by Rabbi Dov Linzer Posted on January 21, 2011
The Torah’s prohibition to cook a kid goat in its mother’s milk is understood by Chazal to prohibit the cooking of meat from cows, sheep, and goats, together with milk, even if it is not from the animal’s mother. Why is there such a gap between the literal and halakhic meaning of the verse, and in what way is the halakha of meat and milk shaped by the simple sense of the verse? …
by Rabbi Dov Linzer Posted on January 14, 2011
What the halakhic debate around organ donation is all about? It is unquestionably a mitzvah of pikuach nefesh, saving of life, to give organs after one’s death. There are times where up to 8 lives can be saved with the organs from one body. …
by Rabbi Dov Linzer Posted on December 30, 2010
Recently someone came over to me and asked me the following question – he had marinated a 4 pound roast in wine, roasted it, and then discovered that the wine was not kosher. This was to be his Shabbat meal. What was the status of the roast? …
by Rabbi Dov Linzer Posted on December 17, 2010
Taste transfers in complex ways according to halakha. When a forbidden food gets mixed up directly with a permissible one – they are blended together, or cooked together so they all become one mass, there is no question that the forbidden food is present, and that the mixture will be forbidden unless the forbidden food is less than 1/60th of the whole. …
by Rabbi Dov Linzer Posted on December 10, 2010
Previously we discussed the principle of ta’am lifgam – when the addition of a forbidden food to a mixture makes the mixture taste worse. In such a case, the mixture may be eaten, because while the forbidden food itself, even if it has an off-taste, is forbidden, when we are only dealing with the taste of such food, and not the food itself, this bad taste is not forbidden. …
by Rabbi Dov Linzer Posted on December 3, 2010
In Yoreh Deah we learn about ta’am ki’ikar, the prohibition to eat a mixture of food that has in it the taste of a forbidden food, as we addressed the major exception to this principle: ta’am lifgam, when the forbidden food imparts a bad taste to the mixture. …
by Rabbi Dov Linzer Posted on November 18, 2010
The Gemara rules that a davar she’yesh lo matirin, something that is forbidden now but will be permissible later – like an egg that was born on Yom Tov, and is nolad (a type of muktzah) and cannot be eaten on Yom Tov, but can be eaten the following day, is not batel.…
by Rabbi Dov Linzer Posted on November 12, 2010
Among the things that cannot be nullified when they exist in a mixture are things that are considered a biryah, or “whole entities”. The Gemara in Hullin (99b) states this in reference to the gid hanashe, the forbidden sinew, in just two words – biryah shani – an entity is different (and not batel, nullified). …
by Rabbi Dov Linzer Posted on October 22, 2010
If there is a mixture of kosher and non-kosher food, how are we to determine whether the non-kosher food can be tasted? The Mishna and Gemara speak of two ways to measure this – one, by actually tasting – te’ima, and the other, by a quantitative approximation – the standard of 1/60th. …
by Rabbi Dov Linzer Posted on October 15, 2010
While in our previous study of Kashrut we studied the concept of yavesh bi’yavesh – mixtures of distinct entities, here we address the more common case of lach bi’lach -mixtures in which the forbidden food is totally intermixed with, and whose taste is completely dispersed within, the permissible food. …
by Rabbi Dov Linzer Posted on October 8, 2010
The underlying principle of almost the entire field of practical Kashrut is that of bitul – the ability of a food to be considered “nullified” when it is mixed with other foods, assuming that it does not impart any taste, that it is not noten ta’am.…
by Rabbi Dov Linzer Posted on March 19, 2010
While we rule that it is a mitzvah d’oraitta to eat matzah on the seder night, it is far from clear as far as the simple sense of the verses are concerned. It is interesting to see how Hazal interpreted the verses to come to this conclusion.…
