Insulation Issues With Cholent and Baby Bottles
Placing a Wrapped Food into Cholent
Question: Is it permitted to put cooked kishke, kugel, rice, etc., wrapped in plastic bags or aluminum foil into the cholent before Shabbos?
Discussion: Some poskim1 hold that it is prohibited because it violates the Rabbinic injunction of hatmanah. Hatmanah means to insulate a pot of food in order to retain or intensify its heat.2 In the opinion of Taz, quoted by Mishnah Berurah,3 to submerge a vessel containing food into a vessel containing hot water is also a form of hatmanah.4 Thus, a plastic bag containing kishke or a foil-wrapped kugel which is submerged in a larger pot of cholent, may be considered a violation of hatmanah.
Other poskim, however, do not consider this a form of hatmanah.5 They maintain that we do not view this as one food (the cholent) insulating another (the kugel), but as two foods – cholent and kugel – being warmed simultaneously on a fire.6 Still other poskim suggest that a foil or plastic wrapping is not considered a “vessel” normally used for “insulation.”7
But all poskim permit placing wrapped kishke or kugel in a cholent – before Shabbos – if one of the following conditions is met:
· If the kishke or kugel is not entirely submerged in the cholent.8
· If the item placed inside the cholent is the type that would always be cooked in this way, inside a bag or plastic wrapping (as with kishke).9
· If the bag or foil is left partially open, or if it is punctured.10 This way, one is permitted to submerge the bag or foil in the cholent, because it is obviously meant to absorb the taste of the cholent, thus rendering it all one big dish, not one insulating another.11
Note: Some people who cook cholent in a crock-pot place the cholent ingredients in a bag and then put the bag in the pot. This is not considered hatmanah according to all views, since the purpose is not to “insulate” the food but to keep the pot as clean as possible.12
Warming a Baby’s Bottle
Question: What may be done in order to warm a baby’s milk bottle?
Discussion: It is permitted to pour hot water from an urn on a baby’s cold milk bottle.13 It is also permitted to pour hot water from an urn into a vessel, and then place the milk bottle into it.14 The bottle should not be submerged entirely so as to avoid the prohibition of hatmanah.15
1. Aruch ha-Shulchan 258:3; Minchas Yitzchak 8:17; Shevet ha-Levi 3:47.
2. Insulating a pot which is left on the fire – even prior to Shabbos – is prohibited because the Rabbis feared that if one were to find on Shabbos that the insulation failed to heat the food sufficiently, he would inadvertently adjust the temperature of the fire.
3. 258, note 2 and Sha’ar ha-Tziyun note 6. [Chazon Ish, O.C. 37:32 disagrees with the basic ruling of Taz and does not consider a submerged vessel as a violation of hatmanah.]
4. This ruling is based on the argument that when an item is submerged, it is in fact being “insulated,” since the submersion causes its temperature to be retained or intensified.
5. Note that the case that Taz discusses involves a bottle of cold liquid being submerged in a bowl of hot water which is not on a fire. Our case involves a food being submerged in a food which is on a fire. The comparability of the cases is thus debatable for several reasons.
6. Rav S.Z. Auerbach (Tikunim u’Miluim 42, note 242).
7. See L’horos Nasan 7:12; Az Nidberu 6:78; Am ha-Torah, vol. 13, quoting the Debreciner Rav.
8. Based on Rema’s ruling (253:1) that an item which is partially exposed is not considered to be insulated; Minchas Yitzchak 8:17.
9. Minchas Yitzchak 8:17.
10. Or if the bag is porous; Rav Y.S. Elyashiv (Shevus Yitzchak, pg. 251).
11. Shemiras Shabbos k’Hilchasah 42:63; Otzros ha-Shabbos 2:56, quoting Rav S. Wosner.
12. Based on O.C. 257:2 and Igros Moshe O.C. 1:95.
13. Since only the bottle will become “cooked,” not the milk inside; Rav M. Feinstein (Sefer Hilchos Shabbos, pg. 289); Shemiras Shabbos k’Hilchasah 1:50.
14. Mishnah Berurah 318, note 23; since re-cooking a liquid item in a keli sheini is permitted. Under extenuating circumstances, even a keli rishon which has been removed from the fire may sometimes be used, see Shevet ha-Levi 5:31.
15. Mishnah Berurah 258, note 2; Minchas Yitzchak 8:17, unlike Shulchan Aruch ha-Rav 318:23 and Chazon Ish 37:32, who are lenient.