Cohn, Jacob. The Royal Table - VWC: Faculty/Staff Web

HOW DISHES ARE PURIFIED 133
considered glassware, because they are glazed, or should
they be considered earthenware, because of their base?
Cheap china is usually destroyed, but in the case of ex-
pensive dishes a competent rabbinical authority should be
consulted. Years ago, when enameled ware first appeared,
the methods of its purification were doubted because of the
secrecy which shrouded its formula. The authority of that
generation, Rabbi Moses Sofer, ruled that it must be burned
out in an open flame, rather than boiled out. 16
The boiling-out process can be described as follows. A
clean and pure vessel is filled brimful with water and
brought to a boil. The utensils to be purified should be
thoroughly cleaned and introduced into the boiling water.
A hot coal or iron is thrust into the water to make it run
over, and the utensils removed. It is customary
to wash
off the purified dish immediately upon its removal, but this
is not obligatory. 17 The dish in which the immersion is
made should contain sixty times the volume of the dishes
purified, for the theory of the purification
is that the ex-
pelled matter is immediately annulled by the boiling water,
and hence it is immaterial if it should be again reabsorbed
before the purified dish is removed. 18 Some hold that the
dish to be purified should not be used for twenty-four hours
prior to its purification, so that the expelled matter will be
technically "disgusting" and will not need to be annulled. 19
In that case, the vessel in which the purification is car-
ried out need not contain sixty volumes. 20 When no vessel
large enough to hold the dish to be purified is available,
it may be purified by parts: first one side is immersed, and
" Chasam Sofer, 113.
" Orach Chayyim ibid.
w Orach Chayyim, 452.
"Ibid.
*Ibid.