Fish and Milk: Safety Concerns, Community Practice, and Halachic Questions

Transcript

Today's discussion is fish with milk. Fish and milk. So in Shulchan Aruch, yeah, in Shulchan Aruch, we do not have any place, any mention, nowhere. There's a nowhere. Nowhere does he mention Shulchan Aruch. So right away you have to ask why. It's a tremendous question. If he meant it and he believed in it, it should have been in Shulchan Aruch. Now where are the two places it could have been brought? One of them is in Pei Zayin, so read me the lashon of Pei Zayin, right, where he talks about fish. Go ahead. No, dagim, go ahead. Piska, piska, piska. Yeah. No? Pei Zayin, yeah. Where? Pei Zayin. Nissan, you have to—let's go, let's go. Pei Zayin. No. Pei Zayin, daled. Let's go, no. The Shulchan Aruch, where it says, Chagavim and dagim is mutar b'chalav, no? What does he mean? I mean, l'choira he means that it's mutar with fish, with milk, right? He says it. Is there any other way to translate it? Any other different way of translating it? Huh? Even mid'rabbanan, right? Unless you have to say he meant issur basar b'chalav, he's not negating it. Maybe there's a different problem. It's not basar b'chalav. What's the lashon again? Ein bahem? That's the word I'm looking for. Maybe. That's not what the Shach is saying. Yeah, let me see. That's not what he means. I mean, that could be what he means. Meaning, he's trying to... There's no issur basar b'chalav, but there's issur sakanah. No, right, okay. So let's read the Shach. Fine, good. Meaning when he says issur, maybe he's referring to issur basar b'chalav. Sakanah is a different sugya. All right. L'maaseh, where does he bring the fish and—I'm sorry—the meat and fish? That's in kuf tes. There he doesn't bring it either. I mean, it's a good place to start, right? Where he says you're not allowed to eat meat and fish. Should mention fish. Where do we have? We have in Aruch Chaim. In Aruch Chaim it is brought. But how does he bring it? Ein le'echol. So the first two diyukim. Okay, who wants to read the first one? ... יש מקום גדול לומר שאין זה הלכה. ... Okay, continue. ... איסור. He didn't say issur. He never said the word issur. Now, what's the issue? Chamiras sakanta me'isura? Do you mean issur for that issur, or maybe he didn't even mean that either? How serious do we take the ein le'echol? It's a very important nekudah. How serious do we take it? Okay, go ahead, read. You want to read the next one? Go ahead. תאמר, ... Oh, so they say, oh, maybe milk—but milk, butter is different, right? I don't know, milk is not butter and butter is not milk. It is a pri megadim, man. So the truth is, I don't know what it is even. Do I know what it is? We don't know. Maybe it's a milk thing. Who knows? L'maaseh, Chamavadi, I think, writes that if you want to be somech on the pei shel Avraham, okay. So I don't know, ספרדים eat butter. You guys eat butter with fish. Iraqis do. Okay. Now, so the lanizarim shelo yochal, so this is halacha l'maaseh. You can be somech on this Pri Megadim, okay. Next one: im kvar bishel hadagim b'chalav. What happens if it happened already? יש המתירים. This is my answer. You look at the Pischei Teshuva. He brings a shita that maybe once it's already cooked. Now why, I don't know. I don't understand. If you hold it's dangerous, I don't think if you cook poisonous food it's okay, you know. So ela mai? It's because yesh osrim, it's not an issur. We never spoke about this. It's a very, it's very schwer to come and say this. I always say, so give it away. Now the question is either throw it away or eat it. It's very schwer to say.

I have a hard time telling people, I'm makpid on it, to come and say, you know what, it's a shaylah of bal tashchis. Your bal tashchis is worse. So this is halacha l'maaseh. For bishlah dagim b'chalav, yesh hamatirin, those that are matir. Aval l'maaseh, yoser tov litno l'mi shelo makpid al zeh. You should give it away. Okay, next one. L'choira, go ahead. Oh, some are makpid gvina, right? So, chema, no, no. How about gvina? We could start playing this game, right? Chema is, gvina is... Derech HaShulchan makes it worse. Derech HaShulchan says gvina is more problematic than chalav. Maybe it's more... And he says even those that are going to make on chalav, on gvina they should be machmir. Rav Shlomo Zalman Orbach, in his house they didn't have it; they refused with gvina. He was makpid on it. No lactose-free milk. So that's the whole question also: what do you call gvina? Gvina is the real cheeses, right? I mean, once you start playing with it, it's not milk. Maybe American cheese has very little cheese in it. It's like almost candies. Okay, l'choira hu hadin. Go ahead, Nu. ... שגם בגבינה יהיה אסור. ולערך השולחן משמע שגבינה יותר בעיא מחלב, ומשמע שבא מכוח המנ... ... שבגבינה מקפידים, and that was the lashon. I'm going to be busy with this a lot. L'maaseh, the minhag. So you see very much it's yah minhag, not minhag, yah minhag. It's not a minhag, it's not a minhag issue. It's dangerous, not dangerous. Should you worry, shouldn't you worry? Okay. ... מנהג הגאון רבי שלמה זלמן. Okay. Yesh makom lomar. Go ahead, Nu, who's reading further? Go ahead, Elazarya. ... יש מקום לומר שאולי ההקפדה יותר... Rashel adog bechalav. רבי יושב held that maybe mevashel is the serious one. Eating it together is not terrible. רבי יושב's a psak, very famous psak. I think he brings this in the Aros. In the Aros, I remember seeing it also there. He brings this yesod. It could be the mevashel is more of the problem. V'loy b'stam oichlin l'yachad. אבל מלשון הבית יוסף... I don't know. I mean, unless he's saying it for Ashkenazim, I don't know. It's a little bit of a difficult... Okay, let's continue. Yeah, go ahead. Next, homar. Nirah chiddush din, d'im roiv hatzibur... Ah, so piskei teshuva, because piskei teshuva says... Ah, tzibur, dashu bah. It's not timing. If everyone around you is not doing it, so then... Explain it this morning. Everything has pesticides, everything is poison. If everyone's doing it, so that's it, it's done, you know what I mean? Everyone's smoking, so then... If everyone is doing it, okay. V'chein im ha'adam... Next one, go ahead. V'chein im ha'adam... That's what I'm trying—100% what I mean. There's a video coming out: This is bad, this is bad, this is bad. So you're telling me... That's right. That's right, and they're talking to the crazy ones. No, it's meant for crazy people, because they get you. Normal people know that it's life. Life, you have to take chances. It is what it is. I mean, you know that. Otherwise you can go to—I told you, go to an organic store. I'd be busy all day long buying organic food, because I'm not organic. I said the only thing you can have organic is an organic yid. A yid that doesn't speak any lashon hara, he doesn't look on the internet, he's an organic yid. You take it to the bank. You heard this morning when I said, take that to the bank. Yeah. Okay, now, the machlokes, v'chein im ha'adam nimtza b'aviron, if a person's on a plane and they give him the food, yeah, I'll know the kosher food is fish with the—what does the flighty guy do? So there's a special thing on the airplane for spaghetti? No, probably not. So what do you do? I hope you can eat it. If everyone on the plane is eating it, you know what I mean? Huh? Definitely if it's not—if it's allowed. Allowed they'll only give it to you on Shabbos when they fly. Okay, and now—oh my. There's a halacha of ein issur chal issur, so the issur of dag with chalav won't be chal on the issur of chilul Shabbos. Okay, let's go back to here. Okay, next. V'chein im ha'adam—go, no. No, I was saying that they're not going to have a spidey for sure if it's— That's what I'm telling you. You mean—ah, they're not going to fly, you mean. They go with spirit, spirit airlines. Okay, yeah, spirit. Going spirit. Anyways, v'chein im ha—

You go on Air—Air what do you call, Air Arabia. ... Tower Air. They still fly these days, Tower Air? Tower Air is done already? They're finished already? Tower Air. Tower Air is like probably like—was the cheap, was the no frills. That was like 20 years, 10 years ago. Yeah, they probably have other things that are like it. Yeah, I think they go through Turkey, Air Turkey today is the... Okay, go ahead, now. ... I don't know. ... Yesh lah hakel ... lo chayav ... I don't think you have to fast on an airplane because... that's what I think. Meaning, and I'll bring you later, the Chida himself wasn't... I don't think it's a svara. The Chida, clearly. Okay, let's see it inside now. ... Jelatin is made from fish a lot of times, right? Yeah. You know, you have bovine gelatin and then you have fish gelatin. Okay, so kasher l'hatir. ... You have ... you have a mitzad sakanah. ... But I heard Reb... Reb Elyashiv was matir. I think Chacham Ovadia—no, Chacham Ovadia was... but Reb Elyashiv was matir. He said the gelatin, it's nothing. It's like afar, it's like earth. I don't understand. Again, batel daati, but if you ask me, I mean, if it's a sakanah, it's not an issur. It's all an issurim. It changes the shtanahs. That's issur v'heter halachah. I'm telling you halachah l'maaseh. There's all things which I hold is halachah l'maaseh. Okay, next one. ... I would tell her she should continue. It's not issur minhag. It's not that. Therefore, if you have a minhag, you follow the husband. If you hold it's a problem, then she grew up that all of a sudden it's not a sakanah for... Why is he eating the ... diet? Even ... on his own ... is sakana for me, but not sakana for someone else. That makes sense, huh? So either sakana or it's not. It's not. It's something's not right. I'm telling you, halacha l'maaseh, I'm telling you, halacha l'maaseh, I would tell a Sephardi girl to ... if she could, if she could. Listen, if it's gonna make a story, it makes a story. Continue, go ahead, Nu. ... And I know that Acharonim say, yeah, you don't need it. I don't know why. And if it's sakana, it's better. Whatever you have to do, you have to clean it. They say the whole thing is a questionable issur, yeah, but if you hold it's aser, you hold it's dangerous, so you have to wash again. See, that's what I'm saying. You came late. I didn't say it's— I hate the word minhag here. The way I explained it is the minhag creates the sakanah. The way it works is if you are in a place where everyone is not doing it, so then it's not dash b'rabim; you don't have to shem Hashem. You find for me that someone talks about this. I don't find that. I looked all over. Go ahead, nu, next, next, next, nu. Can I have a fish, cheese, same pot? Can I cook in it l'chatchilah? Do I have to wait? Don't have to wait? Beli'os. The question is, is there a dag in chalav beli'ah problem? I'll tell you what I hold, truthfully. I'll tell you what I hold. The way I learned this sugya, it's not issur v'heter. I don't learn it issur v'heter, and my raya was, again, it's not in Yoreh Deah. He brings it in Aruch HaShulchan. The way the Beis Yosef says it is, ein lecha, you shouldn't eat it for sakanah.

The word issur is not there. And that's the pshat in the Mechaber. The Mechaber here just says the issur basar b'chalav is not נהגed in dag. Yeah, because the issur is not נהגed, and that's that pshat. What I was doing for you was reading, and that is I took out the word issur from the top. It's not really asur. Since it's a shaylah of sakana, so tell me, in everything in life, you have a drop of something, it's going to be a sakana? Probably not. Everything has junk in it. Everything has pesticides. Now what? Blius is not the sugya. Blius is a sugya in issur v'heter. Blius is a sugya in issur v'heter. It's not a sugya. This I'll show you with my raglayim. V'habeir l'zeh, d'blius shir katan, v'shapir yesh lahatir b'shiur katan, kezeh d'batli v'loy mistakni. It doesn't make a sakana. U'lefi zeh, yesh makom l'hatir kli shefarnisht basar b'vasar yom. Yeah? Afilu shelo k'halacha, even if you did something wrong, you cooked it. Not talking about a milk pot cooking fish. You cooked milk and fish in the same pot, or in Ashkenaz. It makes no difference to me. Can I go now and use that pot? The answer is yes. Mayois toiv, nachon l'chaber. You want to be right, you want to be ... you have to wait twenty-four hours. ... says you should wait twenty-four hours. Aval meyois toiv nachon ... stam sheyah. What's my raya? I'm going to hit it right out of the park now. You ready? The Gemara says clearly the Tannaim ate fish with milk. Got a problem with that. I'm not going to run around with that. And the Priisha asks for a kasha. You learned it. It says clearly. So the Priisha says, what are you talking about? The whole thing doesn't make sense. So either you come and say that the Tannaim ... That's what I'm going to say. Let's talk about it. Or I could come and say, go ahead, read what I do with this. ... go ahead, dog. ... Here can aprish ... Here ... Oh, I should put it in ... Maybe ... Remember I told you the cheese, what is called cheese? Maybe put it on cheese, yogurt, cheese. ... I don't know. What's the pshat? It's not cheese, it's not chalav. Go ahead, yeah. ... Maybe that's the story. They took sardines, baby. Dagim shealu, right? Shealu b'kara. It's not fish, shealu b'kara. What does shealu b'kara mean? So you take those fish, the small ones. Could be there was more kutach than there was fish, and that little drop is not a problem. Wait, what is everybody translating shealu? Shealu means that they came up. What does it mean, came up? I think it's not you went and caught a fish and fried it, right? No. What does shealu b'kara mean? You put it on the tray, no? So what does he want? I thought you cooked the whole fish and you put it on the meat tray. Yeah, so what's shealu? They're placed upon. Meaning he's giving you the mahalach here. He's giving me the whole branzino on a kara. Why? I mean, why is that part of the story? Because the kara was used for meat. The kara was used? No, we want kutach. The story is the kutach. The Gemara's sugya is about eating meaty fish with dairy. Right, meaty fish with dairy, right. Right, that's the whole sugya. So shealu b'kara means you put it onto a meat kara. And where is the kutach? Somewhere else. See, I didn't learn like that. I see big kutach means you put it into kutach. No, but maybe you put the fish into the milk. Whatever that fish was, you put it into kutach. Yeah, I have a container of whatever, a kutach afterwards inside, and I'm dipping the fish and eating it. That's what I mean. Okay, so how does Rebbe get to small fish? No, no. What I'm trying to say is, whatever it is, it's something that you're dipping into a kutach, right? So what fish are you dipping into a kutach? No, what I mean to say is, it's something that you're, big kutach, you're putting it into the kutach. It's an ingredient that you're putting in the kutach. I'm not saying you're eating it together, this and this. You're eating it b'kutach, which means, I don't know if you know, you know what else they used to put into kutach? Bread. The Gemara says they used to put in bread crumbs. So they put in fish little fish bits. Huh? Whatever, fish bits. Big kutach might be, it's not you're eating that you made the fish with kutach. You didn't fry the fish with kutach. You didn't fry—

You're eating it b'kutach because kutach had ingredients in it. That's the story. The Gemara says kutach is a whole shaila what bracha. Why? Because they used to put bread bits in it. Bread bits. According to the Gemara, it's 100% mutar to eat fish with milk, right? I'm saying, it could be the story is that you're putting fish, and making it that maybe according to the Gemara it's also asur. That's right, and only mutar when it's small pieces. Correct. No. What I want to try to do is that the story of kutach needs to be explained. That's what I want. Kutach is what—they grated, they didn't do it, meaning they never put fish, they never—so, and the answer is they did do it with kutach. Why would they do it with kutach? What is kutach? Why kutach? What's the story of kutach? It's a very specific thing. So I think that the Gemara speaks about kutach, they used to put bread in it, right? What does the Gemara say? They achli nahama b'nahama. They eat bread with bread. They had bread, and then they took bread crumbs and put it in. So b'kutach means that they took the fish, put it in as one of the ingredients, as one of the ingredients, or whatever, as like a salad, like a dip. Like a dip. Where is the issur? The issur might be when you taka have fish together with. But if you put in, for example, a little bit, maybe that's not a problem. It's not one of the stories about sakana. What's the word I'm looking for? I see that the oilam is not happy with my chiddush, so let me see how to wing it. Let me see how to wing it for you guys. Okay, so let me tell you like this. Let me ask you like this. Did you know what kutach is before? Meaning, did you go through the sugya of kutach in Brachos? We saw it in Avodah Zarah, no? Okay, okay. So if you guarantee me you will look at the Gemara in Brachos, the achli, the hama b'nahama, why they put bread into kutach, then we can talk. All right? Let's say that רבי— No, don't let's say nothing. I see, I see. The reason why you're sitting there and making whatever, what do you call it, sour faces— It's funny because the word kutach is because it's sour. It's a sour thing. That's the reason why they put bread in. It's a sour cheese, that's why they put bread in. You couldn't eat it raw. He's having a hard time digesting it. What's the milk thing when they have the problem with the— Lactose. The lactose intolerance. The kutach intolerance. Let's go back. Let's finish. What? What? Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. No, no, no, go ahead. ... בקוטח, שלא יראה מדג, אבל כשנראה ולא מעורב ומבולל, אסור אפילו רב במקצת. Okay. Ashkenazi, go ahead, next one. ... Since this is a minhag, ... ... and therefore it has to be machmir, like the minhag of the people that he comes to. Meaning, if once the crowd is— so then you're talking about not your minhag. I don't think it's about your minhag. It's about minhag hamakom. I think this, the lashon of the Shulchan Aruch, the Rema, everything that talks about it, it's not your minhag. It has to do with the minhag anshei hamakom. The Rema brings it that way. So it depends on what the crowd, because that will create the sakanah sheb... If you're in a place that everyone's eating it, so then you have shem Shamayim. Let's go one more, one more final halacha, yeah. Sameach minhag creates the sakana? What happens if a guy doesn't have a minhag? His father ate it, his grandfather. Now he's baal teshuva, now he's taking on all the Sefardish minhagim, so what, he has to take this on? I don't think so. Ooh, I'm out. Get me some cheese. Get me some kutach. But all of a sudden it turned into you get disease. But based on what Rebbe's saying, just go get a doctor and let's see if it's a sakana or not, and throw the whole case out the window. No, I don't think that's what it's based on. So let me explain to you. You weren't here in the beginning of the shiur, and that's why you're saying that. You need to understand that in every food, if a doctor will come and say, he'll tell you, yeah, it's not good, not healthy, can't eat pesticides. Yeah, but I'm not eating, I'm eating fruit that has pesticides. Not the end of the world if you eat fruit that has pesticides, because life is shem Shamayim. That's life. You can't start hocking a chainik about sakana on everything, because then you don't eat anything, don't breathe air. You know how much...

Not only clean, when it's clean, you have bacteria in the air. You told me, do you have any idea the stuff? You know, viruses. What's the answer? The answer is, shomer pesaim Hashem. You know what, in English they call that? Human beings have antibodies. We as Jews don't call it that. You know what we call it? Hashem protects people. That's the way it is, right? That's only when there's a sakana. That's when shomer pesaim Hashem begins. There's a whole school of things. This is nothing. It doesn't even exist. They don't even come onto shomer pesaim. That's your way of looking at it. But I quoted a piskei teshuva that you were there for. I can't help you. So next time I'll give a shiur on allowed to be. There's a piskei teshuva that says, 'kivan dad shemurabin,' so there's no shomer pesaim Hashem. So what am I explaining? That it's very possible that this sugya doesn't start with minhagim: my minhag, your minhag, Sefardi minhag, Ashkenaz minhag. It's not about minhagim. It's about if everyone is doing it, then you become shomer pesaim Hashem. If it's an accepted thing to do, then it becomes shomer pesaim Hashem. So what's Rabbi going to do with all this? What am I doing with any of it? What would you want? You want me to throw it at you? Reb Avraham says everything is mutar. You want to see? You went through all the halichos seilim? I did it. I saw all the Chavadas last night, all the halichos seilim. Everything is mutar. Since then, meileh it's mutar. Chida himself did it. Yeah, but he... There wasn't real Sefardi minhag. No, I go with the Chida. According to me, I... I just want to know what we're doing here. Ta'avashkina. That's what it is. I would say matir. Okay, listen to me carefully. The point of this shiur was not, can I eat fish with... That's not the point. The point is, you should understand what is the issue, and then to see how to maneuver in what case. That's what I... I hold strongly that if a guy ate his whole life and he doesn't have a minhag because his father... and now he's... because he happens to be that he's a Sefardi, it doesn't mean he has to be machmir. It's not one of the minhagim Sefard to be machmir on fish and things. That's what I'm trying to... It was a minhag makom. It has to do with ma'aseh; the people didn't do it. So they took on this thing. So now you can't say shemim psayim Hashem. Why this is difficult to you is either A, you still need to learn, or B is because you're so set in the way, so... It's very simple. This has nothing to do with Sefardim. I'm listening. What is that? Oh, yes... so Mazel telling your brother bar mitzvah, but I'd like to inform you that we're in the middle of yeshiva here. Okay, so now you're right, so mincha we can have that. Okay, yeah. I need to talk to you. Okay, everybody out. Goodbye.