Tochen on Shabbos: Bananas, Nuts, and One or Two Shinuyim

Topics

• Tochen on Shabbos: Bananas, Nuts, and One or Two Shinuyim
• What Makes Crushing with a Handle a Shinui?
• Softening Fruit and Cutting for Immediate Use
• Nuts, One Shinui, and Food That Is Already Edible

Transcript

# Tochen on Shabbos: Bananas, Nuts, and One or Two Shinuyim

## What Makes Crushing with a Handle a Shinui?

We spoke about Rav Adler’s sefer. The two shailos we raised in Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 321:7, appear there as his cases. He understands kata desakina in connection with the handle of the maduchah—the very question we asked yesterday.

The lashon says sakin, a knife, and does not immediately sound like a different utensil. Perhaps that is how the relevant part was described. We have to understand his reading.

Then there is the other question: what makes it a shinui?

Yesterday we discussed soft vegetables—carrots, squash, and yams—and then bananas. We brought the Chazon Ish’s approach and Rav Moshe’s heter. There was also the wording about being machmir like the Chazon Ish. Reb Dovid told me that Rav Moshe did not tell people to adopt that chumrah.

Now consider a utensil whose working end and handle look very similar. With the maduchah, one end may have a smaller head and the other a larger head. Both can crush.

So what has changed when you use the handle?

Perhaps, as in the explanation attributed to Rav Nissim Karelitz, it is simply harder. One part is meant for crushing, and the other can do it with more difficulty.

We look at the picture and discuss which end is the handle. You suggest that the wider end is normally the handle; someone answers that a wider working end would crush more effectively. Fine—that helps us identify the actual metzius.

There are then two ways to understand the shinui. Perhaps this is the form Chazal specified: use the handle rather than the normal working end. Backward use is backward use.

Or perhaps the point is the difficulty. You could have done the act more easily with the usual part, and instead you use the less convenient part. That itself is the shinui.

Now I want to bring a chiddush attributed to Rav Shlomo Zalman in Shemiras Shabbos K’Hilchasah, chapter 6, note 3.

How can you mash a banana with a fork? The eitzah described there is to crush it first by hand while it is still in its peel. Mash it thoroughly. Then open it and finish working through it with the fork: ein tochen achar tochen.

Reb Moshe, give me five minutes. We will start then; I have to finish this nekudah.

What is the raya for the first step? Mishnah Berurah 319:22 discusses softening a hard apple and says, “אפשר דמותר אפילו בלי שינוי”—perhaps it is permitted even without a shinui.

Why is crushing or softening the fruit by hand not tochen? That is the point we have to understand. People do not normally grind in that manner.

Once it is already crushed, the later use of the fork is being treated as working on something already mashed. The first step must have its own heter; the Mishnah Berurah’s apple case is brought as support.

If every bit of fruit crushed by hand were tochen, my children would encounter it every minute on Shabbos. Let us look carefully at what this kind of richuch means.

## Softening Fruit and Cutting for Immediate Use

In my house there is plenty of squashing of fruits and vegetables. We are discussing doing it by hand.

Read Mishnah Berurah 319:22: softening a hard apple may be permitted even without a shinui. What does softening mean here? Giving it a squeeze, a knock, or pressure to soften it.

The explanation attributed to Rav Shlomo Zalman uses that first hand-crushing and then applies ein tochen achar tochen to the fork. If you object, look at Shemiras Shabbos K’Hilchasah, chapter 6, note 3, and work through his argument.

Rabosai, we have used up my five minutes already, and then you will blame me. Let us go forward.

I want to suggest another cheshbon for the banana. Suppose the normal way to reduce a food is mi’uch—mashing. Perhaps finely cutting it, rather than mashing it, is different.

You will ask from the Mishnah Berurah’s discussion of cutting finely with the sharp edge of a knife, in Mishnah Berurah 321:25. That is a difficulty for the suggestion.

But there is the Shaar HaTziyun’s discussion of doing it le’alter. We have to look at that qualification.

My proposed distinction is between an item normally processed by cutting and an item normally processed by crushing. In the latter case, cutting is not the ordinary form of that processing.

For vegetables normally cut, the Mishnah Berurah urges care even in the discussion of immediate use. Perhaps the food normally mashed has a different cheshbon when it is cut for immediate use.

There is a brief interruption about putting something away and the problems caused by lending it out. Now hear the vort: why must you mash the banana? Cut it finely for immediate use.

That is the application I am suggesting. A woman who wants to prepare the banana for the child could use cutting rather than mashing, with the le’alter condition.

What counts as le’alter? Preparing it in front of the tinok seems to be immediate use. The olam mentions the half-hour discussion in borer. We have to consider what immediate use means here.

Now se’if 8 concerns salt. Give me another two minutes.

Which sports stop the clock? Football? Basketball? We could use that here: stop the clock for this question and give me another minute. Live and learn.

Ordinary salt is already ground. If it has merely clumped, the Rema on Orach Chaim 321:8 discusses breaking up salt that was originally fine. The same cheshbon of something already ground is relevant to the sugar we are discussing.

So the se’if’s case of coarse salt is not necessarily the case of the salt on our table.

But there is another practical case: nuts. Rav Shlomo Zalman permits using a nutcracker to crack the shell. What if you deliberately use it in a way that also crushes the nut itself?

Then you have reduced the nut with a kli. Is the nutcracker a utensil designated for that crushing? Perhaps it is designed for the shell instead. That is the question.

## Nuts, One Shinui, and Food That Is Already Edible

I am not sure that we can simply say the nutcracker is never used for crushing the nut. Some people do use it that way.

I asked Rav Shamshon, and he was mesupak. He said it was a good shailah.

If the intention is only to open the shell and the nut happens to break, that is one case. But if you also want pieces of the nut and deliberately crush it, you have used a kli for that purpose.

Perhaps that should be asur. Or perhaps the utensil’s normal purpose is cracking the shell, and using it to crush the nut is itself a shinui. I remain mesupak.

Now consider the broader question: can one shinui suffice for crushing nuts?

By salt, Mishnah Berurah 321:28 requires the changed manner described in the pepper case. The Gra’s approach distinguishes salt from peppers and does not require the same two shinuyim. The Mishnah Berurah follows the approach requiring both.

What about nuts? Here is the chiddush I want to suggest. I told it to Reb Shapsi yesterday; perhaps that was also what he meant.

Something that is ne’echal chai—already fit to be eaten without this processing—may require only one shinui.

Peppers are different in the case we are learning: the crushing prepares them for their use as food. With vegetables or nuts that are already ra’ui le’echol chai, the crushing is being done to a food that is edible as it stands.

You ask about salt. Salt is not the same case of ne’echal chai that I am discussing.

There are also the shitos concerning techinah in food. Those give us another part of the cheshbon.

Where did I find support? Rav Pe’alim, Orach Chaim II:42, by the Ben Ish Chai. The yesod I am bringing from that teshuvah is that, for food already edible, there is room to rely on one shinui.

That answers the question we asked about bananas. If the Mishnah Berurah requires two shinuyim for peppers and salt, why would using only kata desakina be enough here?

Perhaps because the banana is already ne’echal chai. The additional factor allows one shinui to suffice.

That is the maskanah I am suggesting, rabosai. I think this is the basis of the heter: the food is already edible.

Now Shemiras Shabbos—nine. Yes, let me—no, the nine.