Do any Frum Anti-Vaxxers Drink Cholov Stam Milk?

According to their view לשטתם since they believe strongly that vaccination is dangerous, so they don’t trust the government over here, but by milk they do trust the government.

I think cholov stam has more to do with “fear of the government” by companies (i.e getting fined/losing their livelihood) than “trusting” the government.

DY, They are more cocerned and suspicious on the danger of ונשמרתם md’orayta than by a prohibition of milk which is darabonon. We don’t know if they are lying so the question is if the milk producer trusts them because of the punishment they might receive. How do you feel about climate change?

Although I neither oppose vaccines nor rely on Reb Moshe’s heter for commercial milk, let me point out that this heter does not depend on trusting the government. On the contrary, Reb Moshe takes for granted that government inspectors can be bribed, and will be if there’s any money to be made from it. His heter for commercial milk rests on several factors, one of which — but not the most important one — is that in the setting of a large commercial plant it’s impossible to do anything wrong on any significant scale without bribing people not to report it, so it will only be done when it’s profitable. Substituting non-kosher milk for kosher at the plant is not profitable, so it’s not worth paying the bribes that are necessary to hide it.

Reb Moshe’s heter seems to have developed over time, but if you learn the teshuvos, especially the third one with all the lomdus, it turns out in the end that one can forget about government inspection altogether. It was a factor in the first teshuva, but once he spelled out his whole shita it no longer seems necessary. Even if there were no inspection at all, the same reasoning would continue to permit all commercially produced milk in a sealed tamper-proof container, so long as it is purchased from a non-Jewish retailer.

To understand this you really need to learn it inside. I don’t personally rely on this shita, but it is not nearly as simplistic as people (both who use it and who don’t) make it out to be. It’s certainly not driven by looking for a kulla. Rather, Reb Moshe held that this is what Chazal really meant all along.

Perhaps I should explain a little about the Radvaz v the Chasam Sofer, and where Reb Moshe stood.

The Radvaz held that there was never any gezera against cholov nochri. It simply never happened. Lahadam. Chazal simply pointed out that in the metzius of their day there was a ch’shash about milk being adulterated, and since sofek d’oraisa lechumra one must be careful. Where the metzius is that there is no such ch’shash, one may drink cholov nochri. So according to him there is no problem at all in the US. You can buy milk from a farm, or wherever you like, and the whole siman in shulchon oruch is not relevant.

The Chasam Sofer held that cholov nochri is forbidden by a gezeiras Chazal, a dovor shebeminyan, and therefore even if we know there’s no ch’shash of treif, it’s inherently treif, just like chicken parmesan.

Reb Moshe absolutely agrees with the Chasam Sofer, and therefore says there is no heter whatsoever to drive up to a non-Jewish farm and buy a jar of fresh milk. Even though we don’t suspect anything, Chazal forbade it.

However, he says, there are two important caveats:

1. We do not need to physically see the milking with our own eyes. What we need is a clear and definite knowledge that the milk did not come from a treife animal. The Torah considers clear and definite knowledge to be the same as physical sight. It allows eidus where the witnesses didn’t actually see what they are testifying to, but they know with absolute certainty that it happened.

2. Chazal only made their gezera on the last nochri to whom the milk belonged before it came into Jewish possession. So we only need this absolute certainty about the last nochri in the chain of ownership; with the rest of the nochrim in the chain there is no gezera, so it’s simply a question of whether there is a real ch’shash, in which case sofek d’oraisa lechumra, or there is no real ch’shash, in which case it’s heter gomur.

Therefore it comes out that if you buy a sealed tamper-proof carton of milk from a bodega, you are completely certain, as if you saw it with your own eyes, that from the time it was delivered to the bodega nobody put anything inside. Any problem must have happened earlier. Since we have no reason to suspect anything did happen earlier, and we have eidus that nothing happened in the bodega owner’s reshus, Reb Moshe holds that it has a din of cholov yisroel. (The term “cholov stam” does not exist in halocho, and certainly Reb Moshe never uses it. I don’t know where this term came from.)

The term “cholov stam” does not exist in halocho, and certainly Reb Moshe never uses it.

That is my understanding as well; the term used by HaRav Hagaon Rav Moshe Feinstein, ZT”L, in Igros Moshe is <i>Cholov ‘HaCompanies'</i>.

There was a YWN article a few years ago that said because government regulations have changed, all cholov stam drinkers are relying on the Pri Chodosh now whether they like it or not. I’m not sure how to track that article down.

Here’s the article:

“It is interesting to note, however, that, apparently in response to the new reality, the OU’s policy, as told to this author, is now to rely upon the Pri Chodosh.”

As the article admits, no official OU statement of this can be found on the web, but I don’t see why he would lie. This is a bigger and frankly more interesting discussion than how it pertains to anti-vaxxers, which was kind of silly to begin with.

Cholov Yisroel versus Cholov Stam

So, it sounds like the OU representative who spoke with Rabbi Hoffman was not really reflecting the OU’s policy as a whole.

It’s pretty academic at the end of the day. I know it should theoretically be important to Ashkenazim that Reb Moshe’s heter is still relevant, but the common practice is to be matir Cholov Stam and no matter what, there’s SOME heter for it. I don’t think people are miskaven to “trust the government” every time they put a bottle of cholov stam milk in their shopping carts.

“It shouldn’t be”
I agree, as I said in the post. But, those who drink chalav stam either hold the heter is still active or hold that it’s OK to hold by the Pri Chodosh now, so there’s not much of a difference l’maaseh. If, theoretically, something were to happen with the government that for sure ruined Reb Moshe’s heter, it would be nearly impossible to get the bulk of the population to go chalav Yisroel overnight. If that situation were to occur, I think an emergency heter to hold by the Pri Chodosh would emerge as the end of that article seemed to imply.

“Davar she’eino miskaven isn’t a heter for cholov aku”m.”
I hope you don’t really think that’s what I meant. People know whether or not they rely on a heter. If they do, they do. They don’t think about the reasoning behind it every time to buy milk. Chalav stam anti-vaxxers aren’t thinking “I trust the government here, but not here.” They’re thinking, “I hold it’s mutar to drink chalav stam because I don’t hold by those who say it’s assur. I hold it’s mutar to deny my kids basic medical necessities because I don’t hold by those who say it’s assur.” It’s not a battle that can be won on a religious or logical front.

To admins:

Please be aware of the following contradictory behavior that I experienced after submitting my latest reply to this thread mere moments ago. The page refreshed with the message “This topic contains 27 replies, has 7 voices, and was last updated by DaasYochid ☕ 2 seconds ago.” at the top, but without any trace of my actual post nor any acknowledgement that it had been received and was awaiting moderation.

For a few minutes there, you actually became DaasYochid. That’s our best explanation for the behavior you witnessed.

“In other words, they aren’t thinking.”
Correct.

“That doesn’t make sense, because as the article notes, we pasken like the C”S, and is definitely not what Rav Belsky held.”
This article was written post-Rav Belsky, I believe. The issue came to light in time for him to weigh in on, but that statement at the end might have been made after he passed away. Didn’t they change their stance on Quinoa on Pesach right after Rav Belsky passed away?