[Avodah] [Areivim] Chicken Scandal

[Zev Sero]

Chana Luntz wrote:
> 
> RZS writes:
> 
>> The Raavad/Mechaber position is that all we need to know 
>> about someone is that he is a Jew, and that we *not* know 
>> anything negative about him. If his name is Cohen and we've 
>> never heard of him before, and he tells us the food he's 
>> selling is kosher, we can believe that he's telling the truth 
>> to the best of his knowledge.  (We still have to worry about 
>> how far his knowledge extends; but if he says he bought 
>> everything as raw ingredients, or with a good hechsher, that 
>> he bought his kelim new and has never used them for anything 
>> else, etc, we don't need to worry that he's lying.)
> 
> On what basis do you understand the Raavad in this manner?

It's obvious.  No matter how trustworthy he is, he can only know
as much as he knows.  If he admits that he doesn't know what he's
talking about, can you possibly imagine that the Raavad, or the
Mechaber, would say that we can believe that what he says is true?
What if he honestly doesn't know that pork is not kosher?  


>  The Raavad's
> language is that we can eat by him even if he is an am ha'aretz.
> I would have thought that one of the potential issues with an am
> ha'aretz has to be that he is not knowledgeable.

In those days every Jew, even an am haaretz, knew basic things,
such as that meat must come from a shochet or a kosher butcher,
and it must be salted, that meat and milk don't mix, etc., and
that shaylos must be asked of a rov.  One could assume that if
a Jew claimed that something was kosher he knew what that meant,
and therefore the only thing one needed to worry about was that
he might be dishonest.  To that, the Raavad/Mechaber say that
we needn't worry about dishonesty, every Jew has a chezkat
kashrut.  But if this presumptively honest Jew says lefi tumo
that he killed the chicken himself, or that he cooked it in milk,
then it is simply impossible that the Raavad or the Mechaber
would permit eating it, simply because a Jew put it in front of
one, or said that it was "kosher".


> Once you have to start investigating his level of knowledge,
> then surely whole idea that simply knowing his name is Cohen is
> enough falls by the wayside?

No, because the issue they're dealing with is his trustworthiness,
not his knowledge.  They say that any Jew should be presumed to be
telling the truth *as he knows it*, so long as we don't have a
specific reason to suspect otherwise, and that the mere fact that
he could profit by lying doesn't count as a reason to suspect him.


> And isn't this precisely the contrast discussed at length vis a vis
> shechita?  One of the reasons specifically given eg by the Shach that we
> do not automatically trust a butcher who himself shechts is because the
> laws of shechita are so complex.  The implication of that surely is that
> in relation to  areas of kashrus other than shechita we do not worry
> about how far his knowledge extends.  Hence the argument today ie that
> "because of all the additives and the industrialisation of the food
> industry kashrus has become so complex that you need haschgacha" seems
> to me in effect to be an argument that what once applied vis a vis
> shechita only is now to be applied more generally

Yes, that is indeed what makes our times different than those of
the Shulchan Aruch.


> or in other words, we
> should no longer posken like the Shulchan Aruch.

No, I reject this "in other words".  Knowledge and trustworthiness
are two separate issues.  Those who paskened like the SA before,
and trusted any Jew unless there was specific reason not to, can
continue to do so -- BUT that trust means less than it did then.
In the SA's day, it was unlikely that a Jew would give you treif,
honestly believing it to be kosher; the only possibilities that
needed to be considered were that he was telling the truth or
that he was lying.  Nowadays one who follows the SA still needs
to ask the person how he knows the food is kosher, and to probe
just what he means by that, but he can trust the answers the
person gives to be honest.

And the same applies to the Rambam/Rema position; the only
difference between them and the SA seems to be that they consider
a financial motive to lie as a reason to suspect someone of
dishonesty, unless one has specific reason *not* to suspect him.
But once one does have such specific reason, their position is
the same as that of the SA.  If one has reason to trust him,
one may do so, but once again that only means he's telling the
truth as far as he knows it.  The Rema's known frum person is
exactly the same as the Mechaber's stranger; both are presumed
to be honest, but not necessarily knowledgeable.  In their day,
knowledge simply wasn't an issue, except in the case of shechitah;
today it's an issue much more often.



-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas