Wednesday, October 14, 2009

English source for halachic rulings about electricity

As always, ask your rabbi for actual piskei halacha, but this looks like an excellent study resource: Megavolt.co.il.

5 comments:

Shira Salamone said...

Nice collection, and quite informative. Did I read incorrectly, or is one actually permitted to put cooked dry food onto a hot-tray to reheat it on Shabbat?

Larry Lennhoff said...

I'd have to read the article, but I'm studying the laws of shehiya and chazara presently. As I understand it according to most poskim you can leave fully cooked dry food onto a hot tray before shabbat whether or not it has a blech. But taking food out of the refrigerator on shabbat and putting it on a hot plate is considered to resemble cooking by almost all poskim.

The Rav (RYBS) is reported as ruling that if the food was on the hot plate when shabbat started, it may be put in the refrigerator after the start of shabbat and returned to the hot plate shabbat morning. Two caveats:
1) The Rav virtually stands alone in this opinion. If you do this there may be people who won't eat at your house, at least for shabbat lunch.

2) According to a friend of mine Rav Herschel Schacter, an important student of the Rav, said the Rav mentioned two different things about this ruling in a single year
a) He only gives this ruling to people who he fears would otherwise just put cold food in the oven on Shabbat
b) This was the custom of his mother.

If you'd tell me the specific article you read I'd be happy to read it and discuss it with both you and my hilchot shabbat class. :>)

Shira Salamone said...

I was reading


Proper Use of A Blech and Hot Plate on Shabbat -

By: Rabbi Eli Mansour

It's possible that I misunderstood, and/or that this is considered a meikil (lenient) and/or a minority opinion, as you said.

Larry Lennhoff said...

I'll print out the article to read bli neder over Shabbat. Without reading it I have to say that I know Rabbi Mansour and he is Sephardic. So he may be relying on the Shulchan Aruch where we use the Rama. However, the Rama is stricter than the Mechaber (author of the Shulchan Aurch) with respect to both shehiya and chazarah.

Larry Lennhoff said...

Having quickly scanned the sources these are all great chachamim among the Sephardim. You can see these rulings in more detail at daily halacha.com.