[Avodah] Selling whiskey/bourbon

[David Riceman]

Me:
>: 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.

RMB:
> 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.

For another example, consider haverut (as described in the mishna).
Hullin temei'in were an essential part of an economy driven by scarcity.
If more than a few people were makpid on eating hullin b'tohorah then
people would starve since, in the days before pesticides, a large
proportion of grain would be infested with rodents.

David Riceman