i was wondering if you have heard about the milk issue that has been raised recently around here. if you havent heard anything about it, it basically goes as follows: there are a large number of treif cows in the world and we assume that the milking companies are no exception to this metzios. therefore, as there procedure is, reportedly, to take hundred of cows and mix their milk together in a big vat and then bottle from there (and not from the individual cows) then there is presumably a taaroves of lach b'lach and it requires shishim to be considered batel. since already 2% is considered less than shishim, and we assume there is in fact a mi'ut ha/matzuy of treif cows, which is anywhere from atleast 7 1/2 %, (much more than shishim) and up, then we should should consider such a taaroves as assur miderobanan (since it is only min b'mino) and not be allowed to consume dairy products. This is all assuming of course that there are in fact a rov of cows that are kosher. There !
is an
opinion among some very prominent rosh yeshivos that there is reason to be concerned that amongst the MILKING cow population there is in fact a rov of treifos. If this is true then there is noting to speak about and milk should be hayotze min ha'asur asur. Let's assume for now that this is not the case. Still there is a problem.
The other details of the issue are as follows:
1) the cows are hooked up with a pipe to a big vat and so the milk never has an independant identity before it becomes part of the taaroves. therefore, you have noda hataaroves when it is lach b'lach and it needs shishim. everyone assumes that there isnt shishim in the world of cows that are kosher aganst the treifos (see milchamos beginning of chullin)so even though it is min b'mino, it is still assur miderobanan. furthermore, you cannot use bitol b'rov or a chazaka to go back in time and pasken on the cows before there was noda ha'taaroves.
2) even if you will assume that there is a seperate identity to the milk before it becomes part of the taaroves, and it is already a question of yavesh b'yavesh, i.e. you judge every cow individually and since there is a rov of kosher cows in the world, which we pasken chad b'trei batel on, and it is muttar, still, that heter only applies so long as the taaroves remains yavesh b'yavesh, i.e. you drink milk from one cow at a time. however, if you would then take that milk and make it into a taaroves of lach b'lach (which is what happens. it collects in the vat that contains the milk of perhaps thousands of cows at once in order to maintain the consistency of every individual sample of the milk), then once again you would require shishim to be mevatel the issur (shulchan aruch, Y.D. 109:2). The Ramah quotes the Rosh that holds you would not say chozer ve'neur in such a situation because the issur becomes a davar shel heter itself and since the whole obligation of shishim by mi!
n b'mi
no is only derobanan you can be meikel if its bemakom hefsed meruba. however, it really isnt hefsed meruba if you cannot drink milk so you should not be allowed to be meikel.
3) even if you will assume that it is hefsed meruba, the whole kullah doesnt apply in this situation. the heter is only if there was noda hataaroves before it became a question of lach b'lach and you were mevatel the issur as a case of yavesh b'yavesh. here there is no bitul (see shach and beur hagra there). even though the milk is independant of the taaroves and is mutar on its own, that is only because of azlinan basar rov, not because of bitul. since the first time you have noda hataaroves is when it's a lach b'lach, then the milk that comes from these companies (and not from the cow in your backyard) should be assur miderobanan since there isnt shishim in the taaroves.
mr, new jersey
This is a very interesting question but not a new one. See the Pischei Teshuvah (YD 81:4) and the Darchei Teshuvah (YD 81:18) who bring together the relevant Responsa. The consensus among the Poskim is that even in the worst-case scenario of Rov Treifos, one may still drink the milk. One common argument among them is that most of the Treifos we find today are Safek Treifos and therefore we don't have a proper Rov (Pri Chodosh). Another argument is that even if it was a proper Rov, it is only a Rov of the cows that are slaughtered; it is not necessarily a Rov of the cows that are milking. Milk cows are only slaughtered when their milk production falls off. These aging cows may not be representative of the entire cow population.
The Poskim don't seem to be bothered by the possibility that there may still be an Isur d'Rabanan (that there is not Shishim of Heter k'Neged the Isur) even if there is no Rov. I would assume the reason is because we are not dealing here with a proper Ta'aroves - i.e. we know that Treif milk got mixed in with Kosher milk - but rather a Chashash of a Ta'aroves. The Shulchan Aruch (81:2), when it discusses Treif milk, is speaking about a farmer who milked his cow and then slaughtered it and found it to be Treif. Today, the milk farmers send off their old cows to a central slaughterhouse. Unless there is a sophisticated tracking system of the milk and the cows - it is known which cows supplied the milk in a given vat of milk, and it is known from the slaughterhouses which cows were found to be Treif and the information is returned to the milk farmers - then there is no more than a statistical Chashash that there is Treif milk in any given batch of milk. In such a case we can be Toleh (assume) that the milk came from the Kosher cows even if the statistics from the slaughterhouse are that more than one out of every sixty cows is Treif.
Another point worth further investigation: Even if there is such a tracking system and we knew that milk from a Treif cow was in a batch of milk, it is not clear that it would be Asur mid'Rabanan. Most Treifos that we find today are because of Sirchos (leasions on the lung). The Shulchan Aruch says (YD 81:2) that if the animal is Treif because of a Sircha, then the milk is permitted because we have a Sfek Sfeika - a Safek whether this is in fact a Sircha (because we are no longer experts in what a Sircha is) and if it is a Sircha, perhaps it appeared just before the Shechitah. The Shach (YD 81:9) qualifies the Shulchan Aruch and says that the milk is only permitted if there was at least a three day gap between the time of the milking and the Shechitah. It could be that, in general, there is a three day gap between the last time a cow is milked and the time it is slaughtered in which case there is no problem altogether (I would welcome any accurate information on this time gap).
Kol Tuv,
Yonasan Sigler