[Avodah] Believing companies - kashrus

[Zev Sero]

Dov Kaiser wrote:
> I suppose that is why RMF's 
> teshuva puzzles me, in that he jumps straight to halachic principles 
> without having any regard to the metzius at hand.

Actually RMF spends the bulk of the teshuvah *weakening* the case for
the heter.  A brief summary of the teshuvah is "yes, you're right to
permit this, but your argument isn't quite as good as you make it out
to be for the following reasons: [....] Nevertheless, at the end of the
day you're right to permit it".


> Maybe he was assuming 
> that the questioner, who was himself also a posek with a particular case 
> before him, was aware of the metzuis himself, and was only seeking 
> clarification of the barebones halachic issues.

Exactly.  The teshuvah is about the lomdus.

  
> one of RMF's sons was 
> once asked to explain why his father advised schools not to rely on his 
> hetter for chalev hacompanies.

What's the question?  He explained it clearly in the teshuvah where he
wrote this.  Since a school's mission is to educate children to be
mehader bemizvos, it has to demonstrate that principle by example.
When a child hears in the classroom that one must be careful with mitzvos
and not rely on every heter that comes down the pike, and then in the
lunchroom he sees how little the school itself abides by that principle,
the whole chinuch is wasted and the school may as well close down.
This is what RMF writes in that very teshuvah, so why look for other
explanations?

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher