Everyday Judaism · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of Torch in Houston, Texas. This is the Everyday Judaism Podcast.

Welcome back, everybody. Welcome to the Everyday Judaism Podcast. Today we are going to tackle the laws of kashering utensils. In Hebrew, it's known as hagala. This is coming from the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, the abridged code of Jewish law, halacha simon number 116, simon koftes zayin. So when a utensil is used for cooking non-kosher food or chametz, the flavor of that food is absorbed into its walls.
This is a very fundamental principle you have to understand. It's absorbed into the walls of the utensils. When other food is subsequently cooked in the utensil, the flavor of the non-kosher food or chametz is emitted from the walls of the utensil and can become absorbed in the food, causing it to become prohibited. Therefore, in order to permit such utensils to be used for kosher or for Pesach foods, the absorbed prohibited flavor must first be removed.
This halacha is derived from the verses in Numbers chapter 31, verse 22 and 23, in which Elazar the Cohen instructs the soldiers returning from war against Midian on the procedure of koshering various utensils found among the spoils of war. Ach esa zo, vesa kesef, vesa nechoshe, vesa barze, vesa b'dil, vesa oferes, kol dover asher yavo b'eish, tav'iru b'eish v'toher. Only the silver and the gold and the silver, the copper, the iron, the tin and the lead,
everything that comes into the fire, you shall pass through the fire and it will be purified. The purification process is based on the principle of keboloi kach poltoi. The way it absorbs it, the same manner in which the forbidden matter was absorbed, so it is expelled. Therefore, the purification requirement of each utensil or vessel is based on the manner in which the forbidden flavor was absorbed. For example, a utensil that was used by being heated on a fire, must be koshered in such
a utensil, while a utensil upon which a hot liquid was poured may be koshered by pouring hot water onto it, known as erui. This simmon discusses the laws of purging utensils that were used for chametz or not kosher in order to permit their use on Pesach or permitting their use anytime. It should be noted that although ha'agola, purging with boiling water, may be performed when halachically appropriate, nevertheless, due to various considerations, including the difficulty of performing ha'agola, the limitations of its effectiveness for certain types of
utensils, as well as the availability of utensils at a reasonable price nowadays, practically all Jewish households keep separate sets of Pesach utensils stored away for the entire year and rely on ha'agola or libon, which is burning something with a flame, with an open flame, primarily for items such as sinks, stoves, and ovens, as well as other items that are impractical or expensive to replace for Pesach. So again, today it is very economical or relatively economical to just buy another set of dishes,
to buy another set of pots and pans. So we have separate sets for Pesach and therefore it is not as commonplace for people to do ha'agola for items that they want to use for Pesach. Now I'll give you an example where many people do ha'agola. One of them would be your silverware. So if you have your kirish cup or your kirish goblet that's made out of silver that you want to use for Pesach, for your four cups of wine by the Pesach seder.
So you're using it during the year, you use it on your regular Shabbos table with bread, with chametz, with other things, with your leavened items. Now you want to use it on your Pesach seder, it has to go through this koshering process of ha'agola. Because buying a silver goblet could be expensive, especially with the price of silver is at right now, it could be exceedingly unreasonable for someone to buy another one. So now the halach is going to talk about the practical steps of how this is done.
Kitzer begins the semen with a discussion of which types of utensils may be koshered. Kol klei kheres, any earthenware utensil that was used for chametz, can never be purged from its status. Not libon, not ha'agola, libon is again direct fire. I have a blowtorch that I have for Pesach and the grates, for example, for our stove, I put it under direct fire, so it's like a blowtorch going to it. It burns everything out of it, okay?
It's cleaned first, I make sure there's nothing on it, and then just fire, actual blowtorch, fire. So for an earthenware utensil, neither ha'agola nor libon, purging by fire, is effective. None of them are effective. Avol ha'tanurim ba'akiros, however, regarding ovens and stoves, ha'abnuyim ha'avonim ulovenim, that are constructed from stone or brick, mehani libon, then direct fire, libon, is effective for them. Ha'tanurim sheheim beveis ha'choref, regarding the stoves of the winter house.
The winter house was an area that was better insulated from the cold and heated with wood-burning stove, whose stovetop was used for cooking. No ha'agin de lo mehani lehu heksher, the custom is that kashering is not effective for them. V'kesherot samlahamid al ha'tanur ezek dere bePesach, and when one wishes to put a pot on the stove on Pesach, tzurim lo'niyach t'chilo, they first should lay down on it tash shalbarzl, a metal sheet, ve'oleo ma'amidu nakdera, and on top of it you can put the pot for cooking.
V'zeh mehani, and this is effective, gam betanu ra'suim mecha rasim, as well as stoves that are constructed of tiles as well. V'klei etz, wooden utensils, v'klei matachos, and metal utensils, v'klei evin, and stone utensils, v'klei etzim, and bone utensil etzim, and bone utensils, mehani lehu ha'agola, may be kashered with ha'agola. So what is ha'agola? Ha'agola is, very, very simply, and I'm sure he's going to mention it in a few minutes,
is that basically imagine you take a big pot, a big pot, a big, big, big soup pot, industrial size soup pot, fill it up with water, and you put it under a fire, it's going to take a long time, but if you put one of those Texas size burners, what are they called, the corn burners or something, they have a name for it, yeah, the big burners, the propane burners, so they, basically those burners will heat up that water to the point where it is bubbling,
so it's 212 degrees, and once it is bubbling, you can put the item in there, be very, very careful obviously, you put this, let's talk about our silver goblet that we want to kasher for Pesach, you put that silver goblet in that bubbling water, and then you take it out and it is now fresh and clean of all flavors, all absorption of anything, it has been burnt out, as good as new, so now it's not milk, it's not meat, it's not parv, it's not treif,
it is neutral, it's do with it as you wish, okay, so that's an example, we'll use that example whenever we talk, imagine it's a big pot filled with bubbling water at 212 degrees, that is Haggola, Libun is when you use a blowtorch, which is considerably hotter than 212 degrees, and burn it to whatever may have been on it, you're burning it out, and it's no longer there, okay, so those are the two types of ways you can kasher it, there's another way
by the way, which is erui, which is direct pouring of water, but again, getting the water to that bubbling temperature, and you pour it, so we're in a sink, what are you going to do in a sink? You're not going to take the sink and put it into a pot, right, so you have to pour water, the bubbling water you pour onto the sink, same thing as with your countertops, your granite countertops, your marble countertops, your, if you have stainless steel countertops,
same thing, you can kasher it with erui, which is pouring that bubbling hot water, 212 degrees, on it. Okay. Ach, im hu dovah she'miskal kel berotchin, however, if it is an article that gets ruined with boiling water, kegon kelem ha-medubakim bedevik, such as utensils whose parts are glued together with an adhesive, and by putting it, pouring boiling water, or putting it into boiling water will weaken it, ve'afilu im rak hakato medubak be'ezedevik, and even if
only the handle is glued together with an adhesive, lo mehani lehagola, hagola will not be effective, me'shum dechayshinu, because we're concerned, shem lo yagi ilu, yafe, yagi lo yafe, because he's not going to, we're concerned that he's not going to properly kasher this utensil, and therefore, hagola is not appropriate for it, and it is not effective either. Halacha number three, hagola is effective only to remove flavor that is absorbed in the walls of the utensil, not for actual chametz that is adhered to the utensil, therefore
before hagola, the utensil must be cleaned and prepared for hagola. So this is another thing that we need to understand, that when they're going to announce, the HK, the Houston Kasher Association does it now, Torch used to do it, we used to do it at the JCC every year, we used to do hagola, and anybody who wanted to take their non-kosher for Passover utensils and make them kosher for Passover, they would bring it and we would do hagola. What was the requirement?
The requirement was, number one, it had to be clean, that means you can't have, you know, crusted over, dried, whatever it was, chametz on the pot or pan, it had to be sparkling clean, and number two, this is another qualification we'll see very shortly, it had to be not used for at least 24 hours. Not used for at least 24 hours, the same applies for anything you kosher. So if you're koshering an oven, it can't be used for 24 hours, you're koshering a sink,
it can't be used for 24 hours, it has to be spotless clean, you have to clean it, same thing with your countertops, same thing with everything else, it has to be clean and then not used for 24 hours before koshering it. Prior to performing hagola on a utensil, one must clean it well, from rust, and the like. It should be totally clean, mere discoloration, however, does not present any concern. And if the utensil has indentations, they must be cleaned out very well.
If it is a metal utensil, then he should place coals on the indentations and perform the libon, the torch, on it, and then perform hagola on the utensils, and if it is impossible to clean out the holes and the crevices well, and you can't either put do-libon with direct fire on it, then there's no remedy and this vessel cannot be koshered. Therefore, regarding the knives with handles, one must take special care if hagola is effective
on them, it is proper to one who is capable to buy new knives for Pesach, because they have all these little little cuts in the knife, in the blade, and there may be chametz stuck in there. So therefore, you're going to try to do the best you can, obviously, but it still may not get it out of there. And therefore, it is best to have a different set for Pesach. Halacha number four. Kelim shem eshtamshem bahem al yidei ha'or.
Utensil that are used with fire, blimayim, without water, tzrich and libon, they need direct fire, they need libon. Well, lachayim, therefore, ha'aganos ve'hamachavos, basins and pans, she'ofen vayim chametz, that are used to bake with it, chametz, tzrich and libon, they need libon, ve'al libon tzorok liyos lechadkhilo. Initially, the libon should be libon chazok, a strong libon, at she'yu nitzozos nitazimim, to the point where sparks fly out from the direct torching. It's like sparks. You see sparks because it's taken away everything that is on it.
Ve'hamarda shel etz, a baker's wooden shovel, upon which chametz dough is inserted into the oven. Ein latakona has no remedy, for since the heat of the fire causes the dough to become absorbed in the shovel, without a liquid medium, the required manner of kashering is through libon chamor. Since a wooden shovel would not withstand such heat, it would burn, totally burn it, therefore it cannot be kashered for Pesach. Halacha number five. The following sifim discuss the proper method of agolo for various utensils.
The answer begins with a discussion regarding a case that was commonplace in earlier times, namely a utensil that was repaired with a metal patch. So what used to happen was, today we don't find such things, but they used to go to a blacksmith, if they had a hole in their pot, what would they do? They would have it soldered on. They would have a patch to the pot, so that now they don't have to buy a new pot, it was
cheaper to go to the blacksmith and have him patch on a new piece of metal. So we're going to talk about those types of utensils first. Now it's not, we don't have the same thing today, particularly silver, we mentioned this previously when we talked about kashering. If silver was used, silver, many times silver would be taken to the silversmith and he would repair, if there was a hole, if there was a stand, whatever it was, they would re-solder on silver.
Kli sheyesh lo tlay, a utensil that has a patch, im hu be'inyan, if it was attached in such a manner, sheyesh lo chush, with his room or concern, for concern, shema yesh tachas at lai mashu chametz be'in, that perhaps there is a small amount of actual chametz beneath the patch, azai, the law is then, tzorokh mikodem l'la b'en oso makom, ad sheyesh da be'veru, sheim hayesha mashu chametz hayen israf. So the first thing you need to do is do libon on it, which is under direct fire, torch it,
to the point where if there was chametz under there, under the patch, that it would be burnt out, and then you do agal on it. So until he knows for certain that there, had there been a small amount of chametz there, it would be burnt up, ve'achakach yegil, and then he can do agal on it, ve'in, ve'im ein chashash, and if there's no concern that there's chametz there, sheyesh ham chametz be'in, azai, im hoye hatlai naase, kodem sheim shtamshu bo'chametz, yochol l'hag'ilo kemoshehu.
If the patch was made, attached to the utensil, before they used the utensil for chametz, so it was done before you used it for any type of chametz, he may perform agal on it as is, with the patch, for in the same manner that the pot absorbed the chametz through the patch, it will expel it through the agala. De'kemoshe bolas ha'chametz, kach yiflito ba'agala, yiflito ba'agala, aval, im nishtam eshtchila ba'hakli chametz, but if the utensil was first used for chametz, ve'achakach nesano
ha'satlai, and then the patch was placed on it, azai lo mehani le'agala, then agala is not effective, lo mokam shetach ha'satlai, for the area that is underneath the patched area, elo tzorokh litin gamken kodem ha'agala, rather, additionally, before agala, one must place coals on the patch, le'la b'en es hamokamahu, in order to do libun on that place, which is direct fire, ve'im ha'tlai ha'neschaber be'ha'tochas b'dil, o kesef ve'chadome, yokh la'agila kamoshu, however, if the patch was attached by soldering it with molten tin or
silver or the like, one may perform agala on it as is, for the absorbed chametz was burnt up then, during the soldering, and therefore we're not concerned. Flavors generally not transferred into the walls of the utensil without any presence of heat. So cold doesn't transfer flavor. Heat transfers flavor. It's a general principle in the laws of kosher, right? So therefore, a utensil that was used only for cold food may usually be washed out thoroughly and used for Pesach. In this ifim that follow, Kitzer
cites a number of exceptions to this. Madocha, a mortar in which food substances are crushed or ground, be'mokam she'darko lo dukhbo, in a region where the manner is to crush in it, d'var hamcharifim, sharp food items, im chametz b'yachat, together with food, tzorok li'bun kal, it needs a light torching of li'bun. Dehayinu, that is, she'me'mal hambo g'chol hambo aros, we fill it with burning coals, she'yartiyach kol kach, so that it is heated to the extent, ad sheha kash nisraf olav mi b'chutz, that the straw would burn
if it would come in contact with it from the outside. Be'mokam she'yandarko lo dukhbo rak pil pilin ve kadome sagi ba'gola, in a place in which the manner is only to crush in it pepper and the like, and no chametz, ha'gola suffices. Another exception to the rule, that a transfer of flavor cannot take place without the presence of heat in a utensil, in which cold liquid was held for 24 hours. This is due to the principle nozes kavosh kem b'voshom. Soaking is the equivalent of cooking. That is, if
a utensil soaks in a liquid for a 24-hour period, and similarly if a container holds a liquid for 24 hours, the utensil or the container absorbs the taste of the liquid as if they had been cooked together. Accordingly, if a chametz liquid was held in a barrel for 24 hours, the walls of the barrel absorb the taste of the chametz. If the barrel was then emptied and a non-chametz beverage was then held there for 24 hours, the second beverage
will in turn absorb the chametz taste and is now contained in the walls of the barrel and will become prohibited for use on Pesach. So if you had your wine you put into a barrel that had in it something chametz, that wine now cannot be used for Pesach because the stuff that were in there, the chametz stuff that were in there for 24 hours prior to putting in that wine in that barrel got it into the walls, the flavor, and now putting in the
wine in there, the flavor is going to go into the wine and that wine cannot be used on Pesach. For this reason, a barrel in which whiskey of chametz grain was held for 24 hours requires a barrel before using it for Pesach. This Eve discusses an issue that would need to be addressed before performing this ha-gola. Keilim shehechzik bohem ya'in sarof l'kiyum, regarding utensils in which whiskey or any hard liquor was held for storage, ein tam v'reya chayyin sarof niflat al'idei ha-gola.
The flavor and odor of the whiskey cannot be purged by means of ha-gola, rak im bish'el oson haytav, unless one thoroughly cooks or boils the utensils, b'mayim im efer, in water and ashes. As previously, in previous generations that we use ashes as a cleaning agent. Today we use soap, right? Had she nistalik mehem ha-reyach l'gamra, until the odor is completely removed from it, mo olehem achakah ha-gola, only then, afterwards, would ha-gola suffice for it.
So Kitzer now introduces a method of performing ha-gola that can be implemented when a utensil that was used for whiskey cannot be inserted into a pot of boiling water for the ha-gola process because it's too big. Ha-gola sahavis, the ha-gola of a barrel, yaseh b'derech seser, how should he do it? How should he, it's a bigger barrel, he has a pot, but he can't fit the whole barrel into the pot. Yila b'nav onim, one heats up stones intensely, v'yaseh membo, and puts them into
the barrel, v'oreh aleyem mayim roytchem mikli rishon, he should pour boiling water on top of the stones that he has there that are really, really hot, a vessel that has been heated on a fire, v'yigal g'el esachavis, and then you roll the barrel, k'dei sheh tagi ha-gola b'kal mokom, so that the way the steaming hot water and stones get to every part of that barrel, v'achavios shalonu, and our barrels, shehin asuin mikam edapim, that are constructed of numerous staves or panels, mikhuborim be-ba-cha shukim, that are connected with
hoops, im amad bo-hem chametz, if chametz was held in them, kigoyim gen sarf, like whiskey, o shehechzik bo-hem kamach, or if they kept flour in such barrels, lomahani le-agol, agol is not effective, because there are different panels, I'm assuming that it's because they would get in between, when the barrel's constructed from a number of staves or panels that are held together by the hoops, it is virtually impossible to fully rid them from the residue that has become embedded in the crevices. They can therefore not be kosher.
So if you use sherry cask as wine first, and then you use it for whiskey, but if you use the opposite, you use bourbon barrels, and then you're putting your kosher for, bourbon is different because it's made out of corn, which is kidney-ous, but let's say, keep it with whiskey, right? So whiskey, which has actual wheat, and that's pure chametz, the purest chametz, you wouldn't be able to use the modern day barrels because they have these separate panels, and because
in the cracks and the crevices of, in between those panels, it's going to be virtually impossible to kosher them. Halacha number nine, kol dovesh atzarech ha-gola, anything that requires agolah mahani le-kalipah, peeling off a layer of the utensil with a craftsman's tool is not effective, ela vada, ela dafka ha-gola, only ha-gola is effective. So chiseling off a layer of the pot is not going to do anything. You have to do it with ha-gola, ha-gola is the only way you can kosher it.
We have just a few more halachas here. Is this too much for everyone, or is it good? It's interesting. Okay. Okay, so halacha number 10, we have 18 total. We'll stop here. Let's stop here. Next week, God willing, we'll continue from halacha number 10, we'll have part two next week. I want to open the floor to your questions. My dear friends, listeners, viewers, you can be part of our class by asking your questions online, send it an email to askawayattorchweb.org, askawayattorchweb.org.
I look forward to seeing your questions in my email box, my inbox, and sharing them with everyone in our broadcast. I look forward to hearing them. Till next week, my dear friends, have an amazing week. And here we go with askaway number 37.

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