Borer - Delays in food preparation

Question:

1) Let’s say a person wants to separate the good from the bad in his preparations for a Shabbos meal. He is expecting guests to arrive in an hour and the person assumes that it will take an hour to prepare for the meal. So the preparations (including borer activities) begin one hour prior to the meal, in accordance with the requirement of miyad.

Let’s say that after a half hour into the meal preparations, one is informed that the guests that one is expecting are running late, and will only arrive in another hour. At this point, may one continue preparing for the meal (which includes borer activities), since the preparations will end up being concluded a half hour before the meal will actually begin (since one would have to wait for the guests before beginning)? Or must one stop preparations and only resume them a half hour before the guests will arrive so that the preparations will end immediately before the meal will begin?

2) Similarly, let’s say a husband is preparing for the Shabbos meal and borer activities will be included as part of the preparation. His wife tells him to let her know once all preparations have concluded so that she can come to the meal. Is this a permissible arrangement? Once the husband finishes preparations and then goes and informs his wife that the meal is ready, would this not be a violation of the requirement of miyad, since one would be planning to delay the commencement of the meal after the preparations have already been concluded? If its permissible, does it matter how long the delay will be in between?

Answer:

Hello,

1. It would stand to reason that once you know that you will not be starting the meal until later, that it is no longer considered for miyad, and the borer activities will have to wait until later.
2. Calling his wife to come to the meal, is also considered part of the preparations, and the small amount of time it takes for her to come to the table is not considered a hefsek. However, if his wife will then only start doing other things after being called, then it would no longer be considered miyad. For example, if he tells her that the meal is ready and then she says, ok now I can go daven, then he will not be able to consider the preparation time as part immediate preparation for the meal.

Best wishes