Q&A: Tractate Shabbat
Tractate Shabbat
Question
Hello Rabbi Michi,
We are learning Tractate Shabbat this year, and right now we are dealing with clarifying the definition of the labor of cooking. During the lesson we defined a number of things, but they still haven’t become clear to me, so I’d be glad to hear his opinion on the matter.
A. From the plain meaning of the Talmudic text it seems clear that the definition of cooking is improvement and a change in form, but since we see in the tractate that there is also cooking in water, where there is no change in form, it seems that the definition is a change in essence or quality for the better. I would be glad to hear his view on this.
B. On the simple reading of the Talmud on 75b, why is softening needed at the beginning? After all, it does not cause anything—what does it contribute in order to reach the result? Seemingly this is a labor not needed for its own purpose.
C. Maimonides seems to contradict himself in chapter 9, halakhah 6. There he gives an example of a prohibition through softening, and in the end he says the opposite…
Answer
A. That is too general a question. In principle there is a difference between cooking a liquid and cooking a solid. The definition of cooking is not necessarily the same in both. With a liquid, cooking does not require a change of form, but rather some kind of improvement. Sometimes categories of labor are defined by the manner of performance and not by the result, and in the case of cooking one can say that processing by fire is the form of the action, while the result differs for liquids and solids.
B. What did you see on 75b? As for softening, that is the normal form of cooking action (just as people say regarding the labor of kneading that we require hardening and softening). Therefore softening, even though it is not itself cooking (such as softening or melting metals), is considered a derivative of cooking (Maimonides, chapter 9, halakhah 6).
C. What contradiction did you see there? He writes that softening or hardening by means of fire falls under the prohibition of cooking. That fits perfectly with what he says at the beginning of the halakhah. It is true that at first he spoke only about softening, but at the end he adds that the same law applies to hardening.