Question

I thought this would interest you. A post by Ilai Ofran:
 

Especially high waves have been seen in the sectoral puddles in recent days, since the publication of a stirring halakhic ruling determining that nowadays there is no obligation to sift white flour (link in the comments).
This ruling, and the lively discussion taking place in its wake, express one of the central crises of halakhic language in our time. In the ruling in question there is actually no great novelty — anyone who sifts flour from time to time has long known the simple fact that our industrial flour is very clean. What brought Rabbi Maor and Rabbi Melamed’s study hall to this straightforward conclusion was not their enormous halakhic wisdom or new sources unseen by anyone before, but a simple look at reality — one sifting after another, dozens or hundreds of times, in which not a single insect was found in the sifter, led to the obvious conclusion that there is no need for it. They, thanks to their broad shoulders, dared to say what everyone has long known and did not dare say.
The trouble is that sifting flour is perceived by many not as a means of detecting insects forbidden for eating, but as a religious ritual that must be performed on the flour in order to render the baked good fit. As though sifting flour were the 614th commandment, and a sifter were a sacred ritual object that you do not buy in kitchenware stores but in Judaica shops.
When there are astonished and surprised reactions to something that is obvious from a simple look at reality, what emerges is the sad picture of the low expectations the public has of Jewish law. Halakhic language, for which reason, logic, seeing reality clearly, and common sense are its most basic building blocks, has become a secret coded language that does not stand the test of plain reason or reality as it actually is.
I understand the importance and value of the inner posture of obedience and loyalty even toward what is not understood, and also toward what does not always sit well with the heart. When a person stands before his God, before the Infinite, it is important that he know that one cannot know, and understand that he cannot understand. But halakhic language, in its essence, is not like that — it is open and understandable, rational and realistic. The rules of Jewish law are human in their essence. Adopting the pattern of thought of “Do not investigate what is too wondrous for you,” even toward things that seem obvious to any wise person with eyes in his head, distances the public from Jewish law and turns it into a distortion that was never part of it. Perhaps that makes it easier to create obedience and loyalty, but on deeper thought — who wants to obey such a law?
The great halakhic challenge standing before us is not to permit something or to fence some breach, to abolish a custom that has lost its vitality or to create a new custom. Our task is to restore the public’s trust in Jewish law — in its logic, its realism, its humanity. Otherwise, the public may perhaps go on sifting flour, but will stop living according to the Torah.