[Avodah] Chalav Yisrael: Required or recommended

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Jan 25, 2018 at 06:08:24PM +0200, elazar teitz wrote:
: My understanding of the dispute regarding chalav stam seems to be at
: odds with the assumptions underlying the discussion of the past few days
: on Avodah.

I don't think so. There is a language difference in that in coloquial
discussion "chalav yisrael" means "milk certified as watched by a Jew"
and "chalav stam" means other potentially kosher milk. (I have been using
RMF's "chalav hacompanies" or, when I feel that phrase was overused,
"USFDA milk".)

But the points you make are (or are mostly) spelled out in the post Prof
Levine and I are debating. http://www.aishdas.org/asp/chalav-yisrael

The discussaion was about my intro praragraph, in which I back up the
claim that RMF was not innovating a pesaq but publishing an explanation of
a commonly accepted pesaq. Among the names I list as prededing R' Moshe
was R' Breuer, but only because my list includes rabbanim who advocating
avoiding chalav hacompanies if they did not consider it an actual issur.
Obviously a rav who made Jew-watched milk available for his qehilah within
a year of so of reaching the sates thought that the issue was important.
Albeit not necessarily mei'iqar hadin.

Prof Levin and his source believe that RYB did consider it an actual
violation of the gezeira to rely only on the USFA. (Or in colloquial
Judeo-English: He held that CY was iqar hadin. As again, the colloquial
use of "CY" isn't the technical use, or else there would be little
information added in the sentence "He keeps chalav yisrael.")

The point of contention is that RYB did allow someone on a trip or
who lived in an area where milk wasn't available to rely on R' Moshe's
teshuvah.

An issue that I haven't raised before is that this restatement of
R Breuer's position is an anachronism. R' Moshe's earliest teshuvah
on USDA certificied milk was written 15 Sivan 5714, with followups on
RC Av and 2 Elul. RYB had his own position by then. He could have been
referring to aforementioned prior pesaqim, though. So, back on track...

I felt that if it were to be treated as an actual issur derabbanan, a
trip wouldn't be sufficient reason to go hunting senifim lehakeil. Not
even sure living where it was unavailable would be. RAM posted a parallel
example where the star-K said they have a general rule that unavailablity
due to travel a "she'as hadechaq".

But I was thinking of heskhsheirim like CHK (Crown Heights Kosher), that
would no faster find a heter for USFDA milk than for chicken parmesan.
To me, that's a necessary consequence of believing it's really a full
violation of a gezeira.

In response, Prof Levine's source reframed RYB's position as applying
only to a trip in a special case, where coffe was necessary and black
wasn't an option. But I see no indication of that in any other statement
of what he held, just that one can rely on RMF if there is no "CY"
(Jew literally watched milk) available. Nor is that what is actually
practiced in the "Breuers" community, as reported to me by members of
noted Frankfurt families (who themselves are now yeshivish and "keep CY",
ie don't consider USFDA supervision sufficient). CC-ing RMPoppers now.

Now that I recapped that thread of the discussion with an eye to those
who may have misunderstood due to the heavy use of poor colloquialisms...


I don't understand RMF's position. If rei'yah could be fulfilled with
yedi'ah, based on his comparison to eidus, the gezeira doesn't seem to
add anything beyond the de'orasa, and the machloqes between the Peri
Chadash (really the Radbaz, the PC's maqor) and the Chasam Sofer loses
any nafqa mina lemaaseh.

Leshitaso, both the PC and the CS hold you only need a way to know the
source of the milk, and not have a Jew literally watch. The CS, because
of the taqnah. But you need to know anyway because of the original issur
deOraisa! If you can't get the odds of consuming milk from a beheimah
temei'ah down to negligable levels, who would matir it even before
the gezeira? So what did the gezeira add?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of
micha at aishdas.org        greater vanity in others; it makes us vain,
http://www.aishdas.org   in fact, of our modesty.
Fax: (270) 514-1507              -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980)


Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             I have great faith in optimism as a philosophy,
micha at aishdas.org        if only because it offers us the opportunity of
http://www.aishdas.org   self-fulfilling prophecy.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                              - Arthur C. Clarke