[Avodah] Believing Companies - Kashrus

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Dec 09, 2009 at 04:37:56PM -0800, Liron Kopinsky wrote:
: Does this mean that if vegetable glycerin was cheaper than non-veg that we
: would be able to rely on the non-Jew, assuming they would do whatever is
: cheapest?

A nachri's eidus is believed mesiach lefi tumo. It can only work if
they don't know what it is we want to know, or if they have an active
disinsentive against sheqer (eg USFDA fines on dairies that adulterate
the milk).

In this case, though, he would know the "right" answer to help his
business. It doesn't take much knowledge of Judaism to know we have lots
of rules about meat, even if you don't know anything about how we deal
with vegetable products. So I could see arguing it's not a situation
of lefi tumo, and thus saying there is no neemanus. OTOH, I could see
arguing that he would want to brag about using the suprior glycerine,
and not the cheap stuff, and thus he has a *dis*incentive to lie.

To bring this to RDK's question (if I didn't approve it yet, it's in
queue)... This would also be a possible difference with RMF's case.
Getting our heads out of "what hechsheirim do" and into the sugyos, there
are rules for when we do and do not rely on the sichah of a nachri. It's
neither "we do" nor "we do not believe", with no qualifier.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where
micha at aishdas.org        you are,  or what you are doing,  that makes you
http://www.aishdas.org   happy or unhappy. It's what you think about.
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