[Avodah] Chalav Yisrael: Required or Recommended?

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Jan 21, 2018 at 11:01:48PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote:
: Please listen to the talk at
: https://goo.gl/atKfcN

I didn't yet, but I do have a blog post on the subject of chalav yisrael
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/chalav-yisrael>. First, a discplaimer, because
I'm about to cite R' Moshe and I don't want to leave a false impression:

   Colloquially, discussions of the permissibility of drinking USFDA milk
   tend to start with citing the Igeros Moshe, as though the  norm  of
   drinking it originated with Rav Moshe's (RMF) responsa on the subject.
   But this isn't quite fair. Rather, most American Jews were already
   drinking what he called chalav hacompanies (company milk, USFDA
   approved) well before RMF arrived in the US. They had rabbanim who had
   already ruled it was permissible, such as R' Dov Revel, R' Yisrael
   Avraham Abba Krieger, (among other greats of early 20^th century
   American Judaism whom time has forgotten because the huge waves of
   post-War immigrants to the US never met them) R' Breuer, R' Moshe
   Soloveitchik and his son R' JB Soloveitchik. In the early days of
   Lakewood they served regular milk and Breakstone cottage cheese. Yes,
   that stopped when CY became more readily available, but obviously the
   yeshiva wouldn't have served it had R' Aharon Kotler believed CY was
   mandatory. (They could have sent someone to a nearby farm -- Lakewood
   was near farmland back then.)

   Then there were those who didn't permit ...

Now, for the relevant quote:

   Also, it's clear Rav Moshe's language shifted as chalav Yisrael (CY)
   became more available, in the earliest responsum treating CY as a
   stringency above the baseline (Igeros Moshe YD 1:47-49), the middle
   more equivocal (2:31,35) and the latest (4:5) more like not insisting
   on CY being a leniency. However, Rebbetzin Feinstein did not observe
   chalav yisrael, and it is well known in their community that Rav Dovid
   Feinstein to this day drinks "chalav hacompanies". So I wouldn't read
   that much into the change in language, if it didn't impact what he told
   his own family! In practice, he treated CY as a personal stringency,
   even to his last day.

Discussion of CY (the Peri Chadash vs the Chasam Sofer onward, emphasis on
AhS), elided.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             If a person does not recognize one's own worth,
micha at aishdas.org        how can he appreciate the worth of another?
http://www.aishdas.org             - Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye,
Fax: (270) 514-1507                  author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef