[Avodah] Foie Gras

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 05:14:32PM +0300, R Rafi Goldmeier wrote on Areivim:
> along your lines of thought, I find it interesting that foes gras in  
> Israel has not had a mehadrin hechsher because the mehadrin hechsherim  
> consider it tzaar baalei chaim....

Tzaar baalei chaim doesn't treif up the resulting food though. I can
see them refusing to give a hekhsher so as not to have an industry
providing incentive to cause pain, but that is different than saying
it's treif or that eating it is relying on heterim.

The J-m Post carried a story (no longer available on JPost.com) on
1-Mar-2005 by a Mati Wagner. To quote the halakhah pieces minus the
parts I consider prejudicial of political:

    ... Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv ruled there is no halachic restriction
    against force-feeding geese for foie gras.

    Elyashiv, probably the most preeminent halachic authority living,
    was asked by a haredi foie gras producer to give his opinion after
    MK Moshe Gafni (Degel Hatorah) voted against Israeli foie gras
    production in the Knesset Education Committee, arguing that it
    contradicted the Jewish law prohibiting cruelty to animals.
    ...
    ... Asked if foie gras production was a violation of halacha,
    Elyashiv replied unequivocally that it was not.

    Halacha permits causing animals to suffer if, as a result, there is
    some tangible benefit to man. That is why animals may be slaughtered,
    used for plowing or for carrying heavy loads.

    However, writes Rabbi Moshe Feinstein (Igrot Moshe, Even Ha'ezer IV
    92), not all benefits enjoyed by man justify causing suffering to
    animals. Based on this distinction, Feinstein prohibits raising calves
    for veal. Producing white meat is nothing more than a marketing ploy,
    writes Feinstein, and does not justify depriving calves of iron in
    their diet or limiting their mobility.

    In contrast, Elyashiv ruled that the enlarged liver resulting from
    forced-feeding practices is a tangible benefit to man and justifies
    animal suffering.

    As further evidence that there is no halachic restriction against
    foie gras, Friedman, a sixth-generation foie gras producer, cited
    stories that Rabbi Moshe Sofer, known as the Hatam Sofer, who lived
    at the turn of the 19th century, ate foie gras on a regular basis.
    ...

RMTendler prohibits consuming it on the grounds that the duck is force-fed
makes it too likely it's is a tereifah. I will not spell out the metzi'us,
you could find it on Google, and there is no reason to jar the more
sensitive among us.

White veal, on the same grounds as well.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Life isn't about finding yourself
micha at aishdas.org        Life is about creating yourself.
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