Choosing to Use Immediately
- As mentioned previously, one of the conditions to permit performing an act of selection is that one is doing so for immediate use. Therefore, if a piece of cutlery falls in to a bag of food and gets mixed in with its contents, one may not simply remove it, rather one must ensure to make use of it when one takes it out. Similarly, if one has pages of divrei Torah mixed together and one notices one of the pages need to be placed in geniza, one should not just remove that page and put it aside, rather one should read from it first. (SSK 3:32)
Minor Use Now, Majority Later
- However, when one is eg peeling fruit, eggs etc for a meal that is non-immediate, this does not become permitted if one choose to eat a little of each item of food, as it is clear that the primary goal of the selection is for use at a later time, given it is not the norm to just eat a small amount of each item one peels (SSK 3:73, 80, PT 319:12)
Preparing For a Meal
- Included under the definition of ‘immediate use’ is that one may select items for an entire meal before that meal, even if it is a large meal with many guests and multiple courses, in a manner that one expects to finish one’s preparations in time for the meal but not before. Thus if one estimates it will take 2 hours to do the preparations for the meal, one may start selecting for the purposes of the meal from 2 hours beforehand but one may not do so before that (for example it would be forbidden to start 3 hours before the meal to allow an hour to rest, daven etc after finishing the preparations, before the start of the meal.) (SSK 3:68, 69)
Time to Warm Up or Cool Down
- If one has a number of drinks mixed together in the fridge, one may only take out the drink that one needs immediately prior to the meal (in the ‘preparation window’). However, if one wants drink to have time to warm up before drinking it, one may take it out from the mixture of drinks in the fridge early enough to give it time to warm up by the time one wishes to drink it, but not prior to this. The same criteria would apply to selecting a bottle from a mixture to put in a fridge to cool down prior to drinking it (SSK 3:79, 81)
Honouring Guests
- If one is peeling fruit (or doing other forms of selection) for guests and wishes to peel more than is necessary in order to show honour to the guests, this is permissible as the very honouring of the guests is considered an immediate usage (SSK 3:44, fn129)
- SSK also raises the possibility that it might be permitted to perform an act of selection to pick out an item from a mixture to lend to a friend, even if they won’t be using it immediately, as the act of lending it is a mitzva and is in-and-of itself considered an immediate use; however he leaves this matter somewhat unresolved (SSK 3 fn206) .
For Use in One’s Destination
- One may not select items from a mixture before one leaves home in order to make use of them in one’s destination, such as selecting a baby’s clothes from a mixture before one goes out for Shabbos lunch to enable one to change the baby at one’s hosts later in the day, even though this is one’s last opportunity to access the items before going out (SSK 3:fn219).
- Similarly one may not at night select items from a mixture in a room in one’s house where one has guests staying for use in the morning, even if in the morning one will not be able to access the room due to the guests sleeping (SSK 3:fn 220).
