[Avodah] One African-American Family's Journey to Judaism

[Zev Sero]

On 24/08/2010 12:57 PM, Gershon Dubin wrote:
> <<When I was faced with such a situation, (a) I prepared everything
> before Yom Tov, and (b) I asked one of the non Jewish guest to come
> and put the pots on the fire and do anything else we couldn't do for
> them. It was a great educational moment is distinguishing before from
> after conversion.>>
>
> Hope you didn't have any Sefardim there who you gave bishul akum
> according to the Beis Yosef.

The BY holds no such thing.  All that's required is that a Jew
participate in the food's preparation, even in the smallest way; in
this case Jews did much more than that, having done all the cooking
*except* putting it on the fire.   The only difference between the BY
and the Ramo is whether lighting a fire on which someone will
eventually cook food counts as participation in the cooking of that
food.

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                      - Margaret Thatcher