[Avodah] Chalav Yisrael: Required or recommended

[Zev Sero]

On 25/01/18 14:54, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 25, 2018 at 2:33pm EST, Zev Sero wrote:
> : AIUI the Radbaz/Pri Chadash position is that there never was any
> : gezera, but only a caution that since there is a serious concern
> : about treife milk, therefore milk needs supervision.  Therefore
> : where no such concern exists, no supervision is needed.
> 
> : The Chasam Sofer says no, even where there is no serious concern
> : Chazal made a gezera, and as RMF points out *only* where there is no
> : serious concern did Chazal make a gezera, because where there is a
> : serious concern no gezera was necessary.

> How do the two differ lemaaseh? If you don't know the milk is
> unadulterated, it's possibly treif, whether the concern is "serious"
> or not. Your explanation doesn't help me understand what additional
> case the CS-posited gezeira was crafted to prohibit. I'm going to have
> to ask you to explain further.

In Western countries, we know there is no serious concern for treife 
milk being added to the kosher.  Stam milk is cow milk, whether we buy 
it from a farmer, a corporation, a bodega, or anyone else.  Therefore 
the Radbaz holds it's mutar, and the Pri Chadash reported that this was 
the common practice in many countries.  In this view, in our countries 
the issur on chaleiv nochri is as obsolete as the issur on giluy, which 
we completely ignore because we don't have snakes slithering around our 
homes leaving venom in open containers.

The Chasam Sofer says that on the contrary, davka in our circumstances 
Chazal decreed an issur on chaleiv nochri.  The Radbaz/Pri Chodosh says 
this is a myth; there never was any such decree.  RMF emphatically holds 
like the CS.


> : AI further UI, the pre-RMF mekilim in the US were all relying on the
> : Radbaz/Pri Chadash...
> 
> I am not sure that's safe to assume. I mean, RMF's sevara seems a
> chiddush, but I don't know for sure it's /his/ chiddush. After all,
> I am unaware of anyone else putting anything in writing.

He doesn't cite any source for it, and it's not intuitive.  Certainly 
his later chiddush that the issur is only chal when the milk transfers 
to Jewish ownership, which pretty much obviates the need for relying on 
the fear of government inspection, is his own.

(This is a point almost everyone misses.  Once we say the issur isn't 
chal until you buy the milk, and we only need yediah berurah about the 
last nochri who owned it, then when we buy a sealed carton of milk from 
the supermarket we know with absolute certainty, as if we were 
personally witnesses, that the supermarket owner did not tamper with the 
carton, and RMF says we *don't care* what happened earlier, at the farm 
and the plant.  There's no serious concern, and Chazal were not gozer. 
Only if we buy from the farmer do we need yediah berurah that he didn't 
add anything, and only if we buy from the plant do we need yediah 
berurah that *they* didn't add anything.)


-- 
Zev Sero            A prosperous and healthy 2018 to all
zev at sero.name       Seek Jerusalem's peace; may all who love you prosper