[Avodah] Hechsheirim and issues other than kashrus

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Aug 04, 2021 at 07:49:19AM -0400, cantorwolberg wrote:
>> so a restaurant with shatnes chairs
>> could have a hechsher that warns that "you can eat here but only
>> standing up?.

> I've always learned that shatneyz applies to something you wear.
> I've never seen anyone wear a chair.

MiDivrei Soferim*, anything that directly supports your weight is also
assur. Assuming it has any "give", not something hard, like a saddle. Or,
as the mishnah puts it (Kilayim 9:2), "Pillows and blankets have nothing
to do with [the prohibitions of] mixture, as long as his flesh doesn't
touch them."

This is the topic of SA YD 301.

So, if the chair back goes higher than your shirt, you lay on your couch,
you walk on your carpet barefoot and your carpet is plush, they should
really be shaatnez checked. (Not that I ever heard of someone doing so.)



(* MiDivrei Soferim is a subcategory of derabbanan that is effectively
a middle-ground between regular derabbanan and deOraisa. The Soferim
are the generation of Ezra haSofer and the period when rabbis could
pass a law that the nevi'im tell them Hashem approved of. Men hearing
Megillas Esther is midivrei soferim; women hearing it may be a regular
derabbanan. The difference is sufficient that it could keep a man from
being yotzei hearing a woman read the Mefillah.

(Extending shaatnez beyond clothing is described as midivrei soferim,
e.g. in se'if 1 of our siman in SA.)


Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 You are not a human being in search
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   of a spiritual experience. You are a
Author: Widen Your Tent      spiritual being immersed in a human
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF    experience. - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin