[Avodah] May one add matzah meal or pieces of bread to a bowl of hot soup on Shabbos?

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 07:55:09AM -0500, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote:
> I have never understood the assertion that "a kli shlishi definitely
> does not cook."

Me neither. But the melakhah is bishul, not cooking.

For example, you have two eggs at the same temperature, one heated by
a frying pan that used to be on the fire (toledos ha'ur), the other
cooking in the sun (toledos hachamah). One is bishul, the other isn't.

Or the hot springs of Teveriah. Chazal knew what they were and how hot
the waters are. What they didn't know is whether they were warm from
the volcanic processes in the ground of from the sun's heat. And despite
the water being in a known resulting state, using the hot water to cook
something else may or may not be bishul depending on what heated it.


In general, our culture is too fixated on science to "get" halakhah. I've
been saying this for a while on my own say-so, but R' David Lapin's
"Matmanim" podcast had a few shiurim on this topic as well.

(RDL is not to be confused with his older brother, R Daniel. R David
studied under his uncle, R Elya Lopian, has semicha from R Unterman,
founded the South African Instute of Business Ethics, and came in second
in the hunt for a successor for the CR of the UK when R/D/L Sacks z"l
retired. Matmanim is a daily 15 min shiur (6:45-7am) in the Raanana
Kollel. He finds a hashkafic point, "buried trasure", in the
day's daf. https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1528778.rss Back to the point... )

I phrased it in terms of halakhah being about observed and observable
reality. As it's our first-hand experiences -- those we had and those we
can be held accountable for if we don't bother checking -- that impact
us on the gut level, the deeper places of our psyche where decisions
are made. RDLapin talks about Torah dealing with relationships, how we
relate to an item, rather than facts about the item. When I emailed RDL
about it, neither of us were sure whether we are saying the same thing
or if there are subtle differences.

Either way, we live in an era where progress is so tied to science
and technology, that when we hear a word like "bishul" we look for a
scientific definition of cooking. Rather, as Rashi says about cooking
toledos hachamah, derekh bishul is part of the definition of the
melakhah. But it would never be part of a scientific definition of
cooking.

To support that broad point with another example -- tal and mayim are
two diferent of the 7 liquids. Both are H2O, though. Our leap to a
physics or chemistry explanation when the relevant sciences may be more
psychology and sociology gets in the way of understanding halakhah.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 If a person does not recognize one's own worth,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   how can he appreciate the worth of another?
Author: Widen Your Tent                - Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye,
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef