לזכות ר' משה מרדכי בן חנה לבריאת השלמה!!
A woman is in the kitchen [not because a woman's place is in the kitchen but because she is preparing dinner for her family:-)] cooking both chicken and meat [deeeliicious!!] in two separate pots. She has two milchig spoons nearby, one is a ben yomo [it has been used within the last 24 hours for hot milchig and imparts good flavor] and one is not a ben yomo [and imparts bad flavor and doesn't cause meat to be treif]. One of the spoons - she doesn't know if it is the ben yomo or the non ben yomo - fell into the pot of chicken and the woman took it out and then used it to stir the pot of meat. Then, to her horror, she realized that the spoon is milchig.
Uh oh!
The question is, does the spoon treif up the food?
This question was presented to Rav Tzvi Pesach Frank and he goes to town with it.
לאמיר זעהן - Let's see: Since it first fell into the pot of chicken which is only a di-rabanan, we should be meikel and kasher the food. On the other hand, since she is asking about both pots at once including the meat which is di-oraisa, we should be machmir and assume it was the ben yomo that fell in and both pots are treif. We can't be machmir about the meat pot and lenient about the chicken pot because that would lead one to treat di-rabanan with disrespect. We find this idea when a person is not sure whether or not he bentched [which is a safek di-oraisa]. The halacha is that he must repeat the whole bentching including the fourth di-rabanan bracha in order that people don't lost respect for di-rabanans [זלזול]. Here too, maybe we will be machmir about the chicken as well in order that people don't see that we are only strict about di-oraisa. Or maybe we can differentiate between the cases and say that here there will be no זלזול for dirabanans because there are two separate doubts and two separate questions unlike bentching which is one unit and we must be machmir about the di-rabanan as well.
Is it possible, however, to say that the chicken pot is kosher and the meat pot is treif even though the question is about the very same spoon?? This would be an inherently contradictory psak. When we pasken about the chicken pot we say that it was the non ben yomo spoon and when we pasken about the meat pot we say that the very same spoon was in fact ben yomo. Can't be, because it was the same spoon!!
There is a famous-famous-famous case where a butcher schechted 7 animals and sold half of one animal and the other half remained in the slaughter house. Then ...... one of the stomachs was found to be treif meaning that now we have a sefeik on each animal. So the rule is that all of the animals that left the slaughter house are kosher because the majority of animals are kosher and כל דפריש מרובא פריש - whatever separated is assumed to be from the majority. Whatever stayed in the same place is assumed to be treif because כל קבוע כמחצה על מחצה דמי - Whatever is in a set place is assumed to be 50-50 [even if there is a majority] and we are machmir on the safek.
But what about the animal that was cut in half? Can we say that the half that separated is kosher and the other half that remained in a set place is treif. Can the same animal be kosher and treif?? This echoes are spoon question. Can we say about the same spoon that when it fell into the chicken pot it was a non ben yomo and then when it fell into the meat pot it was a ben yomo?
There are 3 opinions about the animal - both kosher, both treif, half and half.
Can we distinguish between the animal question and our spoon question? We can. Think about it....
What is the conclusion??
BOTH KOSHER!!!!
Why?
Says Rav Frank a BRILLIANT CHAP!!
Read on....
שפתיים ישק ודברי פי חכם חן!
