#248: Cutting Fruit

1. Sometimes simply cutting a piece of the fruit, like grapefruit or watermelon, causes juice to be squeezed out. When doing so, one should not intend to specifically squeeze the juice out or that one wishes to drink the juice (Shemirat Shabbat K'hilchatah 5:12).

2. According to many poskim, cutting grapefruit or melon is permitted even if one knows that some juice will be squeezed out as long as one does not intend to squeeze out the juice. This is due to a combination of reasons, including that this is not the normal method of squeezing and that squeezing these fruits is only a rabbinic prohibition (Shemirat Shabbat K'hilchatah 5:12). The question of whether one can drink the juice from cut fruits will be discussed in more detail in a future post.

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Dedicated by Fran Broder as a zechus for the hostages to be released safely to their families and may everlasting peace come to Eretz Yisrael in the merit of learning Hilchos Shabbos.