Hilchos Tochen: How Small Is Dak Dak? Knives, Chewing, and Chopped Salad

Topics

• Hilchos Tochen: Cutting Vegetables Dak Dak — The Knife, the Timing, and the Shiur
• Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim 321:12 — Every Word Matters
• Could a Blunt Knife or a Fork Be a Shinui?
• Chopping Before the Meal — Is the Food Prohibited Afterward?
• A Question About Ma'aseh Shabbos and Raw Vegetables
• Cutting Figs and Carobs for Elderly People
• Does the Rema Agree With the Mechaber?
• Back to the Rema — and Finally, "Dak Dak"
• The Biur Halachah: We Do Not Know the Exact Shiur
• Three Ways to Define Fine Chopping
• Rav Moshe Feinstein: Length and Width
• My Bubby's Kavod HaShulchan

Transcript

# Hilchos Tochen: Cutting Vegetables Dak Dak — The Knife, the Timing, and the Shiur
## Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim 321:12 — Every Word Matters
Rabosai, open **Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim siman shin-chaf-alef, se'if yud-beis**:
**"המחתך הירק דק דק חייב משום טוחן."**
A person who cuts vegetables *dak dak*, very finely, is liable because of **Tochen**. These are short words, but every word is full of questions.

First: **"המחתך"**—what kind of cutting? With a **kli hameyuchad**, an instrument specially made for chopping or grinding? Or even with an ordinary **sakin**? Second: **"הירק"**—which vegetables? And third: **"דק דק"**—how small is small enough to be called Tochen? We must be medayek in all three.

The Mishnah Berurah, se'if katan 38, explains that the vegetable is **talush**, detached. Naturally, when it is still growing, we have questions of **Kotzer** as well. And he says: **"ומדסתם משמע דאפילו בירקות שראוי לאכלן חיין"**—from the unqualified language, it seems to include even vegetables that can be eaten raw. **There is Tochen even with foods.**

Now, what is the significance of the Rema's later words? He says **"וכל זה לא מיירי אלא בחותך ומניח, אבל אם לאכלו מיד, הכל שרי"**—the prohibition described here applies when one cuts and leaves it for later, whereas cutting for immediate consumption is treated differently. Is the Rema **arguing** with the Mechaber or **explaining** the Mechaber? I am not at all sure it is an independent chiddush. I think there is a strong possibility he is explaining the Mechaber.

But the Mishnah Berurah in se'if katan 45 limits this heter. **If one cuts with an ordinary knife** for immediate eating, there is room for the heter. **With a specialized cutting instrument**, the Mishnah Berurah says **"נראה דאסור בכל גוונא"**—apparently prohibited in any event. He compares it with **Borer**, where a dedicated sorting instrument changes the halachah.

So what follows about an **ordinary knife used for later**? If the heter of *miyad* is necessary even with the regular sakin, then without it we seem to have a problem even with an ordinary knife. Unless, of course, the wording about **chayav** relates to a different level from the general **issur**. We need to distinguish those carefully.

A talmid points to another Mishnah Berurah, se'if katan 36. Good, good. We have to read what it says and how it applies. It's clear there are dedicated tools and ordinary kitchen knives, but **which qualifies as a specialized cutting instrument**? That too will be discussed, and different poskim may define it differently.

But I want to introduce my own question before we go further. What if the knife is **not sharp at all**? Suppose it's very difficult to cut vegetables *dak dak* with it. Could the extra **tirchah** itself be considered a **shinui**? We learned there are distinctions involving an unusual method of grinding. Is difficulty enough?

Don't rush to pasken! We haven't finished the sugya. I'm proposing a **svara** to investigate.

## Could a Blunt Knife or a Fork Be a Shinui?
I want to explain the question I am raising.

If I take a **blunt kitchen knife**, and try to cut tomatoes or cucumbers *dak dak*, do you know how much work it will be? You need a sharp knife to make those tiny pieces. Try handing somebody a dull one and telling him to chop vegetables finely. He'll say, "Give me a proper knife! I can't do this!"

So perhaps the extra effort is significant. We learned that a **shinui** can sometimes make a difference in the laws of Tochen. Could using a knife that makes this a tremendous **tirchah** be considered a shinui?

I know some people in Lakewood are going to scream at my reasoning. Let them scream! First tell me what's wrong with the **cheshbon**. **I am not announcing a practical heter.** I'm asking whether, on the principles we learned, difficulty in the action could count as an altered manner of doing it.

Now somebody asks: what about **crushing a tomato with a fork** rather than slicing it? If someone presses it with the **prongs** of the fork, or crushes it rather than cutting it in the usual manner, could that qualify as an unusual way to make smaller pieces?

But maybe using a fork is not such a clear shinui. Sometimes crushing is easier than chopping. Sometimes people crush their food with a fork every day. We need to understand **what the normal method is for that particular food**, not simply invent a label. A cucumber crushed this way may become soggy and nobody will want to eat it!

I'm giving you suggestions for analyzing the sugya, not necessarily advice for how to prepare a salad. We have to distinguish *shinui gamur* from a method that is itself normal.

Now let's return to the word **"ירק"**.

The Mishnah Berurah says the prohibition can apply even to **vegetables that are edible raw**. This needs understanding.

There are vegetables that people commonly cut small because they don't ordinarily eat them in large chunks: onions, garlic, and other strong foods. You could bite straight into an onion—but if you do, stay far away from me the rest of the day! Maybe for a week!

And garlic? People say it keeps away vampires. I don't know about vampires, but it will certainly keep away some of your friends.

I'm joking, rabosai. But beneath the joke is a real question. Maybe the purpose of chopping is **to make something otherwise difficult to eat become easy to eat**. That could give us a different way of understanding why some kinds of vegetable cutting may be closer to the classic melachah of **Tochen**.

Yet the Mishnah Berurah's wording seems to extend the concern even to a cucumber or other vegetable that one could have eaten whole. Why? Is the difference between foods edible raw and foods needing preparation decisive for liability, or only relevant to an additional question about the benefit of the action?

We're going to return to it. Remember the distinction; it may help us understand **ma'aseh Shabbos** later in the shiur.

## Chopping Before the Meal — Is the Food Prohibited Afterward?
All right, enough about onions scaring away vampires!

Open **Mishnah Berurah, Orach Chaim 321:45**. Toward the end of the paragraph he speaks about people cutting **onions and radishes** very small **an hour or two before the meal**.

He uses very strong language:
**"והחותכים הבצלים והצנון דק דק שעה או שתים קודם הסעודה, קרוב הדבר לומר שחייב חטאת, והבצלים אסורים באכילה."**

It's nearly certain, he says, that the act incurs liability, and the onions become prohibited to eat. That is an extraordinary statement. The preparation wasn't **samuch laseudah mamash**; it was an hour or two early.

Now I want to be medayek. The Mishnah Berurah names **onions and radishes**. Why those foods? Is it only *ma'aseh shehayah kach hayah*, because that was the practical case common in his time? Or is there something about those particular foods that makes finely cutting them more like the classic Tochen than cutting a raw cucumber?

Some Acharonim disagree with the Mishnah Berurah's stringent statement here, and I refer orally to a teshuvah in **Shevet HaLevi**. I don't have the exact siman before me now, so I don't want to put a definitive ruling in Rav Wosner's name without seeing his words.

But let's assume, for purposes of the question, that the act itself is considered prohibited. **What about the food afterward?**

We have learned in connection with **ma'aseh Shabbos** that the benefit gained from the prohibited act can sometimes matter. Suppose you cooked food: before Shabbos it was not ready to eat, and now it is. But a cucumber was **already edible raw**. Chopping it did not create the possibility of eating it.

Could we say that where the food could already have been eaten, **"לא אהני ליה מעשה"**—the action did not provide the decisive benefit—and therefore perhaps the consequences for eating it are different?

That's my **suggestion**, and we have to test it against the halachic sources. The Mishnah Berurah writes a clear concern regarding the onions; I am **not declaring** that finely chopped cucumbers are permitted, or that a forbidden act never affects the food.

A talmid asks whether a distinction exists between the person who performed the act and **other people**. That's a good question. The laws of **ma'aseh Shabbos** involve differences between *mezid*, *shogeg*, the performer, and others, and we must not flatten them into one rule.

Suppose the wife cut the vegetables early and somebody else comes to eat. Does the same result apply to him? What if a guest arrives afterward? Does it depend on whom the preparation was intended to benefit? The olam offers different explanations.

**I don't know yet.** I have to look into it.

Maybe tomorrow we'll have worked out the sugya better. The Mishnah Berurah's words demand careful reading, and I won't give you a psak from a half-developed **diyuk**.

## A Question About Ma'aseh Shabbos and Raw Vegetables
I want to go back to the **ma'aseh Shabbos** question. Suppose a cucumber was edible even before anyone cut it. The person chopped it *dak dak* too early. Is the food prohibited afterward in the same way as a food that only became edible through the prohibited preparation?

I'm suggesting a **sevara**, not a psak: maybe where the action did not create the possibility of eating the food, we could distinguish the result from an act that made something edible in the first place. But the Mishnah Berurah's wording is strong, and the halachos of **mezid**, **shogeg**, the person who performed the act, and other people must all be analyzed. A talmid challenges the premise; perhaps the cutting itself is considered a decisive new *ma'aseh* even when the vegetable was edible before.

Why did the Mishnah Berurah choose **onions and radishes** when he warned about chopping an hour or two in advance? Maybe because that's what people prepared in his time. Or perhaps he selected foods that are difficult to eat in large pieces, unlike a cucumber. I would like to use this distinction to argue for more leniency with other vegetables—but **not yet**. We're barely at the edge of the sugya, and I don't want to pasken prematurely.

I have to work through the words **"המחתך"**, **"הירק"**, and, above all, **"דק דק"**.

Before that, one more question: **What does "immediate" mean?**

The Rema distinguishes **"חותך ומניח"** from **"לאכלו מיד"**. The Mishnah Berurah compares the immediacy required here to the timing of **Borer**, close to the seudah itself. He refers to the time when people leave the **beis haknesses**. The shiur and practical examples of *samuch laseudah* must be learned inside rather than fixing an unqualified universal number of minutes.

You want to say **half an hour**? Good, let's see exactly how and when that applies. And if a person takes longer than that to get home from shul, how should he plan the preparation?

By the time I leave shul and reach my own house, it could be time for **Havdalah** already!

My wife has her own pshat in the whole sugya of timing. I know the signs. If the children are standing by the window, it's probably getting late. If **my wife** is standing by the window, I don't start debating whether there's half an hour left. **I close the sefer and run home!**

All right, rabosai. We have not finished the actual halachah, but now we're getting closer to the heart of it.

## Cutting Figs and Carobs for Elderly People
Now we turn to the Rema's words about **grogeros and charuvim**—dried figs and carobs—**"לפני זקנים"**, before elderly people.

The Rema says that it is also prohibited to cut them very finely in that situation.

The Mishnah Berurah, **321:39**, explains:
**"שאין יכולין ללעסו אם לא יחתכנו דק דק"**—they cannot chew it unless it is cut very small.

And he adds:
**"ולא אזלינן בתר רובא דעלמא"**—we do not simply follow what is true for the majority of people.

Why not? Most people may be able to chew these foods. But the person for whom you are preparing them **cannot**, and the food is **gidulei karka**, where the melachah of Tochen is particularly significant.

Now listen to the **diyuk** I want to make.

He says **"אין יכולין"**—they cannot chew. What about a person who **can** chew, but it is difficult, and cutting the food just makes it easier? Is that the same?

Maybe not. Perhaps where a person can eat it as it stands, chopping is only a convenience; but if he cannot eat it without the chopping, we have created the kind of preparation that qualifies as actual grinding **for him**.

Don't start showing me the sefarim yet! I know, I know, you're going to show me something. I spoke about it with a rav, and later I saw discussion in **Shemiras Shabbos Kehilchasah**. All right, I'm joking—show me the sefer!

The olam asks what happens with a **baby** or a **katan** who has trouble chewing. Perhaps the same principle could apply: distinguish a person **unable** to eat the food as it is from a person for whom it is merely **easier** if cut.

But do not leap from that to a blanket permission for children's food. **The actual person, actual food, method, timing and source** all matter.

Someone objects that the Rema's **l'alter** heter should apply anyway. Perhaps. Another asks whether the figs and carobs are a case in which the original food is not considered edible **for this particular individual**. It is a very good question.

We have to understand how **the Rema's "v'hu hadin"** relates to the Mechaber. Does it introduce a separate category, or is it part of the same general law?

And there is a beautiful approach from **Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach**. According to a teaching we will see inside, the whole idea of finely cutting vegetables as **Tochen** is connected to whether the mouth still needs to **chew and grind them afterward**.

If you still must chew the pieces, perhaps the knife has not accomplished what actual grinding accomplishes. But if the pieces are so fine that you could swallow them **without chewing**, that may be called *dak dak*.

This is an important distinction. I want to investigate the actual wording and the differences among the poskim before telling you what the practical shiur is.

## Does the Rema Agree With the Mechaber?
Rabosai, the Mechaber says **"המחתך הירק דק דק חייב משום טוחן"** (Orach Chaim 321:12). The Rema adds the case of cutting dried figs and carobs for elderly people who cannot chew them, followed by the heter for **immediate eating**.

My diyuk is in the Mishnah Berurah's words **"שאין יכולין ללעסו"**. If they **cannot** chew, perhaps chopping is genuine Tochen for that individual. But what if they can chew, only with difficulty? Is that different? What about an infant or a child? These are questions, not a general heter.

A talmid suggests the Rema is arguing with the Mechaber. I resist that. The **Beis Yosef** already discusses the heter of cutting for immediate consumption, and the phrase **"והוא הדין"** sounds like a continuation. Many poskim read the Rema as explaining rather than overturning the Mechaber.

We argue over **ein techinah b'ochlin**, whether the food is usable for a particular person, whether we follow the individual or the majority, and how the heter of **l'alter** applies. I hear the student’s svara, but it must explain the Rema's words, not just create a new distinction.

I also refer to an unusually sharp responsum of **Rav Moshe Feinstein** defending the immediate-use heter and challenging an overly stringent reading, while comparing the **Chazon Ish**. We must locate the responsum before quoting his exact ruling.

The central unresolved question remains the definition of **"dak dak"**, and the next portion of the shiur will analyze it carefully.

## Back to the Rema — and Finally, "Dak Dak"
Rabosai, we're still arguing over whether the **Rema** is explaining the Mechaber or disagreeing with him. One of the talmidim suggests that **ein techinah b'ochlin** changes the meaning of the entire case, because an elderly or seriously ill person may be **unable to eat** a food others can chew. For this person, chopping really does create an edible preparation.

I hear that. But how do you read **"והוא הדין"** in the Rema? If you say he's suddenly arguing with the Mechaber, show me **from the words**. He sometimes quotes passages in the Beis Yosef that the Mechaber left out. That may explain the insertion without inventing a new machlokes.

The student presses me on *l'alter*. What if the person needs the food **immediately**? What if a baby can eat it but only with difficulty? What if cutting is done for **safety** rather than to make it grindable? These may be different questions. I will think about them.

All right, **Shabsele**, let's not spend the whole evening on this one reading. I don't mind learning it all again tomorrow, but we have to move on! It's excellent **food for thought**. I do not want you to forget the central question: **is the food already edible for this particular person or not?**

I joke with a talmid about giving him **semichah** for his chiddush. You can buy semichah on the internet for twenty dollars, I tell him, but I'll make sure my phone number isn't attached to it! I'm joking; I welcome the questions.

Now the important part: **"דק דק"**. It doesn't merely say *dak*. It says *dak dak*. What size is meant? Is it almost pulverized, like the expression **"דק מן הדק"** by the **ketores**? Does cutting in one direction differ from chopping both lengthwise and across the width? These are the questions I want to examine through the **Biur Halachah** and the different poskim.

Don't give me the maskanah before we've read the words!

## The Biur Halachah: We Do Not Know the Exact Shiur
Open the **Biur Halachah on Orach Chaim 321:12**, by the words **"המחתך הירק דק דק"**.

We have spent time on **"המחתך"** and **"הירק"**. Now I want to concentrate on **"דק דק"**.

The Biur Halachah discusses cutting vegetables into large and small pieces. He quotes the **Rambam** and refers to the **Yere'im**, who says that **"שיעור דקותן לא נודע לנו"**—the precise degree of fineness is not known to us. Therefore a person must be very careful before claiming that cutting somewhat small pieces is outside the prohibition.

That is the simple cautious approach: make the pieces **somewhat larger**, rather than getting into a doubtful shiur. But I want to understand how several gedolei haposkim defined the line.

It's a **three-way machlokes**, and I want you to listen. These are not arbitrary rulings. Each reflects a different **havanah in the sugya**.

The first approach is that of **Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach**. His reasoning connects *Tochen* to the work the **teeth** still need to do. If the vegetable pieces remain large enough to require **chewing**, then in his analysis the cutting has not finished the work of grinding. If they are so finely chopped that one can swallow them without chewing, they are closer to *dak dak*. This idea appears in **Minchas Shlomo 1:91:13** and is discussed in Shemiras Shabbos Kehilchasah.

But the Biur Halachah's uncertainty is not erased simply because we have located one posek's definition. We must recognize different **shitos**.

The second is an approach attributed to **Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv**. He relates the standard to what is normally done when cutting vegetables **for salad during the week**. If the pieces are of the ordinary finely chopped size for that household or individual, they can be regarded as *dak dak*; a person should cut **larger** than that.

I have a kashya. One family makes a very chunky salad. Another makes everything tiny. Does the halachah really depend on personal habit? My mother and my wife have very different ideas about what a salad should look like!

My mother's bowl was huge, with lettuce and cucumber sticking out every which way; my wife chops everything so small that the same salad fits in a tiny bowl. Neither woman is lazy. They simply prepare different styles of salad.

So what do you tell them? Does each one's **weekday standard** determine what is considered fine for Shabbos? That's what we have to understand in this reported approach. The exact published responsum and qualifications require source review.

There is a third approach as well. Don't rush; let me explain it next.

## Three Ways to Define Fine Chopping
We have Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach's approach: a cut that still leaves **chewing** to be done may not be *dak dak*. And we have the approach reported from Rav Elyashiv: the cut is measured against a person's **ordinary preparation of salad**.

Now let me tell you a third definition attributed to **Rav Nissim Karelitz**.

He distinguishes **pieces large enough to be eaten separately, one by one**, from very tiny pieces normally eaten **together as a mixture**. If I can pick up one small piece of cucumber or carrot and eat it by itself, perhaps it still has the character of a separate piece. If it is so tiny that one eats a number together as a mouthful, he views that as an indicator of *dak dak*.

A talmid argues with me: "But I can pick up a tiny piece! And some children take salad apart and eat each vegetable by itself!"

I hear, I hear. Don't dance on the words. The question is not an isolated eccentric action, but the **ordinary way this size of food is eaten**.

Now, listen to the **lomdus**. I think each posek is emphasizing something different.

**Rav Shlomo Zalman** understands the significance of the cutting in relation to **chewing**. Did the chopping replace the job the mouth's teeth would ordinarily perform?

**Rav Elyashiv**, as quoted here, focuses on **preparing the food for eating**. Did you cut it in the way people normally cut vegetables to make an ordinary salad?

**Rav Nissim Karelitz**, as I understand him, is defining the distinction between a **large and a small piece** by its function as an individual piece or part of a combined mouthful.

This is **my analysis** of what lies beneath the three shitos. It helps us understand why the poskim may draw different lines even though everyone is reading the same words.

And it raises another question: **slicing** is not necessarily identical to **chopping**. When I cut large pieces for a vegetable platter, I am not necessarily doing the same action as dicing vegetables for salad.

If I take a cucumber and simply cut it into large strips, what is that? Is it *dak dak*? Is it the kind of *hachana* the poskim discuss? We'll need another source to understand cutting in **length and width**.

Rabosai, I want to cover a certain amount in every shiur. But there are beautiful questions here, and we must learn how to distinguish an actual **psak** from the **reason we think the posek arrived at it**.

## Rav Moshe Feinstein: Length and Width
Now the shiur refers to **Igros Moshe, Orach Chaim IV, siman 74**, discussion of Tochen, os gimel. Rav Moshe is quoted as distinguishing cutting **lengthwise alone**—making long strips—from **dicing in both length and width**. The exact responsum and subsection should be checked before publishing this as a blanket practical heter.

Think of a cucumber: cutting it into strips is not automatically the same action as reducing it to tiny cubes. But what if the strips themselves are extremely narrow? And do Rav Elyashiv and Rav Chaim Kanievsky disagree? We have to learn each source inside. The words **"dak dak"** might suggest cutting down the vegetable across dimensions, but that is a suggestion, not an independently established derivation.

Someone asks whether making food easy to serve counts as Tochen. Is preparing a vegetable platter the same as finely chopping a salad? The purpose and the resulting sizes are different; these are good questions.

### My Bubby's Kavod HaShulchan
Let me tell you a story about my **Bubby, aleha hashalom**, and the respect she had for a Shabbos table. She insisted on serving soda in the **smaller bottles**, even though the large two- and three-liter bottles were much cheaper. We pointed out the expense, and tried buying large bottles before Shabbos and refilling the small ones. She didn't like the inconvenience and mess of keeping those little bottles clean, but her concern for **kavod haShulchan** was so strong. These were sensitivities from an earlier generation.

All right, rabosai. Do we have a **minyan**? It's getting late. We've gone through an extraordinary machlokes and we'll have to continue the sugya. **We'll continue tomorrow**, b'ezras Hashem.

[Editorial note: the original recording explicitly stops here, before the analysis reaches a final psak. Distinctions about lengthwise slicing, normal salad size, and immediate use remain for detailed source review. This is not a definitive practical halachic ruling.]