The Book of the Governing of My Household

31:1. Laws of Meat

The man should not purchase meat until he has taken counsel with his wife to see which type of meat she wants him to take, so that the wife cannot later say that it is dark meat, since she said that she wanted this meat.

But all of this applies well in a place where there is much meat, where each person can get the meat that they want; but in places where there is little meat, certainly each person cannot get the meat they want, as there are many who grasp onto every piece of meat, each one saying that he wants it, until they cause a huge dispute, and in the end it is he who is the strongest and knows how to fight, it is he who takes it for himself. It happens that the person who is honest or who can’t fight, after all the labor and the struggle of waiting for three to four hours in the butcher shop, in the end they give him a “jewel” of meat that is more bones than meat. When he brings it home, his wife begins to yell, saying that this is a piece of meat like a black star: “I want you to see how good and fat the meat the neighbor took is, but now I say that he [referring to the husband] isn’t good for anything, because he gives money for waste and mud,” and things like this and even more, as women do, etc. So, in a way, he who does not fight in the butcher shop and steal good meat fights in the house that does not appreciate the meat.

The truth is that, on the one hand, she has reason to yell, since she does not know what she is going to cook with those bones, and above all, because the meat is lean and there is no fat in the house at all, what is she going to cook for the Sabbath or for the holidays; and especially when the Sabbath is followed immediately by a holiday or a holiday and then the Sabbath, what should she cook from this meat for three days, that for even among the poorest of the poor there should be three small meals for the night and three for the day, so that there are eighteen meals desired, and the blessed woman cannot make meals from bones: thus, she has much right to yell and to fight.

But with all of this, the woman who fears God (the Name, may it be blessed) should think of how many hours her husband waited in the butcher shop until he received that “jewel” of meat, and also how much suffering the blessed man endured until he gathered the money to pay for this meat, and in the good woman’s thinking of the suffering that her husband went through until he brought this meat home, it is true that she has no right to yell or to cause a fight, God forbid, but rather, she should say to him: “My dear, do not feel sorry if there is no meat, or if it is dark or expensive; we will behead a small fowl and we will devise some other little dish and something of fish if there is some; and we will pass it as it will be.” With this, “it is for her fear of the LORD that a woman is to be praised” [Proverbs 31:30] in speaking such phrases with her husband, that there will always be “well-being without your ramparts, peace in your citadels” [Psalm 122:7].

283:2. Laws of Coffee and of Not Going to the Coffeehouses on the Sabbath

1. Whoever has headaches, which are called migraines, and his medicine is to drink two or three coffees, and this malady strikes him on the Sabbath, and he summons a gentile to make him coffee, and after he drank a coffee the headache passed but more coffee remained, he who has this malady is permitted to drink the rest of the coffee.

2. It is permitted for the Jew to go to the coffeehouse of the gentile, even if they know him, and to drink the coffee that is already made. And this is exclusively in the coffeehouse that Jews are not accustomed to going to; but in the coffeehouse that Jews are accustomed to going to, even if the coffee is already prepared, they cannot drink it, for the reason that the gentile sees that the Jews are coming to him, I say it is certain that he prepared the coffee for the Jews and it is forbidden. According to the custom that is followed now, in which they make a coffee separately for each person who enters the coffeehouse, it is forbidden absolutely, as they made this coffee for a Jew.

And for the many sins that the drinking of coffee on the Sabbath in the coffeehouse of gentiles has already permitted, “there is none to take thought of them and none to seek them” [Ezekiel 34:6].

Suffering, because there are some who also drink coffee with milk of the gentile on the Sabbath and are hindered in many prohibitions. Woe upon us for the Day of Judgment! Therefore “he who values his life will keep far from them” [Proverbs 22:5]. Woe upon them and woe upon the souls of those who say: “Because the Name, blessed be He, commanded us to delight in the Sabbath, I have no greater delight than on the night of the Sabbath, after I have eaten my good fish, my good meat, my good wine, in the hour of eating fruit, to smoke three or four tobacco cigarettes; there cannot be a greater enjoyment of the Sabbath than this in the world.” Woe upon him and woe upon his soul, that this enjoyment changes him for the worse, that many wounds are destined to come to him, whether in his body or in his soul. [ . . . ]

3. Those who, on the Sabbath evening, put a flask of coffee inside a pot full of sawdust or cinder and seal the flask well and put the pot inside the stove and the cinders or the sawdust is heated from the heat of the stove and the coffee boils, they do well. And I, the insignificant, my custom is in the winter to put the pitchers of coffee in a pot in the stove and the night of the Sabbath when it is desired, the coffee is already hot; and above all, that this hot water is very necessary for the privy and for washing the hands with it without any doubt.

Coffee—It is good that care is taken on the Sabbath to first pour the coffee into the cups and then to toss in the sugar.

To make coffee with milk on the Sabbath is forbidden and thus it is forbidden to make egg yolk beaten with sugar. [ . . . ]

A Jew can put to heat in front of the fire coffee that is already made on the eve of the Sabbath. And thusly one can heat it on the stove (as we are advised in the laws of Hamin, law 7). Those who are accustomed to tossing ground coffee in the cup and then pouring on top of it boiling water, there is a basis for their opinion, and he who is the strictest, blessings shall come to him.

Coffeehouse—Those who go to the coffeehouse even during the weekdays hinder themselves in many prohibitions and even more so those who go on the Sabbath. First is that coffee is forbidden and they drink it; and transgression results in transgression; it is certain that the gentile does not strain the water to make the coffee and it is possible that there are some worms, especially in the summertime.

And even more that they lagged in many forbidden things: be it things of commerce, and this is called profaning the Sabbath [ . . . ], be it gossip, be it jest, be it obscenity, as said the passage: “where there is much talking, there is no lack of transgressing” [Proverbs 10:19].

The people also say: “to talk much is to err much.” This is the path of the evil inclination: first those are seduced who talk of the wheat and the cities and similar topics; then that they speak of the gentiles, of wars, of angels, of the Tanzimat; then, of Israel, of Reuben who is in this way, and Simon in that way, until they take up the esteemed rabbis and the rabbi of the city in their mouths. [ . . . ]

Woe upon them! those who waste the day of the holy Sabbath in the coffeehouse playing bingo, cards, checkers, billiards, chess, gambling, domino, etc. Is it not enough, for our sins, that during the whole week a book does not touch our hand, neither in the day, nor in the night, if still on the holy day on the Sabbath we waste it with games and perambulating, what are we and what are our lives? To waste lives in wheeling and dealing and playing games and perambulating—and the Torah, what will become of it?