Torah · Halacha YomitLemon Juice on ShabbatRabbi Uri Nahum · October 26, 2026 · 39 Melachot-15Play+30Position0:00—Save⌄ShareTranscript0:00Okay, so we're in the melacha of dash, and we're talking about0:06sochet. So there's always so much to talk about, you know, in all these halachot,0:10but our purpose is to be able to go through the 39 melachot in one year,0:14and we're going to try to just give, like, some more common cases that0:20come up in0:21terms of melachot. So today, in sochet, we want to speak about making lemon juice.0:26Lemon juice, is that?0:28Yeah, lemon juice.0:29Okay, so if you look at the Shulchan Aruch, Shulchan Aruch writes,0:32Mutar lishot limonis.0:35Okay, what is limonis?0:36Can you guess?0:38Very good.0:39So lemons—says Shulchan Aruch—you squeeze lemons.0:42You take the juice out of lemons.0:45That means you can make yourself a regular lemon juice,0:47not a problem.0:47You can take the lemons and you can0:50squeeze. So they bring down,0:51what's the reason with this?0:53The answer is because nobody did it for drinks.0:55People did it usually to dip their bread in it.0:58Now, the Rambam talks about lemons only in his writings.1:03He doesn't write—the Rambam wrote a lot of different1:05books—in his halachot he doesn't talk about lemons.1:07The reason is because in the times of Rambam, he didn't have lemons.1:10It wasn't so common.1:11They only used it for refuah, only for medicine.1:14So that's why he discusses it.1:16Lemons isn't— I guess relatively to the world is a new invention.1:20It wasn't there by1:22Eitz Hadaat, you1:22know what I'm saying? It was something that was grafted later on that came to the scene.1:26So in the times of Shulchan Aruch, he writes1:30mutar, l'shot demonis. Why? Because they didn't, what's it called,1:33they didn't use it for drinks.1:34They use it for ochel, either Refuah in the times of Rambam, but they use it for food.1:39People use it to dip their bread in it. You know, it was part of the thing.1:43So that's what he writes.1:44However, the Shabbara already brings from the1:48Acharonim. He says, I'll read you the words:1:57בזמן הזה שידוע שממלאים חביות למאות לשתות עם פאנץ', says in our days that they fill barrels and barrels to drink2:01punch. He says, מאות, hundreds.2:02We could say today, in the millions of barrels.2:05People today, lemon juice is being used also for drinks, lemonade and everything else.2:11So he says,2:18maybe it fits what, like we said about other juices.2:22Now, we never gave this little background as an introduction,2:26but when it comes to squeezing fruits, there's really three categories.2:30Category number one is things that are asur from the Torah, which are olives and grapes.2:35Those you can never squeeze.2:36That's2:37asur min haTorah. Category number two are things that are all other fruits that people normally squeeze for juices,2:45like in our days, let's say, just for example, oranges,2:49okay? Category number three are things that people don't squeeze at all for juice.2:53They don't use it ever for juice.2:55So in category number two, it's2:58asur miderabanan. Category number three, it's even mutar.3:00People don't use it for juice,3:02so therefore it'd be mutar,3:03okay?3:03So now, in our days, almost everything is juiced,3:07if you think about it.3:08Everything is done,3:10they juice it.3:11They even take out the celery,3:12you know, they have juice from celery and all these different things.3:14So technically, in our days, almost, I don't want to say everything, but almost everything is going3:19to be in category number two because people juice it.3:22People juice3:23it. Does it have to be3:24raw? It doesn't have to be raw, but it has to be commonly done,3:27right? So now, in the times of Shulchan Aruch, the lemons were not done for juices.3:31Comes the Mishnah Berurah, says, Yeah, but you know what?3:34Things have changed.3:35The halachah writes what he writes based on his times.3:37Nowadays, things have changed,3:38and therefore it should be a problem.3:40And that really is the approach of many, many3:44Acharonim, is that lemon juice—it's asur to make lemon juice, to squeeze it into water, to3:47squeeze it.3:48Now, what you could do, especially with lemon juice, nobody squeezes an entire lemon to3:53drink.3:54What you do is you put a little bit of juice,3:56you add water, sugar.3:57So what you could do is that you could start with the sugar.4:00Sugar is a solid.4:02If you're one of those people that don't eat sugar like me, you could put Splenda,4:06you could put stevia, anything else that's a solid,4:10and then squeeze the lemon on it.4:12Like we said, you're allowed to squeeze on top of the solid, right?4:16So,4:17ochel l'ochel. So again, he's squeezing on top of that, and then add your water that way.4:20In such a way, you could technically make fresh lemon juice on Shabbat.4:25But to do it directly on water, I'm not going to tell you that4:30everybody is oser, the Aruch Mateh... but because of this machloket, there's a lot of people that are4:34oser. And again, although it might be just derabanan, still4:37it's derabanan. So the best way to make lemon juice on Shabbat is, like we said, like I think4:41Bnei Shab brings this4:43remez: sulam—sukar, limon, and then mayim,4:47okay?4:47Don't forget the4:48vav. Okay?4:49Sukar, limon, mayim.4:50First the sugar, or whatever you want to use,4:52and then the lemon,4:54and then afterwards add the water.