Jerusalem – Rav Amar: Strawberries Kosher And May Be Eaten

So does this mean that we don’t have to filter our NYC drinking water? What is that going to do to all of those people who are making a living selling filters?

This is a completely ridculous pesak. If you would have given almost any other reason for permiting them it can be argued but that the bugs are only visible under a microscope is completely inaccurate and ludicrous. Any mashgiach or other can see the bugs without a microscope if you have any idea how to check and what to look for.

The Rav is incorrect in his ruling. You do not have to see the bug crawling you need to see the bug. The bug is visable – as a dot. That is sufficient to call it “seen”. As such, the microscope is only identifying what that dot is. The initial sighting is not via a microscope. If that was the case, it would be as the Rav said. Bugs like aphids cannot be “identified” by the naked eye. They are seen as specs. All of the Gedolim of previous generations (with so exceptions of Rabbanim whose psakos were ignored) ruled that if one sees the speck the bug is considered seen. I am not sure if the Rav here is merely agreeing with those rulings that have been disregarded in the past or he is coming up with his own svara. The bottom line is that the poskim have ruled against his theory. I am sorry that he has decided to come out against the psak that has been published. It will do nothing to help the Rav in his stature as a Gadol.

a real bal seichal and a true ohev yisroeal

It is correct that id its not seen to the eye you are aloud to eat it. However if its seen through a microscope then you are not sopposed to eat it. Its redicoulus that there are people going around making shalos and harming everone else, because once you know there is insects there it bcomes user.

Please remember that you cannot pasken based on an article that you read on the internet. You need to consult with your personal Rav, Rov, or Moreh Horoh in order to know what you should be doing vis-a-vis strawberries or any of the other numerous shaalos that get covered here. Pesokim given in news articles – whether from gedolim or ketanim – are not to be used for practical instruction.

#15
1- the shavet halevy Rabbi shmuel Wosner writes ifyou see a dot even if you don’t see feet etc. its considerd nireh laynim
2-but by srawberries this not the case any one that was to see it one time they will find it easly & see with naked eye feet hands etc.
3-their was a kol koreh with all gedolim of USA -over 50 – litvish like
R Belsky R Shlomo Miller etc & chasidish rabbonim who all said ASUR no one chalanged that psak
so R amar is a das yochid
in Isreal the strawberries have alt more bugs ask the mashgichim
so don’t eat them unless it has a proper hechsher

the whole issue of teloim is complicated. mdeoreise it is botul, plus its duvur shlo mischaven that he does not want. for these reasons alone it should be mutter. besides, bugs that are hidden in the fruit that have never crawled out are also mutter. so there is plenty of room to be matir.

let’s not kid ourselves. in years past, our ancestors did not have microscopes, pesticides, refrigerators. air tight containers etc. produce and flour was stored exposed long term. are you going to say that they ate less bugs than us?

besides, many chassidishe hechseirim give hechshers an establishments that are filthy and unsanitary. there is no way bugs don’t find their way into the salads and foods in those stores. that is a much bigger problem and no one says a word.

Rav Moshe Feinstein also paskened like the Aruch Hashulchan on this matter.

#38 You sound like a lamdon vos fashteit lenen
but your heterim are wrong
1- the krasy uPlasei on shulchon oruch from R Yonathan eibshitz writes
that if some thing can be checked its osur medureisa- their for he never ate things that have to be bodek
2-since you know & every one knows that thes fruit & veg . have toloim -its not aino meskaven
3-almost all toloim that we have are piraish which runs all over the fruits & veg. so they are osur
Please don’t say a booch sevora with out knowing the halacha

The picture of these idiots sitting there examining the strawberries says it all. If this is all they have to do with their time and energy, they make the laws of kashruth seem like a joke on Saturday Night Live. If ehrleche yiddin don’t have anything better to do with their time, perhaps they should focus on the millions of people with real needs and desparate for help from anyone. The sense of disgust I feel looking at this picture cannot be put into words.

You guys are all lunatic!! when some rabbi bar chaim paskens (i dont support him) you start shrieking “messorah”

We have a messorah of eating strawberry’s! We have a messorah of drinking unfiltered water.. (shulach aruch harav says one should filter his water erev shabbos, and if he did not, he should filter with his teeth.. hardly the microscopic bugs!!!)

Here we have casses of rabbanim who decided to pass their chumros off as halacha!!

Open up Rabbi Levin’s chasidic tales to read about chumros.. dont impose them on us..

So many of us are so concered about what comes into our mouths than what comes out of them (or in this our typing)

In halacha there is almost never a deffinitive ruling. must halachic issues vary from one community to another with some being more machmoer than others. and just becuase someone holds diffrently than you or what your rabbi toldy does not make him an Appikoros or even a Shagietz. If this is Rav Amar Psak. then he said it for the ppl who follow him and his halachic rullings. If you want to machmer may hashem send u an extra brocha from heaven.

and as the posuk says and theses words and these words are of the living G-D.

Moderation is the key to life, Striking the proper balance is the question.

About 30 years ago a Rov who is a bokie in tolaim asked R Yaakov Kaminetsky if people had checked for tolaim. R Yaakov said of course they did and they limited what they ate. There were certain vageatbles that people would not eat because of bugs.
I remember that almost no one would eat romaine lettuce because of bugs. Only by pesach would people eat it after spending hours checking the leaves.
People over the last number of years have become more health conscious and therefore are eating more fruits and vegetables than they used to. So they would not get bored with meals, they are eating a much broader variety of vegetables than before. In addition many are eating organic foods which use little or no pesticides. Until about 35 -40 years ago there was overwhelming use of DDT which was an extremly effective pesticide eliminating almost all infestation in all crops. DDT has since been banned in the US as well as most other countries because of its carcinogenic nature. Because of the above reasons, the metzios has changed.
Of all those who say that pepole did not check for bugs in the past, don’t know what they are talking about. Soon they will say that no one used to be menaker or salt meat because they don’t do it themselves.
People always used to check for bugs and depending on the crops and prevelant infestations of the day they used to check based on the principles of halacha, if it is muchzak or miut hamotzuy or miut sheanoi motzuy. Current laziness does not mean that there is not a reason to ignore halacha. The same with the water in NYC, several years ago the City was able to stop filtering the water from the resevoirs because the water had consistently passed certain federal guidelines. That is why the copepods are a newish issue. They way the issue came to the forfront was because people saw it with their naked eye. Some one was checking prechecked lettuce for a hashgocha to see if it was a good batch on a light table and the lettuce was infested. The mashgiach investigated and ad the bugs sent to a lab which determines that the bugs were copepods from the tap water that was used to rinse the sample before checking. They are clearly not invisible. Therefor almost every posek reccomends filtering NYC tap water.