[Avodah] Just How hot is Yad Soledes Bo anyway?

[Chana Luntz]

I wrote:
> 
> <In some ways you can see this most clearly from this interpretation of
> RYDS that you find so appealing.  If you had a soup that had been fully
> cooked, and then in case A it was cooled fully down and in case B it was
made
> only luke warm  (or whatever is the lowest temperature that RYDS would
allow
> chazara).  If you were then to return these two liquids to identical
> fires, the chemical changes or cooking would be, I would warrant,
absolutely
> identical.  And yet RYDS would say that case A involved halachic bishul
> and> case B did not. >
> 
And RRW replied

> Dear Rn Chana
> 
> WADR You are conflating the mlacha of bishul
> With the g'zeira of hazarra!  Thr g'zeira of hazzara is about nireh
> kimvashel, not about chemical changes!!!

The issue we were discussing was, when the Rema allowed the chazara of luke
warm soup, did he intrinsically hold that ain bishul achar bishul on a dvar
lach, and we were just concerned with issues such as nireh kimvashel (this
you cited as the Chazon Ish's approach, and it was, as I understood it, the
simple pshat) or did he really hold yesh bishul achar bishul on a dvar lach
- which you cited in the name of RYDS, but only if the soup was allowed to
become fully cold.  Yesh bishul achar bishul or ain bishul achar bishul on a
dvar lach is, as the words clearly state, not about nire kimvashel but about
bishul mamash.  If you hold yesh bishul achar bishul on a dvar lach, you are
holding that *bishul* as defined halachically occurs.  I agree, there seems
to be no difference in chemical changes - but that is precisely the point I
was making.

> <Because you are understanding "bishul" to be the equivalent of a
> physical concept of cooking, which is then measurable in terms of changes
of
> chemistry.  But bishul is a halachic definition, which may or may not
> correspond to what any chemist might identify as cooking.>
> 
> See Rambam shabbos 9:6
> 
> "Any heat process that hardens the soft or softens the hard is
> ...bishul!"

And of course this includes loads of things that would not necessarily fall
within the definition of the English word "cooking".

 
> I say chemistry is at work here, And if so - then measuring
> demonstrable chemical. Changes is paramount

Maybe and maybe not.  Firstly, I do not believe that the Rambam's definition
is exhaustive.  As in, if I produce a food where the heat process neither
hardens the soft nor softens the hard, there is no bishul?  That would seem
to suggest that there cannot be any form of bishul on a dvar lach, since it
neither becomes harder or softer by means of being cooked.

Rather, I think everybody would agree that the Rambam's definition is only
one strand of what is meant by halachic bishul.

Secondly, while it has been a long time since I learnt any chemistry,
substances that become soft on heat being applied and then when the heat is
taken away reform with precisely the same chemical structure are not
unknown.  For that matter, going from a solid to a liquid or vice versa is a
change of state, not necessarily of chemical form.  There strikes me as a
fair bit of chemical confusion going on here and you are going to need a
whole mishmash of physical tests (not just chemical tests) to get any
approximation of what we know as halachic bishul and the only way to do that
is to keep referring back to the definitions of halachic bishul that are
given to us, yad soledet bo, kol tzorko etc etc.  The gemora is fully
willing to entertain the idea that there are different forms of bishul for
different things. The whole discussion in the gemora in which the definition
of yad soledet bo is to be found as kriso shel tinok is in the context of a
discussion about whether or not the definition of bishul for water and oil
is the same or different (and indeed whether or not the concept of bishul
can be applied to oil at all).

> Cooking an egg is the most graphic.  I need no body parts such as "yad
> or keres" to see the difference between a raw egg and a cooked egg!
> Rather eyes or tongue will do!

Agreed, and that is why the Rambam's definition of hardening and softening
is not the one that is used, but rather the most standard definition, in
terms of a dvar yaves is in terms of what people eat (whether it be robber
people ie machal ben drosai or others).

> Obviously this halachic construct is related to visibility

Well, slightly deeper than that, what is socially accepted as edible - which
fascinatingly would seem like it is probably culturally dependent,
regardless of visibility.  If the French all eat their meat medium rare,
then while cooking more might (arguably, but arguably not) be meztamek
v'yafe lo, it is, to the French, fully cooked at medium rare.  While if you
come from Eastern Europe where the only good steak is practically burnt,
then medium rare might be machal ben drosai, but it could hardly be
considered kol tzorko.

And even in the case of an egg.  If culturally nobody ate soft boiled eggs,
then the definition of kol tzorko would surely have to be hard boiled.  But
if nobody ate hard boiled eggs, they were considered overcooked, then soft
boiled eggs would be kol tzorko and anything above that would be mitzamek
v'ra lo. And if people ate both, then a soft boiled egg would be considered
kol tzorko and from there to a hard boiled egg would be mitztamek v'tov lo
and only after that would it be mitztamek v'ra lo, ie at the point it was
considered overcooked.

The halachic test is actually extremely subtle, far subtler than a chemical
test.

 > Are you saying EG that steam distilled water is mevushal once it's
> cooled off because it HAS been halachically cooked already?  And
> therefore ein bishul achar bishul?

Yes *if you hold that ain bishul achar bishul on a dvar lach*.  If you hold
yesh bishul achar bishul on a dvar lach, then obviously the fact that it has
been previously heated is irrelevant, because reheating it is cooking it.
The fact that water after it has been heated and cooled appears identical to
the way it was before has a lot to do with the whole machlokus that we
started out with, whether in fact yesh bishul achar bishul or ain bishul
achar bishul on a dvar lach.

Of course if you were using a chemical test there are differences, in terms
of getting rid of impurities and bugs.  In fact, I spend a significant
portion of my life making sure that we have bottles of cooled boiled water
around.  One of the side effects of having a very disabled son who has a
gastrostomy (peg in his stomach) is that they recommend that we do not just
use tap water to flush the gastrostomy, or with his medicines etc but rather
cooled boiled water.  Of course at some point the tap water might also have
been cooked, who knows, but certainly not recently.

> Or EG halachos re: melting ice or snow on shabbos shouldn't use EG 0C
> or 32F to determine its frozen status?

Well given that impurities alter the precise temperature at which something
freezes and melts, I think you would be very rash to use precisely 0 degrees
C or 32 F anywhere outside the laboratory.  Not sure what halachos you refer
to, but I would have thought that any halachos would be determined by the
actual temperature that the substance in question froze or melted at,
impurities and all, and not the theoretical chemistry, and I am not sure why
the theoretical chemistry would be relevant.

> KT
> RRW

Regards

Chana