Reply To: Melacha Sh’einah Tzricha L’gufa

Just looked up Reb Moshe over Shabbos, and there are two teshuvos. The first, in OC 1:115, and the second much expanded in OC 4:103. He says that as I asked before, in fact most rishonim disagree with the Rambam, and hold like Reb Shimon that melacha shetl”g is patur. So in fact kibuy is only drabanan, max. Because of this, if one has a choice of lighting extra flames of lower temp to keep cooked food warm, or simply being mechabeh, much better to do the drabanan of kibuy than the deoraisa of kibuy. He says that when wood was used, possibly you needed to do a lot of work to put out all the flames in different pieces of wood, so maybe was simpler to light one new small flame elsewhere. However, today, turning gas up or down is identical. Might as well turn it down, which is drabanan, than turn another flame on which is doraisa. (What is confusing to me is that lmayseh, the doraisa is mutar because of ochel nefesh, however, apparently Reb Moshe holds that we don’t use the heter of ON when we have an alternative, which in this case is a drabanan of ON, i.e., kibuy. He says that there is no heter to do kibuy to save gas.

Possibly one could leave 4 burners at 4 different temps and transfer food around, but this is obviously impractical, will heat up your house unbearably, and is quite possibly a sakanas nefashos, especially with kids. Also, most people have only one fleishig oven, so you could not do that with an oven. You must therefore adjust the temp for each recipe which was what Oomis was saying all along. The reason why a pilot light is different than electrical ignition is simply that if you turn off the electric one, you can never turn it back on till after YT, whereas the pilot oven can be turned back on if it goes out when you turn it down to prevent food from burning (assuming it is one connected flame, which some posters here have disputed).

Basically though to build up the sugya the variables are:

1) Is kibuy always considered melacha shetlg? (Seems nobody disputes that I have seen so far.)

2) Is halacha like Reb Yehudah that above is asur doraisa or like Reb Shimon that it is drabbanan? (Rambam say doraisa, Reb Moshe says most rishonim day drabanan.)

3) Does ON apply to kibuy or only to havara? (Even according to Rambam, Reb Moshe is mechadesh that kibuy to prevent burning is still permitted, as ON does apply to kibuy. The Rambam’s issur of kibuy to prevent oversmoking does not apply if food will actually be burnt and totally ruined. In that case ON allows kibuy.)

4) Which melachos does ON apply to? A machlokes Rebbe Yehuda and Rabbanan in Beyah, I believe (did not have chance to look up and remind myself, but may depend on what cannot be done erev yontof). Reb Moshe says there is nothing magic about havarah and bishul, and kibuy is also permitted.

5) What melachos did Chazal say mitoch, and why? (Mitoch allows one to do the melacha even not for ON, but according to some rishonim, only where there is some tzorech hayom ktzas.) Seems they said it by hotzaah and havaras aish, but not by other things or kibuy. Possibly because kibuy is not really necessary for preparing food, only to prevent it from getting ruined, so it is not an intrinsic food melacha. (However, kibuy can still be done if for the purpose of saving food, but not for saving gas.)

I am to tired to look into point 4 about machlokes R”Y and Rabanan regarding Lachem lchol tzarchechem (and Edaf.com is down now), but think this is the basic outline.

So bottom line is that Oomis certainly has backing, although turning off oven for no purpose seems problematic, only if it will affect food. However, I wonder about if house gets too hot, or kids are around that could burn themselves.

Incidentally, regarding turning on electric light on YT, I grew up in a different part of the country than Oomis, and remember hearing that some rabbonim would permit turning light on, but not off, if there was great need, although this is not mainstream these days, and may be one of the earlier piskei halacha of electricity, before things became more standardized in the klal.