[Avodah] Selling whiskey/bourbon

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 10:36:25PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
: Similarly, it stands to reason that water added to grain before it ferments
: becomes part of the fermented product and therefore itself chametz, and
: can't be counted as something that dilutes the chametz.

This seems to contradict what you said earlier. The water added after
decasking is after fermentation. Would that not make it a second
ingredient from the mash, and thus taaroves?

I wish to remove wine from the conversation, because mezigas hakos means
that wine *requires* dilution to be yayin, and thus the whole question
is different than for adding water to other substances.

On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 05:12:28AM +0000, kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
: But instead, frame the question in terms of "what problem do I run
: into when selling my chometz before Pesach", and "what problem do I run
: into when purchasing his chometz after Pesach"...

This would justify a hanhagah tovah, a chumerah, whatever you want to
call it. But a minhag has to be "shehatzibbur yakhol laamod ba" -- not
viewed only in terms of personal considerations.

This is why I invoked the Categorical Imperative. (For those who don't
remember / weren't here when we discussed its relationship to halakhah,
that's Kant's attempt to define morality as "Act only according to that
maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a
universal law.")

On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 08:20:12AM -0400, David Riceman wrote:
: Not all minhagim fit this paradigm.  Take glatt, back in the day when 
: Jewish butchers sold mainly to Jewish consumers, so that every treifah 
: was a monetary loss, and back in small towns where they slaughtered one 
: or  two cows a week.  As I understand it, those are the conditions under 
: which the custom originated, and when the meat wasn't glatt the people 
: who were makpid simply didn't eat meat that Shabbos.  But extend the 
: custom to an entire kehillah and the economics fails.

Umm, that was an entire kehillah. As you write, the loss was absorbed so
it seems they could manage. The fact that 100 mi away in some other town
someone else would have eaten the meat doesn't change the feasability of
the minhag. It's not today, when economic and social groups span large
swaths of a continent.


On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 01:55:22PM +0000, kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
:> I'll try one more time, and then give up.

: Please don't! Let's work together, to find the root of the problem.

Now that more people chimed in, rather than the same repetition of the
same positions of REMT, Zev and I failing to understand each other, I
did.

:> If the minhag were economically viable, the storeowner would be
:> able to keep it. And if it's not economically viable, the minhag
:> doesn't stick.

: I suspect that "the minhag" you're referring to is the combined practice
: of not seeling one's own chometz, but buying from as store that does.

I mean the minhag of not selling one's chameitz *gamur*.

: My suspicion is that there is no such "minhag". Some/many individuals
: may follow such a practice, but I don't think there's any community
: composed of people, all of whom follow the practice you've
: described...

This started when I looked up what the star-K said about selling
whisk[e]y. They refer you to footnote 1, which reads, "Some individuals
sell this chometz, others do not. One should follow his family custom."

That's when I asked how this works as a minhag. If it were stam a
personal chumrah, that's a different story.

ALTHOUGH, I have a different problem there...

If you show any reluctance WRT selling chameitz on Pesach, what's the
quality of your intent when selling taaroves? If you carry around fears
that the sale isn't real, that it's haaramah, is the qinyan really chal
or did you create problems of asmachta the moment you chose to be
choseish?

:> My not selling my own chameitz gamor therefore serves no purpose,
:> once my world HAS TO contain people who do not do the same.

: It serves the purpose of protecting you from a possible violation of
: owning chametz. I really don't know why this bothers you. How do you
: relate to the general principle of being machmir on oneself but meikil
: for others?

See above about the difference between "being machmir", which is much
easier to get out of in future years, doesn't bind your wife and
children, etc.. and the star-K telling you to follow minhag avos.

If it's your *minhag* then doesn't it have to fit the rules for minhag?
Such as being viable for a community to follow, minhag yisrael kedin,
not treated as lifnim mishuras hadin [for those who have it], etc...

Here the "minhag" only works for me because I know the storeowner is
relying on a loophole (hefsed meruba) 


Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Take time,
micha at aishdas.org        be exact,
http://www.aishdas.org   unclutter the mind.
Fax: (270) 514-1507            - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm