Torah · Halacha YomitBorer - Defining a MixtureRabbi Uri Nahum · November 3, 2026 · 39 Melachot-15Play+30Position0:00—Save⌄ShareRecorded by BSD Productions.Transcript0:00Okay. All right, so yesterday we were speaking about the borer and all the0:05melachot borer. Yesterday we spoke that you need a mixture.0:09A mixture needs to have two ingredients, and we spent time yesterday describing0:13what could qualify, not qualify, and we said that's the first thing you got to look at.0:17When you see a mixture, are there two ingredients or not?0:21If there's no two ingredients, something to talk about. If there's two or more ingredients,0:25then it will be0:28prama borer. Next thing today is: what is a mixture? How do you define a mixture?0:32What's called a mixture? For example, this is going to sound a little ridiculous,0:37but let's say I have a group of people right now. I have 20 people in the room,0:41and one guy, I don't want him to be here. I physically take the person,0:45and I take the person, I physically take him out of the room.0:49Is that borer? And the answer is, well, I have 20 different people.0:53That's a mixture, right? I have 20 different ingredients.0:55But there's no mixture here, right? Each person stands out1:01and sticks out. No mixture.1:03Even if it wouldn't be human beings, even if it would be people the size of human beings,1:07but there's ingredients that are like that, are standing. Let's say there's 20 jackets1:11hung up, and the way the people are sitting right now in the room, 20 people are in the room,1:1520 jackets are hung up. One of the jackets I don't want in here. Why?1:19I don't know. I want to give a certain image to my living room.1:23My kid's jacket is all dirty, so I pick it up and I take it out.1:27I have the in-laws coming in. I don't want them to see, so I take it out.1:31So is that called borer? And it says no. Even though there's 20 different jackets1:34over here, but they're not mixed together. They have to be mixed.1:38So this is another thing that we also have to define: what's called mixed.1:42If I have something on the same table, is that mixed?1:47So what is that exactly? So in order to be mixed, rule number one,1:50it's got to be touching each other. If they're not touching each other,1:54so for example, the case of the table, when I have things on the table, many different things on the table,1:59that's not called a ta'arovet. That's not called a mixture because they're not touching2:02each other. They have to be touching each other, but even2:06touching each other, now it gets a little bit complicated because we find a lot2:11of extremes. For example, the Rama brings down in the name2:14of Terumat HaDeshen is that when you have big fish, right?2:19He's talking about big fish. We're talking about probably, you know, whole fish, the sides of fish.2:22I don't know exactly what the big fish is. He says even though it's big fish,2:27they're mixed together, they're touching each other, but even though you could clearly see which one is what,2:31he calls that a ta'arovet. And therefore, in such a case, if a2:35person—remember, if it's a ta'arovet, to be a problem is when you take what you2:39don't want and you take it out. So again, we're trying to explain what's called a mixture.2:43So you see already from the2:46Rama, he brings us a halacha, and everybody follows this, is that even big things2:50could be technically an issue.2:54So it's a little hard, but Aruch HaShulchan says anything on the same plate,2:58if they're touching each other, if it's on the same plate, that's also3:02called—that would be called also a ta'arovet, and to remove it would be a problem.3:06So a practical halacha lemaaseh case, for example, a person's eating chicken,3:10rice, potatoes, whatever it is, and he ate his chicken on the bone.3:13Now he's got the bones on the plate. To take the bones off the plate3:18would be asur because you had a mixture,3:22different ingredients. You took what you don't want, which is the bones, off the plate.3:26That would be a problem. So what are you supposed to do? You could push it to the side of the plate.3:29They're still touching the food. You could push it to the side of the plate, and that would be okay. But to remove it3:33from the mixture, to remove from not touching anything, to remove off the plate,3:37that would be an issue. Another way to avoid a3:41problem of a mixture, if you ever get stuck and you don't know what to do, it's not always3:46practical, but one way is to, instead of taking3:49what you don't want out of the mixture, you could also separate3:54the whole mixture. What does that mean? If I have, let's say, a bowl of jelly beans.3:58My kids are flipping out. They don't want the pink jelly bean. Okay, okay,4:01okay. We're gonna have World War III over here. Okay, so now, if I would4:06take—what I really want is gonna be too long. If I take the three jelly beans,4:09three out of fifty jelly beans, you know, it's much easier, but that'll be4:14borer. What you could do also is take away the mixture. I could4:18roll the ball on the—I can roll all the jelly beans on the table,4:21and now they're not touching each other. They're all on the table, they're not touching each other. There's no mixture.4:26Once there's no mixture, so then I can take what I don't want and4:30remove it. Remember, there's only a problem of borer4:33if there is a mixture of two different ingredients. A mixture means4:37you have to be touching each other at least. So if there's no mixture, each one is4:41clearly—you could identify each one—so there's no issue. You could create that4:45also by taking things and spreading it out, and now you see everything4:49by itself, and then you could select what you don't want and you can select what you want.4:53So that is today's halacha. There's a lot more detail to continue.