[Avodah] Hechsher for Tevilas Kelim Exemptions

[Zev Sero]

kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
> At several different housewares stores in Brooklyn and elsewhere, I
> have seen various items bearing labels attesting to the item not
> needing tevilas kelim, with the name or symbol of a prominent rav or
> organization. These items include things like metal soup pots, so
> we're not dealing with an exemption based on the type of utensil, or
> the material it is made of, but I suppose it is based on being made
> by a Jewish manufacturer.
> 
> What I do not understand is how this can be so. Even if it was
> manufactured by a Jewish factory, and is now sold by a Jewish retailer,
> wouldn't it become obligated in tevilah if it had been owned by a non-
>Jewish wholesaler? How can anyone know that the keli was continuously
> Jewish-owned?

There's a piece by the LR (in Shaarei Halacha Uminhag, among other places)
suggesting that what triggers the need for tevilas kelim is the *potential*
for the goy to have used it for treif, even though he didn't actually do
so.  The mere fact that the keli was in a situation where it could have
become treif is enough to impart to it a sort of tum'ah which is removed
by tevilah.

That is why the L minhag is to sell the kelim to the goy for Pesach, and
not to tovel them afterwards; since they didn't physically come into the
goy's possession, he was unable to use them for treif, so they weren't
even brushed by this peripheral tum'ah.

Based on this, *perhaps* one can speculate that if the keli leaves the
Jewish manufacturer in a sealed box, and arrives in that condition at the
Jewish retailer, the wholesaler in the middle is of no more consequence
than the drivers of the trucks that delivered it at each stage of its
travels.  Since they were unable to make it treif without opening the
box, which would be detected and would ruin its commercial value, perhaps
the fact that they were both legally and physically able to do so doesn't
matter.

But I'm skeptical of this argument, because if the wholesaler needed an
extra pot at home he could easily have decided to take this particular
one for his own use, in which case it wouldn't matter that he had ruined
its commercial value, because he had no intention of selling it.
Wholesalers do take stuff from the warehouse all the time, just as do
manufacturers and retailers, and every pot in the warehouse was in a
situation where he could have taken it and made it treif.

A much more likely possibility is that the "hechsher" is only of value
if it's accompanied by more "hechsherim" attesting to each stage of the
keli's travels.  If a Jewish wholesaler buys from a Jewish manufacturer
and sells to a Jewish retailer, how is the consumer to know all that?
These certificates would be useful in such a situation.

Here's another thought: if the keli was manufactured by a Jew, then
it starts with a chazaka of not needing tevilah.  If we don't know who
the subsequent owners were, on what basis should we assume they were
goyim?  Perhaps the "hechsher" on the manufacturer is enough to
establish a petur from tevilah, so long as one doesn't know for a
fact that there was a goy somewhere in the chain of transmission.

As it is, I have heard that there is a minhag among some in NY not to
make a brocho on tevilas kelim, because there are enough Jews involved
at each stage of the business to create a sofek brochos.

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas