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    27 Jul KASHRUS QUESTIONS OF THE WEEK

    Posted at 21:39h in by
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    Can one open a bottle of soda or can of tuna on Shabbos? If I hold that it’s ok to open and my friend does not, can I open the bottle or can for them?

    If you hold that you’re allowed to open the bottle on Shabbos you’re not doing anything wrong if you open it up. The question is for the people who don’t hold you’re allowed to open it, are they allowed to ask you or are they allowed to use that soda bottle that they held couldn’t be opened on shabbos. The simplest way of answering is, if the people who you’re opening it for believe that there is a halachic basis to be lenient and you are not being mechalel Shabbos by doing so, but they themselves want to be machmir as a personal chumra, then you are allowed to help them.

    If however, the people who are not opening it believe that opening the bottle or can is true chillul shabbos, there is no room for leniency.

    It is very well known that one of the big poskim in Yerushalayim, Rav Yisroel Yaakov Fisher from the eida chareides, believed that you can open soda bottles on shabbos. The story goes that when he used to come to Shalom Zachurs in Yerushalayim Friday night, and there were many people who did not open soda bottles, he would go around opening soda bottles saying “I hold it’s permitted, I’ll open it for all the people that don’t.” So again, I think most people are lenient and even if they won’t open up bottles, they won’t be so strict that they won’t let other people open it. However, if you really believe it’s chillul shabbos, you should not allow that to happen because the halacha is that even if a non-Jew does something that you’re not allowed to do on Shabbos, you’re not allowed to benefit from it. Cans of soda are the same.

    May I eat something that was brought in from the street by a person who holds in an eruv when I don’t?

    How far do I hold that the eruv is not to be relied on? If someone considers carrying inside the eruv that he doesn’t rely on as chillul Shabbos, then you can’t use something that somebody else carried in the eruv because you are benefiting from someone else’s chillul Shabbos. However, if it’s your chumra that you don’t hold by the eruv and you don’t consider carrying in the eruv chillul Shabbos, then you can be more lenient.