1) Can you wrap a schnitzel in aluminium foil to keep it hot? 2) Can you put chicken soup in a thermos flask to stay hot? 3) What about putting kishke in aluminium foil so it doesn't dissolve in a chullent in a crockpot? 4) Can you put a towel over your food on a hotplate on shabbos morning to warm food up?


*Insulating is forbidden on Shabbos.* The concern is that someone will be anxious that his food isn't being kept warm enough and may forget it's shabbos and then place the food on a proper flame.

Some forms of insulating are forbidden even before shabbos begins. Read on.

In order for something to be *forbidden under insulating it requires 4 conditions to be present:*

1) *Total enwrapment, ie the food must be totally covered by insulation.*

It is *therefore permissable to partially cover or wrap any hot food or hot container of food.* As long as a significant area is left exposed it's ok, eg one may not completely wrap a hot potato on shabbos with aluminium foil to keep it warm. However, if you keep it open slightly, thereby exposing a part of the potato, it's ok.
Note, it's likely that the first layer of foil is ok if it's main purpose is to prevent food drying out. However a second layer isn't necessary.
Also, please note the aluminium foil would need to be precut.

Another example is it's ok to put towels over an urn or hot pot of soup as long as a significant part of the urn/pot is exposed.

2) *Original container, ie still in the first vessel.*

*However if the food was transferred to a second container, its ok to insulate it*, eg its allowed to cover a hot tea with a towel to keep it warm as it's in a second vessel, or another example is you could pour hot coffee into a thermos to retain it's heat as the thermos is a second vessel.

3) *Intention, ie the intent must be for insulating purposes.*

*However if the purpose is to protect the food, covering it even totally is permitted*, eg its allowed to cover a hot pot of soup with the lid even though the lid acts as an insulator, as the primary purpose is to protect the food. Even if your intention is also to keep the food warm, its ok.
Another example is leaving a kishke inside a chullent pot which is wrapped in silver foil is ok. The main purpose of covering the kishke is to separate it from the chullent, and so not an issue when aim is to prevent it dissolving into the chullent or to prevent it absorbing to much of the flavour of the chullent.

4) *Direct Contact, ie the wrapping material must be in direct contact with the food or container.*

*Therefore if the towel or wrapping is not touching the walls of the pot, it's ok to insulate.*, eg one can place a large plate on top of a pot and drape a towel over it as the insulating materials will envelope the pot whilst not touching its walls.

*If any of these 4 conditions are absent, insulating is permitted.*


There are 2 categories of insulation; one which generates added heat and 1 which only retains heat.

1) Generates added heat; when materials that are used do more than just insulate, as they produce heat, eg hot sand, salt, grass etc. This is a problem even when done before shabbos, eg wrapping a pot in an electric blanket is not ok even before Shabbos.

2) Only retains heat; eg blankets, dry straw, wheat etc. It's ok to insulate in this way before shabbos, but not on shabbos, eg it's forbidden on Friday night to completely cover a pot of hot soup with a blanket after the pot was removed from the blech. However on Friday afternoon you could do this to keep it warm until the meal.

Crockpots we looked at in an earlier session in terms of insulating. It could be that the crockpot with its cooked food inside it's metal cylinder is a form of generating added heat, which would deem it potentially forbidden to set up even before shabbos if so!?
The way to circumvent the issue is by lining the inside wall of the

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