[Avodah] Halachic Policy Guidelines of the Kashrus Authority of Australia

[Chana Luntz]

RMB wrote discussing when a treif piece of meat gets mixed up with two
kosher ones:
> It is a three way machloqes -- (a) you can't even them at all, (b) only
> zeh achar zeh and (c) they may even be eaten bevas achas.

Not to mention Rashi's shita that you have to give one piece to the dogs.

> But I think the issue is in how we define rov and whether the
> probabilities add if we rely on them in one maaseh, if we rely in them
> altogether, or not add at all. Can mi'ut be undone through
> recombination, and if so, how?
> 
> To my mind, the parallel case in taaroves would be subjecting the
> mixture to a cenrafuge. Now, eg, the top of the mix has too much issur
> for bitul. Does one thereby undo the bitul?

See this is where I disagree.  I think you need to distinguish the case of
the three pieces of meat and the genuine mixture case, by which I mean eg
the classic case of a drop of milk falling into a meat stew.  In the latter
case, it seems to me it is nothing to do with probabilities, it has to do
with the drop of milk being completely overwhelmed by the meat stew and
thereby disappearing from existence, with its identity and particularly its
taste disappearing.  There is no more issur, period, it has been overwhelmed
by heter, and what is left is solely a permissible meat stew. Centrifuge is
therefore irrelevant.  The forbidden milk no more exists in Torah terms than
these microscopic bugs that we keep swallowing from the air and water and
food, they don't count.

But in the case of the three pieces of meat, there really genuinely is a
piece of treif meat in there that has not disappeared from existence, and
which everybody knows about.  Now the Rosh's position that it is completely
mutar to eat by one person in one go is based on applying the gezeras
hakasuv - achrei harabim l'hatos.   Were it not for the gezeras hakasuv he
would not hold this either.  Just as a person can be put to death based on
the necessary majority of the Sanhedrin, despite the very real existence of
a miut who holds that he is not guilty, so too can a person eat these three
pieces of meat in one go despite everybody knowing that by doing so, somehow
in there he has eaten a piece of treif meat.  Just as the miut is deemed not
to exist vis a vis the Sanhedrin's majority decision, similarly the treif
piece of meat is deemed not there and converted to the majority status by
fiat of the Torah, and just as the opinions of those minority of the
Sanhedrin who hold he is not guilty are deemed null and void, and they are
forbidden to say afterwards that actually I voted for not guilty, so to is
this piece now null and void.

On the other hand, those who disagree with the Rosh, clearly do rely on some
element of probability - ie they are happy for one to eat it only if at the
time of eating (or overall for that person) there is only a minority
probability that the person is eating treif.  This is similar to the nine
shops case, where again it really is a question of a certain degree of
probability, there is a one in nine chance that this particular piece of
meat is treif.  They take this view even though these are cases of de'iqah
leqaman. Similarly and even more clearly, whether a minor girl will turn out
to be an iylanis is a matter of statistical probability, the case of deleisa
leqaman.

 
> We were talking about consuming the approved-but-not-certified product.
> I
> believe it's really a case of both probability AND taaroves. After all,
> we aren't relying on bitul for a substance we know to be there, we are
> relying on bitul in order to not have to know -- the issur is itself
> only
> "present" as a mi'ut (or perhaps even ruba) deleisa leqaman.

No, I believe we are relying on bitul for a substance we know to be there,
but which is insignificant (ie overwhelmed by the heter).  You can't rely on
this kind of bitul in order not to have to know, because how do you know
that the thing that you do not know about is sufficiently insignificant to
trigger bitul, since if it is greater than a sixtieth, then it won't trigger
bitul, so you have to know.  The dispute therefore as I understand it is
between products where the supervisory authority, using their economic
clout, say to the non Jewish manufacturer, you have to take out this
ingredient in order to get a heksher, and products where the supervisory
authority checks and determines that if there is any non kosher product the
product is mevatel in the whole and says it is therefore approved.  I don't
think it has anything to do with ika or leisa lequaman, and certainly not
with ruba deleisa leqaman, which would render that particular piece treif.
I think you are extending the nine shops case  beyond anywhere anybody would
be prepared to go with it.  I don't believe that anybody says that if  nine
out of ten kinds of available soy sauce are kosher, then the kosher
authorities won't ask the manufacturer of an approved product which brand of
soy sauce it uses, assuming soy sauce is an ingredient which cannot be
deemed batul in the final product, simply because most brands available are
kosher.  That appears to be what you are suggesting.  

That is in terms of bitul, but there are other aspects, such as chazaka,
that also need to be considered.  An authority granting an approval might
rely on a chazaka (such as kelim of an akum are aino bein yomam), in order
that they don't have to know, but that isn't bittul precisely (well only
that once the kli is not ben yomo, then any blios are nifgam, but it is a
different halacha that is being triggered).  Whereas the authorities
granting certification are likely to go in and insist that they supervise
and check that the kelim are not ben yoman or insist on kashering them and
maintaining supervision of their kashrus.  In that sense an authority
relying on chazaka is indeed relying on probabilities - eg that if the
manufacturer says that the run is only used for product X, that even if
there is nobody coming in and checking that, if indeed it was used for
product Y, then probably it was done at least a day before any part of
product X is produced (since changeover of runs takes time), so you can rely
on the kelim being ano ben yomam.  And I am sure there are other chazakos
that come into play (probably better ones than this one, which is just what
came off the top of my head).  A chazaka is also about probability, most
situations X are like Y, but despite them being rebuttable, one relies on
them precisely because you don't know or so you don't have to know.  


> Tir'u baTov!
> -Micha

Regards

Chana