Avodah Zarah 031

1:
Mishnah 3 and the following mishnayot dealt with items that belong to non-Jews which were forbidden as food but also it was forbidden to derive any material benefit from them – such as selling at a profit, feeding to a pet and so on [see AZ 024 explanation 2]. Our present mishnah deals with foodstuffs which a Jew is forbidden to consume but from which material benefit may be derived.

2:
Milk is milk, so the Gemara [AZ 35b] asks the obvious question: why should we be concerned about milk which was milked by a non-Jew? The response if that one cannot be sure if the milk came from a permitted animal or a forbidden one. (In other words, does the milk come from a kosher animal, such as a cow or goat, or from a non-kosher animal.) The only way that a Jew can be certain that milk received from a non-Jew is permitted is if a Jew verifies the origin of the milk.

3:
For long centuries Jews were careful to drink only Ĥalav Yisra'el – milk received from a Jewish dairy or at the very least from a dairy which was supervised by a Jew. To this very day there are Jews who will not drink any milk (or products which contain milk) that is not Ĥalav Yisra'el, feeling that this is a pleasing act of supererogation. Actually, modern dairies in western countries are so closely supervised by the secular authorities that there is hardly a chance that a Jew might buy prohibited milk from them.

4:
The next item in our mishnah's list is bread received from a non-Jew. The Gemara [AZ 35b] relates an anecdote on this matter. As we shall see with regards to the next item on our list, Rabbi's Bet Din did remove the prohibition from oil received from non-Jews. Possibly, this led to the mistaken belief that he had also permitted bread received from non-Jews. Here is the anecdote:

Rabbi is, of course, Rabbi Yehudah the President of the Sanhedrin and the editor of the Mishnah (though, see the continuation in the next shiur). The gift of the non-Jew so thrilled Rabbi that he asked himself why the sages could have prohibited non-Jewish bread. Having asked the question he answers it himself: the prohibition has nothing to do with Kashrut; it was intended to limit social intercourse between Jews and non-Jews and thus reduce the probability of intermarriage.

To be continued.

The long break caused by my travelling abroad has rather disrupted the flow of discussion. I hope that my introductory remarks will help bridge the gap. It is always a good idea to use the links provided to see the topic as originally presented.

In AZ 028 I was trying to describe the way in which cheese was produced in Talmudic times. I wrote:

The solidifying agent was not the animal's stomach but what came out of it. When an animal that was suckling its young died – either naturally or unnaturally – they would remove the sour milk from the dead animal's stomach and add it to the fresh milk that was to be turned into cheese so that the sour milk would initiate the process of solidification.

Jim Feldman writes:

Apparent anatomic nonsense. The mammary glands are in the udder, not the stomach. I think that what happened here is an English error, not anatomy. The sentence has the suckling mother dying; the rennet, of course, comes from the (4th) stomach of a calf or other young ruminant. The sentence should start: "When a suckling animal died …."

I respond:

I must perforce admit ignorance concerning the manner of making cheese: not only the 'technology' used to create it but also the biological functions of the animals concerned. It is more than possible that I misunderstood the explanations offered by those greater and more erudite than I, and I apologise for the apparent error. However, I must also admit that Jim's clarificatory correction does not help me understand the process any better. Maybe it's because, being a vegan myself, I do not use milk or milk products anyway. (In the mean time my daughter has clarified: the coagulating agent comes from the carcass of the suckling, not from the mother.)

On the same subject, Nurit Rechs reminds me that I wrote:

The reason why the sages had ordered a blanket prohibition on non-Jewish cheeses was because the non-Jews used sour milk taken from the carcass of a freshly slaughtered animal to act as a starter for the solidification process.

"Because they solidify them with the stomach of a non-kosher animal." From my personal knowledge concerning the solidification process it seems to me that the intention [of the mishnah] is to indicate the use of a portion of the [animal's] stomach or the digestive system which contains enzymes that cause the milk to solidify. Hence the issue of kashrut. Enzymes for solidification can be bought even today by those who do not observe [the rules of] kashrut to produce cheese at home. Using the sour milk taken from the carcass of an animal as a solidification catalyst it is possible to produce leben and yoghurt. This comment of mine agrees with the continuation [of the mishnah] where it is written that milk and the animal's carcass are two separate entitities.

I respond:

Thank you, Nurit, for this helpful and knowledgeable explanation.