[Avodah] Rav Yisroel Belsky on Anisakis Worms

[rsm at aishdas.org]

I have said that the rabbis dealing with this are divided into exactly
the same three groups that the Rambam describes in Perush haMishnayot in
the introduction to the 10th Pereq of Sanhedrin. He is talking there
about rabbis dealing with medrashim and Aggadita; but the groups are
exactly the same. Some say science is wrong, and Chazal were right;
some say Chazal were in error (as Slifkin says); and the third group
(whom the Rambam says comprises too few people to really be called a
group) understand that Chazal knew the reality, but expressed the ideas
of Torah in the terminology that they could.

There is no need to claim that Chazal were ignorant of science (although
they did not have microscopes to view items not visible to the naked eye):
Chazal had a tradition about many things, what was muttar and what was
osur, that was part of the Oral Tradition. They may have given a reason
in the G'moro for the tradition, but the tradition exists independently
of any reason they gave. That applies to honey, as well, even though we
know that there are some bee secretions mixed in. The Rambam says this
in Moreh N'vukhim about asmakhta's.

Since some Anisakis nematodes are visible in fish after death, both in
the gut and in the flesh, then it is a bizayon haTorah to claim that
Chazal did not know about this.

Rabbi Seth Mandel
Rabbinic Coordinator
The Orthodox Union
11 Broadway, New York, NY  10004