connected to the reheating question about the plata but a different case.
you paskened that a fully cooked dry food can be reheated even past yad soledet bo, ein bishul achar bishul b’davar yavesh, as long as it is not placed directly on a cooking surface, and that with something like grilled cheese or a pita pizza the ingredients have to be analyzed. a toaster seems to sit right on the edge of both halves of that answer:
1. bread is already fully baked, so is toasting it just reheating a dry food, or is the browning and crisping a new maaseh afiyah? the shulchan aruch oc 318:5 brings an opinion that even bread that was fully baked can pick up a bishul problem if it cooks further in a hot liquid. if further cooking of already baked bread counts as real, does further baking of already baked bread (toasting, which visibly changes color, texture and taste) also count as a real maaseh?
2. the toaster is a kli whose only function is cooking. your reheating answer said not to put food directly onto a surface normally used for cooking because it looks like cooking. a toaster is nothing but a cooking surface with a timer. does using one cross that line even when the food itself has no bishul issue?
3. and the electricity side: you have written that electricity itself is not one of the 39 melachos and is at most a derabbanan question. does that analysis change when the current runs a heating element built specifically for cooking, glowing red the entire time? or are the electricity psak and the bishul psak fully separate, meaning the toaster stands or falls only on the bishul question?
4. bottom line: an electric toaster for bread on shabbat. mutar, assur, or does it depend on what toasting actually accomplishes halachically?
Thank you Rabbi, thank you very much.
I think you are combining two different questions.
When I said that a fully cooked dry food can be reheated even above yad soledet bo, I was talking about reheating it in a permitted manner, such as near the heat source or on top of another pot. I was not saying that once something is fully cooked you may put it directly into an appliance whose normal function is cooking or baking.
That is exactly why the Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 318:15, says that a fully cooked dry food may be placed כנגד המדורה, near the fire, even where it will become yad soledet bo. The point is that אין בישול אחר בישול בדבר יבש. But directly on the fire or on a normal cooking surface is a separate problem because that is the ordinary manner of cooking.
A toaster, whether you mean a pop-up bread toaster or a toaster oven, is certainly a normal cooking or baking appliance. Its entire purpose is to put food directly into intense heat and change it.
There is also a discussion in the Poskim of אין אפייה אחר אפייה, that once bread was baked there is no new afiyah merely from baking it again. But I do not think that changes the practical answer here. You are deliberately putting bread into a toaster specifically to toast it, brown it, crisp it and change its taste and texture. That is the normal weekday method of preparing toasted bread.
So I would not use a toaster on Shabbat.
The electricity question does not change that answer. Even according to my understanding that electricity itself is not one of the thirty-nine melachot, that does not mean an electrically powered device may be used for an activity that is otherwise prohibited. Electricity and bishul are two separate questions.
If electricity turns on a toaster whose heating element is being used in the normal manner to toast bread, the fact that I do not consider electricity itself a melachah does not make the toasting permissible.
So the bottom line is simple:
Reheating already cooked dry food near a fire or on top of another pot is one thing.
Putting bread into a toaster to make toast is another.
A toaster is a normal cooking/baking appliance, and I would not use it on Shabbat.
Shalom Rabbi,
But as I discussed with you before, if the electric oven has a setting that it is used just for warming food and not for toasting or cooking, plus you put the food inside the oven on the top of a tray and not direcly on the racks that are close to the heating element, this would make the use not problematic, right?
The problem is, using it in a normal cooking setting and direclty on the fire, correct?
Is like a microwave. As long as you can set the temperature and use it for heating and not cooking, then is not problematic.
Oven is different than a stove. Anything in the oven will reach a similar tempature. But certainly if you use a setting that the food does not go above Yad Soledet Bo, you’re fine.
Thank you Rabbi.
So, basically, the rule of thumb in the case of the electric oven (I am talking about the small ones) is: if it has a setting to just warm the food is fine if the food is fully cooked. In the case of liquids we need to be carefull of not reach above Yad Soledet Bo. If the food is solid and fully cooked it can go above Yad Soledet Bo as long as the way it is reheated doesn’t resemble actual cooking. In this case the setting to just warm and a tray on the top of the racks, instead of putting the food direcly in the racks and near the heat source, will accomplish the job of not resembling cooking. Is this correct?
The metal tray on top of the racks is the suggestion of Shvut Yitzĥak 2:7:3 in the name of R. Yosef Shalom Elyashiv. Az Nidberu 8:16 and Or Le-Tziyon 2:17:4 maintain that it is sufficient to place something between the bottom of the oven and the pot.
I understand the distinction you are making, but I do not agree with the proposed solution of putting a metal tray inside the oven.
There are two separate questions that should not be mixed together.
First is bishul itself.
If you have a fully cooked dry food, there is no bishul achar bishul, and it can be reheated even above yad soledet bo.
With a liquid, once it has cooled, reheating it to yad soledet bo raises the normal bishul issue, so you have to be much more careful.
The second question is how you are reheating the food.
Even where there is no bishul achar bishul, I do not put cold food directly onto a normal cooking surface on Shabbat. That is why putting a fully cooked kugel on top of a pot of cholent is different from putting it directly onto the stove. On top of another pot is obviously not the normal manner of cooking. Similarly, Shulchan Aruch permits placing fully cooked dry food near the fire, כנגד המדורה, even where it will become yad soledet bo.
An oven is different.
If you put food anywhere inside a modern oven, close the door, and the oven is hot enough to cook, you are using the oven in its ordinary manner. Putting a tray underneath the food does not, in my opinion, meaningfully change that. The normal function of the entire enclosed oven cavity is to cook food.
So although Shvut Yitzchak 2:7:3 brings in the name of Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv that placing a tray over the oven racks can create enough of a distinction, and Az Nidberu 8:16 and Or LeTzion 2:17:4 discuss similar forms of separation, I would not rely on that concept.
To me, a tray inside an oven is still a tray inside an oven.
That is very different from putting one pot on top of another pot on a stove. On the stove, the second pot is visibly removed from the ordinary cooking surface. Inside an oven, everything is still sitting in the place specifically designed for cooking.
I would also keep the terminology precise. With a fully cooked dry food, the problem is not that suddenly there is bishul achar bishul. The food is already cooked. The problem is putting it into the ordinary cooking environment in the ordinary manner, which is the separate issue we discussed previously (Michzi KeMevashel).
There is one important exception.
If the small oven has a genuine warming setting and the temperature cannot reach yad soledet bo, then we are in a very different situation. At that temperature it is not capable of halachic cooking. Then I do not have the same concern about putting fully cooked food inside simply to warm it.
But do not assume that something labeled “Warm” is below yad soledet bo. Many ovens have a warming setting that is still quite hot. You have to know what the setting actually does.
So my rule would be:
If the oven remains below yad soledet bo, you can use it to warm fully cooked food.
If the oven is hot enough to cook, I would not put cold food into it on Shabbat, even if the food is fully cooked and even if you place an additional tray underneath it.
For fully cooked dry food that you want to heat above yad soledet bo, use a method that is genuinely different from normal cooking, such as placing it on top of another pot.
That is a real shinui in the way the food is being heated.
A tray inside the oven, in my opinion, is not.