[Avodah] Haleiv HaCompanies

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

Just a side comment, to help see the issue in a larger historical context...

Regarding Rav Moshe Feinstein's position, R' Zev Sero wrote:

> he says were it not for the gezerah we wouldn't need to worry
> about anything.  We could drink the milk just as we eat all
> sorts of things that we assume there are no problems with. (e.g.
> everyone makes fun of the need for a hechsher on bottled water,
> even though it is theoretically possible that the bottling
> machine could have been used for clam juice or something.)

I think that an even better example would be eggs. We are very aware not to buy a filleted fish without reliable eidus of its species. But we buy eggs from anyone.

If an eggs is round at both ends, or pointy at both ends, that is a siman that the eggs is from a nonkosher bird. But if the egg is poited at one end and round at the other, that is NOT a siman of kashrus, because both kosher and nonkosher birds produce such eggs.

The reason generic eggs are accepted as kosher with no further investigation is that in our society, selling eggs other than chicken eggs is simply not done (unless they are labeled as such) - YD 86:2. It seems to me that this is an excellent example of where Chazal could have made a gezera, but they simply saw no need to do so. Milk and fish are different from eggs, but only because nonkosher milk and nonkosher fish do get sold in the marketplace while nonkosher eggs don't.

If tamei milk was as rare back then as tamei eggs were, then the gezera of Haleiv Yisrael would never have been instituted.

Akiva Miller

____________________________________________________________
PMP Certification Prep
100% Online PMP Exam Prep course from Villanova University. Learn More.
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/4bc1e5cf7d3da1cd507st04vuc