Q&A: Eating Worms – Mistaken Involvement?
Eating Worms – Mistaken Involvement?
Question
Hello Rabbi,
There is an argument in the responsa Teshuvot VeHanhagot (vol. 3, no. 252) that the rule of mistaken involvement can be applied to eating worms, since it is obvious that the person eating does not intend to eat worms and is even disgusted by them:
"It seems even more so regarding the very prohibition of eating creeping creatures found inside bread, that there is room to justify it, for a person intends to eat bread and not creeping creatures; if so, this is like mistaken involvement with respect to the prohibition of creeping creatures. And although in the cases of forbidden fats and sexual prohibitions there is no exemption for mistaken involvement, because he derives pleasure, that is specifically in an eating act from which one derives pleasure, such as forbidden fat. But with creeping creatures, the notion of deriving pleasure does not apply, for a person's soul recoils from them. Therefore, if he ate and did not know, he is considered mistakenly involved, and there is no prohibition at all, since their taste has been nullified in the flour and is not sensed at all, and therefore he did not violate any prohibition through mistaken involvement. See further in Mishkenot Yaakov, Yoreh De'ah no. 36, a great leniency in this matter. And the rule that one may not intentionally nullify a prohibition does not apply, because he does not intend that and relies primarily on the presumption that there are no worms."
What does the Rabbi think of this reasoning?
Thank you,
Answer
I am familiar with this reasoning, and it definitely has substance.
However, one could discuss it, because the prohibition against eating creeping creatures apparently assumes that there is some pleasure in eating them; otherwise, anyone who eats a creeping creature would be exempt on the grounds that he has no eating pleasure from it, meaning it is not the normal manner of eating. If so, perhaps he should not be exempt merely because he did not derive pleasure, even in a case of mistaken involvement. However, one can distinguish between them: in mistaken involvement, we require pleasure in order to impose liability, on the principle of "since he derived pleasure"; whereas in an ordinary eating prohibition, one could say that pleasure is not required, only that lack of pleasure exempts. Therefore, eating creeping creatures—even though it is considered a case where there is no actual displeasure—still does not involve real pleasure. So one who eats a creeping creature would be liable, but in a case of mistaken involvement there is room to exempt him, since the rationale of "since he derived pleasure" does not apply.
And one can analyze this at great length, based on the law of the pleasure of the throat and intestines, which seems to indicate that actual pleasure is required, but this is not the place.
Discussion on Answer
Hello,
I didn't understand the comment, because that is exactly what I wrote: that the Torah's innovation regarding worms is that I am not exempt because of lack of pleasure, but in order to impose liability for mistaken involvement he must derive pleasure, and plainly there is no pleasure here.
Those comments of Rabbi Akiva Eiger are, as is well known, very difficult, and this is an old discussion.
There is room to discuss this further, based on what Tosafot wrote in Menachot 69a: that food prohibitions are considered food and do not require intention as they do in the laws of ritual impurity, because when someone eats it, there is no greater expression of intention than that. If so, in a place where he does not intend to eat it, the original reasoning returns—that the thing is not considered food.
But:
A. Apparently Tosafot's words were not accepted as practical halakhah.
B. It could be that Tosafot were speaking only about liability for lashes, and not about the very prohibition of eating.
I don't see the connection to Tosafot there. They are discussing intention with respect to the prohibition, whereas here we are discussing pleasure, not intention—unless you mean what I wrote here, that the rationale of "since he derived pleasure" is absent, and therefore mistaken involvement would not create liability.
These matters are explained at length in the Talmud in Avodah Zarah (the passage of the mouse in the beer, 68b), and in the halakhic decisors in Yoreh De'ah no. 104.
The practical halakhic conclusion in the decisors is that the Torah innovated here that even though these things are disgusting, they are nevertheless prohibited. As the Talmud says: "It is an innovation, for it is repulsive and people naturally avoid it, and even so the Merciful One prohibited it."
And you can take the innovation only as far as it goes. Therefore, whenever the creeping creatures are whole and intact, and thus not nullified, one who eats them is lashed. But when their bodies have dissolved and become mixed into the majority, they are nullified, and they do not prohibit even when there is not sixty times their volume against them, because they impart a detrimental taste.
Moreover, even if there is an olive-sized amount within the time it takes to eat a half-loaf, they are nullified.
And regarding the question whether they are nullified when they are technically identifiable but impossible to separate out, the Taz and others disagreed.
Therefore, in my humble opinion, the Rabbi's assumption that there is "he derived pleasure" here is incorrect. There is no deriving pleasure here, and therefore there is room to exempt on the grounds of mistaken involvement.
One more point worth emphasizing: mistaken involvement is an exemption from a sacrifice, but it is not clear that there is no transgression here.
As is well known, Rabbi Akiva Eiger (first edition, no. 8) holds that throughout the Torah, aside from the categories of labor prohibited on the Sabbath, mistaken involvement is a full-fledged transgression; it is just that the Torah did not impose liability for it. Other later authorities disagreed with Rabbi Akiva Eiger.
This point really should have been emphasized to the questioner.
What does the Rabbi think???