Power Up!

Power Up!

By Gila RossReligion & SpiritualityJudaism
Download on the App Store

Power Up! episodes

  • What's Religion About Anyway? (Bereishit)
    Is it just a list of dos and don'ts? A bunch of restrictions? We go back to the beginning - the creation of man and look at some life principles. Join us as we take a few minutes each week to look at the torah reading of the week and discover something we can relate to. Let me know your thoughts +447990333946
    7 min
  • Shabbos Treasures 30: Showering, Hot Taps & Tapping into Shabbat
    how can we tap into Shabbos to look after our soul and keep it going into the week?
    Question 1) Why is the "kedusha" in the amida longer on shabbos than during the week?
    Question 2) Why should we care about this?!
    Question 3) Is it OK to take a shower or bath on Shabbos? Any limitations?
    Question 4) What to do when hot tap is accidentally turned on?
    A) We don't beat raw eggs because this is almost exclusively for frying, cooking or baking, and so looks like cooking preps.
    B) Another ordinance connected with this melacho is not bathing ones entire body. One can't do this even if the water was warmed before shabbos.
    Bathing and showering were prohibited amongst other reasons because one could forget themselves and warm up the water on Shabbos for the bath.
    You can wash parts of your body, such as face, hands arms and feet and even in hot water.
    One must be careful not to wash most of one's body at one time as this would be considered like washing ones whole body.
    Even when washing parts of ones body in warm water please bare in mind:
    1) the water must be heated before shabbos.
    2) a wash sponge and the like can't be used.
    3) hard soap may not be used.
    4) shampoos may not be lathered into ones hair.
    Swimming in a lake or swimming pool isn't OK for a number of reasons.
    A lady whose mikva night is Friday night does go in its warm water, she should be wary of not squeezing her wet hair and not comb it.
    Bathing a child who is soiled in warm water that was heated from before shabbos is ok, eg you can pour hot water from a kettle into a dry wash tub and then add hot water to make it lukewarm.
    C) Using a hot water tap isn't ok, as its "cooking". Check out how the boiler works!
    If the hot water was accidentally turned on there is a problem with turning it off, especially if left on for say 15 minutes full force the water in the tank probably cooled and by shutting the tap it will cause the cold water remaining in the tank to stay and become hot thereby doing "cooking".
    You could hint to a non jew to turn it off.
    Note, depending on type of system you have that is warming your water, it may be a problem even if on for a shorter period of time, so safest is to not turn it off yourself even in this circumstance.
    28 min
  • Shabbos Treasures 29: Insulating Hot Food
    1) Can you wrap a schnitzel in aluminium foil to keep it hot? 2) Can you put chicken soup in a thermos flask to stay hot? 3) What about putting kishke in aluminium foil so it doesn't dissolve in a chullent in a crockpot? 4) Can you put a towel over your food on a hotplate on shabbos morning to warm food up?
    *Insulating is forbidden on Shabbos.* The concern is that someone will be anxious that his food isn't being kept warm enough and may forget it's shabbos and then place the food on a proper flame.
    Some forms of insulating are forbidden even before shabbos begins. Read on.
    In order for something to be *forbidden under insulating it requires 4 conditions to be present:*
    1) *Total enwrapment, ie the food must be totally covered by insulation.*
    It is *therefore permissable to partially cover or wrap any hot food or hot container of food.* As long as a significant area is left exposed it's ok, eg one may not completely wrap a hot potato on shabbos with aluminium foil to keep it warm. However, if you keep it open slightly, thereby exposing a part of the potato, it's ok.
    Note, it's likely that the first layer of foil is ok if it's main purpose is to prevent food drying out. However a second layer isn't necessary.
    Also, please note the aluminium foil would need to be precut.
    Another example is it's ok to put towels over an urn or hot pot of soup as long as a significant part of the urn/pot is exposed.
    2) *Original container, ie still in the first vessel.*
    *However if the food was transferred to a second container, its ok to insulate it*, eg its allowed to cover a hot tea with a towel to keep it warm as it's in a second vessel, or another example is you could pour hot coffee into a thermos to retain it's heat as the thermos is a second vessel.
    3) *Intention, ie the intent must be for insulating purposes.*
    *However if the purpose is to protect the food, covering it even totally is permitted*, eg its allowed to cover a hot pot of soup with the lid even though the lid acts as an insulator, as the primary purpose is to protect the food. Even if your intention is also to keep the food warm, its ok.
    Another example is leaving a kishke inside a chullent pot which is wrapped in silver foil is ok. The main purpose of covering the kishke is to separate it from the chullent, and so not an issue when aim is to prevent it dissolving into the chullent or to prevent it absorbing to much of the flavour of the chullent.
    4) *Direct Contact, ie the wrapping material must be in direct contact with the food or container.*
    *Therefore if the towel or wrapping is not touching the walls of the pot, it's ok to insulate.*, eg one can place a large plate on top of a pot and drape a towel over it as the insulating materials will envelope the pot whilst not touching its walls.
    *If any of these 4 conditions are absent, insulating is permitted.*
    There are 2 categories of insulation; one which generates added heat and 1 which only retains heat.
    1) Generates added heat; when materials that are used do more than just insulate, as they produce heat, eg hot sand, salt, grass etc. This is a problem even when done before shabbos, eg wrapping a pot in an electric blanket is not ok even before Shabbos.
    2) Only retains heat; eg blankets, dry straw, wheat etc. It's ok to insulate in this way before shabbos, but not on shabbos, eg it's forbidden on Friday night to completely cover a pot of hot soup with a blanket after the pot was removed from the blech. However on Friday afternoon you could do this to keep it warm until the meal.
    Crockpots we looked at in an earlier session in terms of insulating. It could be that the crockpot with its cooked food inside it's metal cylinder is a form of generating added heat, which would deem it potentially forbidden to set up even before shabbos if so!?
    The way to circumvent the issue is by lining the inside wall of the
    18 min
  • Shabbos Treasures 28: Returning Food to the Heat Source
    Question 1) is it OK to put a tray of cold roast chicken on the blech to reheat it?
    Question 2) Is there a way to return a hot cholent pot back into a crockpot after you serve from the pot?
    Question 3) Is it OK to take pot from fire and put on hotplate?
    It is prohibited to return any food even if fully cooked directly onto the heat source, ie the "blech" during the course of shabbos.
    So, this prohibition even applies to foods that one is otherwise permitted to reheat, eg you can reheat a cold tray of roast chicken if placed near to the blech, but you can't place it on the blech to warm up.
    The reason it's forbidden to return food to the fire is it has the outward appearance of cooking and could lead people to think that cooking is allowed.
    There are 4 conditions under which it's permitted to return a cooked food to the fire:
    1) it must be fully cooked.
    2) it must be the intention to return it.
    3) it must be held the entire time even if held on a surface, eg a table.
    4) it must be returned to a properly covered flame.
    In the case of a mistake, as long as the food is fully cooked and returned to the blech, ie conditions 1 and 4.
    You could transfer a pot from an oven to blech but not the other way round. 
    You couldn't transfer a pot from the blech to the hotplate as transferring is like returning. The only way to do this acceptably would be to put the pot on the hotplate with a sheet of foil or another blech would cover the hotplate.
    There are 2 ways without the 4 conditions to permissibly warm food:
    1) to place food near to the blech, even if the food to get properly hot.
    2) to place food on a pot that's on the fire already or even to put down an empty pot on the fire. Eg if you want to heat up a cold kugel put it on top of an upside down tray. Now it lacks the appearance of cooking.
    How does one return a crockpot to its cylinder?
    On the surface this would be an issue of returning. The way to allow this is to cover the interior of the cylinder with aluminium foil. Then you would have to know its fully cooked, have the intention to return it and hold it whilst serving from it.
    19 min
  • Shabbos Treasures 27: Leaving Food on the Heat Source

    Question 1), could there possibly be any issue with leaving raw food on a flame before shabbos? Normally no issue with a melacha with setting it up ahead of shabbos, what about here?


    Question 2) If your using a hotplate or crockpot is there anything you need to do to it ahead of shabbos to allow you to put food into it before shabbos?


    Mishna teaches us that a raw food that has began cooking may not be left on an uncovered flame over shabbos. This is despite the fact that the act of positioning the food on the flame was done before shabbos.

    This restriction is called "shehiyoh".


    The reason our Rabbi's forbade this was that one might be inclined to adjust the flame in order to make it cook faster.


    The general custom is to cover the range top with a sheet of metal called a "blech" before shabbos and even when the food is fully cooked.


    The blech does 2 things:

    1) it diminishes the heat of the fire

    2) it serves as a visual reminder that adjusting the flame is prohibited.


    On modern stoves one should cover the flame and preferably the control knobs too. A sheet of metal placed over the grates and burners is adequate.


    Note that when a blech is in place you could even leave raw food on it, such a raw chullent which is placed there just before shabbos. When this is done, the pot may not be moved or tampered with until after the food is definitely cooked.


    If you forgot to put a blech on, as long as the food is 1/3 cooked you can use the food.


    It's best not to put uncooked food into an oven before shabbos to finish cooking. The only way to deal with this would be to cover the source of the heat. In most ovens it comes out of the bottom of the oven so only the bottom of the oven must be covered with a piece of heavy duty foil.

    To add to this issue, if the thermostat is very sensitive a sudden change in temperature can cause the oven to ignite instantaneously. 


    A crockpot or hotplate without a temperature settings doesn't need a blech, ie it doesn't require a piece of aluminium foil as there is no possibility that you may adjust the source of heat on shabbos.

    But please note that for other reasons (insulating) it's best to line the inside of the cylinder of a crockpot with aluminium foil and allow the foil to extend noticeably higher than the cylinder walls.


    However if the crockpot or hotplate have a temperature control it can only be used if the food was mostly cooked before shabbos, and the controls should be taped or covered before shabbos. For a hotplate, put heavy aluminium foil or a few layers of regular foil as a blech.


    There is an exception to the requirement of covering the heating element when maintaining food on a flame from before shabbos; this is when raw meat is placed in a slow cooker where it cooks slowly and will therefore only be available for the day meal and not the Friday night meal.

    19 min

About Power Up!

From the publisher's feed

Gila Ross, author of Living Beautifully - How to bring meaning, joy and love into your life based on the timeless wisdom of Pirkei Avot shares real life insights based on Jewish wisdom that impact…

More shows like Power Up!

Meaningful People by Meaningful Minute

Meaningful People

1,986 Listeners

Jewish History Nerds by Unpacked

Jewish History Nerds

202 Listeners