[Avodah] kosher cabbage

[Shoshana L. Boublil]

> From: T613K at aol.com
> Subject: Re: [Avodah] kosher cabbage

[SLB writes] 
RTK wrote:
> Produce grown in a shmittah  year raises a host of other questions,
> besides terumos uma'asros, giving greater force to the statement quoted
> in Rav
> Schwab's name, "If you buy a pound of Israeli tomatoes you buy a pound
> of
> problems."  (Something like that.)
[del]
> I sort of feel the way Prof Levine does, that I lack the knowledge and
> 
> experience to handle Israeli fruits and vegetables, so on the rare
> occasion
> that  I see Israeli oranges or peppers in the supermarket, I avoid
> buying them.

[SLB writes] It says "Ki HaMitzva HaZot Asher Anochi Metzvecha HaYom Lo
Nifleit He Mimcha VeLo Rechoka..." (Devarim 30:11). To me this means that
anytime a mitzvah is associated with a situation where people avoid it -
then something is wrong.

When I teach Hilchot Niddah, I make sure that women realize how truly simple
the basic halachot are.  THAT is what Hashem said.  OTOH, our grandmothers
had no problem koshering meat, but I doubt many younger women know how to do
it.

If eating fruits and vegetables from Israel has become something that a
highly intelligent person such as Prof. Levine finds it complicated - than
there is something very wrong either with the education system - or with the
chumrot and current halachic system.

Hilchot Terumot and Ma'aserot are targeted at every regular Jew who had a
few trees in his garden or a plot of land with some vegetables in it.  If
it's so complicated that a regular person can't do them, then we are
probably misinterpreting something here.

It worries me that people are more willing to abandon some halachot rather
than figure out where our understanding has so changed that we find them
difficult.

Shoshana L. Boublil