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We are continuing in siman 7, where we learned about sucking the liquid from a food item. We learned that one can suck the natural liquids of a food into their mouth from outside of their mouth, with the exception of grapes and olives.
The Magen Avraham raises the possibility of another heter to suck something based on the concept of derech achila. There are two layers to understanding this question.
The first layer is that within the melacha of borer, there is a heter of l’alter, that although one cannot choose the bad from the good, if one takes the good from the bad and it is for immediate use, it is muttar. One of the ways to understand this heter is that it is part of the concept of derech achila. The issur of borer is to separate food in order to store it, as it is when the food gets stored that the action of separating receives the chashivus of a melacha. If it is separated as part of the achila process, it does not have the chashivus of a melacha, since the separating was merely part of the process of eating it. This heter only applies when separating good from bad, because the derech achila is to separate the food one wishes to eat in order to eat it.
The Rashba extends the idea of derech achila to the melcha of tochain. He writes that if a person wants to chop vegetables into fine pieces, it is muttar if done immediately preceding a meal, since it is part of the process of achila. This heter is not mentioned in the Gemara and is the Rashba’s chiddush.
The second layer of derech achila applies to the time of achila itself (as opposed to right before). The Biur Halacha discusses the possibility whether the fact that one is currently eating allows a person to even separate bad from good. In a similar vein, we know a person cannot perform borer with a utensil, but the Rosh discusses drinking contaminated river water, and writes that one could use a filter over their mouth while they are drinking the water.
Moving back to dosh, the question is whether we extend the heter of derech achila and permit dosh in our case of sucking the liquid from a food item. The Mishnah Berurah seems to understand that the heter of derech achila would apply over here. In other words, we now have an additional reason why one could suck the liquid from a food item, even when the food item is only next to one’s mouth.
On the other hand, the argument that derech achila should not apply is that borer is unique in that there is no meaningful change in the food. The chiddush of borer is the fact that one separated out the impurities in order for the food to be ready to be eaten. Therefore, when it comes to borer, the melacha is predicated on the fact that the purpose is for storage, but when it is not for storage (ie, when it is derech achila), it is not enough of a meaningful action to be considered melacha. The melacha of dosh, however, creates meaningful change in the food, by removing the physical husk in order to eat the food. When it comes to dosh, there already is a melacha of significance, so one could argue that derech achila cannot apply to remove the status of melacha from the action.
A proof to this perspective is that the next melacha discussed in the Chayei Adam is choleiv, milking, which is a toldah of dosh. The Gemara discusses a case of a person who is ill, and wishes to suck milk directly from the animal, which was known as a remedy for a certain type of illness. The Gemara says that if not for the tzaar currently being experienced by the person, it would be assur. If derech achila could be applied to cases other than borer, sucking directly from the animal should be muttar since it is derech achila. The fact that the Gemara does not entertain this possibility would indicate that derech achila does not apply to the melacha of dosh. If so, we would seem to have a proof from a Gemara that sucking is not muttar due to derech achila. We will discuss this question further in the upcoming shiur, be’ezras Hashem.
Summary
- One can suck the natural liquids of a food into their mouth from outside of their mouth. It is appropriate to be machmir on grapes and olives. All opinions agree that one can suck any item which is within a person’s mouth.
- The Magen Avraham suggests the reason one can suck the natural liquids of a food is because it is part of the derech achila, and the Mishnah Berurah accepts this reason.
