Q&A: Kashering Utensils and the Attitude Toward the Zohar and Related Works
Kashering Utensils and the Attitude Toward the Zohar and Related Works
Question
Good morning, Rabbi. Thank you for all the hard work you do.
First question:
Regarding kashering utensils by boiling – if I cooked meat in a utensil, and after two days, a week, or a month (x>24), I prepared dairy in it (or vice versa), then the utensil now needs kashering because of some rabbinic decree. The question is whether it is possible to boil water in it or something like that in order to make it kosher again. Presumably the food did not fill the pot all the way to the top and did not boil over. We are talking about a large utensil that cannot be kashered in the regular external way. Would that help?
Second question:
As for the attitude toward the Zohar and Kabbalah – according to the Rabbi’s approach, how should one relate to the Zohar and related works? Does the Zohar have formal authority? Or should one relate to it like the rest of the words of the Geonim or the medieval authorities, meaning that if it sounds reasonable we accept it, and if not then not? (In practice, it seems that this is also the attitude among the Haredim, except that no one will say it out loud, and those who do will get a “Religious-Zionist types” label stuck on their shirt.) And what about the more popular Kabbalah of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, the Arizal, etc., whose words basically have no authoritative source other than their having received them from Heaven? Is the attitude toward them the same as toward the Zohar, or are they of lesser importance?
Thank you very much
Answer
From Peninei Halakha: https://www.yeshiva.org.il/midrash/244
Kashering a pot by boiling must be done inside a larger vessel into which the entire pot can be inserted. It is not sufficient to make do with boiling water inside the pot itself, because it is likely that during the year the cooked food overflowed or splashed onto the rim of the vessel, and in that case the taste of the leaven was absorbed and adhered to the upper rim of the pot as well, and the rim of the pot is not kashered by boiling water inside the pot.
When there is no large vessel in which the pot can be kashered, one should fill the pot that one wishes to kasher with water and bring it to a boil, and at the same time boil water in a small vessel. When the water inside the pot is boiling, one should place the small vessel into it, and this will cause a large amount of water to rise and spill over all the sides of the pot and kasher its rim (see Avodah Zarah 76a; and see Shulchan Arukh Orach Chayim 452:6).
There is no formal authority whatsoever – not for the Zohar, and certainly not for any of the later books (and that is true of books of Jewish law as well).
Discussion on Answer
I have been asked about this more than once, and I think I also commented on it in the third book of the trilogy. If the studies are indeed correct, then all the Jewish laws relevant to them are null and void. These are not enactments whose rationale has lapsed, but enactments that were never actually correct; people just did not know it. And the fact that a substantial part of Yoreh De’ah would become obsolete is not a consideration at all. It was written in error from the outset.
From what I have looked into, it turns out that what changed is not the materials themselves, which never absorbed anything, but rather that a layer of fats formed on top of them. But today chemical cleaning agents break that down, and it has no taste in it.
Which basically shifts the question to the law of “as it absorbs, so it emits”: is there a rule that specifically in this way one must kasher it? (And one may assume that they knew this was not inherently necessary, but thought that this was the reasonable way to ensure that it would certainly expel the taste at the same level it absorbed it.) Or is that not binding either?
I answered that
A related question, if I may…
Today there are studies done by Torah scholars showing that our stainless-steel utensils do not absorb or emit anything, at least no more than glass.
I do not know the quality of these studies, but assuming they are correct – can the Jewish law be changed on this matter, or is this a case of a decree whose reason has lapsed? (And even then one could discuss it, because glass does not absorb and is not included in the decree, which implies that the decree applied only to utensils that do absorb.)
Can one tear out half of Yoreh De’ah and make airplanes out of it for the upcoming chocolate festival?
I would be glad to hear the Rabbi’s opinion, if he knows this topic, and even if not, in general based on these assumptions and studies