This week I want to discuss opening tin cans on shabbos. At first glance, it is very simple. We have a mishna that says that you can break a barrel to gets its contents. So it’s allowed! It is more complicated than that because the Shulchan Aruch rules in accordance with Tosfos. If so, it is only permitted to break a barrel if it is a mustaki. Based on this, it would seem that it is prohibited to open a tin can, because they are made out of sturdy material. Even so, today’s poskim originated an idea that would make even a tin can be considered a mustaki. They said that anything that one is going to throw away, even though it technically is a solid vessel, will not have a rabbinic prohibition because we are not worried that you will try to make a neat opening. Based on this, one can conclude that it is permitted to open a tin can on shabbos, as long as one does not intend to make a neat opening.
However, many poskim take a more stringent approach. This is based on a ruling by the Chazon Ish that a sealed tin can is not considered a vessel at all because you cannot put anything into it, or take anything out of it; therefore, when you open it, you effectively create a whole new vessel. There are two ways to avoid this problem. The first is by making a hole in the bottom of the can before opening the top. In this way, there never is a usable vessel. (However some poskim are concerned by issues of borer, something that is beyond the scope of this post. I hope in a few months to revisit this issue.) The other possibility is that even the Chazon Ish was only talking about a situation in which it was common to reuse cans, due to extreme poverty. Today, when everyone throws them away immediately, even he would concur that it is permitted.
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