I want to peel the fish from its skin before
the meal, how must it be done?
The question related
to the serving of pink salmon where the host wished to serve the salmon without its skin.
In the previous sheet we learned that one may separate ochel from p’soles
immediately before the meal and not only before one actually puts the separated ochel
into one’s mouth.
The host is
permitted to remove the fish from its skin (not the skin from the fish) and thus serve it
at the table.
The mode d’employ would be to insert a knife or a fork in between the skin and
the fish, and lift the fish from the skin.
I am leaving the house at 12:00 and before I
leave I want to take a sweater from a pile of sweaters for use at 16:00. May I do this?
It is very difficult
to find a way out of this predicament because after all, one is separating for later. The
fact that one will not be in a position to get one’s sweater at 16:00 should not
permit one to do ‘borer’ before the time.
To try and compare a
‘journey’ to a meal and say that the first leg of the journey is comparable to
the first course and 16:00, when the sweater is required, is the second course, is a major
chidush and therefore Rav Sternbuch shlita says that one must be stringent and not
remove the sweater, seeing that it involves an issur d’oraisso - a
biblical prohibition.
Either one should
plan ahead and remove the sweater before Shabbos, or one can remove the sweater before
leaving the house and wear it for a while, thus having immediate use of the sweater.
One is not sure how many eggs will be consumed at the meal; may
additional eggs be peeled just in case they are needed?
Let us refine the
question. Sometimes a person eats one egg and sometimes (health risks aside) two. May one
peel two eggs before sitting down to eat or is it required to only peel according to an
explicit need?
Rav Sternbuch says
that since sometimes one eats two eggs it is also called a necessity and it is not
necessary to use a measuring cup to measure the exact quantities before eating. One may
prepare quantities of food on Shabbos in the same manner one would normally prepare,
because the focus is on the present meal only.
Therefore one may
peel, separate etc. everything that one would normally prepare (right) before a meal and
does not have to be exact in measuring the quantities to be consumed. Needless to say that
one may only have the forthcoming meal in mind and not prepare extra for afterwards.
A gabbai in shul wants to arrange the table for
Kiddush after shul and the only time he has to do it is before mussaf. If borer
is involved may he do it?
As often explained,
convenience does not lead to any special leniencies with regards to borer, and
therefore the gabbai may not prepare the Kiddush separating items prior to the Kiddush.
His only reason to prepare before mussaf is in order to facilitate his own personal
need to daven mussaf and not for the sake of the Kiddush.
The same would apply
to (Jewish) waiters in a hotel where the regular routine is to set the tables for the
morning meal after the Friday night meal. Since this preparation is not done for the
necessity of the meal it is forbidden when borer is involved.
If however each item
of silverware is kept separate, i.e. forks with forks and knives with knives then they may
set the tables at night because in effect there is no borer being done.
