Does Your Coffee Machine Need to Be Toiveled in the Mikvah?

JLI’s Living Jewish series: You got a Coffee machine has a wedding gift, but does it have to get toiveled in the mikvah if it will get ruined?

This article is brought to you by the editorial team of JLI’s Living Jewish series, which has recently released The Complete Guide to Keeping Kosher, as previously reported on COLlive. 

 Sheva brachos was over, and real life hit like a ton of dishware that needed to be unpacked, with stubborn stickers to peel, and added to the large pile waiting for the kelim mikvah. Once I had the plates and silverware all sorted out, I turned to our brand new barista espresso machine, the pride of our registry with its digital display and programmable everything, and wondered aloud: “What now? I can’t dunk this.”

The good news is that there are options. But first, let’s understand the issue.

Do electric appliances even need tevilah?

Yes. Toasters, kettles, blenders, and the rest of the electric kitchen lineup all require tevilah, even when immersion poses a real risk of damaging them. However, only utensils that come in contact with food must be immersed, so electric bases that never touch the food itself are exempt. That exempts your Crock-Pot’s heating element, hot plate, and the base of your Ninja CREAMI, since they never touch the food.

So I need to risk damaging my appliances?

Well, often the risk is smaller than the manufacturer makes it sound. Typically, the most you’ll lose is the warranty. A simple toaster or kettle can usually survive a quick immersion if you pull it out promptly, towel it off, and leave it to air-dry for two or three days before plugging it back in. The electrical cord doesn’t even need to go fully under; immersing the section closest to the appliance is enough.

The trouble starts with the high-end stuff. Anything with a digital display, intricate circuitry, or “smart” features is going to come out of the mikvah rather featureless and ornamental.

So what are my options?

A few exist, though none of them can be applied indiscriminately; they each require consulting your rav before taking action.

One option is to have a Jewish technician partially disassemble and then reassemble the appliance. The reasoning is that when a Jew removes and reinstalls a crucial internal component, the appliance is now considered to have been manufactured by a Jew, which exempts it from tevilah.

This isn’t a loophole you can finesse with a screwdriver at the kitchen counter, though. The work has to involve a component genuinely integral to how the appliance functions, and putting it back together has to call for real professional skill. Pulling off the power cord or unclipping a switch won’t qualify, since those are external pieces rather than the working body of the utensil.

Hmmm, I don’t have any Jewish technicians in my area.

Well, the other option is to sell or give the appliance to a non-Jew and then borrow it back indefinitely. Once the appliance belongs to the non-Jew, the obligation of tevilah falls away. But for the sale to count Halachically, the non-Jew has to acquire the item in a valid manner, such as by physically lifting or moving it.

After speaking with our rav, we went the sale route. Our non-Jewish neighbor “bought” the machine from us for a token sum, lifted it off the counter, and then graciously lent it back to us indefinitely. Thank you Peter.

The first volume of Living Jewish: The Complete Guide to Keeping Kosher is available now at Hamafitz and Judaica World. 

If you have a question you’d like to submit, email us at livingjewish@myjli.com.

Note: The Halachic rulings in this article were reviewed by Bais Hora’ah Chabad.

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