Bridging the Gap Between The Torah World and MO

Neville, I think the question comes to – how do you relate to someone who follows R Moshe’s opinion on chalav hacompanies. You compared it to giving pork to Refor, I presume that was just a figure of speech. As well as calling chalav hacompanies chalav akum, both are disrespect both to whole communities of Yidden and R Moshe. That does not seem to bother anyone who feels frummer because he is keeping chumros.

And it is not here, not there whether this is a kula or a chumra – commercial milk and USDA did not exist in earlier times.

“I’m not accusing but you can’t call something that Rav Moshe is Matir that it’s treif.”

Treif wouldn’t be the proper word, but if people hold l’halachah not by the cholov stam heter, then they hold that it is assur and giving it to another Jew would be lifnei iver by them.

This same differentiation would be present between one who holds R”T Tzeis l’chumra vs. l’halachah for motzei Shabbos, or Shabbos generators in Israel, or shmitta produce, etc. If you hold something l’halachah, you can’t facilitate or benefit from other people transgressing it.

Hakatan- chalav Yisroel is a chumra in the sense that there are reliable poskim who don’t require it. Unless you don’t consider R’ Moshe a reliable posek. Chumra does not mean unnecessary or even optional. For those Jews who have poskim who are machmir are certainly required min hadin to follow that psak.

But since every frum Jew has a right to rely on their posek, assuming that that poske is reliable, I find it hard to believe that it would be a prohibition of lifnei iveir to assist or even enable a Jew to rely on their psak, even if your posek rules differently.

“I heard from some anashim peshutim from there that they had hard time adjusting to American kashrut.”
Nobody says that the cholov stam heter applies in Iraq; that’s why I used it as a non-controversial example. Your Iraqi friends simply didn’t keep kosher.

Simcha:
I was given this psak as well regarding shmitah i.e. that if I end up with heter mechira produce somehow, I’m not even allowed to pawn it off on someone who holds by the heter due to lifnei iver. I’m not noheg like this with cholov yisroel, but it would be totally understandable if someone were. I’m not sure why this is so hard for people to understand.

R’ Melamed rules similarly when it comes to Masseh Shabbos. It wouldn’t be a problem of Maaseh Shabbos to benefit from someone doing something that you treat as prohibited, as long as they have a reliable psak that it’s permitted:

“כאשר מי שנוהג כשולחן ערוך או הרמ”א מתארח אצל תימני שנוהג כרמב”ם, מותר לו לאכול מן המרק שהוציא המארח מהמקרר וחיממו. שהואיל והמארח נהג כהלכה על פי מנהגו, מותר לכל יהודי לאכול לכתחילה מתבשילו (עי’ מ”ב שיח, ב).”

“האיסור ליהנות ממלאכה שנעשתה בשבת, הוא רק כשברור שהמעשה אסור, אבל אם נעשה דבר ששנוי במחלוקת, אף שלמעשה נוהגים להורות כדעה המחמירה, מכל מקום בדיעבד, מותר ליהנות מאותה המלאכה. וזאת משום שכל יסוד האיסור ליהנות ממלאכה שנעשתה בשבת הוא מדברי חכמים, ולכן כאשר יש מחלוקת אם המלאכה אסורה, הלכה כמיקל, שספק בדברי חכמים להקל (פמ”ג, מ”ב שיח, ב).

Simcha, eliezer melamed has disqualified himself from being a posek by believing that all a “ger” has to do to be jewish is be as observant as a traditional chiloni Israeli.

His words no longer belong on a torah forum.

Avira- I’ll let the mods decide which Rabbonim no longer belong on a Torah forum. It seems like they may disagree with you.

Neville, kabalas hamitzvos is integral to gerus. Knowledge of them isn’t. Eliezer melamed said you could be megayer people who expressed that they have no plans to keep most of the mitzvos, or even believing in the Torah, save for maybe fasting on yom kippur, not eating chazir….like a masorti israeli.

The fact that anything besides torah can make someoke jewish and that his yardstick is a secular jewish state, shows how ingrained nationalism is in his mind, that the state dictates what a jew is! That is disqualifying. And feldheim stopped selling his books after he came out with thus psak.

Neville, perhaps that’s true, but it’s important to be mocheh when his rulings are mentioned, because he was previously known as a normative, rabbi Hershel shechter-esque figure. But he isn’t. He is one of the most dangerous rabbis in the world, with the ability to bring in goyim into klal yisroel, which could cast doubt on the entire next generation of non charedi Israelis.

Correction.

Rav Moshe’s opinion on chalav hacomapnies is clearly printed. It is muttar according to the law. (This is not a chidush if you know the sugya. The Chazon Ish agrees.) One is allowed to be machmer. If it comparably priced and not difficult to ascertain, one should be machmer. If one was makpid and the price went up, he must continue to be machmir.

Saying Rav Moshe had a kula here, is on par with saying that he allowed an Eruv In Brooklyn.

Yoshon was not kept for centuries in Europe. It is not clear why they didn’t, but such a precedent is not called a kulah. The same goes for birkas hamazon with a cup of wine. Today, some yeshivaliet want to be makpid on everything. They are completely mistaken about everything. One has to be really big and really know what they are doing to revive a practice that was dormant for centuries.

In the Yeshiva of old, even top lomdim were consistently being knocked off their high horses because there where real gaonim in almost every beis medrash. In such an atmosphere, one trembled at the mere thought of changing the minhag. Today, the cream of the crop run to their private offices to learn, and the masses of the yeshiva are left at the mercy of the lunatics who think they know everything without learning anything. In The Old Yeshivishe Velt chumros were well hidden. They were so modest about it, that their own families weren’t aware of what they were doing.

Dear Avira,

The Iraqi Jews that in your view ate trief would include the Iraqi Jews mentioned in the Gemara. A lot of the circumstances remained unchanged right up until 1948. For some reason, they didn’t reach out to the Yeshivos in Europe to update the Gemara for them. They didn’t really take to the Shulchan Aruch until the 1700s.

Nom…when did i mention Iraqi jews?

The chazon ish is recorded in maaseh ish as saying that it’s a good taanah. He didn’t “agree,” with him in psak.

And to those who learn the sugya of anan sahadi, it fits, but it’s still a chidush. And rav moshe writes in many places that, for instance, yeshivos shouldn’t serve jt, because they are meant to teach ideals and keeping away from things which have even a slight doubt as to their kashrus. He also writes that it’s a bedieved in other places.

His sons held that he said it lechatchila – and kovodom bemolomlm omedes; they are totally entitled to that view, but the other talmidim of rav moshe, including more verabi rav Belsky, did not agree with that.

“So you get to label who is Zionist and who is anti Zionist when that in itself is a metaphor for Authentic Jewishness?”

Did I do that here? I usually only bring Zionism into it when I’m purposely trying to derail a thread; it seems far to on point on this thread to be worth doing that here.

“Yoshon was not kept for centuries in Europe. It is not clear why they didn’t, but such a precedent is not called a kulah.”

Sure it is. The only reason to argue otherwise is if you’re insecure in your frumliness. I don’t keep yoshon. I rely on kulos and so does everyone else. And, by the way, when the Rema and Bach talk about possible heterim for chadash, they seem to be explicitly talking about them as kulos. They would be the last people to be offended by the use of that term.

You’re hung up the the idea that “kulah” is an insult. Adaraba, it takes a much greater posek to be able to find [legitimate] kulos than to find chumros. With this overly sensitive notion you guys are arguing for, nothing could ever be called a kulah under any circumstances.

Dear Avira,

My mistake. Iraqi Jews was NCB replying to AAQ.

It’s in Sefer Chazon Ish.

https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14334&st=&pgnum=118

The sugya isn’t anan sahadi. It is how to ascertain that food is prepared in a kosher manner. Rav Belsky had higher standards than Rav Moshe in general. Accordingly, it becomes a kulah. I’m sure you know that Rav Belsky was meticulous with his halachic approach. Your not quoting the Igros correctly. But even like you say, it doesn’t help your argument. Rav Moshe is very clear that it is muttar without any kula.

I don’t understand how this can be a machlokes what Rav Moshe himself held. He had chalav hacompanies in his house. There are many living witnesses to this.

Dear Neville,

I wasn’t offended by the term. I’m only vaguely aware of the context in the larger discussion.

Chalav hacompanies is not a kula at all. It just happens to be that there is another (possibly better) option.

Chodosh is a kula in some sense. But I think the term should not be applied when there is so much precedent.

n0mesorah, there are many who claim that R’ Moshe once drank chalav hacompanies and when he realized, he vomited it up.
A friend of mine who was a student of R’ Dovid Feinstein zt”l once asked him if this story was true or not. R’ Dovid laughed, and said, “If my father ever threw up the milk, it’s because it was spoiled. He never threw up just because it wasn’t chalav Yisrael!”

Aveirah, you should read about R’ Belsky’s heter for chalav stam, which actually removes one of the issues that some had with R’ Moshe’s heter.
Mods, is a link to the OU’s site allowed? https://oukosher.org/blog/consumer-kosher/rav-moshe-ztls-heter-of-cholov-stam-revisited/

Dear Avira,

This is the sugya. The Chassam Sofer used the Rashi from cheese for milk. The Chazon Ish is completely rejecting the comparison. Same as Rav Moshe. If you go through the nuance, he is even more lenient in theory. There wasn’t a reason for the Chazon Ish to pasken. He was never in a country that had applicable standards for the milking process. And the heter of the government had already been in use for decades. The heterim of the Pri Chodosh had already been relied upon in parts of Europe.

“Chodosh is a kula in some sense. But I think the term should not be applied when there is so much precedent.”

My point is that it does not matter how many people rely on something; it’s still a kulah. Chodosh is the best example because the overwhelming majority do rely on it, nonetheless it’s a leniency. The stam halacha is that chodosh is assur m’doraisa.

“Chalav hacompanies is not a kula at all. It just happens to be that there is another (possibly better) option.”

Absolute nonsense. For thousands the years, the halachah was you could only drink Cholov Yisroel. There now exists a heter not to in a way that’s still mutar, but that is 100%, definitively, unequivocally a kulah. Nobody is challenging the validity. Just stop moving the goalposts because your too insecure to admit that you rely on kulos every now and then.

Nom, asserting that fear of govt companies is a mirsas is still a chiddush that the chazon ish does not address, but now i get what you were trying to say… it’s still not clear, and the chazon ish ended with a tz”a.

As for bedieved – it wasn’t easy to get cholov stam in the 1950s when rav moshes children were growing up. That’s a bedieved situation. But even in that case, he personally did not drink it and je said rhat they should not serve it in yeshivos.

Even in the 80s it wasn’t as easy as it is now for most frum people to get cholov yisroel.

As it were, if i lived in a place where it was hard to get cholov yisroel, i would rely on the heter myself.

Dear Avira,

Does bedieved mean that it’s lacking in halachic standing, or that there are possibly better options?

I’m using the first definition. What did Rav Belsky mean?

Dear Neville,

An explicit pasuk! what does that mean? Which tanna did not read the pasuk? The Mordechai didn’t have the pasuk in his Sefer Torah?

Nom, a bedieved is both – it’s not optimal, because it’s shaky in halacha.

Dear Avira,

We can wrap up this topic.

What if it isn’t both? Here it is only the second. Because Rav Moshe is explicit that it is not lacking in halachic standing.

Dear Neville,

How does a pasuk tell us stam halacha? Especially according to your take that it is whatever came earlier, than your indicating that Torah Shebksav is the first Law, and Torah Shebaal peh is after. Which is untrue and heretical.