[Avodah] Pat palter

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Joel Rich asked:
> Is the understanding of this from the time of the original
> exemption that we know the ingredients are kosher and that
> he never uses the oven for something else or just that
> "normally" this is the case (i.e. no one is checking on a
> regular basis on this particular baker)

R' Zev Sero responded:
> AIUI, at the time it was unheard of for bread to contain
> anything treif, so there was no need to worry about it.
> This continued to be the case in many countries until quite
> recently.  Bread was bread, and it had known ingredients,
> none of which were a problem.

I'm not disputing RZS's comments, and similarly re another poster who wrote about tea and beer having standard ingredients and not needing a hechsher.

But the way I read RJR's post, he was not asking only about the ingredients. He was also asking about the oven. How do we know that the non-Jewish baker used his oven ONLY for bread?

Some might respond by noting, "Duh! We're talking about a *baker*! What else would be in that oven beside bread?" Well, if I'm not mistaken, wasn't it a common practice for the Jewish community (who couldn't afford to have an oven in each home) to keep their Shabbos lunch all together in a common oven? A separate pot for each balabusta, but still, if we use a common oven isn't it at least possible that the local non-Jews might have similar needs and similar solutions? Why presume that the palter's oven was kosher?

Akiva Miller

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