SAA Responsa 2

SAA Responsa 2

Kashrut

1900

City Archives Amsterdam

Lasar Dünner

DünnerL

Jore De'a

TRUE

A non-Jewish maid by mistake pours a small pot of tallow then water into a large dairy pot, both on the fire, just before Shabbat.

Friday afternoon they were cooking food in a Jewish home for the Sabbath. The non-Jewish maid cooks, and the lady of the house comes and goes to supervise her work. On the oven, on one side there is a large pot full of cooked fish, with butter and spices and gravy, and on the other side a small pot of melted tallow. Both are standing on the burning stove. And while the lady was in the house the maid took the tallow in the small pot by mistake, for she thought it was melted butter, and poured it into the the fish pot. And when the lady returned and saw what had happened she shuddered. But the maid who had worked in Jewish hoes for many years tried to console her saying: don't worry my lady for I on my own recognized my mistake, and based on my long time experience I know that a small portion is cancelled inside a big portion, so I rushed to add water to the gravy; for sure all the tallow is cancelled. And within a half-hour before the start of the Sabbath the master of the house comes to the rabbi to ask what he should do.