Shulchan Aruch: Chapter 503 - [The Restrictions Against] Preparing for the [Second] Day of a Festival on [the First]

See sec. 495:3 and the sources mentioned there.

Beitzah 17a. See also Pesachim 46b. See also sec. 498:11.

Pesachim, loc. cit. See also sec. 527:1.

See sec. 527:1, 8.

This concept is derived from Pesachim 46b. In that source, the Sages permitted the owner of an animal that was in danger of dying to slaughter the animal on a festival even if he had already finished his festive meal and has no need for the animal’s meat on the festival. However, this leniency is contingent on there being enough time before the end of the festival for the person to eat an olive-sized portion of meat from this animal. (See sec. 498:11, where the Alter Rebbe presents this leniency.) Needless to say, the Sages would not have granted this leniency if slaughtering the animal would have violated a Scriptural prohibition.

The Alter Rebbe uses the term makkos mardus, which we have translated as “stripes for rebellious conduct.” This term refers to a punishment ordained by the Sages for violating a Rabbinic command or a prohibition resulting from a positive Scriptural command. In contrast to the 39 lashes given for violating a Scriptural prohibition, the number of lashes given for violating a Rabbinic command is determined by the Rabbinic court, according to their conception of the gravity of the offence.

See sec. 494:14, where the Alter Rebbe gives another example of an activity that does not involve forbidden melachah, but that was nonetheless prohibited for this reason – spreading fragrant grasses in the synagogue.

See sec. 500:20 and sec. 509:15, where the Alter Rebbe mentions this concept. See also sec. 323:6 and sec. 444:8, which mention similar laws regarding washing utensils on Shabbos.

See sec. 254:10, where the Alter Rebbe explains that it is forbidden to prepare for a weekday on Shabbos, and concludes by referencing to this section.

An eruv tavshilin is a halachic convention that allows a person to cook and perform any other necessary tasks relating to food preparation on a festival for the Shabbos that follows directly after the festival. See sec. 527:1-2.

See sec. 514:15, which mentions this law with regard to preparing the lights for the second day of a festival on the first day of the festival.

See sec. 600:4 and sec. 497:9, where this concept is mentioned.

The observance of the second day of the festivals in the Diaspora was originally ordained because the beginning of each month was established based on testimony regarding the sighting of the moon, which was given before the judges of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. The news regarding what dayhad been designated as the first day of the new month did not always reach the people in the outlying Diaspora before the celebration of a festival in that month. Accordingly, the Sages ordained that those living in the Diaspora observe each festival for two days because of the doubt regarding when the festival should begin. However, in the present era, we follow a fixed calendar and hence, Jews all over the world know exactly when each new month begins. Thus, the only reason the observance of the second day of the festivals is continued is out of respect for the custom of the previous generations. See sec. 496:1, sec. 600:3-4, and sec. 624:10, where this concept is discussed in greater detail.

See the Shulchan Aruch of Rav Yosef Caro (Orach Chayim 144:3), which states that preferably, a Torah scroll should not be rolled to a different reading once it has been taken out for the communal reading. Instead, the Torah scroll should be rolled to the correct place before it is taken out. Hence, the synagogue officials might desire to roll the Torah scroll to the reading for the second day of the festival on the first day of the festival.

In that source, the Alter Rebbe writes that one may not make an eruv chatzeiros on the festival for the Shabbos that follows it.

The Alter Rebbe mentions the second way in the following subsection.

The Alter Rebbe uses the word chavis, which we have translated as “container.” Although in modern Hebrew, the word chavis means “barrel,” in the Talmudic era, this term was used to describe earthenware jugs that could be placed over a fire.

Beitzah 17a.

Placing a container of water on a fire is included in the melachah of cooking, which is one of the melachos forbidden on Shabbos but permitted as meleches ochel nefesh on a festival. See sec. 495:2.

Kaf Hachayim 103:31 notes that the Alter Rebbe specifies that all the water must be placed on the fire at one time, but does not mention the need to pour all the water into the container at one time. This is because, as the Alter Rebbe states in the main text, only the action that is classified as melachah must be done all at once. This point is also implied by the Alter Rebbe in his Kuntreis Acharon (note 1).

In his Kuntreis Acharon (note 1), the Alter Rebbe explains his ruling in this subsection, regarding a person who intends to use the additional water he boiled on the festival on the following day, as well as the rulings in subsections 5 and 6 below.

The Alter Rebbe begins by explaining that these rulings are based on the commentaries’ understanding of a passage in Beitzah 17a, which states:

>>A woman may fill an entire pot with meat [to cook on a festival], although she requires only one piece [on that day. She will keep the rest of the meat for the following day]. A baker may fill an entire container with water [and heat it] although he requires only a pitcher [of hot water]. By contrast, when baking, one may bake only that which he requires for that day.

>>Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar [differs and] maintains: A woman may fill an entire oven with bread, [although she does not intend to use it all on that day], because bread bakes better when the oven is full. Rava ruled: The halachah follows Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar.

Rashi explains that according to the first opinion presented in the Talmud, the leniency is based on the fact that the person is not performing any extra activity by cooking all the meat or heating all the water. Rather, he prepares for the festival and the following day with the same act. When baking, by contrast, the person must trouble himself to place each loaf in the oven individually. Thus, the more loaves he bakes, the more effort he expends in placing them in the oven. Hence if, on the festival, the person bakes loaves for after the festival, he is expending additional effort on the festival for benefit that will only be derived on the day after the festival. Therefore, doing so is forbidden.

In contrast to this opinion, Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar maintains that even though the person is undertaking extra effort on the festival by preparing something for the day after the festival, since the person will benefit from that effort on the festival, he is permitted to expend that extra effort. As Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar explains in the Talmud, the rationale is that the flavor of the bread to be eaten on the festival is improved when it is baked in a full oven.

Thus, there are three situations reflected in the Talmud’s words:

a) A person performs a single act to prepare for the festival and the following day, and by preparing for the following day he also improves the food to be eaten on the festival. This scenario is illustrated by the instance regarding cooking meat (which is cited in subsection 6 below).

b) A person performs a single act to prepare for the festival and the following day, but preparing for the following day does not improve what will be used on the festival. This scenario is illustrated by the instance regarding heating water (which is cited in this subsection).

c) A person performs many acts to prepare for the festival and the following day, and by preparing for the following day he improves the food to be used on the festival. This scenario is illustrated by the instance regarding baking bread (which is cited in sec. 507:18).

There are different opinions among the Rishonim regarding how to understand and apply the ruling in Beitzah 17a. Rokeiach, sec.298, maintains that when preparing food on a festival, a person may not explicitly state that he intends to benefit from some of his efforts after the festival. However, the Tur (Orach Chayim 503) disagrees, and maintains that since the person is deriving benefit on the festival from the activities he performs, he may perform these activities even when he explicitly states that he also intends to benefit from the activity after the festival.

The Acharonim are also divided regarding this issue. Maharshal (Yam shel Shlomoh, Beitzah 2:15) and Turei Zahav (503:5) accept Rokeiach’s stringency. However, Magen Avraham 503:2only accepts Rokeiach’s stringency provided the person is employing a ruse, the extra activity does not improve what he will use on the festival, and he does not really need what he will use on the festival. If, however, the person cooks meat for the festival, and places the extra meat that is not intended for the festival in the same pot as the meat for the festival so as to improve the flavor of the meat for the festival, and then places the pot on the fire, he may say that he intends to use the extra meat after the festival. See subsection 6, below, where the Alter Rebbe rules in this manner.

This approach is also reflected in the Alter Rebbe’s ruling in this subsection, regarding a person who boils a full pot of water on a festival, when he only needs a small amount of water for the festival, and intends to keep the remaining water for after the festival. As the Alter Rebbe explains in the main text, in this instance, the person is performing the melachah of boiling the water all at once, without expending any extra effort to boil the water to be used after the festival. However, there is no benefit on the festival to having boiled more water than necessary for that day’s use. Therefore, the Alter Rebbe rules that although the person may boil up more water than necessary for his immediate use, he should not state this fact out loud.

See also footnote 24 to the following subsection, where other points mentioned in this Kuntreis Acharon are explained.

See subsection 6, below, where the Alter Rebbe explains the rationale for permitting the person to employ a ruse. See also subsection 8 below, where the Alter Rebbe mentions authorities who forbid employing such a ruse.

The Alter Rebbe mentions the concept of actually performing the act on which the ruse is based in several places, including sec. 458:17, sec. 512:6 and the Kuntreis Acharon (note 4) there, and sec. 527:27.

Beitzah 17a. See also sec. 507:18, where the Alter Rebbe rules in a similar manner with regard to baking additional loaves for a weekday together with the loaves one bakes for the festival. See also sec. 512:3-4, where the Alter Rebbe mentions adding additional food for a non-Jewish servant to the food one cooks for Jews to eat on the festival.

See subsection 6 below, where the Alter Rebbe discusses this scenario in greater detail.

See the Kuntreis Acharon (note 1, summarized in footnote 20 above). As the Alter Rebbe proceeds to explain in the main text, this ruling is contingent on the fact that the flavor of the meat to be eaten on the festival is improved when it is cooked with more meat. If the food one desires to eat after the festival does not improve the food cooked for the festival, it may not be added.

This ruling is arrived at by combining the statements of the first opinion in Beitzah 17a regarding cooking meat with the opinion of Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar regarding baking bread in a full oven.

The Alter Rebbe specifies that this lenient ruling even applies if the person places the additional meat in the pot after placing the pot on the fire, despite the fact that, in this instance the person is considered to have performed many activities, i.e., each time he adds a piece of meat to the pot of cooking meat, it is considered an independent activity. Thus, each time the person did so, he performed an additional melachah. This is in contrast to the instance presented in subsection 4 above, where the person prepares food for the festival and the day after the festival with just one activity. In this Kuntreis Acharon, the Alter Rebbe does not make a distinction between placing additional meat in a pot, which requires minimal effort, and baking additional loaves of bread, which entails greater effort.

See the Kuntreis Acharon (note 7) to sec. 507. In this source, the Alter Rebbe explains that this leniency applies even when the person does not specifically intend to improve the food that he is cooking for the festival, provided the flavor of the food is indeed improved. As implied in that source and in subsection 6 below, if a person’s primary intention when adding the additional food is to improve the food that he wants to eat on the festival, he may even state explicitly that he is planning to eat the additional food after the festival.

See the Kuntreis Acharon (note 1) to this section, which is summarized in footnote 20.

An eruv tavshilin is a halachic convention that allows a person to cook and perform any other necessary tasks relating to food preparation on a festival for the Shabbos that follows immediately after a festival. See sec. 527:1-2.

The Alter Rebbe is referring back to the previous paragraph, where he ruled stringently, and prohibited cooking food for the day after the festival even when one partakes of the food on the festival.

I.e., the person is performing a separate activity in order to cook the meat for the following day.

Although the person is improving the flavor of the meat he is cooking by adding the extra meat to the pot, this is of no significance. The rationale is that none of the meat was being prepared primarily to be eaten on the festival. Rather, it was all being prepared to be eaten after the festival. Thus, even if the person eats a bit of the meat, he is only eating it as a ruse, and is not deriving any significant pleasure from the melachah involved in its preparation that was performed on the festival.

The ruling here is similar to the one in subsection 4 above, regarding heating water. See Kuntreis Acharon (note 1).

I.e., all the meat was placed on the fire and cooked at one time.

E.g., the person is a bit hungry. In the instance mentioned previously, the person was only eating a small amount of food so he could cook the entire pot of food. In this instance, by contrast, the person genuinely desires to eat some food.

See subsection 9 below, where the Alter Rebbe explains that one may employ this ruse only before he eats his morning meal.

See subsection 6 above, where this concept is mentioned.

See sec. 529:6.

See subsections 4-5, above.

The Alter Rebbe uses the expression baal nefesh, which we have translated as “meticulous people.”

See subsection 5, above.

Beitzah 17b, See Rashi there.

See sec. 507:18, where the Alter Rebbe issues a similar ruling regarding baking loaves of bread.

See, however, sec. 458:17, from which it appears that leniency was granted to ensure that one’s dough does not become chametz (see Marei Mekomos VeTziyunim).

The same measure can be employed to prepare for a Shabbos that follows directly after a festival if one forgot to make an eruv tavshilin. See 527:27.

To summarize:

• If one is cooking meat or fish that he wants to eat on the festival, he may add extra meat or fish to the pot for after the festival. This is permissible, when he begins cooking, or after the pot was placed on the fire.

• If one is cooking other foods that he wants to eat on the festival, he may add extra food only before the pot is placed on the fire.

• If one wants to cook a dish solely for after the festival in a permissible manner, i.e., by tasting some of the food on the festival, he must fulfill these five conditions:

a) He prepares the food before eating his morning festive meal.

b) He places all of the food for that dish into one pot and places it on the fire, and does not, subsequently, add more food to that pot.

c) He does not explicitly state that he plans to eat the extra food after the festival.

d) He (or any Jew) must eat at least an olive-sized portion of the food on the festival.

e) This may only be done on the first day of the festival for the second day of the festival or on either day of the festival for the Shabbos that directly follows the festival. (This is only required if an eruv tavshilin was not made before the festival.)

As explained in sec. 252:11, sec. 325:9, and sec. 515:1, et al., there are situations where our Sages forbade benefiting from a melachah performed on Shabbos or a festival immediately after the holy dayends, and required the person to wait until the amount of time that it would take to perform the forbidden melachah has passed. In the instance presented here, however, this penalty is not imposed because, as the Alter Rebbe proceeds to explain, the person ate a bit of food from each pot on the festival.

See sec. 527:27, where the Alter Rebbe grants a similar leniency.

Beitzah 17b.

See sec. 318:1, where the Alter Rebbe rules that a person who intentionally cooked food on Shabbos is forbidden from ever benefitting from that food. Nevertheless, other members of his household may benefit from the food immediately upon the end of Shabbos. In his Kuntreis Acharon (note 2), the Alter Rebbe discusses the difference between the instance presented here and the instance presented in sec. 318:1, noting that Beitzah 17b mentions the parallel between the instance presented here and the instances presented in sec. 318:1.

The Alter Rebbe then explains that his ruling in the main text here is based on Magen Avraham 318:2. In that source, Magen Avraham cites a ruling from the Shulchan Aruch of Rav Yosef Caro (Yoreh Deah 99:5), where Rav Yosef Caro discusses an instance in which a person intentionally mixes enough permitted food into a mixture containing forbidden food so that the forbidden food is considered to be batel, insignificant. Rav Yosef Caro rules that although the mixture could be permitted, it remains forbidden for the person who intentionally nullified the forbidden food, and for anyone to whom he intended to serve the food. Magen Avraham posits that there are grounds to think that the same law would apply to food that was intentionally cooked on Shabbos. Accordingly, Magen Avraham opines that it could be said that such food is forbidden not only to the person who cooked it, but also to the members of his household, i.e., to those for whom the food was cooked.

Nevertheless, in his final discussion of the matter in sec. 318, Magen Avraham follows the logic of Beis Yosef (see Beis Yosef, Yoreh Deah 99), and differentiates between forbidden food that was nullified in a mixture of permitted food, and food that was intentionally cooked on Shabbos. Magen Avraham explains that were leniency granted regarding the mixture of forbidden food that was intentionally mixed with permitted food, people might intentionally make such mixtures or ask a non-Jew to prepare such mixtures for them. However, Magen Avraham posits that these reasons do not apply with regard to cooking on Shabbos because:

a) we do not suspect that a person would violate the Shabbos for the sake of a family member, because of the seriousness of the prohibition involved, and

b) even if a person instructed a non-Jew to cook for a family member on Shabbos, the family member would be forbidden to partake of the food until waiting the amount of time it would take to cook the food (bichdei she­yaasu) after Shabbos, so nothing would be gained. Hence, there is no concern about permitting the members of a person’s household to partake of food that he cooked on Shabbos, provided that they wait until after Shabbos to do so. The Alter Rebbe based his ruling in sec. 318:1 on this logic.

Nevertheless, it should be noted that Magen Avraham 253:14 rules that when cooked food was removed from a range on which it was cooking, and then returned to the range on Shabbos, that food is forbidden for the person who returned it. However, Magen Avraham maintains that others for whose sake the food was not returned to the range, are permitted to partake of the food on Shabbos if it was returned mistakenly. Nevertheless, Magen Avraham (253:11) rules that this food should not be permitted to the members of the household of the person who returned it to the range. The rationale is that it can be assumed that the person returned the food to the range for the sake of the members of his household as well as for his own sake (see sec. 253:24, where the Alter Rebbe rules according to this view).

The rationale why greater stringency is applied regarding returning food to a range on Shabbos than is applied with regard to actually cooking on Shabbos is as follows: The prohibition against returning food to a range is not as severe as the prohibition against cooking on Shabbos. Hence, there is room for concern that if leniency was granted and the members of the person’s household were permitted to partake of the food that was returned to the range, the person might repeat the transgression.

This logic is the basis for the Alter Rebbe’s stringent ruling in the instance mentioned here in the main text. As the Alter Rebbe proceeds to explain there, since the person took the license to employ a ruse that the Sages forbade, we are concerned that if the food is permitted to the members of his household, he will repeat his offense again in the future and, moreover, that other people might learn this mode of behavior from him. See sec. 515:1, 11, where the Alter Rebbe also extends a prohibition to the members of the transgressor’s household.

See sec. 318:1, where the Alter Rebbe rules in a similar manner regarding a person who intentionally cooked food on Shabbos.

Marei Mekomos VeTziyunim questions why the requirement to wait the amount of time it takes to cook the food is not imposed in the instance here, as it is in the instance presented in sec. 253:12. In that instance, the fear is that people at large will come to treat the prohibition involved lightly if no penalty is imposed for mistakenly transgressing it. It would seem that here too, when one mistakenly thinks he has license to employ a ruse, there are grounds for stringency. See Kuntreis Acharon (note 2) to this section, which is presented in footnote 48 above.

Beitzah 17a-b.

Even the violation of the Rabbinic prohibitions against performing melachah on Shabbos were considered severe enough to be penalized. See sec. 339:1.

See sec. 502:1, where the Alter Rebbe states a similar concept.