Fresh, Hot Challah

The Biur Halachah uses strong language, criticizing those who abandoned this practice in favor of purchasing bread from a bakery, describing it as a diminution of the honor of Shabbos.

However, the Shu”t Ohr L’Tzion tempers this critique. He explains that the Chofetz Chaim was referring specifically to those who purchased ordinary weekday bread from non-Jewish bakeries instead of proper challah for Shabbos, an act that indeed reflects a lack of kavod Shabbos.

We must therefore address a fundamental tension: in a scenario where the dual objectives of this custom, the honor and delight of oneg Shabbos versus the fulfillment of hafrashas challah, stand in opposition, which value assumes halachic priority?

Rav Elyashiv (Hilchos Shabbos B’Shabbos, vol. 1, ch. 1, fn. 30) rules that if one enjoys bakery challah more than homemade challah, purchasing challah is not considered a slight to the honor of Shabbos. On the contrary, since the primary goal is oneg Shabbos, one who derives greater enjoyment from bakery challah is fulfilling the mitzvah in the optimal way, even though this entails missing out on hafrashas challah. According to this, oneg Shabbos takes precedence.

Returning to our original question – fresh challah weekly or frozen challah with occasional hafrashas challah – it would seem, based on Rav Elyashiv, that one should bake fresh challah each week if that enhances oneg Shabbos, even at the expense of not performing hafrashas challah.

There is an additional, widespread custom to leave challah in the oven on Friday so that it remains warm for the Shabbos meal. At first glance, this practice appears to lack a clear source. A skeptic might argue that people simply prefer the taste of warm challah. However, if it’s just about liking warm challah, then there’s no article here, just good taste. Which means there must be something more beneath the surface.

The Gemara in Menachos (96b) describes how, during the festivals, the Kohanim would display the Lechem Hapanim to the people, declaring: “See how beloved you are before Hashem!” A miracle occurred whereby the week-old bread remained as fresh and warm as when it was originally placed on the Shulchan. The Rashba notes that the pilgrims could even see steam rising from the bread that had been baked a week earlier.

Tosafos, however, points out that this depends on a dispute: was the Lechem Hapanim baked on Friday or on Shabbos? The Gemara’s description, that the bread remained warm from the time it was placed, implies it was baked on Shabbos and placed while still hot.

However, according to the opinion that the baking occurred on Friday, the bread would naturally have cooled before being arranged upon the Shulchan. While one might posit that the bread was miraculously preserved in its heated state from the moment of its Friday baking, the Shoshanim L’Dovid notes that such an interpretation fails to align precisely with the Gemara’s terminology. The Gemara explicitly states that the miracle sustained the warmth from the time of its placement, rather than from the time of its initial baking.

Tosafos in Chagigah (26b) offers two approaches. One is that the miracle was that the bread remained fresh, though not necessarily warm. Alternatively, and more relevant for our discussion, even according to the view that it was baked on Friday, the bread was kept in the oven to maintain its warmth until its Shabbos placement. In that case, it remained warm naturally overnight, and only afterward did a miracle sustain its warmth throughout the week.

There are kabbalistic sources that view our challah as a commemoration of the Lechem Hapanim. Based on this, the custom of leaving challah in the oven takes on deeper meaning: just as the Lechem Hapanim, according to Tosafos, was kept warm in the oven, so too we keep our challah warm as Shabbos begins, transforming a simple preference into a symbolic reenactment of the Mikdash.

So it turns out it’s not just about warm challah. It’s about oneg Shabbos, rooted in a deeper tradition that traces back to the Lechem Hapanim, bringing a taste of the Beis HaMikdash to our own Shabbos tables.