[Avodah] question regarding a Shach

[Zev Sero]

Ben Waxman wrote:
> This question has come up before but I'd like to get your input. The 
> Schach in YD 119:20 writes that someone who does not eat something 
> because of minhag avotav/haqpada can eat it when being hosted by someone 
> who does eat if "he sees a heter b'devar". What does that phrase mean? I 
> learned this with a friend and he thought that it meant something which 
> we all know is muttar, but have accepted not to eat it out of minhag 
> (e.g. kitniot). On this list, someone thought that it meant "not 
> insulting the host".

It certainly doesn't *mean* "not insulting the host", though that may be
the person's *motivation* for transgressing his usual custom.

It's also not talking about something like kitniyos, which nobody has
ever thought to be inherently assur; kitniyos is a gezera: we eschew
something we all agree is muttar, lest we come to eat something that
is definitely assur.   No, this se'if is talking about something that
the guest's tradition is to regard it as assur for everybody, and the
host's tradition is that it's muttar for everybody.

Hence the example of the Bnei Rhenus, the Rhineland Jews: in some parts
of the Rhineland they paskened that a certain part of the suet on the
belly was kosher, whereas in other parts they paskened like everybody
else, that it's treif.  From our POV the mattirim were definitely eating
treif, but we recognise that they had a legitimate POV of their own;
they didn't just make it up, they held like R Yonah who permitted it,
and they had every right to hold like him.  In the Rhineland the minhag
developed among the osrim that they would eat not just from the kelim
of the mattirim, but they would eat the meat and soup cooked with this
fat, leaving only the fat itself; the Ralbach says that a Polish Jew,
for instance, would not be allowed to do so.  He can eat from the kelim
(if the host cooked for himself), but not from a dish that contains the
chelev itself.

Modern examples might include those communities who don't agree with the
heter for chalav hacompanies, or those families who don't eat turkey.

Then we get to the bit you quoted.  Until now we've assumed that the
guest agrees with his minhag.  But suppose he doesn't.  Suppose he thinks
the halacha is like the mattirim, but he follows the issur anyway because
that is his local minhag and/or minhag avos.  In such a case, when he is
in a place where they permit it he is allowed to eat it.


-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher