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A Yissachar / Zebulun Partnership in Loving Memory of Yishak ben Simcha A"H & Felicia bat Miriam A"H
Rabbi Yaakov Rahimi

Torah Lecture

Is Raw Frozen Meat מוקצה?*

Lectured by Rabbi Yaakov Rahimi

Published
January 26, 2025
Duration
1:50
Lecture code
RYR-218

This transcript was auto-generated and polished for readability. While we aim for accuracy, errors may occur. If you notice a mistake, please click to submit corrections.

Welcome to the Daily Halakha. Raw meat and frozen meat in our generation are muktzeh. Nobody eats raw meat that isn't cooked yet, or frozen meat. In our generation, it is not accepted or normal to have raw meat. Therefore, according to the chachamim (sages), it's muktzeh on Shabbat; it has no use on Shabbat. You're not allowed to cook on Shabbat, so now that the food is raw, it has no use. Muktzeh means you're not allowed to move it, and you're not allowed to touch it.

The same thing applies to raw potatoes and flour. In our generation, since people don't just have flour that's not baked, and we also don't have raw potatoes, all these items are muktzeh. So, let's say a person wants to go through his freezer on Shabbat to get his ice cream, but in order to get it out, he has to go through raw meat that's sitting in the freezer. Are you allowed to move the raw frozen meat in order to get to your ice cream and eat it on Shabbat?

The answer is that you're not allowed to touch the raw meat outright. What you could do is tiltul min hatzad. That's the term we call it in halakha (Jewish law): tiltul min hatzad. That means your goal is to move the raw meat with a different item. Let's say there is another box of ice cream over there. Use that box of ice cream to move the frozen meat with it to get to your ice cream. Or, if you want to move the frozen meat, do it with a shinui, in an unusual manner. Use the back of your hand or your elbow to move the raw meat to get to the ice cream. But you're not allowed to move the raw meat outright in the freezer, the usual way you do it during the week, because it's muktzeh on Shabbat. A person cannot touch muktzeh on Shabbat.