[Avodah] Bal Tashchit

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 07:20:46PM -0500, Joshua Meisner wrote:
: Kiddushin 32a relates a ma'aseh in which Rav Huna tested his son's mida of
: ka'as by tearing a silk garment (that he would eventually inherit) in his
: presence.  It notes that doing so would ordinarily be a violation of bal
: tashchis, were it not that the tear was actually done along a seam.  This
: being the case, it seems that the use of an otherwise useful item as a
: mussar tool would still be considered bal tashchis.

Perhaps only because the same goal could have been obtained by tearing
along a seam.

What makes your earlier application of al tehi tzadiq harbei difficult
is that "bal tashchis" isn't about throwing food out, it's about wasting
it. So you first must define use vs waste.

Perhaps upholding a chumrah is sufficient use for a food, one that could
not be obtained otherwise. Perhaps one ought to take any food one treifs
up, and find a homeless nachri who isn't an aku"m. Perhaps there is a
reason why a tereifah "lakelev tashlichun osah" rather than just throw
it out. (Other than the silence of the kelavim during yetzi'as Mitrayim,
as that only answers why them in particular.)

But we haven't generalized this in the past 2 millenia to other non-kosher
food (not even neveilos), so I really doubt that is how far bal tashchis
goes.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision,
micha at aishdas.org        yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view.
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