Question:
Rabbi,
I made a foolish mistake over Shabbat and wanted to use the opportunity to learn from it. In short, I accidentally poured hot water from an urn directly into a cup containing tea essence that had been prepared before Shabbat.
It was a genuine mistake—my mind was essentially on autopilot—and I realized what I was doing almost immediately. I stopped before much of the hot water had entered the cup. I then discarded the tea essence and prepared a new cup properly, transferring the hot water from the kli rishon to a kli sheni and then to a kli shlishi containing the tea essence.
I had a few questions:
Since this was an accidental act, would it nevertheless constitute a violation of Shabbat?
If it did constitute a violation, would you recommend any particular form of teshuvah?
Would this have constituted a melachah at all? The urn keeps the water at or above yad soledet bo (the manufacturer says it maintains the water at 85°C), but I stopped pouring almost immediately. It therefore seems unlikely that enough hot water entered the cup to bring the tea essence itself to yad soledet bo. Unfortunately, I did not test the temperature of the essence before discarding it, but based on how little hot water was transferred, it seems highly unlikely that it reached that temperature.
I would appreciate your guidance, both regarding the halachic status of what happened and how I should think about it going forward.
Thank you.
Answer:
Hello,
If what you are writing is true, that the tea essence did not reach yad soledes bo, then you didn’t do any issur. Similar to the halacha of pouring hot water into a bathtub of water, since the mixture will not reach yad soledes bo, it is not considered cooking. See siman 318-11.
Hatzlocha
