[Avodah] Insects in our salads

[Michael Makovi]

My gemara-shiur rabbi today gave an impromptu shiur on insects in our
vegetables. Here is what he said, from memory. He didn't name exact
sources, as it was impromptu, as I said:

People today are very machmir about checking everything for bugs. To
be sure, some foods are rich in insects, and must be checked; for
example: with broccoli, immersion in water --> tons of insects on
surface; lettuce is insect-rich too. Also, he says, Israeli rice (even
twenty years ago) used to be full of insects, rocks, other grains,
etc.

Now, anything invisible sans microscope is clearly not an issue at all
- everyone agrees. But what of well-camouflaged insects that are
indeed mAcroscopic, but cannot be seen as insects? That is, you can
see a dot, but you don't know that it is an insect; or, were you to
put it on a white background then you'd see it, but you cannot see it
while it is on the fruit itself - these cases are serious machlokets.
BUT, there is ample basis to rely on and be lenient with these and
consider them nonexistent as something mIcroscopic.

Moreover, perhaps these tiny insects ought to be m'vatel-ed? Now,
there is a problem: the Gemara says that d'rabanan, an entire beriyah
cannot be mevatel-ed. Now, this is only a d'rabanan, so the problem is
not too serious if we accidentally m'vatel something we shouldn't
have, as my rabbi notes, but all the same, he notes, we aren't
Karaites, and we do want to try to take the d'rabanan seriously. The
Aruch haShulhan argues, however, that not being m'vatel doesn't mean
NEVER - imagine an entire single solitary mite in a sack of ten tons
of flour - can it be that this is not m'vateled??!! The Aruch
haShulhan notes that there were many mites in every one of their sacks
of flour, but no one in Eastern Europe was concerned! Similarly,
chametz can never be m'vatel-ed once Pesah begins, but Rabbi Shlomo
Aviner says that surely, bread crumbs in the Kinneret drinking water
ARE indeed nullified even during Pesah (though some are machmir and
buy drinking water before Pesah so that the chametz is nullified). So
given enough of a proportion, even unnullifiable chametz and beriyot
are in fact nullifed (one rishon apparently names an amount - 1 in
9000 or some such). (An aside: any admixture of insect and vegetable
will be unintentional, so there is no violation of the law against
nullifying l'hatchila. One cannot deliberately put 1 liter of milk
into sixty liters of meat, but here with insects, any mixture is not
desired.)

And apparently, the Igrot Moshe speaks against being so concerned with
insects (it was apparently a letter with Rav Moshe Feinstein saying
people wanted to paint him as being in the machmir crowd, but they are
wrong, or something). My rabbi's upshot was that one must check to a
reasonable degree with anything suspected of having detectable insects
(such as broccoli and lettuce), but we shouldn't go crazy - with a
strawberry, if you cannot see the insects (they are tiny, barely
detectable dots even for those who know they are there), don't be
concerned, and eat away.

Mikha'el Makovi