Rav,
So Hilchos Makeh bePatish. It’s almost like anything that would be permitted, we shut down saying ah! this is a finishing touch.
For example, I smoke cigars on Yom tov. Cutting a cigar’s closed end is makeh bePatish. Why? Because the cigar is not smokable otherwise. But in my opinion, the cigar is left close so that the air is not easily going through it, so it doesn’t get dry. It was made that way, and it is a finished product that way. I could technically light the closed end of it, and smoke it the other way – so technically i am not gaining by cutting it.
I am not finishing the product, I am using it exactly as it was designed. You mentioned something similar around Electricity. No one is finishing nothing when flipping the switch. The switch is there as intended, completing the circuit.
I can go on an on about this, but you probably understand what is my point here. Can I ask the Rav to write a halachic analysis on it, so we have the right guidelines. My goal is not to find excuses, my goal is to follow the actual halacha.
Thank you in advance.
PS: I know we are right before Pesach so I am not expecting an immediate answer, but really interested an eventual one.
Makeh BePatish is fixing a utensil or completing manufacture, but removing something that prevents use and preparing for immediate use is not Makeh BePatish, rather normal use.
See Shabbat 75b; Rambam Hilchot Shabbat 10:16–17, 23:1–2; Beitzah 33b; Shulchan Aruch O.C. 314:1; Aruch HaShulchan O.C. 314; Taz 314:7; Magen Avraham 314:5; Mishnah Berurah 314:25; and Minchat Shlomo Tinyana 23, who establish that the prohibition of Makeh BePatish applies when one completes a כלי or makes a proper functional opening, but not when one merely accesses the contents, removes an obstruction, or performs an act that is דרך שימוש and not דרך תיקון כלי. My father always said opening a bottle is not Makeh Bepatish and this is the same.