Avodah Mailing List

Volume 12 : Number 128

Wednesday, March 24 2004

• Re: chametz in the kinneret
• RE: Chazal and Superstition
• Re: Chazal and Superstition
• Re: Mordechai was also called Pesachya
• Re: Ikkarim of Dwarves/ Marc Shapiro's New Book
• RE: chametz in the kinneret
• RE: chametz in the kinneret
• Re: why chabad is eruvless
• Re: why chabad is eruvless
• Re: Chazal and Superstition
• chametz in the kinneret
• RE: chametz in the kinneret
• Walking Behind a Woman
• RE: chametz in the kinneret
• Re: Chazal and Superstition
• Re: soft shmura
• New minhagim
• RE: chametz in the kinneret

In a message dated 3/23/2004 6:54:10 PM EST, akiva@atwood.co.il writes:
> The bacterium is microscopic -- and therefore not an issue halachicly. A
> spore of chametz isn't an issue either. It's the loaf of bread dropped
> in the well/kinneret that's the issue -- and the "tam" that results.

I asked earlier for any definition of mashehu. It reminds me of geometry -
a point has no width but put enough of them together and you get a line.
Hard to believe that there would be any taam unless 1/60th?

KT
Joel Rich

Israel Zucker <izucker@....net> wrote:
> From: Harry Maryles [mailto:hmaryles@yahoo.com] 
>> You cannot accuse Chazal of superstition in the classical meaning of
>> the word. AIUI superstition is tantemount to Avodah Zara. 

> Why would superstition be AZ? 

> According to Merriam-Webster's, superstition is:
> 1 ... b: an irrational abject attitude of mind toward the supernatural,
> nature, or God resulting from superstition

It's right there in your definition: an irrational abject attitude of
mind toward the supernatural, nature or God. Also, Merriam Webster
states it involves a belief in Kishuf (magic) which if prcaticed, is
punishible by death. Chazal did not practice Kishuf.

> That means superstition would include many common practices done by many
> frum people. Various segulos can hardly be justified rationally, but
> wouldn't calling it AZ be a bit of a stretch?

I am not a big fan of Segulos to say the least. But at the same time I do
not necessarily accept the notion that they stem from superstition. You
would have to ask those who hold of these various segulos as to where
it comes from.

> Which leads to a related question:
> Can common segulos that have no apparent rationale be considered
> superstitious? Can we say that about eitzos mentioned in seforim or
> known to come from gedolim?

No. But, can you cite some examples of what you are refferring to?

HM

On 23 Mar 2004 at 13:26, Harry Maryles wrote:
> It is therefore
> incorrect to say that Negel Vassar is based on a superstition. An
> explanation of this particual Mitzvah was explained by my Rebbe, R. Aaron
> Soloveichik. He stated that Chazal mandated that we wash our hands in
> the morning via the Negel Vassar route in order to remove the Ruach Ra
> which he (RAS) defines as bacteria (IIRC). 

Interesting. Rav Asher Weiss's shiur last week was on Netillas Yadayim
and he said that the kos is only m'akeiv for washing for bread. He said
that if it's available, you should use the kos, but it's only m'akeiv
for washing for bread.

-- Carl

mailto:cmsherer@fandz.com      mailto:sherer@actcom.co.il

Please daven and learn for a Refuah Shleima for my son,
Baruch Yosef ben Adina Batya among the sick of Israel.
Thank you very much.

From: "Yisrael Herczeg" <yherczeg@barak-online.net>
> A few chevra sent me references to the Pesachya/Mordechai - one being the
> first Mishna in the 5th perek of Shekolim.
> I had a look last night and indeed it names the various memunim on tasks
> in the BHMK - including our Pesachya/Mordechai.
> Question: Weren't all the positions in the BHMK reserved for Kohanim
> [or at least Leviyim]?

I also suggest a perusal of the Yerushalmi on this Mishna.
A few VERY interesting pieces.

1) Avoseinu chorshu, zoru [etc etc - about 10-12 descriptions of their
agricultural efforts]..v'onu - ein lonu mah le'echol...'
BTW according to the meforshim this is talking about learning Torah.

2) Another piece is another story of the Chamoro shel Reb Pinchos ben Yoir.

It tells how the donkey was stolen - but for 3 days it would not eat
anything in the home of the thieves - who gave up and decided to let
it go. The donkey arrived at RPBY's door and began making noises. He
realised it was hungry and ordered it ['aniyo zu'] be fed. But the donkey
wouldn't eat. So he asked if the feed was 'clean'. They said it was. Then
he asked if it was 'demay'. They replied it was - but one may feed his
animals 'demay'?? . RPBY replied. "True. But this poor thing [aniyo zu]
machmir al atzmo..."

[Shows that one can be a machmir and still be a chamor..]

BTW the Maharosho in Chulin 7 discusses the chamor and and it's chumros.

Also there, [reminding me of our 'Yemach shmoy' discussions a while ago]
Chazal saying Shem Reshoim Yirkov on a number of families...

SBA

From: "Micha Berger" <micha@aishdas.org>
> Why do you assume that we don't say 70 panim laTorah about heresy?
> It can't be as messy as holding such plurality WRT mamzeirus.

But the neatness comes at a cost. A possible mamzer gets a psak before
marriage. Poskim who disagree just keep track of who his kids are.
His own marriage is a res judicata, and his kids' status are unimportant
until they're married. The messiness is all bookkeeping.

Emuna is what the Hovoth HaLevavoth calls a mitzva t'midi. If a possible
kofer gets a psak that he's not a kofer and then visits another town
wnere he is a kofer he gets lowered down a cistern to die (unless they
follow the Hazon Ish). It neatens the problem, but it's hard on the guy
who had gotten a psak that he's OK.

[Email #2. -mi]

From: "Gil Student" <gil@aishdas.org>
> But when dealing with matters of ikkarei emunah, one considers the
> other heretical. The Rambam would hold that X is heretical while another
> authority holds that X is non-heretical, maybe even true. You are forced
> to either always accept the broadest interpretation (halachah ke-divrei
> ha-meikel be-inyanei emunah?!?), to choose sides issue by issue, or to
> adopt my approach.

I think the position I am maintaining, that if a gavra raba holds a
position it is non-heretical, is well characterized as halacha k'divrei
hameikel be-inyanei emuna. As an example see Tshuvoth HaRivash #157.

David Riceman

>>The assumption is to treat the kinneret as a public well -- and being
>>machmir with public wells is well-known.

No one is being denied the right to be machmir, should they so desire
(one could fill up as many bottles of water as one wishes prior to
Pesach. And, bottled water is readily available during Pesach).

The issue, I believe, is whether there would be a halachic obligation
upon the tzibbur in Eretz Yisrael to accept a significant financial loss
(millions of dollars) in order to save those who wish to be machmir
from the inconvenience of having to store water (which, I would assume,
was always the practice of the machmirim).

 From the looks of this article, though, it would seem that the Charedi
politicians are treating this as a matter of being machshil the rabbim
in something that is min ha din -- not just a chumra.
<http://www.shemayisrael.com/chareidi/VP64awater.htm>

[Email #2. -mi]

Here are some excerpts from the article in Yated:

In response MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni told Yated Ne'eman there is competition
at Shinui between Paritzky and Lapid over who can do greater damage to
Toras Yisroel and the mitzvah-observant public. "Paritzky does not know
the water was given to us by HaKodosh Boruch Hu, Who grants Am Yisroel's
prayers and causes the rain to fall in the proper times," said Rabbi
Gafni. "Therefore Paritzky must recall that the vast majority of Am
Yisroel observes kashrus on Pesach and does not eat chometz." 
Shas Chairman MK Eli Yishai also attacked the Infrastructure Minister's
announcement saying, "Paritzky's attempt to bring sin upon Am Yisroel,
the vast majority of which strictly [avoids] chametz, is shocking. A
solution that will not harm the public can be found."

Dovid Hojda

Akiva Atwood <akiva@atwood.co.il> wrote:
> once that tam exists you don't need pieces of food anymore.

That's correct. But it does not remain that way upon further dilution. If
this new mixture falls into another pot of water sixty times its volume
it does become batul, as does its Taam.

> Boil a piece of meat in water in a stainless-steel pot -- the water
> is fleishigs, as is the pot.

Correct, if the volume of the water is less than sixty times the volume
of the meat, Of course all this assumes B'Dieved. l'Chatchila there is
no Bitul.

> Filter the water to remove any particles -- the water is still
> fleishigs.

Because nothing has been done to dilute the proportion. Once there is
Taam, by definition the ratio is less than sixty to one.

> Grind away the inner layer of the pot -- removing any particles
> there -- still fleishigs.

That is because of the absorbtion of Meat or its Taam into the walls of
the pot. We cannot measure the depth of the absorbation, at least not in
a practical way. Once the pot has absorbed the "meat" it is then subject
to expunge it back into whatever is cooked in it.

> And how about those drops of milk falling on the outside of a hot
> fleishigs pot?

It all has to do with absorbtion and the ability to release it into
whatever is being cooked in it.

> the particles were visible when first entering the Yam

That doesn't matter. What matters is the resultant mixture. The question
only is: is the resultant mixture a ratio of 1 in 60?

> So you admit one ton would be enough.

No. What I do not know is the ratio of one tone of Chametz to an entire
lake. But as you pointed out originally it is probably in PPM so it is
far less than 1 part in sixty (...as in one part per one million)

> What about ONE loaf of bread? What's the difference between 1 loaf
> and 1 ton? I can still see both.

> One slice?

See above.

> How small can we go and have you still admit that the Yam becomes
> chametdik?

The Halachos of Bitul Chametz on Pesach is that is not Batul Afilu
B'Elef... and that even a Mashehu makes any mixture Chametz. But as I
said even a Mashehu has to have a Shiur. At most that shiur has to be
visible or detectable to the naked human eye. PPM is well below that
difference limens.

> The assumption is to treat the kinneret as a public well -- and
> being machmir with public wells is well-known.

> KS"A 117:2 -- where a piece of bread in the well possuls the well
> water for pesach.

The KSA is talking about a well. Not a sea. Who paskins that the Kinneret
is a well?

HM

Someone asked when is the last time one encountered certain melachot on
shabbat and then enumerated some.

ME'AMER: picking up fruit or flowers which fell off a tree and holding
         them in your hand. [I saw a non-frum neighbor do this last week]

ZORE'A: watering the lawn [ditto]

HA'TOVE u'MENAPETZ: ever have the urge to unravel your tzitzit strings
                    or to remove a loose thread from your suit ?

And apropos HA'MAFSHIT, removing feathers on chicken skin.

KT
Josh

In Avodah V12 #127 dated 3/24/04 Kenneth G Miller
<kennethgmiller@juno.com> writes:
> Just wondering... Can anyone remember the last time they lived and
> experienced any of these melachos? ...

Ashamed to say I don't know which one, but surely braiding my daughter's
hair would fall into one of the above? And what about removing old
shoelaces, and threading new laces through the holes in the shoes?

--Toby Katz

Avodah V12 #127 dated: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 From: Harry Maryles
<hmaryles@yahoo.com>
>>It is therefore incorrect to say that Negel Vassar is based on a
superstition. An explanation of this particual Mitzvah was explained
by my Rebbe, R. Aaron Soloveichik. He stated that Chazal mandated that
we wash our hands in the morning via the Negel Vassar route in order to
remove the Ruach Ra which he (RAS) defines as bacteria (IIRC). <<

If for some reasons your hands were actually dirty, I believe you would
have to wash them BEFORE washing negel vasser. I do not believe that the
"ruach ra" has anything to do with bacteria, although removal of bacteria
is certainly a side benefit of washing hands.

My understanding of ruach ra is that it has something to do with
the "little death of sleep." Waking up is like techiyas hameisim.
One's hands represent one's ability to function in the world. There is
a tumah associated with being asleep, akin in some small measure to the
tumah associated with being dead.

You can understand washing hands as a symbolic gesture--washing
away death. Or you can understand it (as I do, and as I believe is
normative) as kabbalistic. I use the word "kabbalistic" in the sense
that something real is being washed away, but it is only via received
tradition--a kabbalah from our sages--that we know that. The "something
real" is something from the unseen spiritual world in which we--albeit
unconsciously--swim, the world from which we come and to which we will
some day return. Or at least, our neshamos will.

The only resemblance between ruach ra and bacteria, in my understanding,
is that both are invisible to the unaided human eye.

To me, explaining away "ruach ra" as referring to bacteria is a form
of apologetics which does not honor Chazal as one might imagine, among
other reasons because I doubt they actually knew about bacteria. But a
stronger reason it doesn't honor them is that their references to things
unseen do not imply that they were somehow more primitive than we are.
There is no a priori necessity to translate everything they said into
a modern vocabulary that would pass muster with the NY Times.

--Toby Katz

From: Akiva Atwood <akiva@atwood.co.il>
> RHM:
>> Bitul is based on Taam... or lack of Taam. If a piece of food is
>> Nosein Taam it cannot be Batul. That is how we have the concept of
>> Batul B'Shishim. That ratio of one in sixty eliminates Taam. If it
>> didn't then the concept of Batul B'Shishim wouldn't exist.

> Correct -- but once that tam exists you don't need pieces of food anymore.

Cart before the horse. The taam is what renders something prohibited.
The 60 is a rule of thumb that in most cases, if there's 60 against
the foreign substance, there's no taam. But if the taam remains when
there are 60 against the substance, the taam can asser. In the case of
the Kinneret, or even the well, what taam remains? The issur mashehu is
derabbanan itself, so if that's the only well, I can't see anyone really
assering. OK, you want to be chaumr if there are other wells, well,
pesach is a time of extreme chumrot. But I don't see any source pre-KSA
(or post-KSA?) assering a well on the basis of bread falling into it.
A cistern, yes. A well, no. See below.

> Boil a piece of meat in water in a stainless-steel pot -- the water is
> fleishigs, as is the pot.
> While boiling the steam is fleishigs.
> Filter the water to remove any particles -- the water is still fleishigs.

Taam is based on molecules, which are hard to filter out. However, we do
rely on filtering out of additives in mixtures, e.g. isinglass in beer,
if there's no taam.

> Grind away the inner layer of the pot -- removing any particles there --
> still fleishigs.

We're not talking about the pot, but about the taaroves.

> 1) I specified over pesach
> 2) the particles were visible when first entering the Yam

Then we'd have to asser the whole NYC water supply - kids fish in the
reservoirs, using bread as bait.

> The assumption is to treat the kinneret as a public well -- and being
> machmir with public wells is well-known.
> KS"A 117:2 -- where a piece of bread in the well possuls the well water
> for pesach.

But what's his source? The notes in the back of the KSA reference SA OH
467. The closest I can find is 467:12, which talks about an improperly
kashered pail being used in a BOR, not a B'ER, and it's really the nosei
keilim (Pitchei Teshuva, Taz, etc.) who asser in a BOR. Somehow the
volume-limited cistern (BOR) got transformed into a volume-unlimited well
(B'ER). Is all the groundwater chometzdik?

OH 447:10 in Rema and MB (citing Beis Yosef) seems to indicate that
even the mashehu has a shiur - 1:1000. Darchei Moshe on 447 references a
case of bread in the well, but I can't figure out if the Mordechai was
matir or oseir, and my eyes gave out at trying to read the whole perek
Col Shaah in the Mordechai looking for the case.

Looking at OH 447:4 in the Rema and the MB sk 38, it's all dependent
on Taam - you can't drink wine from a barrel in which bread has fallen
before pesach, because the crumbs might give a taam on pesach. What taam
is there from a ton of chametz in the Kinneret?

   - jon baker    jjbaker@panix.com     <http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker> -

> That is because of the absorbtion of Meat or its Taam into the walls
> of the pot. We cannot measure the depth of the absorbation, at least
> not in a practical way.

AFAIk not in *any* physical way.

>> So you admit one ton would be enough.

> No.

That's not what you wrote:

>>>> But here I admit my ignorance. If the numbers are such that there IS
>>>> Mamoshus to the Chametz in the ratio of one ton per Yam Kinneret,
>>>> then  this would make the entire Kinneret Chametzdik. But I doubt
>>>> that this is the case.

> The Halachos of Bitul Chametz on Pesach is that is not Batul Afilu
> B'Elef... and that even a Mashehu makes any mixture Chametz. But as I
> said even a Mashehu has to have a Shiur. At most that shiur has to be
> visible or detectable to the naked human eye. PPM is well below that
> difference limens.

And like I said: The ORIGINAL chametz HAS a shiur. So it's more than a
mashehu.

Unless you want to claim that "mashehu" in this case is a ration of
chametz/water.

> The KSA is talking about a well. Not a sea. Who paskins that the
> Kinneret is a well?

What's the difference between the kinneret and a well?

[Email #2. -mi]

> The issue, I believe, is whether there would be a halachic obligation
> upon the tzibbur in Eretz Yisrael to accept a significant financial loss
> (millions of dollars) in order to save those who wish to be machmir
> from the inconvenience of having to store water (which, I would assume,
> was always the practice of the machmirim).

There ISN"T a "financial loss" -- what they wanted was the national water
carrier to pump from the reservoirs over pesach, while continuing to ump the
kinneret water into other reservoirs/aquifers, where the water would be
available after pesach.

Akiva

================
"Nothing is ever what it seems but everything is exactly what it is." - B.
Banzai

Does anyone know if the issur in walking behind a woman applies if you're
specifically looking at the ground, at the back of her head etc.? Or
does it always apply, in a lo plug sort of way?

-Ari

Akiva Atwood <akiva@atwood.co.il> wrote:
> And like I said: The ORIGINAL chametz HAS a shiur. So it's more than a
> mashehu.

> Unless you want to claim that "mashehu" in this case is a ration of
> chametz/water.

OK. Let me try and make myself a bit clearer. W/O trying to defend my
exact words (since I am not in the mood to parse) I will simply state the
following: What is looked at is the final product. I.e., the mixture of
water to Chametz. If we only look at the food going into the water, then
we could never drink any water on Pesach in Chicago where lake Michigan
is our entire water supply. The beaches are full of Chametz which finds
its way into the lake all the time. We look at the final product. IOW,
once the Chametz is in the water, what is the ratio. Before Pesach it is
Batul B'Shishim. During Pesach it is Assur B'Mashehu. But the Mashehu is
measured as a ratio to the whole lake taken in its entirety... meaning
that the actual chametz per drop of water is infinitesimle.

>> The KSA is talking about a well. Not a sea. Who paskins that the
>> Kinneret is a well?

> What's the difference between the kinneret and a well?

I'm not really that sure Halachicly. But I would think that a well is
more self contained and that has a loaf of bread at the bottom is more
likely to be mixed in large part with any water that is drawn up from it
B'Mashehu. But a loaf that is thrown into the sea is unlikely to effect
the nature of any water drawn from it even B'Mashehu.

HM

"Carl M. Sherer" <cmsherer@fandz.com> wrote:
> Interesting. Rav Asher Weiss's shiur last week was on Netillas Yadayim
> and he said that the kos is only m'akeiv for washing for bread. He said
> that if it's available, you should use the kos, but it's only m'akeiv
> for washing for bread.

That is true. All you need is Koach Gavrah. In fact, I'm not even
sure that it wouldn't apply to washing over bread. But to be honest I
don't recall. Never-the-less the Halacha L'Chatchilla is to use a
Kos.

[Email #2. -mi]

T613K@aol.com wrote:
> To me, explaining away "ruach ra" as referring to bacteria is a form
> of apologetics which does not honor Chazal as one might imagine, among
> other reasons because I doubt they actually knew about bacteria. But a
> stronger reason it doesn't honor them is that their references to things
> unseen do not imply that they were somehow more primitive than we are.
> There is no a priori necessity to translate everything they said into
> a modern vocabulary that would pass muster with the NY Times.

It is not apologetics. RAS explained Mazikn that way too. He was of the
opinion that Chazal knew everything and therefore knew about bacteria. He
said that the Mazikin described in the Gemmara as "invisible" beings
that float around "to the right" and "to the left", is in fact the exact
description of bacteria. I believe that RAS believed that even though
he could not explain everything that Chazal tell us the same way as he
did Mazikin, as we continue to understand nature better so too will we
be better be able to understand some of the more difficult statements
of Chazal.

HM

BACKON@vms.HUJI.AC.IL wrote:
> Up til the advent of machine matza (1840's) all matza was "soft" and
> quite thick which explains how a KETZAIT could "takeh" be a kezait.

At least 100 years before that. The SA HaRav writes of thin crispy matzot
as a fairly recent but now near-universal innovation, which seems to me
to mean it was at least a generation old by then, but not so old that
people thought it had been going on since Moshe Rabbenu.

He explains the then-new minhag of avoiding gebrokt as a result of this
innovation: though on the whole the thin matzot were a hiddur, since they
avoided the cheshash that the middle of the matzah would not be completely
baked through, they could not be left long in the oven without burning,
and that created a new cheshash, that there could be flour on the surface
that was not properly kneaded into the dough, and thus didn't get baked,
and wasn't in the oven long enough to be destroyed.

At any rate, at *some* point it was an innovation. The earlier minhag was
for the three matzot of the seder to be baked from an issaron of flour
(= a shiur challah), and the middle matzah should be bigger than the
others because everyone at the seder needs to get a kezayit from the
smaller part of it. Thus, those three matzot used to be big enough to
supply the whole seder, with no supplementing from the box.

We also learn that matzot can be up to a tefach thick, and those *must*
be soft, or how could they be eaten?

[Micha, on Areivim:
> As I posted to Avodah once, the Catholic church's council of Nicea
> standardized their ritual reproducing their guy's last seider using wine
> and wafers. (What, no shwarma?) It would imply that by 325, Jews in that
> part of the world were using crispy matzos.

> However, koreich implies that Hillel's matzah was like a laffa or
> gyro bread.

> It is quite ironic to consider the normative bayis-sheini matzah to be
> banned by minhag. Though still quite possible.
-mi]

As for R Micha's point about the Council of Nicaea, I doubt that Jews
have ever used kimmel crackers, or anything resembling them, as matzot.
I've had it confirmed by Catholics and ex-catholics that the kimmel
crackers from Israel look *exactly* like hosts, and you'd need 4 or 5
of them for even the smallest shiur of a kezayit.

-- 
Zev Sero        If they use these guns against us once, at that moment
zev@sero.name   the Oslo Accord will be annulled and the IDF will
                 return to all the places that have been given to them.
		                            - Yitzchak Rabin

R' Zev Sero wrote [on Areivim]:
>>> The 'kos shel Miriam' actually sounds like a nice minhag, 

Harry Maryles wrote [there as well]:
>> It is a virtual Avodah Zara to make up ways in which to serve God. This...
>> according to the Beis HaLevi is precisely what the Bnei Israel tried to
>> do when they built the Egel Hazahav.

Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org> wrote [there]:
> I also disagree with RHM's blanket ban on making up new ways in which to
> serve G-d. If this were true, no minhagim could ever get started. Nor
> even dinim derabbanan (although gezeiros based on cheshash, perhaps
> yes). No pattern to washing hands for neigl vasr or hamotzi based on
> the sefiros. No hanhagos of chassidus. You're banning the ba'al mussar's
> daily cheshbon hanefesh. Etc...

Sounds like a plan :)

> There has to be some geder (pun intended) between the appropriate
> accretion of new practices and eigel-like ones. I have no idea what it is.
> Something to explore on Avodah, perhaps?

The way I understand it is that there should be some Mesorah or mandate
for the innovation such as an Eis Laasos. Beyond that I would posit that
if the source of any innovation is not connected to outside influences
that may be anathematic to Torah then there might be some wiggle
room. Your example of the daily Cheshbon HaNefesh of a Baal Mussar in
order to better his/her Hanahgos and mitzvah observance is not really
innovation in a modality of a Mitzva or a Minhag. It is merely self
examination in order to improve oneslf which one can find in sources
going back to Tanach itself or the Mishnayos of Avos.

OTOH (to use the example of the controversial yet very popular new
innnovative practice of the Carlebach Minyanim) if one insists on
Davebing in a Shul that aggrandizes one individual's musical compostions
to the exclusion of all others, I would sday that it approaches Avodah
Zara. Because it stops being a mode for prayer. It morphs into a tribute
to an individual, Shlomo Carlebach, rather than a tribute to God. This
applies to WTGs as well, and to the idea of a Kos Shel Miriam. In fact
I believe that the non-Mechitza Shuls of the Traditional movement had
the same problem in that the source of the "Minhag" was the desire to
meld in with American church customs.

HM

> derabbanan itself, so if that's the only well, I can't see anyone really
> assering.

Besides the KSA you mean.

> Taam is based on molecules,

But it isn't. Much of the basar/chalav taam halachot don't make sense from a
chemical/molecular POV.

> which are hard to filter out. However, we do
> rely on filtering out of additives in mixtures,

KSA says we don't rely on filtering in the case of bread in the well.

> > 1) I specified over pesach
> > 2) the particles were visible when first entering the Yam
>
> Then we'd have to asser the whole NYC water supply - kids fish in the
> reservoirs, using bread as bait.

Which is why some people are against using the kinneret water during pesach.

Granted, the metzius is we don't asser the NYC water supply (or the
kinneret's). The *theoretical* question is, "why not".

> keilim (Pitchei Teshuva, Taz, etc.) who asser in a BOR. Somehow the
> volume-limited cistern (BOR) got transformed into a volume-unlimited well

I would assume that he doesn't consider the constant inflow of water
sufficient to eliminate the taam. (IIRC there's a case in Gemara AZ where
people worship a spring -- where the constant inflow of water isn't enough
to eliminate the issur since the new (mutar) water makes contact with the
assur water one small part at a time. It could be a similar case here.

>
> Looking at OH 447:4 in the Rema and the MB sk 38, it's all dependent
> on Taam - you can't drink wine from a barrel in which bread has fallen
> before pesach, because the crumbs might give a taam on pesach.

For ashkenazim. Sephardim, I've been told, don't hold that way (and even
permit the use of wine which was filtered by pouring the wine through a loaf
of bread).

> What taam is there from a ton of chametz in the Kinneret?

Measurable? None. But maybe "Taam" is a "homeopathic" principle?

Akiva

================
"Nothing is ever what it seems but everything is exactly what it is." - B.
Banzai

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