Honoring one’s parents refers mainly to our behavior toward our parents when they are old.

Rabbi Yosef Bitton. YMJC | 130 Steamboat Rd. | Great Neck | NY | 11024

Last week we discussed the use on Shabbat of automatic devices or appliances that were activated before Shabbat.

Many Halakhic principles on this area are learned from the Shulchan Arukh (circa 1560) who authorized the use of a water mill -a turbine like device used to grind wheat, etc.- which was operated before Shabbat and continued grinding wheat ‘automatically’ during Shabbat.

The challenge for today’s expert Rabbis (poskim) is to apply this principle to our modern world.

A few examples:

It is permitted to operate a washing machine or a dryer before Shabbat begins because these machines are turned off automatically (the clothes, obviously, can not be removed until Shabbat is over). Ashkenazi Rabbis will oppose this rule if the appliance makes a noise (hashma’at kol, see Penine Halakha, 17).

The Sephardic approach is more lenient in these cases. In a business, for example, Rab Obadia Yosef authorizes to leave a fax or an answering machine active on Shabbat provided one can assume that the majority of those who might call during Shabbat are non Jews.

The same principle, reasons Rabbi Yosef, is applied if one owns a vending machine. If I own a vending machine I can leave it to operate during Shabbat. Except if the machine is in a jewish area, for example: a community Jewish Center or in Israel, to avoid the deliberate or involuntary activation of it by a Jew on Shabbat.

What about a Web site? Can I have a commercial Web site working for me online during Shabbat? B’H next week.

Rabbi Yosef Bitton. YMJC 130 Steamboat Rd. Great Neck NY 11024

Besides the prohibition of eating them together, our Rabbis indicated that it is necessary to wait between eating meat or a meat product and eating milk or a diary product.

The prevalent Sephardic Minhag is to wait six hours between meat and milk. The Rabbis gave different reasons for this prohibition, which equally applies after eating red or white meat.

There are other Minhaguim which indicate that the waiting period between meat and milk is 3 or 4 hours. This is mainly the Ashkenazi custom as well as the tradition of some families in our community. The general rule in Minhaguim is that everyone should follow the custom of his parents and families and also be respectful of other’s Minhaguim.

If necessary, one could be lenient with a child, especially an infant, and allow him or her to have milk or dairy one or two hours after eating meat .

It is permissible to eat meat after eating a dairy product, with no waiting period. Yet, you are required to wash your hands, wash your mouth or drink water or soda, and eat a solid Parve food before eating meat.

The Mitzva of honoring ones’ parents consists of assisting one’s parents and devoting to them part of our time and our physical effort. As we mentioned before (http://rabbibitton.blogspot.com/2010/10/kibbud-horim-how-to-honor-our-parents.html), this Mitzva applies mainly when our parents are older and need our help.

The Talmud (Kiddushin 32) asserts that children are not obligated to support their parents financially when the parents have the means to support themselves.

However, when the parents cannot work because they are too old, and they don’t have the means to support themselves, and the children have the means to do so, it is a Mitzva to support one’s parents financially and provide them with food, clothing, shelter, and to provide them at least with the minimum necessary for a livelihood with dignity.

It is imperative for a child who is providing support to his parents, to do so in the most honorable way possible.

The obligation to support parents in these circumstances, must be divided amongst the children based upon each one’s ability.

If the parents have the means to support themselves but they don’t want to spend from their own assets and/or they choose to live in a very low standard of living, then the children are not obligatedto provide additional financial assistance to their parents. The children, however, should not discouragetheir parents from spending more to improve their own standard of living.

If one has only one oven for meat and milk, it is forbidden to bake at the same time in the same oven meat and dairy products. However, if one of the foods is completely covered -food on an aluminum tray well covered with aluminum foil, for example- then the covered food could be placed to warm or cooked in a meat or dairy oven.

That is why we can eat Kosher food that was cooked or warm up on the airplane’s kitchen, because the food is hermetically covered, preventing an exchange of taste between the Kosher food and possible particles of non Kosher food absorbed on a non Kosher oven’s walls.

The same rule would apply in a case that we have a non Kosher oven and we need to cook or warm up in it Kosher food: Using hermetic aluminum cover (Some rabbinical authorities require a double cover in all these cases).

In normal circumstances, when you need to use the same oven for meat and dairy you need to:
1. Clean the oven thoroughly
2. Leave it without use for twenty four hours
3. Leave the oven on maximum temperature for 1 hour. After this process the oven is considered Parve because all particles of meat or dairy taste absorbed on its wall, disintegrated after this process and it can be used for meat or milk.