Halacha Notes

not allowed to leave uncooked food on an open flame on shabbos – have to make it grufa uktuma – reduced & put sand/dirt over coals = a blech
how much is considered uncooked? (on an open flame)
1/3 cooked – alter rebbe
½ cooked – rambam
mitztanek vayafeh lo – If it will enhance it by being on the stove - beis yosef
Electrical appliances: if it has a dial you have to cover the source of heat and some also say the dial – it helps a person remember not to adjust the flame.
In practice today: try that your food should be fully cooked before shabbos – plus make sure you have a blech
This is for practical reasons: as long as food is not fully cooked, you still have hilchos mevashel – if food won’t be fully cooked you can’t lift the lid and put back on – it enhances the cooking – or if you want to move the pot on blech closer to fire – etc – that will also enhance cooking
Even if food is fully cooked you should still have a blech because one of the conditions to put food back on the fire is that it has to be gerufa uktumah – covered –
If it comes to Friday night and you realize theres no blech and your food isn’t fully cooked you MUST take the food off – its an issur drabanan to leave it on. If it’s close to shabbos and you didn’t make the cholent yet, you’re allowed to start the cooking before shabbos and continue it onto shabbos as long as its gerufa uktuma.
Have to be very careful not to aid the cooking process in any way because it’s not fully cooked.
What if you went somewhere and don’t have a blech?
You can make a temporary one out of a foil pan, a few sheets of tinfoil (one isn’t enough)
What should you do if you don’t have anything to make a blech with? Bshaas hadchak – if you don’t have a choice – you can rely on the opinion that if it’s at least 1/3 cooked you can put it on fire
In order for water to be cooked enough to be on an open flame it has to be yad soledes bo – if an urn doesn’t have a dial it doesn’t need gerufa uktumah

If your urn needs to be gerufa uktuma (it has a dial to switch the mode) and you technically can not make it gerufa uktuma then you have to make sure your water is fully cooked before shabbos.
How cooked is considered cooked when it comes to water?
Yad soledes bo – but better that it’s fully boiled before shabbos
Any cooking appliance that does have a dial – what happens if the dial is at the highest, so there’s no concern you’ll turn it higher?
You still need a blech – it could get turned down by mistake and then be able to turn it up again
Halacha lmayseh: min hatorah you’re allowed to start the melacha before shabbos and let it continue on to shabbos. Chachamim said this doesn’t apply to cooking. But if the fire is covered then you can leave food on it, even if it’s not fully cooked.
In Halacha if the flame is covered, it doesn’t have to be cooked at all.
If the food is fully cooked food you don’t need a blech.
But the chachamim suggest that you should make sure all food is fully cooked before shabbos begins. Also have a blech.
1. if the food is not fully cooked then you always have a concern of mevashel (ex, putting top on to make cook faster, moving closer to the flame) regardless of whether it’s gerufa uktumah
2. even if food is fully cooked you should still have a blech, because it might be cooked enough according to the alter rebbe but not enough according to beis yosef, etc.
3. you could only put a pot back on the fire, even if the food is 100% cooked, if the flame is covered through grufa uktumah.

The concern of nireh kmivashel is that the PERSON themselves will do the wrong thing in the future. In order to be able to return food to the fire, you can only do so with certain conditions:
1. when you removed it, you had kavana that you plan to put it back. Even if you had NO particular kavana you can’t put it back.
What if you took off the wrong pot without kavana? You can put it on – because that wasn’t your kavana – your kavana wasn’t to put the SOUP back on – not to stop cooking the cholent. EVEN if it was put down.
2. the whole time it was off the fire it was held in your hand.
3. if the fire is ketumah – covered.
4. there has to be no concern of bishul – has to be fully cooked and if it’s a lach still nechal machmas chamimuso.
5. If it’s still in the same pot and has stayed in the same pot the whole time.

It has to seem to you as a continuation of what you’re doing, not a new act of bishul. You won’t have the concern of nireh kmivashel if you don’t think you’re starting a new act of bishul.

Situation: a person comes shabbos night and sees that the burner went off under the blech. Can I take it and put it on a different fire? This cooking finished – the fire is out. It’s not a continuation. You can put it down if the other fire is ketuma, or if you have all the other conditions of chazara – because YOU didn’t stop the cooking process, it happened by itself. You only need to have a kavana that you’re going to continue if you are the one stopping the cooking process. (this only applies if the food is fully cooked and has to still be warm)
If you have a gas stove – TURN THE GAS OFF – it’s sakanas nefashos!

Situation: The pot slipped off the blech- there was no kavana – but here’s theres no problem because you didn’t do the act that stopped the cooking process.

Situation: It gets to after licht bentchen and you see that you never turned the fire under the blech in the first place. Can you put the pot on another fire? Not only are you not continuing the act of bishul, there never was in the first place. It’s fine, as long as you went through those motions you can move it to another fire.

Next condition:
There are those who say:
1. the pot must be completely suspended in the air in your hand not resting on anything.
2. you can put it on something but has to be in a way that if you would let go it would drop (ex on the edge of a counter)
3. as long as it’s partially raised/part is suspended in the air
4. you can have the pot all the way on the table as long as you’re holding on to it
if you put it down on a very irregular/temporary place (like a stepstool, windowsill etc) and it’s the type of food that if you wont put it back on the fire it will greatly interfere with your oneg shabbos, there are poskim that say you can put it back on the fire (if it’s your cholent etc)
when you take the pot off the fire, you don’t have to do chazara to the SAME fire, it could be a different fire.

Review
If you’re making a blech on shabbos you have to be careful what kind of material you’re using – if it will turn red from the fire you can’t use that to make grufa uktuma.

Condition #5: The food has to be in the original pot – the food had to stay in that kli rishon at all times.

If you want to ladle hot water from your urn into your cholent that’s omed al ha-eish take a ladle, leave it in the hot water so it becomes kli rishon, and then pour the hot water into the cholent – from kli rishon she’al ha’eish to kli rishon she’al ha’eish
NEVER can you take food that wasn’t on the fire before and put it on the blech – even if those foods are not subject to bishul