[Avodah] Re Bittul of non-K food

[Micha Berger]

I am massively quoting since I don't expect people to remember a thread
of conversation from over a month ago.

On Sat, May 07, 2011 at 07:43:14PM +1000, Meir Rabi wrote:
:>: HaRav Sh Z Auerbach Paskens that Chamets that is not Battel during Pesach
:>: (even in parts per thousand) IS in fact Battel when it is so dilute that it
:>: can not be discerned by human tasting.

:>: Does this not point towards a most remarkable observation - that if a non-K
:>: food flavour is transferred to a Kosher food, if it is not at all
:>: discernible by human tasting, then the food ought to be Kosher.

:> The topics of nosein taam and bitul beshishim are old ones. What's
:> remarkable in your extension?

: there are a number of points that make the Pesak remarkable.

: It implies that in Bittul of 60 we DO have the possibility that it may be
: discernible by human tasting and yet it is Battel

I don't see where you get that from what you cited besheim RSZA.

To use your own analysis:
: What seems to emerge is that there are 3 categories 1) what can be tasted by
: any ordinary chap 2) what can be tasted by a chef 3) what can be tasted by
: one in a million who have an extremely sensitive palette. In normal Bittul
: we use the Chef which today is the value of 60. Pesach we use the one in a
: million measure who seem to be able to discern taste at 1:1000. When even
: these unusually sensitive palette can not discern the taste it is Battel
: even during Pesach

: Accordingly if we can not find one in a million who can discern that food
: which is cooked in a non-Kosher vat that is tainted with non-K flavour, such
: food ought to be Kosher, in spite of the fact that by our calculations there
: is no Bittul Be60.

Except that bittul be60 is, as you just wrote, a rule of thumb for
"that which would be tastable by a chef", just as bitul be1000 means not
tastable by anyone -- not even by yechidei segulah blessed with virtuoso
tongue. Thus, we can't make a chiluq between 1 in 1000 and taam, even
by what RSZA said. Your taking him that way isn't consistent with the
entire principle behind the bitul.

I understood RSZA to be saying the reverse -- bitul be1000 does not work
for pesach, but if the one-in-a-million taster could verify it has no
taste in the taaroves, it would be batel. IOW, that the rule of thumb is
not sufficiently reliable, but the actual lack of taam it approximates
would be batel.

The original paragraph (triple-quoted behind ":>:" at the top of this
post) speaks about bitul when there is no taam, not about bitul when
there is a taam but the proportion wasn't met.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea
micha at aishdas.org        of instincts.
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
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