Q&A: Opening a Can on the Sabbath
Opening a Can on the Sabbath
Question
A. I greatly enjoyed reading your columns on intention in commandments (by the way, on a personal level I like the more analytical/Talmudic columns best). Seemingly, according to your approach, there is no real point in searching for reasons for the commandments. Am I understanding you correctly?
B. I’d be happy to hear your opinion (if you have one) on the issue of opening cans on the Sabbath. Do you understand the view of the Chazon Ish, who maintains that a can is not defined as a utensil, since it is sealed on all sides? Why doesn’t the preservation itself define the can as a utensil?
Answer
A. Indeed. It could be interesting to understand, but usually the results are pretty poor and unconvincing.
B. A utensil is an implement for use. Here, this is a temporary storage container that is destroyed when one uses it. By definition, a utensil is not disposable, but something meant for repeated use. In the legal context, produce (as in ownership of produce, or exchange involving produce) represents the concept of something for one-time use. Produce is defined as something whose use destroys it. The usual laws of immersion and the like also do not apply to disposable utensils.
To say that the preservation itself is the use is not plausible. Preservation is not a person’s use of the utensil, unless one puts the contents into the utensil and removes them from it.
Discussion on Answer
Simply speaking, yes.
What about opening bottles, which is seemingly building in utensils (in the bottle and not in the cap—creating a proper opening fit for inserting and removing), in a way that could be seen as a firm fixing? Very often these bottles are used repeatedly, and they are opened with that intention. It seems that the leniency relies to a considerable extent (though not necessarily) on the permission of Terumat HaDeshen (Part I, responsum 65) to open the plugging of ovens even though it is attached with clay, since that attachment was not meant to last for a long time (in terms of normal use, not in terms of the strength of the attachment), as can be seen from what is brought in Yechaveh Da’at, Part II, 42. What is your opinion about the leniency of Terumat HaDeshen in itself, and about relying on it regarding opening bottles?
If the bottle is then used over time, it indeed seems that it would be prohibited to create it. Still, there is room to be lenient on the grounds that the bottle was already prepared beforehand and the cap is only an external impediment, so opening the bottle is an action done to the cap and not to the bottle. Perhaps there is preparation of the cap here, but simply speaking not of the bottle. In short, there is definitely a basis for stringency here, but it is not unequivocal.
Thank you for the reply. Perhaps one could compare this to reopening a hole that became sealed, and therefore wonder whether the cap is like a seal meant to preserve or a seal meant to reinforce (Sabbath 146b). However, one must remember that in the Talmudic passage discussing this, the case is an opening made for taking out and not for putting in, unlike the bottle opening, which is meant both for removing and for inserting, and its law may therefore be more stringent.
In my opinion, it is more accurate to discuss the bottle than the cap, because the cap is not really a utensil; it serves as a part that can be detached from and reattached to the bottle, which is the utensil, and the cap has no utility in itself. So in my opinion the cap is not an external impediment. The leniency based on the bottle’s having been prepared beforehand apparently rests on defining building in utensils as creating a utensil from the outset (Rashba on Sabbath 102b), and not as strong construction in the manner of “reinforcement and craftsmanship” (Tosafot on Sabbath 102b, s.v. “hai”). Even according to Rashi, who denies building in utensils altogether, one could still discuss opening a bottle as the final hammer blow. From these perspectives as well (strong attachment / final hammer blow), it is also not clear why one should distinguish between metal caps and plastic caps, since the strength and the rendering of the bottle fit for use are equal in both cases.
I think a seal is something added to the utensil itself, whereas a cap is a separate part from the bottle. As for the cap, I wrote that there is room to be stringent, but not with certainty—precisely because of your argument that the cap in itself is not a utensil.
Based on what you wrote, that it is not a utensil for use: is it permitted on the Sabbath, after opening it, to use it one time only (for example, to put trash in it, like dirty oil that I’d prefer not to put straight into the regular garbage can)?