[Avodah] Making Ice Cream on Shabbat

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 10:33:23AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
> How do you distinguish this from megaben?

Isn't a fundamental part of megavein that you're giving the cheese
a shape?

Mechabeitz is assur mishum boreir, and as Rashi on Shabbos 95a writes,
this is because of the separation of the whey from the curds occurs
before megavein. Alternatively, Rashi on Pesachim 65a discusses the
boreir of just creating curds by separating out the parts of milk.

Megavein is after mechabeitz, so you already have either something like
cottage chees (Rashi Pesachim) or farmer cheese (Rashi Shabbos). Here we
are turning it into a wheel of cheese so that it ages as desired. But
I thought the boneh issue raised WRT megavein was because of the shape,
not because you're starting a long process of hardening.

But even if I'm mistaken, there is a more solidly-made chiluq. (Yes, I
confess that pun is intended.)

R' Issur Zalman Meltzer (Even haAzel on Hil' Shabbos 10:17)
explains the boneh element of megavein in terms of assembling from
pieces. (Correspondingly, in 10:2 he argues that crating cheese is NOT
soseir only because we aren't reducing it back to hte original curds.)

You don't make ice cream by making little ice cream pieces and putting
them together. One bit freezes solid, or even if two or three, and then
they grow in size to encompass all of the liquid.

It therefore seems more like freezing water, which I haven't seen
described as a boneh issue.


(The melakhos I associated with the parts of making cheese are from
Shabbos 95a, R' Eliezer. But why not hachanah too? Wouldn't anyone
working on cheese necessarily be performing hachanah for something that
won't be ready for weeks, months, even years?)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             With the "Echad" of the Shema, the Jew crowns
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