[Avodah] Seeing G'zeiros Everywhere

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Rich Wolpoe wrote:
> G'zeira is about s'yag or policy and could take into
> consideration k"vod RMF or RYDS and another non-rigorous
> considerations and requires no such rigor, but I would love
> to see it so labeled.
> If you want to term this NEITHER p'saq NOR g'Zeria but a
> third kind of "animal" fine.

I have long wondered about where we draw the line between making a new halachah or minhag, as opposed to setting policy. A new halachah will be binding upon all subsequent generations, but a policy is clearly dependent upon the current situation.

In previous generations, they did not have subscriptions to magazines like Kashrus Kurrents or Jewish Homemaker, to name just a few that were available in paper form prior to the proliferation of our current websites. They had seforim. Besides word-of-mouth, publication in a sefer was the only way this information got around.

May we eat dried fruit on Pesach? Let's see the Rama 467:8 --

"Dried figs (26), and dried grapes (which are called raisins, whether large or small) - it depends on the minhag of the place. Some are machmir not to eat them, and some are meikil, and therefore the minhag in these countries is to be machmir not to eat any dried fruits, unless it is known that they were dried in a manner such that there is no fear of chometz (28). Sugar - it is assur to eat it or even to possess it (29)."

Mishne Brura 26: "There is a fear that they spread flour on them when drying them. Grapes are usually dried in an oven near the bread, or after they've removed the bread from the often. There are places where they do not spread flour on them, and they dry them in the sun, and this is why he wrote that it depends on the minhag of the place."

Mishne Brura 28: "Such as when it is known to a person that [the fruit] was dried in the sun, or in an oven after it was kashered."

Mishne Brura 29: "because there is a fear that they mix the flour into it. The Acharonim agree that [the sugar] which we call "hat sugar", which is made like a hat, it has been clarified by investigating with experts that they do not mix flour into it. Nevertheless the minhag is to sell it l'chatchila... And the sugar which has a Ksav Hechsher from the rabbi of the place where it is made, the minhag is to eat it l'chatchila. However sugar which is made very fine has a greater chance of being chometz, from flour being mixed in...

I could quote much more of this, but I hope this will be sufficient to give you an idea of what I mean. Honestly: Do these quotes sound like a judge who is rendering a legal decision? Or do they sound more like valuable advice?

To me, they sound like advice. Important advice, to be sure. Advice that one would be foolish to ignore. But still, I do not see how this can be spun off into some new halachah (or binding minhag) forbidding us to eat dried fruit - Even in a time and place where it was well known that flour was indeed used to dry fruits, I do not understand how this could possibly be binding upon future generations.

Yet, the Rama did use words like "minhag", "machmir", and "meikil". And Rav Eider (Halachos of Pesach, page 53) uses the above as his source, when he writes "Some communities did not eat dried fruit (e.g. dried figs, raisins) during Pesach. The basis for this minhag is that flour was spread on the fruit during the drying process. In addition, the ovens used for drying were also used for chometz. Where there is proper supervision, it is permissible."

I am confused. Are the MB and Rav Eider saying that if there is proper supervision, then one may violate the minhag? Surely not! But their language is confusing.

And I think this is a big part of what R' Rich Wolpoe is trying to dissect.

I will leave it as an exercise for the reader, to consider the differences - if any - between the above discussion of dried fruit on Pesach, and milk the rest of the year. Did Chazal actually forbid unwatched milk? Is it possible that when Rav Moshe wrote that we don't have to actually watch the milking, all we really need is to know that the milk is kosher, he was trying to draw this distinction? And just perhaps, those who disagree with Rav Moshe, their point is that Chazal really did render unwatched milk as treif?

Akiva Miller

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