Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan - Step into the Shabbat Home Part 4

[Music] good evening this is the fourth class in a series on the laws of shabbat today we are continuing with our topic of what are you allowed to say to a non Jew on Shabbat and what you're not allowed to what can you ask him directly what can you hint to him and what you cannot say at all and what things he cannot do for you even by himself even if you don't ask him and what happens if he does do work for you are you allowed to benefit from to remind you of a few leniency said last week that a non Jew is allowed to do work if it is for a public mitzvah for example a family is about to sit to eat their meal and the lights go out since eating meal on Shabbat is a mitzvah and there are few people involved so it's a public mitzvah you're allowed to ask a non Jew directly to turn the light on to press the brake switch to replace a light bulb similarly in a synagogue when you have a hot day and air conditioner was not turned on and people are suffering and they will not be able to pray in the synagogue you can ask a non Jew to turn the air conditioner on or to turn the lights on another leniency is if it is dangerous for health if you have a sick person who is lightly ill you can ask a non Jew to do work for him for example you can ask a non-jew to go to a pharmacy and get a medicine since going to the pharmacy and buying medicine is only rabbinic a forbidden since then and you can walk and handling money and buying the merchandise is only rabbinic li forbidden you can ask a non Jew to get medicine for a person who is slightly ill who has a little bit headache who is not feeling 100% but he can function normally however if a person is bedridden or his whole body hurts or he has a headache that he cannot function normally he's considered more seriously sick and you can ask a non Jew even to do a Torah prohibition for example you can ask him directly to turn on and the life check appliance heater air conditioner light and so on and by the way if there is a an individual who is so ill that there is danger to his life then not only you can ask a non Jew even a Jew is required to do work on Shabbat to save the life of a Jew so if you or your your family member or even in a synagogue the stranger is sick to the point that his life is in danger don't call a non Jew don't call anyone else you yourself go and do whatever necessary to save his life however when there is no danger to life you can ask a non Jew again if it's slightly sick individual to do any rabbinic prohibition and if it's a seriously sick individual you can ask him to do even Torah prohibition another example of a rabbinic prohibition is moving ahead for example if there is a candle burning and this individual is trying to fall asleep and the light of the candle bothers him turning the candle off putting the fire out is the Torah prohibition however just moving it is a rabbinic prohibition called Musa and therefore if you have a an individual who who has a cold he would like to rest you can ask a non-jew to take the candles and move them out however under normal circumstances candles that are burning are mocked set and even if they go out there is still much there and even moving candles that are already out you cannot until the end of Shabbat another leniency we mentioned last week is that the first 30 minutes of Shabbat considered ben hushka short-period Twilight period and at that time you're allowed to ask a non Jew directly to do whatever you need for Shabbat if you forgot to turn the light on or off to turn off the oven or stove you can quickly go to your neighbor within the first 30 minutes after sunset and ask them directly now today we're going to learn a few new lineages about this law and that is the first one it is permitted to ask a non Jew to do a rabbinic prohibition to prevent financial loss in order to save an object from being destroyed you're allowed to ask a non-jew to do a rabbinic prohibition a rabbinic prohibition an example is moving MOOC set for example a candle is dangerously close to something flammable or to something plastic and you're worried that the heat from the candle will damage the plastic or will will catch fire you can ask a non-jew to move the candles again to prevent a financial loss you're allowed to ask a non-jew to do a rabbinic prohibition now once we mentioned fire what are the laws of putting out fire on Shabbat just like we're not allowed to turn on the fire on Shabbat we're not allowed to put out a fire on Shabbat however what happens if fire catches on to tablecloth or to a piece of furniture Casa Shalom are you allowed to put out the fire so it used to be when houses were made from stone and when there were no trees around the house the law was that if it's dangerous for life of people that are in the house you can put out the fire and if it's not dangerous if people can get out safely then you just walk out of the house you grab your most necessary things for Shabbat like food and basic clothing and you leave the house however nowadays since many houses are built from wood and even houses that are brick but since there are trees around and especially for an apartment building since the fire can spread to another apartment even if in your house or in your apartment everyone can leave safely but you don't know maybe there is a sick or an elderly in another apartment who will not be able to run away or maybe the fire will spread so fast so far that it will cause danger to life and therefore since we live in cities and even in rural rural areas since there are trees around fire can spread and therefore we are allowed to turn off to put put out any fire that develops in our house unless you are absolutely sure that it's safe if you can put around the fire bottles of water so that in case the fire spreads the water bottles will burst and put out the fire if you're absolutely sure that no damage is going to be done then you can let it burn however if there is even slight chance that the fire can get out of control and cause danger to human life you can put it out however there is one rule you need to know and that is whenever you can decrease the the same you should do that for example putting out the fire may be a torah prohibition however we said that moving fire is only rabbinic prohibition so therefore if a candle of one of your Shabbat candles falls down on the carpet on the table and it didn't catch fire to anything else and your choice now is to put out the candle or to pick it up and put it back on its place in such a case it's better to pick up the candle and put it back on its place because moving the candle is only mukha sales only rabbinic whereas putting it out could be a total prohibition and therefore once you are allowed to put out the fire since it's dangerous to human life you can handle this candle you can either pull it out or move it and in such a case it's better to just pick it up and put it back on onto the candle holder if you have a pet or any animal that is suffering you are allowed to ask a non-jew to perform even a Torah prohibition this is called SAR Bali Hai when an animal is suffering we are obligated to save it from suffering and therefore we are allowed to ask a non-jew to help it whether it is to go and get food for it whether it is to cook food for it whether it is to administer medicine to buy medicine to save it from a dangerous situation we can ask a non-jew to help the animal that is suffering and by the way we are not supposed to feed animals on a street on Shabbat only if they are your pets and they depend on you then you're allowed to feed them however if you know that animals are suffering then you're allowed to feed them even wild animals and birds outside you can feed if they're suffering for example in the winter when the ground is covered with snow the the lakes are covered with ice and the geese and other animals don't have food and they're starving you are allowed to feed them but on a regular Shabbat when there is food for them in nature you're not supposed to feed wild animals or birds now not only we're not allowed to tell a non-jew to do something for us on Shabbat we cannot even hire them before Shabbat to do work for us on Shabbat whether it's for pay or for free we cannot tell them before Shabbat to do something for us on Shabbat and we cannot speak to them on Shabbat about hiring them for weekdays for example if you see a neighbor who is a non Jew on Shabbat you cannot tell him can you please come to me on Sunday or Monday I have a job for you cannot say that on Shabbat not only that you cannot even hint to them on a weekday to do something on Shabbat for example you cannot tell a non Jew your neighbor why didn't you turn the light on for my front porch last Shabbat here you hint him to him that he should have come over and he sees your front of the house is dark he should have turned the light on and you're rebuking him for it you not telling him do it for me next Shabbat you just tell him why didn't you do it last sermon and that is prohibited you're hinting to him that he should do work for you next Shabbat and that is not allowed now when we hire a non Jew to do work for us there are two ways we can do it either we pay them hourly or daily that is called a hired worker and that is always forbidden to hire such workers for Shabbat there's one more kind of worker and that is called contractor where we don't pay per hour or per day but rather we pay per job and we give them some time and as long as they finish this job by that time they get this set amount flat fee contract contractors are more lenient on Shabbat and that is because they have a choice to work on Shabbat or to work on a weekday we give them enough time we ask them to do something on Thursday and we're gonna pick it up on Monday so if they want they can do it on Thursday the one they can do it on Friday if they choose to do it on Shabbat that's their own choice and therefore they are not doing it specific for us on Shabbat they're doing it just because it's convenient for them on Shabbat an example of that is bringing your clothing to a laundromat two dry cleaners where you bring it on a weekday and you pick it up couple days later after Shabbat that is permitted even if you bring it on Friday as long as there is enough time either before Shabbat or after for Shabbat for them to do the job and even if you know they're gonna do it on Shabbat they're doing it not because you are asking them but rather it's convenient for them however if you bring it to them Friday right before Shabbat and you tell them I want to pick it up right after Havdalah Malaysia but Saturday night that is forbidden because you are basically asking him to do this work on Shabbat you're not leaving him any opportunity to do it any other time on a weekday similarly with mailing a letter since post office are basically contractors for us there is a set price for a letter you purchase a stamp you pay a set amount and the letter will be delivered in two or three days even if it's delivered on Shabbat you didn't ask them to deliver it on Shabbat you gave them enough time if they want to fly before or after Shabbat and that is permitted similarly with packages we're allowed to send the package on Friday for it to be delivered on Sunday or Monday however if you want to send an overnight you give it to them right before a Friday sunset right before Shabbat and you ask them that it should be delivered Shabbat morning that is a problem because you are asking them directly to do work for you on Shabbat similarly you can drop your car by a mechanic who is a non-jew and all his workers are not Jewish and ask them to fix it and you'll pick it up on Sunday or Monday since potentially they can start working on it right away on Friday and fix it before Shabbat or they can start working on the MOT say Shabbat and work throughout the night or they can work on it Sunday morning that's permissible even if they are going to work on it on Shabbat that is still ok because you're not asking them to do it on Shabbat the prohibited exception for a contractor is if they are doing work on real estate on land or on houses anything attached to the ground you cannot allow a non Jew to do work for you even if he is a contractor even if it's on his schedule and he wants to do it on Shabbat for himself since people will see him on your property doing work and they will know that this is your property they will assume that you hired him for the day or by hour the only time that it is permitted is if you if that particular property is in a non-jewish neighborhood and it's not within walking distance of any Jewish community we know Jew will ever see this working worker working on Shabbat then if the worker is a contractor and he wants to work on Shabbat you don't have to stop you however under normal circumstances for your personal house it should not have any work done on it even by a non-jewish contractor on Shabbat another example is landscaping since it's your property your lawn your backyard they should not come on Shabbat and by the way if the entire house was built with the the non-jewish workers working on Shabbat as well as weekdays you should not live in such a house if a Jew built such a house for himself he's not supposed to live in it he should rather sell it so that he doesn't benefit directly from the work that the non Jew did on Shabbat we mentioned that if a non Jew does something for you voluntarily he does it without you asking you're not supposed to derive benefit from it for example you're sitting in a dark room and then non Jew comes and says let me help you you're sitting in the dark and he turns the light on you can continue sitting however you cannot do anything that you couldn't do until now for example if it was so dark that you couldn't read you can sit there you can drink a cup of tea you can have a conversation with your friend however you cannot take out a book and read because until now you were not able to do it and by taking out book and reading you're benefiting from the work that non Jew did however if until now you were able to read with difficulty there was a little bit light from another room from the outside and you could read but now the light that the non Jew turned on makes it easier in such a case you can stay and read since you're not only using the forbidden light that the non Jew turned on but you're also using permissible light that was there at the beginning even though now it's easier it is nevertheless permitted if he did it by himself however if a non-jew does something for us we do not derive benefit directly but rather from the fact that he removed the active influence that is permitted what's an example of that if you're sitting in a room and the light is on and it's time to sleep and the non-jew comes in and says oh it's so late you probably tired let me turn the light off and he turns the light off can you sleep in that room now and the answer is yes since darkness is not direct influence of his action but rather it's the fact that there is no more light his action turned the light in the past and we no longer see the active influence of his actions as opposed to him turning the light on the light is actively working every second because he turned it on so where he turns the light off we're allowed to benefit from the darkness where he turns the light on we're only allowed to benefit from the light if we could do whatever we want to do now even without that light and therefore if you have children or sick people or even for yourself it's hard to fall asleep with the light on you can hint to a non-jew say it's I forgot to turn the light off in my room now the light is on and it's hard for me to fall asleep just as a statement and he will understand that you should turn the light off in such a case you're allowed to hint to the non-jew he will turn the light off and you can sleep similarly if you have an alarm that's ringing and it bothering you you can hint to annunzio that the alarm is on and it's bothering me and the nodule will get the message he will come and turn off the alarm that's permitted because he's just removing the active influence and you only benefiting from the fact that something is not there similarly if you forgot to take out a light bulb in your refrigerator you can ask a non Jew to hint to him to remove the light how do you hint you say oh I forgot to take out a light bulb from my refrigerator though the if I open the door the light will go on and I'm not allowed to open the door now and you can tell him can you please help me to take food out he will come he will take the fool out for you or open the refrigerator say thank you and now if you leave I will not be able to close because the light is on and he'll say so what should I do what do you want me to do can't tell him take the light out or you can tell him usually I take out the light before Shabbat and this Friday I forgot now the only way I would be able to take out food to open the refrigerator to take out the food is if there is no light there and he'll get the message city he will take out the lightbulb however there is no problem telling him directly can you please open the refrigerator and give me food because you're not asking him to turn the light on he is opening the door opening the door is permitted there is a light switch that's connected to the door and the light will go on that happens automatically when he opens the door we are not allowed to do that but we are allowed to ask a non Jew to do a permitted action even if we know that automatically a forbidden action is going to happen so if you have listen you have a maid you have a nanny who is not Jewish and they're available you can ask them as many times as you want on Shabbat can you please open the refrigerator I need to take food out can you please close the refrigerator that is permitted however if you don't have ready access to a non Jew then you just call them once and you hint to them to take out the lightbulb if a non Jew does something for himself the Jew is allowed to benefit afterwards for example the non Jew came to a dark room and turned the light on for himself because he wanted to see something then when he leaves the Jew can come into the room and benefit from the light the non-jew opened the hot water faucet the Jew can come and wash his hands afterwards and therefore you can use a trick if you want a light to be turned on in a certain room you can ask a non Jew I left something in that room can you please go bring it to me he will go to the dark room and since he cannot see he'll turn the light on and he'll go in looking for the object and then you just come in as well and stand in front of the light switch and when he gives you the object you say thank you and you s called him out now when he turned the light on in the room it was for himself so that it's easier to find the object now that he left you can benefit from the white because he didn't turn it on for you he turned it on for himself similarly if you ask and you're made to wash dishes and she chooses to turn the hot water on she's turning it on for herself for comfort of her own hands therefore your dishes can't be washed with hot water that's okay and if the water is still running you can use that hot water as well because she turned it on for herself you can also ask a non-jewish cleaning lady to sweep your house to wash your dishes and even to wash your floors if you explain to them how to do it correctly the correct way to wash floors is to sprinkle some water on the floor and then wipe it not to soak a rag and squeeze it but rather use a dry rag and sprinkle some water on the ground you will explain to her how to do it and if she chooses to do it the way that it's easier for her just to put it in a pail of water and squeeze it she's doing it for her own comfort you gave her a way to do it permissible in miserable week now we we will go through a couple of actual Mela hood there are 39 Miller hot that we cannot launch about 39 forbidden actions forbidden labors and each one has subcategories for example building has subcategories banging the nail drilling a hole attaching two bricks together cutting a piece of wood screwing something in all these are subcategories of building so to every one of the 39 categories of forbidden labor has many subcategories so today we're going to speak about two of them one is salting preserving food this is the subcategory of processing Heights when you shacked an animal you skinned it then you have to process this skin that it shouldn't spoil that it should be strong durable and the way they did it they would soak it in a vat of special chemicals similarly it is forbidden for us to pickle fruits and vegetables to preserve them in salt or in vinegar for two reasons one is that it is similar to the Malacca of processing the hide using chemicals to change the quality of the of an object and second is because when we pickle a vegetable it's usually not for that day of Shabbat but for a few days from that so we're not allowed to do it because it's preparation from week from Shabbat to weekday for example we are allowed to put sugar on our food as opposed to salt since salt and vinegar are similar to processing the hides that is forbidden however sprinkling sugar over strawberries for example is permitted however if your intent is to put sugar in order to preserve it for the next few days that becomes forbidden similarly if I want to sprinkle salt on my meat or my fish because I want to eat them now that's permitted however if my intent is to preserve the meat or fish for future that is not allowed now what are the rules of salting food on Shabbat we're not allowed to put vegetables that I usually pick out into brine on Shabbat and vegetables that are not usually pickled we cannot put into brine on Shabbat even if our intent if our intent is to actually pickle them the vegetables that we usually pick out like cucumbers tomatoes and so on we cannot put them into the brine even if our intent is just to give them some taste for now I want to eat it now my intent is not for future still it's forbidden because it looks like processing whether fruits and vegetables that are not usually pickled for example cut Tomatoes watermelon anything that when they're cut or peeled we usually don't pickle them lettuce those things we are allowed to put into brine or sprinkle salt on them if our intent is to eat them right away so whether it is putting in brine or sprinkling salt over vegetables or fruits is forbidden unless they are the kind of vegetables or fruits that are usually not pickled and the two exceptions are peeled vegetables or sliced vegetables we usually don't pickle them so for example if you want to make Israeli salad since the pieces are finely chopped you are allowed to sprinkle salt on it however if you have whole cucumbers or grape tomatoes uncut you're not allowed to sprint sprinkle salt on a few pieces at a time if you want to dip them in salt one at a time and eat that's fine if you want to dip them into salt water or brine or vinegar that's fine but you cannot do more than one sprinkle salt or more than one or soak a few of them in brine that's not allowed now what is the way around it to show that you're aware of this prohibition and you do that by putting a little bit of oil on the salad or on these vegetables before you put salt because by putting oil on it you show that I'm not interested that the salt should penetrate through because the oil forms a barrier and it's going to be harder for them to be pickled so that shows that my intent is not for it to be pickled so you're going to be safe if before salting any vegetable or fruit on Shabbat you just sprinkle a little bit oil and then you can salt it this only applies to fruits and vegetables and other food that is usually pickled for example raw fish or raw meat however if you have cooked fish cooked meat you can salt a few pieces at a time similarly if you have hard-boiled eggs you can salt all of them at the same time because we usually don't pick Oh eggs we are also not allowed to make saltwater solution since saltwater solution the brine is usually used for pickling and pickling is not allowed we cannot make the saltwater therefore if Pesa falls on Shabbat you cannot prepare salt water for dipping the car pass it has to be prepared before Shabbat an interesting application of this is if you have half sour pickles which are pickles that are not fully pickled yet you can open the jar you can take out the pickle now you taste the pickle and you don't like the taste it's not ready for you are you allowed to put it back in into the jar and you're not allowed to because by putting it back in your intention is I wanted to continue pickling I want the process to continue so if you took out a half sour pickle and it's not ready yet just put it in a in a plastic bag save it for after Shabbat and after Shabbat you can pull it into the jar now going to the next meal aha is colouring today we're only going to speak about coloring your food separately we're going to speak about painting coloring on paper or cloth we safari are lenient we hold that there is no coloring prohibition of food or drink and therefore as long as my intent is not to produce a specific color but rather just to mix two foods together or two liquids I'm allowed to do it for example if I want to mix grape juice with water for Ashkenazim they're strict they say first pour the grape juice and then water for Safari dip it is preferable to put grape juice first and then water but it's not obligatory you are allowed to even to put water first and then add grape juice or if your child already comes with a cup with water you don't have to spill it you can add grape juice to it directly because your intent is just to dilute the grape juice make it less sweet and not to create specific color similarly we are allowed to add spices to our food that produce color like turmeric and paprika that will make our food red or yellow it is permissible on Shabbat because again there is no prohibition to color food on Shabbat but again your intentions should not be that I want to color my food I want my food to be specific color just to add to the flavor to the general look and you have to keep in mind that if spices are not cooked or not roasted you cannot put them on two hot food on Shabbat hot food either in the pot that it was cooked in or in a cliche need but if you poured it into let's say you poured your soup or serve or Challen into the serving bowl and then from the serving bowl you poured it into your plate now you can add pepper you can add paprika you can pan add any other spice because in the cliche she everything is already permitted we will learn about the laws of cooking on Shabbat in next classes salt in the United States most white table salt is already cooked the way they do it is they pump hot boiling water into the well on the ground the water hot water melts all the salt dissolves all the salt and then they pump that salt water out and they evaporate the water and they are left with the salt so since hot boiling water is applied to the salt first it's considered cooked and therefore when most white salt on the market today is cooked and you can add it to clearly strong of the fire which means if I take my orzo off the fire I take my chicken soup off the fire and I taste it it's not salty enough I can add salt to it and mix it and certainly you can add it to your plate however if you have salt that is not cooked for example Himalayan salt or sea salt that you know was manufactured by just gathering sea salt on a shore in a special pool and evaporating the water naturally with sunlight such salt is considered not cooked and therefore you should only add it to your own plate not too clear it is shown not to the pot and of course we're not allowed to add anything on to the pot that is on fire or on the black because that actually looks like cooking even if the food is already cooked but by adding into the pattern mixing it looks like we are adding a new ingredient and we're mixing and one more hahaha about coloring if your hands become dirty with beet juice or pomegranate juice don't wipe it on a cloth or towel rather rinse it first or wipe your hands on a paper napkin that you can throw out in the next four classes we will go through majority of Miller hot only the practical ones including cooking including separating Boyer cutting to size and so on Shavua Tov Kate Eva have a hottie Vltava Shanah Tovah oh me too