[Avodah] Halachic guidlines for kashrut

[Micha Berger]

On 11/29/2011 4:22 PM, R Martin Brody wrote:
> I'm sorry, Lisa, but I disagree with you. "Community" standards may be 
> relevant to a shteitel in Poland, but in a city like Los Angeles with 
> hundreds of thousands of Jews, which community standards? Whose 
> community standards?

Well, this is a real question... when are you bound by communal pesaq or
minhag, and when not? I think the answer is "always", but today (until
minhagim catch up with the WWII population shifts) we live in communities
that on some issues have a clear minhag hamaqom, on others parallel a
town with two batei din, and on yet others have no minhag hamaqom.

WRT relying on rules of bitul in your typical American city, we would
seem to be clearly in the first category.

I would think the place to start is pesachim, pereq 4 ("Maqom
Shanohaghu"). Like the end of 50a (yes, I'm quoting Bavli for a
change... <grin>) "holeukh mimaqom... lemaqom... nosenim alav chumrei
maqom sheyatza misham, vechumerei maqom shehalakh misham." No safeiq
derabbanan lequla, even.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The mind is a wonderful organ
micha at aishdas.org        for justifying decisions
http://www.aishdas.org   the heart already reached.
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