One of the “presents” which are given to a kohen is “challah”, which is a portion of dough separated from many types of baked items. [In these posts, the word “challah” will refer to the special part separated, and not to the braided breads eaten on Shabbos.] If the kohen and the challah are not tamei, then the kohen is supposed to eat the challah, but in practice nowadays all people and (just about) all challah is tamei and therefore it is burnt instead of being eaten.
The 3 primary conditions to determine if a given dough requires hafrashas challah are: (1) the dough contains at least a certain amount of the five primary grains (wheat, barley, spelt, rye, oats), (2) the food is one upon which the bracha of hamotzi would be recited if a person ate “enough” of the it, and (3) the dough is owned by a Jew at the time of kneading. Details of these conditions will be outlined in coming posts.
[Condition #1 – shiur challah] Dough/food only requires hafrashas challah if there is a given volume of wheat, barley, spelt, rye, and/or oats in the food (or a mixture of those grains). This volume, is known as the “shiur challah”, and there are two things to bear in mind when calculating the shiur challah: firstly, the true shiur is a volume measure, and the amount of pounds that equals to depends on which type of flour is being used. Secondly, there is a difference of opinion as to what the shiur challah is, and therefore we will give two amount – a lower amount from which one should separate without a bracha, and a higher amount from which one separates with a bracha. The shiur challah is as follows: oatmeal – 1.6 pounds (3.1 pounds with a bracha), oat flour – 1.8 pounds (3.5 pounds with a bracha), rye flour – 2 pounds (3.8 pounds with a bracha), whole wheat flour – 2.3 pounds (4.4 pounds with a bracha), and regular/white wheat flour – 2.5 pounds (4.7 pounds with a bracha).
[Condition #2 – Hamotzi] Challah is only separated from foods which require the bracha of hamotzi. The most obvious items that this includes are bread, rolls, matzah, bagels, and pitas. It also includes foods upon which one would recite hamotzi if they made a meal of them, such as cake, crackers, cookies, pies (pie shells), pizza, and pretzels. However, certain foods which are made from the five grains, such as pasta or hot cereals, do not require a bracha of hamotzi regardless of how much one eats of them, and therefore hafrashas challah is not required even if they contain a shiur challah worth of flour.
Hafrashas challah is required from pourable batters, such as those used in making sponge cake, but (not only must these contain a shiur challah, which they often do not, but also) the hafrashah for these types of foods is not made until after the cake is baked. [This is in contrast to most hafrashas challah which should preferably be performed as soon as the dough is formed.] Additionally, hafrashas challah is required from dough made with (flour and) any liquid, even if there is no water. Thus, a cake made with flour, oil, eggs, and fruit juice requires hafrashas challah.
[Condition #3 – Jewish ownership] Challah must only be separated if the dough belongs to a Jew when the flour and water are mixed together. If a dough is owned partially by a Jew and partially by someone who is not Jewish, challah must be separated if the Jew’s portion is equal to a shiur challah. For example, if a Jew owns 20% of a bakery and a non-Jew owns the other 80%, and a batch of cake contains 10 pounds of flour, no hafrashas challah is necessary; the Jew’s portion is equal to just 2 pounds of flour, and that is less than the shiur challah. If, however, the Jew owned 80% of the bakery then his share is equal to 8 pounds which is more than the shiur challah, and hafrashah (with a bracha) is required.
B. Commercial Hafrashah
The standard procedure for separating challah is for the person to take a small piece of dough (preferably at least the size of an olive) from the rest of the dough, recite a bracha of lehafrish challah min ha’isah (some leave out the last two words), say “harei zeh challah” (this is challah), wrap the challah in foil, and burn it in the oven.
In a retail or commercial setting, the standard method of hafrashah may not be possible if there is no shomer Shabbos in the bakery every time a batch of dough is made. In some of these situations, it is deemed appropriate that the non-Jewish staff saves a ball of dough from each batch that they knead, and then once a day a Mashgiach visits to be mafrish challah from those dough-balls. It is the Mashgiach’s responsibility to develop some sort of control system to ensure that, in fact, the staff leaves one dough-ball from each batch of dough.
In other settings, where the dough-ball system is not feasible, hafrashas challah is performed using a “tevel system”. This involves having a Jew create a dough that requires hafrashas challah but not actually doing the hafrashah. This leaves the dough as “tevel”, and the dough is either baked into something which doesn’t spoil (e.g., crackers, matzos) or put into the freezer. Each day, someone says a few sentences (the exact wording is available from the cRc office) that indicate that a bit of the tevel serves as the hafrashas challah for each new batch of dough made in the bakery.
The tevel system has a number of practical and halachic issues and hurdles to overcome, and is therefore only used as a last resort or as a backup. In the coming posts, we will outline 6 of those issues. [1] The challah and the “rest” of the dough, must have grown in the same (Jewish) year. This means that during the summer, as bakeries begin receiving flour grown in the current year, they must create a new tevel dough or matzah with the “new” flour. This is much easier when the bakery produces its own tevel dough/matzah, and even then the timing of it is more complicated when they are using specialty ingredients from other countries. [2] The challah and the “rest” of the dough must (essentially) be from the same type of grain. Therefore, if for example, the bakery will use oats or rye in their recipes, they cannot use tevel dough/matzah which is only made of wheat.
[3] Each day’s hafrashah from the tevel, converts a bit of the tevel into challah and eventually there is no more tevel left for hafrashos. For example, the cRc’s backup tevel declaration says that one gram of tevel will become challah each time a dough is created; this means that if the tevel dough weighs 2,000 grams and the bakery produces 100 batches of dough per week, the tevel will have to be replaced after 20 weeks. [4] The standard wording of the tevel system cannot create a hafrashah for flour which was both delivered and used after the Mashgiach made his declaration. In other words, if the Mashgiach makes the declaration on Thursday at 8:00 AM, flour is delivered at 9:00 AM, and that flour is used to create danishes at 10:00 AM, the Mashgiach’s declaration will not be effective for those danishes.
[5] A bracha cannot be recited when one uses the standard tevel system. [6] L’chatchilah, the challah and the “rest” of the dough, should be “mukaf”, which means that they must be in a certain proximity to one another. Some assume that mukaf can be accomplished if they are both in the same room, while others understand that if one of them is in a container – such as a freezer or box – that container must touch the bowl in which the dough is kneaded (or that when in a container it may be impossible to create mukaf).