GOOD ADVICE

I am usually fairly certain that my employers are happy that I am not in customer service. They should be especially happy today.

This morning our customer-service telephone person told an end-user: "If you can't touch the water, don't pour it on your child."


IF YOU CAN'T TOUCH THE WATER, DON'T POUR IT ON YOUR CHILD


Overhearing this brought two things to mind:
1. "No no, you should hold it under till the skin peels off easily. Then dip it in cold water to maintain the nice red colour."
2. Yad soledet bo ("the hand recoils from it"). One does not violate the rule against melacha on shabbes if one does not heat something to the temperature at which, upon touching it (or the vessel containing it) one instinctively pulls away one's hand.
So, as the main example, and not veering into maachal ben Drosai, one may make tea with water poured ('irui') from the primary vessel ('kli rishon') in which one kept the water hot into the second vessel (('kli sheini')), which will decrease the temperature (yet further), whereupon one places the teabag in the warm water of the second vessel. Or, if the water is too hot to touch, one pours it yet again - into a third vessel ((('kli shlishi'))). Note that the water-heater (primary vessel, the kli rishon) has to be either plugged in or placed on the blech before shabbes.

But this is natural - surely the customer would've grasped this?


The skin of a child is more sensitive than that of an adult, and even among adults, sensitivity to heat varies. Wherefore yad soledet bo is relative, and you clearly shouldn't have your brat make tea on Saturday.