In many Jewish households, Shabbat lunch is synonymous with cholent, a hot stew-like dish consisting of beans, meat and potatoes. It's well known that this particular custom, like many of our customs, developed from a very basic, practical question:  namely, how do we serve hot food on Shabbat when we are halachically forbidden to cook on that day?  Cholent became the solution to this problem.  The reason is that it's put on the fire before Shabbat begins and cooks continuously until it is served Shabbat afternoon. To fully appreciate this tasty dish and the reason it became so popular, we must first understand the nature of the problem a bit better. 
   
    The melacha of bishul, cooking, is one of the thirty-nine activities that we are forbidden to engage in on Shabbat.  All thirty-nine are derived from the Torah's description of all the activities that were involved in the fabrication, assembly and dismantling of the Mishkan, the mobile sanctuary that Bnei Yisrael used in the desert. There were two types of cooking done in the Mishkan. The first was the cooking of different plants and herbs to make dyes for the different fabrics used in the construction of the Mishkan. The second was the baking of bread for the lechem hapanim, the show bread that was placed on the golden shulchan. There is some controversy among the very early halachic authorities, known as the rishonim, as to which of these actions is the actual source of the Torah prohibition of cooking on the Shabbat. However, all are in agreement that bishul is one of the thirty-nine melachot and is, therefore, definitely prohibited on Shabbat.
   
    An essential mitzvah of Shabbat is that of oneg, enjoyment of Shabbat. One basic enjoyment that is common to everyone is a nice hot meal. To this end, every household needs to make preparations before Shabbat to be able to have hot food on Shabbat. Indeed, our rabbis considered this to be so essential to oneg Shabbat that any person who didn't do so was suspected of being a heretic. This was due to the influence of a certain sect within Judaism known as the Karaites who did not believe in the Oral Torah.  They took the commandment not to light a fire on Shabbat quite literally; they sat in the dark and ate only cold food. Hence, anyone who didn't keep this universal aspect of oneg Shabbat was suspected of being a  Karaite and therefore, a denier of the Oral Torah.
   
    It seems that the earliest mention of cholent is in the Sefer Or Zarua authored by Rabbeinu Yitzchak ben Moshe who died around 1260 CE. In the midst of a conversation about re-warming food on Shabbat, he writes that he had seen in the house of his teacher, Rabbi Yehuda, a particular permissible way to re-warm cholent. 
   
    So you see, the history of cholent goes way back!  It's just one example of how our traditions and customs have formed and enriched the fabric of Jewish life and how they have been faithfully preserved and passed down throughout the ages.