Q&A: Delivering Non-Kosher Food
Delivering Non-Kosher Food
Question
Good morning and have a good week, Rabbi!
I provide all delivery services for a high-tech company that transfers high-tech products same-day. Every so often unrelated deliveries come up, like a box of chocolates for the CEO, or a sushi meal for someone’s birthday at the office. Is it permitted for me to carry out a delivery in a case where the food is ordered from a restaurant that is open on the Sabbath and has no kosher certification? It’s important for me to note: a. I’m a freelancer and I’m paid according to the deliveries there were that month. b. I’m the sole provider for all the deliveries they need.
Thank you very much!
Answer
There is room to discuss this, but I think there is room to be lenient. A. This is not a Torah-level case of “do not place a stumbling block,” because this is not a case of “the two sides of the river.” It is absorbed within the rest of your deliveries. Also, even if the restaurant is open on the Sabbath, it is not certain that the food there is not kosher.
Discussion on Answer
Did you read what I wrote? It seems not.
And I’ll add another consideration: even if there is causing someone to stumble into a prohibition here, someone who eats non-kosher food is generally like a child taken captive among non-Jews, and has committed no transgression, so causing him to stumble involves no prohibition. See my article on causing a secular Jew to transgress:
I read it and didn’t understand your answer. There is a rabbinic prohibition of assisting when it is not a case of “the two sides of the river.” And if the restaurant is open on the Sabbath then certainly the food is not kosher. Unto themselves, utensils that have not been immersed are enough, and there is also a problem with the very cooking in utensils that are used on the Sabbath. And there are many other problems as well. As for the third argument, that is already a whole topic and an interesting novel idea of yours.
This is a rabbinic-level doubt, and it is not correct that the food is certainly not kosher. Regarding immersion of utensils, see here:
https://www.kipa.co.il/%D7%A9%D7%90%D7%9C-%D7%90%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%91/%D7%9C%D7%90%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%9C-%D7%91%D7%9B%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%A9%D7%9C%D7%90-%D7%A0%D7%98%D7%91%D7%9C%D7%95/
It is not so simple that those who eat creeping and crawling things are Jews and therefore there is no transgression here.
And as long as you are careful not to feed them with a spoon, no transgression has been committed.
I understood that you meant a rabbinic-level doubt. But if they cook with the utensils on the Sabbath, there is a problem eating from them. There is also an issue of food cooked by non-Jews, checking leafy vegetables for worms, and tithes from vegetables. A place without certification, where the owner is not religious, certainly will not observe all the things I mentioned. And even if there were some such place, it would be an uncommon minority, Rabbi. Besides, it doesn’t seem like a rabbinic-level doubt, because this is a doubt that can be clarified.
There is no certainty, and even if they did not check for worms, there is no certainty that there are worms there (all the more so since the prohibition of worms itself, in the case of tiny worms, is a dispute among the halakhic decisors). A doubt that is very difficult to clarify cannot be clarified. And so too with the other considerations.
Rabbi Michi, why? After all, even if there is no Torah-level “do not place a stumbling block,” Tosafot explicitly wrote that there is still a rabbinic prohibition of assisting in the very act of assistance.