Frum Brands Asked to Make ‘Shabbos-Friendly’ Packages With Fewer Letters

The writing can be erased on the Sabbath, at least according to many Jews, and now one vocal Jew is calling on devout Jewish businesses to create more “Sabbath-friendly” packaging with ample space free of writing.

The “Frum Tiktok” Twitter account posted the following:

“A request to all kosher/hamish food companies: please make your products Shabbat-friendly so they can be opened without tearing the lettering. Consumers will appreciate companies that have Shabbat-friendly packaging.”

Would poskim allow the destructive cutting of letters in order to obtain food?

Now, in Igrot Moshe YD 2:75 (on the left, one paragraph before the end), R’ Moshe writes (summarized by R Doniel Yehudah Neustadt):

“Prohibitions apply…”

— Frum TikTok (@FrumTikTok) June 5, 2024

Certainly, one might ask, why don’t companies create packages that get around this issue? Sure, that seems plausible.

The Twitter thread then devolves into a detailed discussion of whether there are any poskim that would allow the unintentional breaking of letters (the Rama in OC 340 famously forbids cutting a cake with letters on it, which is very similar to this scenario and would seem to be the basis for forbidding it).

Either way, this is a source of frustration for many parents, which leads one to wonder if there is some specific reason why companies don’t create Shabbat-friendly packages.Furthermore, it may be because of chas v’Shalom that melaha occurs on Shabbat.

(There seems to be less concern about tearing up images or paintings on packaging, but it’s not clear why, as there seems to be a problem with “metika” even on images. This seems to be addressed in the Dagur Mervava on Matzo, which used to have pictures on it.)

Hopefully, it would be wonderful if honourable food companies would respond to this call and even change their packaging to address this serious issue.