[Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots

Akiva Miller via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org
Thu Sep 15 02:57:24 PDT 2016


R' Eli Turkel wrote:
> The teshuva of R. Lior is found at
> http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=71715
> and http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=56591

Could you please check those links? I got a "This page under construction"
error for both of them.

> Conclusions: the absorption in all the pots was extremely minimal
> except for the clay pots.

I imagine that this might explain why clay cannot be kashered but other
materials can be kashered. But it does NOT help us understand any
distinction between materials that can be kashered with difficulty vs
materials that can be kashered more easily (libun vs hagala, or hagala vs
mere washing).

My understanding is that we have three categories of materials: (1) It
absorbs, and will release that taam forever and therefore cannot be
kashered - such as clay. (2) It absorbs, but it is possible to totally
remove that taam, i.e. to kasher it - such as metal and wood. (3) It never
even absorbs, so all you need to do is to make sure it is clean - such a
glass (at least theoretically). If the goal of these experiments is to
determine if some new materials might be in the third category, I do not
see this being accomplished.

> They suggest several future experiments including using pots from
> the days of chazal and the rishonimIn. In particular R. Eitam
> Henkin (Hy"d) - Hamayan 54:2 claimed that without comparing the
> results to ancient pots the results are of limited value! The
> authors argue that we don't know exactly what pots chazal used.
> They also didn't agree with the argument that the sense of taste
> has changed from the days of Chazal.

Baruch shekivanti to Rav Henkin. But I don't comprehend the authors'
response. Our lack of knowing about Chazal's pots should *confound* the
experiments, and *prevent* any practical conclusions.

> R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots
> do not absorb or expel (more than minimally).  However, they both
> distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved.  Basically both
> allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila
> because it would create many confusions.

There was a typo here, right? "Allow" should have been "forbid"? They might
allow it b'dieved, but the explanation shows that they would *not* allow it
l'chatchila.

Akiva Miller
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