhic contexts. The notion of bikhdei she-ya`aseh is that we have to wait
enough time after Shabbat to allow for the action to have been performed in a time of
heter. For example, if I had a non-Jew cook for me on Shabbat, I would have to wait after
Shabbat for enough time such that that food could have been cooked beginning after
Shabbat. The Mishnah Berurah points out, however, that that only applies to asking a
non-Jew to cook for you, since it is such a tempting way to handle Shabbat cooking issues.
Where a Jew is violating Shabbat, however, Hazal felt no need to make such an ordinance.
On the face of it, then, a Jew who went to somebody else’s house and saw that they
had re-heated food improperly would have to avoid eating that food. And, indeed, my
questioner mentioned that he/she had been taught in High School that it would be necessary
in such a situation to only eat those foods— cold cuts, cholent— that would not
have such problems.
There are, however, two forms of leniency, one provided by the Mishnah Berurah and one
by mori ve-rabi Rabbi Willig (she-yihyeh le’orekh yamim tovim ve-arukhim— a few
weeks ago, I used the term le-havdil bein ha-hayyim u-vein hahayyim; I believe that term
is used when referring to two people, one of whom has passed away, and is based on the
notion that tsadiqqim are thought of as hayyim even when having passed away. In case
that’s not the right use of the term, I used the more familiar Shlit"a acronym).
The Mishnah Berurah points out that the Shulhan Arukh rules according to one of two
opinions in the gemara, but there was a small, but reputable, minority of rishonim who
followed a second view, according to which "others"— those who did not
violate Shabbat— could benefit from the prohibition immediately as long as it is
be-shogeg, done without complete knowledge. The Mishnah Berurah says that in cases of
dehaq, we can rely on that view.
Shogeg for cooking on Shabbat would include not realizing that it was Shabbat (a rare
occurrence for Shabbat morning), not realizing that cooking in general was prohibited on
Shabbat (a more likely, but still infrequent, event) or not realizing that the action in
question qualified as cooking (the most likely of the three). In our case, if someone
Orthodox did not realize that reheating soup qualified as cooking, they would count as a
shogeg., and others who would be forced to embarrass them by refusing to eat their food
could, it seems to me, rely on those rishonim.
Even if one does not accept the line of reasoning outlined above, Rabbi Willig pointed
out that the cases we have been discussing were all cases of reheating, where the food had
been completely cooked prior to Shabbat (or had finished cooking on Shabbat i n a
permissible way, a more complicated topic I may take up in the future). We had only gotten
into problems when there was liquid in the food (or it was a liquid), and therefore
created problems of bishul ahar bishul, that liquid, even though it had been cooked at one
point, is considered uncooked once it completely cools. There are, however, some
authorities who rule that there is no bishul ahar bishul even for a davar lah, a liquid.
Once again, in a situation where the food was reheated be-shogeg, we can rely on those
authorities at least not to consider it bishul be-Shabbat, so that as guests we could eat
the food.
It turns out, then, that there are relatively few situations (in contemporary society)
where Shabbat violation issues would prevent us from eating in someone else’s house.
Certainly there are some: if we saw someone actually cook on Shabbat (from scratch), or
have their non-Jewish maid do it for them, there would be good reasons to avoid eating
that food on Shabbat. For most situations, though, we would be able to eat at these
people’s houses. Shabbat Shalom.
