From the virtual desk of the OU VEBBE REBBE Q I use my oven for baking fleishig foods. If I haven't used the oven for 24 hours and bake a pareve cake, can I eat it with milk? A Please be aware that there are diverse minhagim in different communities regarding the use of ovens for different types of foods. What we write here is not intended to delegitimize any ruling you have received from a competent, rabbinic authority. We start with the case that you use a fleishig baking pan. Does the fleishig taste, which entered the pan, exit it, enter the pareve food and turn it into fleishig. This double-removed taste, known as NAT BAR NAT, is the subject of a major machloket between the Shulchan Aruch and the Rama (Yoreh Deah 95:2), with the Rama ruling for Ashkenazic Jewry that it is proper to treat the formerly pareve food as fleishig. However, if the pan has not been used for 24 hours, then the taste remaining in it is not halachically significant. It is true that Chazal did not allow us to use non-kosher utensils that have remained unused for 24 hours. However, since, in this case, even within 24 hours, the fleishig status of the food is far from clear, the cake you refer to is considered pareve. For this reason, the GR”A (ad loc.:9) permitted the use of such a pan for the purpose you describe. On the other hand, many acharonim prescribe to the opinion of the Chuchmat Adam (48:2) (with which the Rama (ibid.) mildly implies that he agrees) that one should not set up such a situation l'chatchila (in the first place). In other words, if one planned to eat the cake with fleishig or pareve and then a situation arose where he decided to eat it with milchig, he could do so. However, he should not bake with the intention to eat the cake with milk. Thus, the proper thing, from this per- spective, is to use a pareve or disposable pan. The problem is that the oven might cause problems. The Rama (YD 108:1) rules that taste is transferred from one food to another when they were baked or roasted in an oven at different times only if there was condensation (zeiah) from both foods on the walls of the oven. A "fleishig oven" presumably had fleishig condensation at some time during its use. But it is unclear how liquid does a food, and how insulated does an oven, have to be in order that there be zeiah to bring the fleishig from the walls to the food (see Igrot Moshe YD I:40). Bread and relatively dry cake dough probably do not create zeiah in a normal oven and will remain pareve. (One must make sure that the pan doesn't touch a surface with fleishig residue on it.) However, a liquid batter may create zeiah. When this is so, the zeiah compromises the pareve status of both the cake and the pan. (If the oven was well-cleaned and had not been used within 24 hours, the pan would not need to be kashered). There are at least two legitimate solutions to this problem. One
is to cover the cake batter (where feasible) so that escaping moisture is
insufficient to transfer taste (Rama, ibid.). The other is to do LIBUN KAL on
the oven before baking the cake to remove the fleishig taste from the walls and
burn any surface residue. A half-hour of heating at the oven's highest
temperature is usually sufficient. (More time is needed if there is significant
spillage which one did not remove prior to heating.) Even one who relies on the
aforementioned GR”A, must ensure that there is no edible residue on the walls of
the oven in a case where zeiah could bring residue into the food, even though
tiny quantities will not ruin the food b'dieved (after the fact) (see Igrot
Moshe I:40; Gilyon Maharsha 99:6). “There is nothing which does not have its place.” (Pirkei Avot
4:3) “They stood crowded together, yet they bow comfortably.” (Pirkei
Avot 5:5) On Kol Nidrei evening, they went to the only shul in walking distance. The shul was exclusively comprised of Cantonists - men who had been seized as children by the Czar's troops to serve in the Russian army for a period ot twenty-five years. Only Jews who had served in the army were pemitted to live in the capital. Naturally, these men knew very little, having spent most of their lives in remote areas of the Russian empire. As they approached Kol Nidrei, an old Cantonist got up to
address the men present, as follows: "My brothers, we all know that at this time
Jews turn to Hashem and ask Him for three things: children, life, and
sustenance. What should we pray for? Shall we pray for children? Of course not -
we're not allowed to marry because we're in the army. Shall we pray for life?
What worth is our lives anyway, when at any minute we may lose it in defending
this country? Shall we pray for sustenance? We have all of our food supplied by
the Czar. Thus, dear brothers, there isn't a thing we have to pray for
ourselves. All that we can pray for is that Yisgadal Veyiskadash Shemeu Rabba -
May Hashem's great name be exalted and sactified." At this, all broke into
tears, It is said that the two gedolim counted this as the most outstanding Yom
Kippur in their lives. Bats are considered nature's best bug control. 70% of bat species are insectivores. Many of these bats can eat up to 600 bugs an hour. Trees in Africa and South America depend on bats to spread their seeds. Bats that live on fruit can eat up to three times their body weight in a night. As the seeds of that fruit pass through the bat in 15-20 minutes, they end up on the forest floor. The South American short-tailed fruit bat can scatter 60,000 seeds in a single night. Night blooming flowers also depend on bats for pollination. The largest bat has almost a 6-foot wing span (larger bats, called megabats, usually live in warm tropical climates and live on nectar and fruit); the smallest weighs less than a shekel coin (microbats tend to live in cool to moderate climates and eat insects). Besides night insects, bats eat fish, frogs, fruit, nectar, and blood from other mammals. Only three species are considered vampires. These smaller bats use their front fangs to puncture the skin of a sleeping cow or horse and then they lap up the blood (they don't suck). In order to keep the blood from coagulating, the bat's saliva contains a chemical that thins the blood. This chemical could be very valuable to our health. (Vampire bats got their name from the legendary character, not vice versa. There are almost 1000 species of bats, including Peter's Wooly False Vampire Bat, Nathusius Pipistrelle, Western Small-footed Myotis, Gray, Red, Spotted, Whiskered, Pallid, Evening, Indiana, Ipanema, and Golden Horseshoe. Bats have only one baby a year. Baby bats or pups are very small and defenseless when they are born. They are usually born in large colonies with thousands of babies squeezed together hanging from the ceiling of a cave. This keeps them warm and safe. A mother must use smell and recognize the cry in order to located their own pup in the crowd. It is several months before a baby is able to fly and hunt alone. Until then it relies on mother's milk for food. Insect-eating bats use echolocation to find and catch food. Many species do not echolocate, but rely on their eyesight. Bats in cooler climates hibernate or migrate during the winter. In last week’s issue, we briefly mentioned having KAVANA for the mitzva of ZACHOR when reading and hearing the last three p’sukim of Parshat Ki Teitzei. This past Shabbat, I was offered an Aliya in shul on the occasion of the yahrzeit of my wife’s father z”l. I accepted and asked for ACHARON, so I would be able to actually read the Parsha of Zachor (albeit quietly, along with the Baal Korei). I went to the Gabbai before the Torah Reading and asked if he would make an announcement about Zachor. My shul (and I suspect many others, as well) generally does not like to break the regular flow of the services with “unusual” requests. But he said he would. I explained two aspects of the issue. First, the fact that the mitzva to remember Amalek is technically untimed, as far as the Torah is concerned. Although our Sages fixed the observance of the mitzva at once a year, and specifically on the Shabbat before Purim, it can be additionally fulfilled on Shabbat Parshat Ki Teitzei (provided the Baal Korei and listeners have Kavana for the mitzva). It’s almost a, “so why not?” situation. Secondly, the Chatam Sofer raised the following point. When a 2-Adar year approaches (as is the case with 5763), there is a time span of 13 months from the previous Zachor until the next. The annual reading of Zachor is based upon a principle that forgetting occurs after 12 months. If we take this literally (which the Chatam Sofer says we need NOT, since a year is a year, be it of 12 months or 13), then we should try to fulfill the mitzva with Ki Teitzei to reduce the gap between Zachors to less than 12 months. (Although the Chatam Sofer said that it wasn’t necessary to
worry about the “extra” month, he was personally insistent that the mitzva be
fulfilled with Ki Teitzei.) After my Aliya, a fellow came to me to thank me. He had been in MILU’IM without a minyan on Shabbat Zachor and had not had the opportunity to fulfill the mitzva of ZACHOR. This gave him that opportunity. And so, it turned out to be more than a minor point. Just goes to show you... TT VOLUNTEERS A wonderful corps of dedicated volunteers converges in the Teichman Youth Lounge each Thursday for collating and folding duty. They function as a well-oiled machine and produce results which often are superior to the machines we also use for TT production. The Folding Factory is a pleasant workplace, with Divrei Torah, refreshments, and convivial camaraderie (the adjective might be slightly redundant, since the noun implies a warm social atmosphere). Although we have many volunteers on Thursday, more are always welcome. On the distribution side of the coin, we have a diverse group of
people in Jerusalem and all over the country, who are part of a complex
distribution system. If you have even a little available time on Thursday or
Friday to make a “TT drop” or two (or more), please give us a call. Much
obliged. As an example, note Ramban's observations regarding the order in which several blessings and curses are presented. For instance, Vayikra 28:4 states: "Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground." And later, it is written: "Accursed will be your fruit basket… and [then] the fruit of your womb." Clearly, as the curses unfold, the order of events is reversed. The blessing of children precedes that of prosperity. Conversely, apply- ing the curse, G-d first crushes our livelihood and then metes out punish- ment to our offspring. Nachmanides further notes that the blessing 'victory over enemies' also supersedes 'prosperity,' while in the context of the curses this order is similarly inverted. The Torah teaches us that when we create national priorities, we must put our children first. For they represent our partnership with Hashem in creation. They are the continuity of our Tradition. We also learn that victory is more than a matter of survival; its primacy over prosperity represents the core impetus to survive: To nurture our children in the ways of Hashem - that is a most eminent reason to live. Shabbat Shalom, Menachem Persoff, Director, Israel Center [The Ki Tavo Homepage]
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