Tag Archives: Pump Pots

Getting Into Hot Water: Urns & Pump Pots in Halacha – Shabbos & Yom Tov

Getting Into Hot Water: Urns & Pump Pots in Halacha – Shabbos & Yom Tov

By: Rabbi Zvi Goldberg

Spring 2020

Electric urns greatly enhance our oneg Shabbos and Yom Tov by allowing us to effortlessly enjoy hot drinks. However, the technological advances that permit us to use urns on demand come along with a host of halachic considerations that must be carefully reviewed.1

A summary of the various halachic considerations in the usage of electric urns, pump pots and commercial urns are addressed in this article. An urn is a heater that lets the water out through gravity using a lever at the bottom of the urn. A pump pot uses a pump at the top to force the water out. In this article, the term urn is used generically to refer to a pump pot, as well (except as noted in the section about the water level tube).

Keep in mind that there are many different types of devices, and not every situation is applicable to all of them.

Heating, Adding […]

Getting Into Hot Water-Urns and Pump Pots in Halacha: Part One, Tevila and Workplace

Getting Into Hot Water-Urns and Pump Pots in Halacha: Part One, Tevila and Workplace

By: Rabbi Zvi Goldberg

Spring 2014

Remember when making coffee meant putting a kettle on the stovetop and waiting until it whistles?  Today, electric heating has taken over the market in order to fill the need of having hot water on-demand.

Two of the popular types of electric hot water heaters on the U.S. market are the common aluminum urn with a plastic spout, and the relatively newer ‘pump pot’, which requires that you push down on the top plunger to pump out the water.

I. TEVILA

The Torah requires that utensils used for a meal be immersed in a mikvah if they were in possession of an aino Yehudi at any time.  The Talmud1 states that mechamei chamin, hot water kettles, also require tevila. Rav Moshe Feinstein2 explains that there is a novelty in this ruling.  One can argue that a kettle requires no tevila at all. The kettle doesn’t perform any meal preparation function since heated water has not really changed; it is just water that is hot. The Talmud is teaching that […]