All right, Rabotai (my masters), we come every night for a few minutes to learn the halacha (Jewish law) for the Refuah Shelemah (complete healing), Sarah Simcha, and Chaya Sarah bat Simcha. We’re learning the laws of Borer (sorting), and today we get to a very simple case. Let’s see if our members can figure out how to deal with this. Remember, we learned that you’re not allowed to separate the bad from the good. Very good. What happens in the classic case on Shabbat? You have a cup of tea, and you take a lemon and squeeze it into the tea. No problem. The pit of the lemon falls into the tea. How are you going to get the pit out? If you take your hand and take the pit out, you have probably just transgressed a prohibition from the Torah. Why? Because the pit is the psolet, the no good. We learned that you’re not allowed to remove psolet from ochel (food). You cannot take the bad from the good. Now, even if you tell me, “Rabbi, I want to drink the tea right away,” it doesn’t matter. Even if you’re drinking it right away, the only way, as we said, is to take the good from the bad. So how are you going to get that pit out of the tea?
The same question applies to ladies who make salad and want to dress it. They take a lemon and squeeze it over the salad. What happens? The pits go into the salad, or the pit goes into the tahini. There’s one option, as many ladies do: they leave the pit in, let her husband eat it, and that’s it. He has to spit it out. But that’s not recommended, for Shalom Bayit (peace in the home) and for other reasons. You should try to take the pits out of the salad and not serve it with the pits, obviously. But the question is: by taking out the pits, you’re taking the bad from the good. So what’s the solution, Rabbi? Who has a practical way to solve this dilemma? Any of our members? Very good. Anybody? I don’t hear anybody? Okay. Well, I’ll give the answer. I think I know the answer to this one. The answer is that it’s only separating if you take the bad from the good. But if you take some good with the bad, you’re not separating. You’re just dividing. So take a spoon and take some tea in the spoon with the pit. If you take good and bad together, that’s not considered selecting. Or, in the salad case, take a spoon and take a couple of leaves of salad with the pit on them. If you take it out together like that, you’re taking good and bad together. That really is a very important halacha. You can’t go fishing just for the pit. You have to take good with the bad. So again, in the case of the tea, take a spoon and scoop it out with some tea in the spoon. If there’s some tea in the spoon with the pit, then you’re in business. But if you do it any other way, you’re going to have a problem.
Let’s get to one more practical case of Borer for tonight: eating fish on Shabbat. It’s a big mitzvah (commandment) to eat fish on Shabbat. Now, I know Syrians don’t really have the custom of eating fish. For those who come from Aleppo, you are landlocked. There’s no water, really, in Aleppo. So they don’t have too many fish recipes. But if you’re Moroccan, you lived on the Mediterranean, where fish was very plentiful and very tasty. No matter where you live, the halacha says you should try to eat fish on Shabbat. Dag. It says, whoever eats dag—whoever eats fish on the day of dag—is saved. Nitzol mi-dag is saved from Gehinam (hell)—Din Gehinam (judgment of Gehinam). Dag is Din Gehinam. Kol ha’ochel dag, whoever eats fish on the seventh day—that’s Shabbat. Nitzol mi-dag is saved from Din Gehinam. The only problem is, there are a lot of fish we eat that have bones in them. Now, the problem is: if I have a fish in front of me, let’s say a salmon or whatever they give you, am I allowed to take the bones out before I eat it? Here’s the problem. The bones are psolet again. So what are you supposed to do? One option is just to eat and swallow the bones, and then you have a bigger problem. Then you don’t have a problem of Borer, but you can have a problem of choking, which is a much more serious problem. And the halacha doesn’t want people to choke. So the question is, how do you get rid of the bones? You tell me, “Well, take some fish with the bones.” But then goes your whole fish, because 90% of the fish is with bones. Therefore, all the fish is going to be separated. You’re not going to have any more fish left. So eat gefilte fish. That’s one option. There’s gefilte fish, by the way, because that fish doesn’t have any bones. Now, there’s no such thing as a gefilte fish; you can’t go fishing for gefilte fish. It’s a processed fish. But the point is, they mash whatever they’re mashing and turn it into a patty, but there are no bones in it. That’s why they have that type of fish on Shabbat, to avoid that issue with fish, so you don’t have any problems with Borer. But if that’s not your taste, let’s say, what’s going to be the solution? The Ben Ish Chai discusses this. He says it’s permissible to take the bones out of the fish while you’re eating it. Therefore, you don’t have to worry or hold the fish and take the good from the bad. You can take the bones out. There is no problem. Why? Because these bones are attached; they’re not mixed in. That’s considered part of the fish. Something that’s considered part of the fish is considered like food itself, even though you’re not planning on eating it. It’s not like peas and rice, which are two separate items combined through a mixture. And some actually say that when you’re eating something, at the time of eating, it’s permissible. So, bottom line, if somebody puts a piece of salmon in front of you on Shabbat with bones, the Ben Ish Chai is lenient: you can take the bones out before you eat it. Also, the bones are not muktzeh (set aside). Hacham Ovadia talks about that in his Chazon Ovadia, and he says you have no problem because otherwise, how are you going to eat? So you don’t have to worry, “Hey, I’m not allowed to touch bones.” You’re allowed to move the bones.
Last but not least, let’s say the bones separated from the fish, which means they’re not attached to the fish. As you were eating it, some bones fell to the side. Hacham Ovadia holds that you’re allowed to push them to the side of your plate. You might say, “Oh, you’re separating.” No, you can’t take the bones and remove them from your plate. That would be Borer, explicitly. But moving them to the side of the plate is permissible. Let’s say you’re eating your fish, and as you’re eating it, a bone comes out by itself and lands right next to your piece of fish. You don’t want it to be there, so you can just move it to the side of your plate, and then you won’t have a problem. That’s the way Yalkut Yosef also writes in Chelek Gimel (Part Three), on page Taf Tzadi (490). So that’s... No, because it’s separated. Right, when you squeezed it, it separated and came out. Okay, Rabotai, so that’s the story today, Rabotai: Borer. We pray that these halachot, and more importantly, the execution of these halachot, should be Refuah Shelemah, Chaya Sarah, and Simcha. Baruch Adonai.