Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Milk

I called my mom during my lunch hour, and she says to me "Hi, want to hear something stupid?" And ofcourse, my response is "Yes"

Her coworker, a fellow "Russian" BT, saw my mom prepare her morning coffee. Like most people, my mom pours the coffee, then adds the milk and sugar. This morning, not thinking twice about it, she started doing the same thing, she poured in the coffee, then was about to add the milk, and her fellow Russian frummy says something like "You can't use an already open milk container. If a frum Jew did not open it, you cannot drink from it, or touch it."
My mom, being a nice person and all, just replied with a "huh?"
The lady continued "Yea, its true. Also, if you come back later, you can't drink the milk from the carton you opened either, because you don't know who touched it since then."

Is it just me and my mom, or do others view this as ridiculous? I mean, this is definitly not an issue of chalov stam vs. chalov yisroal! It sounds more like an issue of mevushal/non-muvashal wine laws, somehow applying to milk. I definitly do not remember learning the halachos of milk containers, but I do know, that I do not rememebr learning that milk cannot be touched by goyim. Am I missing something, or is this really retarded?

9 comments:

הצעיר שלמה בן רפאל לבית שריקי ס"ט said...

no, it's retarded. ...obviously the only time it makes a differece if a Jew is milking or watching a cow is during the milking process (you know, to like, make sure it's really from a cow...or uh, any other kosher animal..).

'chalv yisrael' (by it's Talmudical defenition) is a must! Some say that chalav yisrael is/was defined only as a Jew milking or watching (as aforementioned), but later on in history (after 600's; Talmud times) some (non-jewish) people(s) not only drank only the milk of kosher animals, but it became the law (which is the situation that exists in America for example). Some authorities said this is good enough ('pri chadash' for example), while some said 'no', 'situations changig doesn't change the clear-cut rule that the Talmud lays down'.

(That was not made too clear..but I gots to go..)

Anonymous said...

I never heard of not using an open milk.

frumskeptic said...

Glad to know its not just me that never heard that!!
:)

Jessica said...

I'm gonna have to go with it being retarded.

Orthoprax said...

I've heard of it. It's based on the halachot of cholov yisroel and the stricture that the milk could be tampered with, downgrade to cholov akum and thereby be considered treif.

It's just a chumra set upon the shoulders of another chumra.

Uzi Silber said...

Udder madness.....

Anonymous said...

You missed nothing. It's really retarded.

MAK said...

I've heard of that in the casse of non-muvushal wine, but never milk.

Ookamikun said...

Milk in America can't be downgraded to cholov akum because all milk in America has the status of cholov stam.
http://www.star-k.org/kashrus/kk-issues-cholovYisroel.htm
Possession with intent to sell of milk that can be considered cholov akum is an offense that carries, at minimum, a hefty fine.