Avodah Mailing List

Volume 31: Number 142

Tue, 06 Aug 2013

• 1. Re: Synthetic Meat (Gershon Dubin)
• 2. Re: Synthetic Meat (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: Synthetic Meat (Zev Sero)
• 4. Synthetic Meat (M Cohen)
• 5. Re: Synthetic Meat (Zev Sero)
• 6. Re: Synthetic Meat (Micha Berger)
• 7. Synthetic Meat - Responding to Questoins (Nachum Binyamin Klafter, MD)
• 8. Lifne iver (Eli Turkel)
• 9. Re: Synthetic Meat - Responding to Questoins (Zev Sero)
• 10. Re: Synthetic Meat (Eitan Levy)
• 11. Re: Lifne iver (Zev Sero)
• 12. Re: Synthetic Meat (Micha Berger)
• 13. Synthetic Meat (Joe Slater)
• 14. Re: Lifne iver (Zev Sero)
• 15. Re: Lifne iver (Lisa Liel)
• 16. Re: Synthetic Meat - Responding to Questoins (Lisa Liel)
• 17. Re: Synthetic Meat (Lisa Liel)

Different than a veggie burger?  We don't do our own gezeiros.

Gershon
gershon.du...@juno.com

---------- Original Message ----------
From: Yitzchak Schaffer <yitzchak.schaf...@gmx.com>
To: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group <avo...@lists.aishdas.org>
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Synthetic Meat
Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2013 09:04:11 -0400

On 08/04/2013 10:09 PM, Nachum Binyamin Klafter, MD wrote:
> We will need to see precisely how the tissue is grown.  However, I
> assume that the following is the case:  Stem cells which are in an
> aqueous solution and have absolutely no visible, detectable metziyus...

> My understanding is that the "meat" would be parve, and that there
> should be no problem of eiver min-ha-chay or any other kashrus issue.

Wouldn't this be just as "bad" as poultry in terms of resembling meat,
and thus subject to an issur de-rabanan?

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On Mon, Aug 05, 2013 at 08:34:59PM +0000, Gershon Dubin wrote:
: Different than a veggie burger?  We don't do our own gezeiros.

Which is why I thought the pesaq would depend on whether we consider this
meat already covered by the gezeira against a ben paqua or not. I don't
know how a poseiq could tell if the gezeira intended to cover just a BP
or on every case of meat that doesn't require shechitah. Biologically,
it has some resemblence to a BP, but that would require ascribing halachic
mamashus to stem cells, something I don't think my rebbe would do.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

On 5/08/2013 6:22 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 05, 2013 at 08:34:59PM +0000, Gershon Dubin wrote:
> : Different than a veggie burger?  We don't do our own gezeiros.
>
> Which is why I thought the pesaq would depend on whether we consider this
> meat already covered by the gezeira against a ben paqua or not. I don't
> know how a poseiq could tell if the gezeira intended to cover just a BP
> or on every case of meat that doesn't require shechitah. Biologically,
> it has some resemblence to a BP, but that would require ascribing halachic
> mamashus to stem cells, something I don't think my rebbe would do.

A BP is meat.  This is a sort of fungus.  If we were to scan a piece of bacon
down to the molecular level and then synthesize a molecule-for-molecule copy
using raw materials gathered from mineral sources, it would surely be kosher
and parev, and have no connection to a BP.  If this were uncommon then one
might extend to it the requirement that almond milk have a siman, just as we
used to do to margarine and soy milk; but as we stopped doing that when they
became ubiquitous, we would surely also do with this.


-- 
Zev Sero               A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and
z...@sero.name          substantial reason' why he should be permitted to
                        exercise his rights. The right's existence is all
                        the reason he needs.
                            - Judge Benson E. Legg, Woollard v. Sheridan

...Stem cells which are in an aqueous solution and have absolutely no
visible, detectable metziyus, were injected with genetic material from the
nuclei of cardiac cells.  The cells divide on an agar medium etc

Perhaps I don't understand the process properly. I thought..

Stem cells are extracted from a live animal (basar min hachai) or a just
killed one (treifah).
Then added to a chemical soup base (agar etc) where they divide and grow.

Why is this not simple a case where the davar hamaamid is not kosher, and
therefore the end result is not kosher.

This was my original assumption.

The fact that the originating davar hamaamid cells are not detectable in the
final product (or not visible) doesn't help.
The fact that they grow as fungus doesn't help, the starter davar hamaamid
is not kosher

Mordechai cohen

On 5/08/2013 7:03 PM, M Cohen wrote:

> The fact that the originating davar hamaamid cells are not detectable in the
> final product (or not visible) doesn't help.
> The fact that they grow as fungus doesn't help, the starter davar hamaamid
> is not kosher

By the time any such product went to market it would surely be many more than
three generations distant from its animal ancestor, just in going through the
testing the governments of various countries would require before approving it.
Thus, based on the BY at the end of YD 115 (cited by the Taz in the same place),
we can be confident that no mamoshus of the original starter is left in it, and
thus it's kosher.

-- 
Zev Sero               A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and
z...@sero.name          substantial reason' why he should be permitted to
                        exercise his rights. The right's existence is all
                        the reason he needs.
                            - Judge Benson E. Legg, Woollard v. Sheridan

On Mon, Aug 05, 2013 at 07:03:02PM -0400, M Cohen wrote:
: The fact that the originating davar hamaamid cells are not detectable in the
: final product (or not visible) doesn't help.

If we hold that maggots found within meat are still kosher, or we can
squish lice on Shabbos, then we are saying that microscopic bug eggs,
being a davad hamaamid that is not visible when introduced, doesn't count.

So why should the stem cells be a bigger issue than the eggs?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             For those with faith there are no questions.
mi...@aishdas.org        For those who lack faith there are no answers.
http://www.aishdas.org                     - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin
Fax: (270) 514-1507

I shared my understanding of why synthetic meat should be considered parve 
(and therefore kal-ve-chomer why it is certainly not eiver min ha-chay).

The "meat" which will be ingested by the public, when this is mass produced 
for the consumer market, will never have been inside any animal whatsoever. 
All of its ingredients, literally every molecule, will have been synthesized 
in a Petri Dish with an augar medium from the following synthetic molecules: 
nucleic acids, amino acids, glucose, and trace minerals.  No animal will 
have served as the "source" of this meat.  The active genes of bovine heart 
muscle cells served only as a source of the information for these cells.

All of this is based on my assumption that the first cell which started this 
process was made from an embryonic bovine stem cell, which was fertilized in 
vitro.  (There may be other ways to accomplish synthetic meat, which might 
raise other halakhic challenges.  For example, if someone took a chunk of 
muscle fibers from a mature cow, and started with those, it is a different 
she'elah.  It still might be mutar, but there are different challenges to 
overcome.  But I am not addressing that possibility.)

One person privately asked me if it might be comparable to rennet, which is 
a concentrated solution of enzymes derived from the stomach of a cow.  It is 
not comparable to rennet, because Rennet is the actual substance which comes 
from the guf of the cow, and which actually curdles the milk.  In the case 
of synthetic meat there is actually ZERO substance from any animal.  It?s 
like a plant whose roots are growing in an artificial medium, which is now 
growing muscle tissue.  It?s not an animal and has never been connected to 
an animal.

Another person said that the original stem cell is a ?davar ha-ma?amid? 
This is an extension of the Rennet question.  We are talking about a single 
microscopic embryonic stem cell, which is invisible to the naked eye.  We 
are talking about embryos which were fertilized in vitro.  They are not even 
an animal.  A single stem cell has no discernible metziyus to a human 
being ?it has no ta?am, nutritional value, etc.  I do not think that a 
single cell can qualify as a davar ha-ma?amid, but in any case, this single 
cell comes from a glob of tissue which is already parve.

As a separate aside, the fact that the davar ha-ma'amid was not detectable 
DOES help, as I understand it.  For a davar ha-ma'amid to render the final 
product treif, it needs to actually be food.  If it is nipsal me-achilas 
kelev or rendered into something which is no longer food, then it is no 
longer a davar assur, and it is no longer a problem of davar ha-ma'amid. 
So, a single milliliter of water with some buffer solution in it is simply a 
chemical solution.  The fact that a microsopic cell is in this chemical 
reagent does not turn it into food.  It remains a flavorless chemical 
reagent.  At least that is my understanding.

Another person wrote to me that perhaps it?s an issue of chatacha na?asit 
ke-neveila.  I think this is incorrect for the same reason ? the original 
substance was not neveila, but was a microscopic cell from a microscopic 
glob in a labroatory.

Another person compared it to be paku?ah (the meat of a the fetus of an 
unborn calf which is in the cow at the time of her slaughter).  Chazal made 
a gezeira on ben-paku?ah being eaten with milk because of mar?is ayin. 
Therefore, the question is whether the gezeira would apply to synthetic 
?meat?.  I think that answer to this is definitely ?no? for a number of 
reasons:  The synthetic meat was never a cow and does not resemble meat in 
any manner.  Synthetic meat looks like white pieces of tofu. There?s no 
blood in it.  It doesn?t not resemble real meat in any way.  The meat of a 
ben paku?ah looks just like veal.  But more fundamentally, the sages did not 
make the gezeira of ben paku?ah on synthetic meat.  They made the gezeira on 
a fetal calf.

Another question is basar-of (chicken cooked with milk).  But again, we 
cannot enact new gezeiras.  Even if you imagine that the sages would have 
made a gezeira on synthetic meat, they did not make such a gezeira and one 
can?t be made now.  And my intuition is that they would not have made such a 
gezeira on synthetic meat, but that is a highly arguable theoretical 
question which I think is irrelevant because we do not enact new gezerias in 
our times.

I am only making this disclaimer because people tend to go crazy about these 
things:  I am not a rov and I do not claim to be rauy le-hora'ah.  I am just 
sharing my thoughts for the purpose of conversation.

Nachum Klafter 

ROY paskens that an Ashkenazi can eat nonglatt meat while a sefardi cannot.
He obviously does not feel he violates life over by allowing an Ashkenazi
to eat nonglatt. Elu velu means each one follows his own community. The
gemara has many such stories

Bottom life if an Ashkenazi asks a question from a sefardi rav (or vice
versa) the rav has to answer according to the questioners halachot not his
own
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On 5/08/2013 8:54 PM, Nachum Binyamin Klafter, MD wrote:
>
> One person privately asked me if it might be comparable to rennet,
> which is a concentrated solution of enzymes derived from the stomach
> of a cow.	It is not comparable to rennet, because Rennet is the
> actual substance which comes from the guf of the cow, and which
> actually curdles the milk.  In the case of synthetic meat there is
> actually ZERO substance from any animal.  It?s like a plant whose
> roots are growing in an artificial medium, which is now growing muscle
> tissue.  It?s not an animal and has never been connected to an animal.

Perhaps a better comparison is to the law that gidulei terumah are assur,
but gidulei gidulim are mutar, because there is nothing of the original
terumah's substance in the second generation, let alone in subsequent ones.
In our case, by the time it gets to market it will surely be many generations
removed from the original animals.

-- 
Zev Sero               A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and
z...@sero.name          substantial reason' why he should be permitted to
                        exercise his rights. The right's existence is all
                        the reason he needs.
                            - Judge Benson E. Legg, Woollard v. Sheridan

Micha Berger wrote:
"If we hold that maggots found within meat are still kosher, or we can
squish lice on Shabbos, then we are saying that microscopic bug eggs,
being a davad hamaamid that is not visible when introduced, doesn't count.

So why should the stem cells be a bigger issue than the eggs?"

This seems to be the opposite case though. In your case the egg grows inside 
the meat. Here we take the 'egg,' grow a bunch of them outside the original 
'host', mush them together and eat them... 

On 5/08/2013 9:35 PM, Eli Turkel wrote:
> ROY paskens that an Ashkenazi can eat nonglatt meat while a sefardi
> cannot. He obviously does not feel he violates life over by allowing
> an Ashkenazi to eat nonglatt.

There's nothing obvious about it.  Does he permit giving nonglatt meat to
an Ashkenazi?    (Actually ROY may not be the best example, since AIUI he
holds that bish'at hadechak even a Sefardi can rely on the Rama to eat
non-glatt, which means he doesn't really pasken that it's treif, he's just
being machmir.  Our discussion is in a case where one really holds that
the thing in question is assur, e.g. the stomach fats that Rhinelanders ate,
or the mamzerim that Beit Shamai permitted.


> Elu velu means each one follows his own community. The gemara has many'
> such stories

Please cite a few stories from the gemara where someone, holding that something
was assur, nevertheless *approved* of someone else, whose rebbe permitted it,
doing so.   That is different from *acknowledging* that there are differences
of opinion.  The gemara is full of such acknowledgements, but I can't remember
any case where someone says "it's assur for us but muttar for them".  Something
is either assur or muttar; it can't be both.  If it's assur, then those who
permit it are mistaken.  Their opinion may be divrei Elokim chayim, i.e. it
reflects one aspect of the Divine Will, but they're mistaken in applying it
to the practical level, where only one psak is possible.  They're *entitled*
to their mistake, because they have no reason to believe it *is* one, but
it's still (in our opinion) a mistake.

At least, that's one side of what we're discussing.  If you have evidence
that the halacha is really relative, that for someone who holds something
is muttar it's really muttar, please cite it.  But realise what it is that
you're saying: that one may give ones chelev to a Rhinelander, that one may
marry off ones mamzer to a Beis-Shammai family, that on Friday after sunset
one who holds like the geonim may nevertheless help someone who holds Layla
deRabbenu Tam to do melacha, and on Erev Yom Kippur after sunset one may
give him food.


> Bottom life if an Ashkenazi asks a question from a sefardi rav (or
> vice versa) the rav has to answer according to the questioners
> halachot not his own

Sure, because that's what the person is asking for.  He's not asking what
do *you* hold, he's asking you what would *his* rebbe hold.  That you think
his rebbe is mistaken doesn't change that.  You answer "given your rebbe's
premises, here is how I think he would pasken".   Cf Rabban Gamliel's sons
asking him what the Chachamim would hold.


-- 
Zev Sero               A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and
z...@sero.name          substantial reason' why he should be permitted to
                        exercise his rights. The right's existence is all
                        the reason he needs.
                            - Judge Benson E. Legg, Woollard v. Sheridan

On Tue, Aug 06, 2013 at 06:26:56AM +0300, Eitan Levy wrote:
> This seems to be the opposite case though. In your case the egg grows 
> inside the meat. Here we take the 'egg,' grow a bunch of them outside the 
> original 'host', mush them together and eat them... 

I'm not sure how that makes a difference to my question. Either both
are microscopic and don't count, or they do count because their effects
are macroscopic.

I like RZS's idea that if at all, it would at worst be assur in the
first or second round. And therefore even if one holds one must pay
attention to the initial miscroscopic collection of stem cells, it
wouldn't impact the market in practice. That seems to be what we hold
WRT kefir, a Russian yoghurt (yoghurt-like food?) made from n-th hand
cultures (kefir "grains").

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet
mi...@aishdas.org        about things most people don't watch even on
http://www.aishdas.org   Yom Kippur.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                       - Rav Yisrael Salanter

My understanding is that this "meat" at present is grown in material
extracted from calves, so it's almost certainly  fleishig (and probably
treif). Suppose at some stage it can be grown on a kosher pareve substrate.
I would argue that it will still be fleishig and follow the kashrut of its
source: kosher if shechted, treif otherwise.

My reasoning is that this is unlike yoghurt and so forth, where the
substance consumed is predominantly a kosher one that has been transformed
by the action of an additive (e.g., bacteria with a treif origin). In this
case there is no additive as such: the original cells replicate and the
producer extracts them and molds them into the desired shape. The finished
product is never distinct from the original cells: if we started with a
single cell then that cell would divide into two cells, each of those into
another two and so forth. Every single one of those cells is as "original"
as any other one. Why should we say that the original cell became kosher
when it split into two? I believe that at no point would a replicating cell
from a treif animal become kosher: it's effectively the same cell and it
derives its kashrut from its source.

Joe Slater
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On 6/08/2013 10:41 AM, Lisa Liel wrote:
> On 8/6/2013 5:01 AM, Zev Sero wrote:
>> At least, that's one side of what we're discussing.  If you have evidence
>> that the halacha is really relative, that for someone who holds something
>> is muttar it's really muttar, please cite it.
>
> Isn't that how kitniyot is dealt with?

Kitniyos isn't a macholokes; everyone agrees that it was muttar before
the gezera, and remains muttar for those who never accepted it, but is
assur for those who did, and their descendants.  So it's like wine for
non-nezirim, or terumah for kohanim; there's no machlokes, it's absolutely
muttar for some and absolutely assur for others.

But we're talking about something that is the subject of a dispute.  Some
hold it's muttar for everyone, and some hold it's assur for everyone.  The
true halacha has to be like one of them, but since there's been no final
psak, each side has the right and duty to assume that it is correct, and
to act accordingly.    BH held that BS's marriages were incestuous, and
their children mamzerim; but they acknowledged that they weren't doing it
out of wickedness but because they honestly thought it was the right thing
to do.  So when BS informed them that a particular child was kosher by
their (BH's) standards, they trusted them.   What we're discussing now,
though, is whether they would allow their own mamzerim to marry into BS
(who would hold them to be kosher).  I have never seen that addressed, but
it seems to me that it's unlikely.

-- 
Zev Sero               A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and
z...@sero.name          substantial reason' why he should be permitted to
                        exercise his rights. The right's existence is all
                        the reason he needs.
                            - Judge Benson E. Legg, Woollard v. Sheridan

On 8/6/2013 5:01 AM, Zev Sero wrote:
> At least, that's one side of what we're discussing.  If you have evidence
> that the halacha is really relative, that for someone who holds something
> is muttar it's really muttar, please cite it.

Isn't that how kitniyot is dealt with?

Lisa

On 8/5/2013 9:08 PM, Zev Sero wrote:
> On 5/08/2013 8:54 PM, Nachum Binyamin Klafter, MD wrote:
>>                             In the case of synthetic meat there is 
>> actually ZERO substance from any animal.  It's like a plant whose 
>> roots are growing in an artificial medium, which is now growing 
>> muscle tissue.  It's not an animal and has never been connected to an 
>> animal.

> Perhaps a better comparison is to the law that gidulei terumah are assur,
> but gidulei gidulim are mutar, because there is nothing of the original
> terumah's substance in the second generation, let alone in subsequent ones.

> In our case, by the time it gets to market it will surely be many
> generations removed from the original animals.

Lav davka.  It may be that an infusion of fresh original cells will be 
required periodically.  It hasn't been proven that even if it's possible 
to culture meat like this, that it's possible to do so generations removed.

Lisa

On 8/6/2013 7:03 AM, Joe Slater wrote:
> My understanding is that this "meat" at present is grown in material 
> extracted from calves, so it's almost certainly  fleishig (and 
> probably treif)....

> My reasoning is that this is unlike yoghurt and so forth, where the 
> substance consumed is predominantly a kosher one that has been 
> transformed by the action of an additive (e.g., bacteria with a treif 
> origin). In this case there is no additive as such: the original cells 
> replicate...

Whereas I don't think cells exist, halakhically. If you can't see it
with the naked eye, it's halakhically irrelevant.

Lisa



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