Chullin 96-102: Ta’am, When It Spreads, How To Calculate

by R. Gidon Rothstein

A Mishnah on Chullin 96b introduces pieces of the ta’aruvot puzzle, of how to evaluate mixtures that includes some prohibited food. Rabbinical students spend almost a year studying these topics, so I am clearly only giving the briefest of refreshers on some central concerns of kashrut.

Measuring Taste

The Mishnah is ostensibly about a thigh of an animal cooked with the gid ha-nasheh, the sciatic nerve, still inside. It assumes this prohibited part can leave a taste (a matter of debate), and therefore makes the entire thigh disallowed, if it bears some of that taste. The Mishnah says we evaluate it (since all the meat tastes the same) as if the thigh were leeks. Had leeks in the amount of the thigh been cooked with meat in the amount of the gid, would the leeks come away tasting of meat? If yes, this thigh is considered to have gid taste, and we may not eat it.

Rashi calls this an halachah le-Moshe mi-Sinai, one of the shi’urim, standards of measurement, given to Moshe at Sinai, since we would get a different result if we considered whether turnips or cabbages would have absorbed taste. That it is leeks is halachah le-Moshe mi-Sinai.

Step one: where non-kosher items are cooked with kosher ones, if taste of the non-kosher goes into the kosher, it becomes non-kosher.

The Mechanism and Substrate of Spread

The amora Shmuel limited this to cooking; roasting spreads taste less, so if we roasted the thigh, we would only need to stay away from the layer just on top of it. Problem is, R. Huna ruled, a ruling generally accepted, that we may not eat any of a goat roasted with its prohibited fats in it. Answers the Gemara, fats spread more easily than taste of a gid, another factor to include.

Except R. Yochanan once allowed peeling away the layers of a goat cooked in its fats, seeming to accord with Shmuel’s ruling. Answers the Gemara, it was a lean goat, did not have enough fat to foster spread. Alternatively, R. Huna b. Yehudah said the fat there had a membrane around it, and the membrane stopped taste seepage.

Taste spreads, but to different extents depending on the type of heating and the ooziness of the material bearing the taste. This plays out in Yoreh De’ah 105;4, where prohibited material falling into a rotev, a sauce or gravy, is assumed to mix all around, and we would need to nullify it throughout.

Where it was being roasted, with no conductive force, we would only need to remove the original material plus a kedei netilah, a fingers’ breadth of the previously permitted material, to be sure we caught whatever of the banned taste might have spread. Unless the item being roasted was very fatty, in which case the fat conducts the prohibited material, even in roasting.

Physically Tasting

If our concern is taste, though, another option seems available, as R. Yochanan in fact ruled in one case in our Gemara, have a non-Jew taste it and tell us what is going on. Rava took this idea of R. Yochanan’s to be the key to a three-part standard earlier rabbis set up, sometimes we taste items, sometimes we have a non-Jew taste them, and sometimes we do it by measurement, if we have sixty times the prohibited materials in the permitted ones, in which case we allow ourselves to assume the prohibited material’s taste has been overwhelmed and nullified.

Where the materials are all permitted to some Jews, such as if terumah materials were cooked into non-terumah foods, we can have a kohen taste it and tell us. Where the food that fell in is not permitted, we can have a non-Jew do it (Rashi stresses we need the non-Jew to be mesi’ach le-fi tumo, chatting naturally, unaware of the stakes of his/her evaluation). Finally, where the prohibited and permitted taste the same (it’s all wine or meat or milk), we require sixty times of the permitted over the prohibited.

Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De’ah 98;1 accepts this standard, allowing a non-Jew to taste a mixture of meat and milk, to see if the minority one is detectable. If no non-Jew is around, we’d only allow it to ourselves if there were sixty times. Rema adds, though, that the Ashkenazic custom was not to rely on non-Jews, for reasons AH will seek to explain.

In paragraph 18, AH first notes that sixty is a numberChazal came up with, their best estimate of the proportion beyond which even a very spicy taste will not make an impression. Although many foods are nullified in much lesser proportions, they chose to make one blanket rule.

More problematic for the taste issue, as AH explains in se’if 19, Rashi thought we only allow it for more than sixty, that if we can check even then, we should. While most rishonim disagreed, thought we were allowed to ignore any taste we could detect if the mixture was more than 60:1, Ramban came up with a middle position that removed the possibility of a non-Jew tasting it.

He held that we follow Rashi in not having a non-Jew taste it where there was less than sixty, and also that if a non-Jew happens to taste it where there’s more than sixty times, and says s/he spots the taste of the prohibited materials, we would accept the claim and not eat the food. Rambam, at the other extreme, thought the whole idea of numbers only came up where we couldn’t have someone taste it for us, that tasting is the preferable way of checking a mixture.

While Shulchan Aruch accepted Rambam’s ruling, Rema thought we should take Rashi’s idea into account (even if he was a minority view), because some other rishonim accepted a version of it (Ramban, Rashba, and Ran), and also because AH thought it difficult and complicated to be sure the non-Jew is unaware of how it matters to us, a key piece of being allowed to trust him.

That Which Is Never Nullified, Including Bugs

The Mishnah’s choice of gid ha-nasheh alerts us to another rule, this one Rabbinic, found in Yoreh De’ah 100;2. Despite our accepting the view that the gid does not have a taste, were a thigh to be cooked with it, and we can no longer detect which is the gid ha-nasheh, we could not use any of the mixture, because the gid is a biryah, a whole item, and not batel, not able to be nullified. [Similar to a chatichah ha-re’uyah le-hitkabed, a piece of appropriate size to serve to important guests; there, too, we do not see it as open to being nullified].

Aruch Hashulchan, also 100;2, explains that biryah has a Biblical rule indicating its significance. Usually a transgression is fully violated only when a kezayit, an olive’s worth, has been ingested; in the case of a biryah, Rashi and Rambam agreed its significance led the Torah to consider it a full violation once a whole has been eaten. Since a Jew would get lashes for eating it when on its own, Chazal saw sense in disallowing it at that level even in mixtures.

Problem is, Aruch HaShulchan points out in se’if thirteen, summertime seems to present an insuperable issue, since all foods (not just fruits and vegetables) have bugs in them, and while it’s certainly proper to get them out, and those who care about halachah will do all they can to do so, many do not succeed, and many otherwise observant Jews are not careful about this.

Aruch HaShulchan Defends the Jewish People

Maybe they’re just all sinning? Chalilah to say such a thing, writes AH, and lo neicha le-Maraihu, their Master is not pleased, with speaking this way about them. And therefore he, like rabbis before him, feels it incumbent to find a support for the common practice.

In paragraph fourteen-fifteen, he notes Kereti u-Peleti gathered views among the rishonim that had ruled leniently, and thought this the source of the permissibility. Mishkenot Ya’akov added that the idea I mentioned, chatichah ha-re’uyah le-hitkabed, applies only when it is separate. He therefore suggested once a small bug gets mixed in, it loses its identity and significance.

For his part, AH thinks the answer could be based on an halachah about disgusting items, which are batel, nullified and ignorable, as long as a majority of permitted material supersedes. (Not an avenue current authorities allow us to rely on as a first line of defense regarding bugs).

Some first considerations for mixtures: whether the original material can be nullified, or is significant, such as a biryah or a chatichah ha-re’uyah le-hitkabed; whether the prohibited items will spread in this host, either because of a spreading agent, such as sauce in cooking, or the item itself being fatty; the impact of its spread on the taste of the item, and how we know. And bugs.