Avodah Zarah, Chapter 2, Mishnah 5. In the previous Mishnah we learned about the dispute between Rabbi Meir and the Sages concerning cheese that comes from Beis Unyaki: since it is possible that offerings brought to idolatry were used there as the source for producing the cheese, Rabbi Meir holds that any cheese from there is forbidden to derive benefit from, and one may not make use of it in any way at all. But everyone agrees - Rabbi Meir and the Sages alike - that gentile cheese in general, cheese that does not come from that place, is not forbidden to derive benefit from but only forbidden to eat: it is simply not kosher. The question is why.
Background:
The Mishnah presents a discussion between Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Yehoshua. Rabbi Yishmael was younger than Rabbi Yehoshua, and Tosafos relate that as a child he was taken captive by the Romans and Rabbi Yehoshua redeemed him. Rabbi Yehoshua was the leading sage of the generation at the beginning of the Yavneh period, while Rabbi Yishmael was a rising figure who was not yet a member of the Sanhedrin at that time.
Rabbi Yishmael is walking along with Rabbi Yehoshua and is trying to draw out of him why the Sages had recently instituted the decree against gentile cheese - cheese produced by non-Jews. The wording of the Mishnah indicates that Rabbi Yehoshua does not want to reveal it to him. The reason is this: as a rule the Sages refrained from revealing the rationale behind their decrees, sometimes for at least twelve months. First the new enactment had to spread among the public, and only afterward would they disclose its reason. For if people would not agree with the rationale, they would not accept the stringency upon themselves, and the Sages wanted the safeguard to hold firm.
The assumption underlying the question:
In the time of the Mishnah all cheeses were made from the milk of a cow, a goat or a sheep; there was no technology in the time of the Mishnah and the Gemara to produce cheese from any other source. Hence Rabbi Yishmael's assumption: the cheese is entirely milk, and nothing is added to it other than an enzyme (rennet) that causes the milk to curdle and turn into cheese. The rest of the ingredient is minute and nullified, and the milk outweighs it by far more than sixty to one. If so, since all the milk comes from kosher animals and the cheese is nothing but milk - why should it not be kosher? That is the source of his question.
Rabbi Yehoshua will offer him several answers, and Rabbi Yishmael will reject them one after another.
The text of the Mishnah:
"Amar Rabbi Yehudah: sha'al Rabbi Yishmael es Rabbi Yehoshua k'shehayu mehalchin ba'derech, amar lo: mipnei mah asru gevinas ovdei kochavim?" - why did the Sages recently forbid cheese that comes from gentiles and render it forbidden to eat?
"Amar lo: mipnei she'ma'amidin osah b'keivah" - because they curdle it and set it with what the Mishnah calls keivah.
Keivah, in other contexts, is one of the chambers of the digestive system of a ruminant animal (known in Latin as the abomasum), which is more complex than the human digestive system. In this chamber the milk that the calf, lamb or kid nursed from its mother receives the enzymes that curdle it, so that the young animal will be able to digest it. It is from the keivah, then, that the enzymes for cheese production are extracted.
In our Mishnah, however, "keivah" does not refer to the organ itself, nor to its flesh, but to its contents: the curdled milk found inside it, which is essentially a kind of waste on its way out. And this is how the gentile would prepare his cheese - after slaughtering the calf he would open it up, take a bit of the curdled milk in its keivah and add it to the milk in order to curdle it. It is comparable to taking a little old, soured dough, rich in yeast, in order to leaven fresh dough.
According to Rabbi Yehoshua's first suggestion, the milk that curdled inside the stomach has the same status as the animal itself. Since the calf was slaughtered by gentiles it is a neveilah, forbidden to eat, and therefore the contents of its stomach are forbidden as well; and once a forbidden ingredient has been introduced into the cheese, the cheese is no longer kosher.
Rabbi Yishmael's objection:
Rabbi Yishmael rejects the assumption that the curdled milk inside a neveilah has the status of the neveilah itself. His proof: everyone agrees that on a Torah level the curdled milk found inside an olah offering is not forbidden to drink. Now, an olah that has been offered is forbidden to derive any benefit from - a more severe prohibition than that of a neveilah, which is forbidden to eat but permitted for benefit. If the contents of the stomach had the status of the animal, they too would be forbidden for benefit; and since on a Torah level one may drink them, this proves that they do not carry the halachic status of the animal. Consequently the milk in the stomach of a neveilah is not treif, and it does not disqualify the cheese.
Reading the Mishnah here is somewhat involved, because Rabbi Yishmael cites an opinion that one may drink such curdled milk from an olah, and Rabbeinu HaKadosh, the editor of the Mishnah, inserts a parenthetical comment: not everyone agreed to this. According to the dissenting opinion one may not drink the liquid found inside an olah, but that is only a rabbinic extension, so that people should not get a mistaken impression. In any case, everyone agrees that on a Torah level it is permitted - and that itself is the proof that the liquid in the stomach of a sacrificial animal does not carry the status of the animal.
"Vahalo keivas olah chamurah mikeivas neveilah" - the stomach inside a calf brought as an olah is more stringent than the stomach of an ordinary neveilah, since it is forbidden even for benefit and not merely for eating. "Ve'amru: kohen shedato yafah sorfah chayah" - and nevertheless there is an opinion that a kohen whose constitution is strong, who is not squeamish, may swallow that liquid just as it is. And since it is permitted to drink it, it is clear that it is not part of the olah, for if it were, it would be forbidden for benefit.
"Velo hodu lo, aval amru: ein nehenin velo mo'alin" - this is Rabbeinu HaKadosh's editorial note: the Sages did not agree with the opinion that a kohen may drink the milk in the stomach of an olah, but even according to them, if one did derive benefit from it there is no me'ilah, meaning that it is not a Torah violation but only a rabbinic prohibition. It emerges that all agree that the contents of the stomach do not have the status of the stomach itself, and therefore the rationale proposed by Rabbi Yehoshua - that the concern is a treif ingredient in the cheese - does not hold up.
His second answer - the stomach of calves offered to idolatry:
"Chazar ve'amar lo: mipnei shema'amidin osah bekeivas eglei avodah zarah" - Rabbi Yehoshua's second attempt: the concern is not the stomach of an ordinary neveilah, but rather that the stomach used to curdle the milk may have come from a calf that was offered to idolatry, in which case the entire animal and everything inside it became forbidden.
And so indeed the halachah is, for the verse states: "Nothing of that which is banned shall cling to your hand" - one may not derive benefit in any manner from something connected to an idolatrous offering. And when the animal was offered to idolatry, the one offering it took satisfaction in all the contents of its innards and its stomach, which fatten it, and it is therefore part of the offering: the entire bulk and contents of the animal are offered, including the liquid in its stomach. Consequently the milk mixed into it would be forbidden as well.
But this answer too is rejected on the basis of the previous Mishnah: there the dispute concerned only cheese that came from Uniki, whereas everywhere else all agree that gentile cheese is forbidden only for eating and not for benefit. If we were concerned that ingredients from an idolatrous offering were mixed into the cheese, it would have been forbidden for benefit as well, and that is not the nature of the decree.
"Amar lo: im kein, lamah lo asaruhu bahana'ah?" - if this is indeed the concern, why did they not forbid the cheese for all benefit, rather than suffice with a prohibition against eating it? This was a sort of checkmate that Rabbi Yishmael placed before Rabbi Yehoshua.
"Hisi'o ledavar acher":
What does Rabbi Yehoshua do? He distracts Rabbi Yishmael and shifts the discussion to an entirely different subject, so as to prevent him from asking further. Eventually we will return to this and see how the later authorities understand that this side topic is in fact an indirect, rather than a direct, answer to Rabbi Yishmael; but on the surface we are simply moving on to a different matter.
The question concerns the vocalization of a single word in Shir HaShirim. The beginning of the verse clearly speaks in the voice of Knesses Yisrael, the feminine, addressing the Holy One, Blessed is He: "Yishakeini minshikos pihu" - "Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth" - and Chazal explain that the request is for the revelation of the secrets of His Torah. The question is about the continuation of the verse, and there are two possible readings:
"Ki tovim dodecha miyayin" - in the masculine: Your love, Hashem, is better to us than wine.
"Ki tovim dodayich miyayin" - in the feminine: the Holy One, Blessed is He, is telling us that our love is more precious to Him than wine.
"Amar lo: Yishmael, keitzad atah korei?" - "He said to him: Yishmael, how do you read the verse?" "Amar lo: ki tovim dodayich" - he answered in the feminine, with the Holy One, Blessed is He, as the speaker, as though it were a quotation within a quotation, saying that our love is better to Him than wine. And Rabbi Yishmael's reasoning: the first half of the verse is stated in the third person - "minshikos pihu," the kisses of His mouth, and not "your mouth" - for there Knesses Yisrael is speaking about the Holy One, Blessed is He; whereas the continuation of the verse is in the second person, which implies that the speaker has changed and this is a response in return.
"Amar lo: ein hadavar kein, sheharei chavero melamed alav - l'reiach shemanecha tovim" - "He said to him: that is not so, for its companion phrase teaches about it: 'for the fragrance of your oils is good.'" The end of the following verse teaches about its beginning: "For the fragrance of your oils is good... therefore the maidens love you." "Maidens" are women, and the one receiving their love is the Holy One, Blessed is He, addressed in the masculine. From here we learn that "ki tovim dodecha" too is stated in the masculine and not in the feminine. With this the discussion ended, Rabbi Yishmael was diverted from the subject, and here the Mishnah concludes.
Yet the message that Rabbi Yehoshua wished to convey indirectly is this: the first half of the verse deals with the Holy One, Blessed is He, revealing His secrets to us directly - "Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth"; and the second half, "for your love is better than wine," deals with those who love the Holy One, Blessed is He, namely the Sages and their decrees, which are better and preferable to wine - an allusion to the verses themselves. That is to say, since rabbinic decrees stem from the fear of Hashem, there is an aspect in which they are cherished even more than the verses themselves. With this Rabbi Yehoshua hints to Rabbi Yishmael that the words of the Sages are exceedingly important, and that one should not multiply questions, but rather accept the decree concerning the cheese of non-Jews, since it flows from the fear of Hashem, and that is the proper approach.
The practical halachah - the true reason for the decree:
The reason that brought the decree against the cheese of non-Jews into force, which was revealed at a later time, is not a concern about the liquid inside the stomach, that curdled milk. The concern is that they took the stomach itself - a piece of the actual flesh of that organ - and placed it into the milk in order to curdle it, since that same rennet is present in the walls of the stomach as well, and this is indeed how cheese was produced. The problem: the meat itself has the status of neveilah if it came from an animal that was not properly slaughtered, and therefore the cheese is not kosher.
Two points on this matter:
A distinction in terminology: although the entire organ is called the keivah (stomach), in our Mishnah "keivah" refers to the liquid found inside the organ; whereas the organ itself, the actual flesh, is called "or hakeivah" - the skin of the stomach.
Regarding meat and milk: there is no concern of meat and milk here. Once the piece of meat is removed from the cheese, the quantity of stomach that came from it is minuscule relative to the volume of the milk, far more than one in sixty, and it imparts no taste at all. The prohibition of meat and milk depends on a mixture of tastes, and here there is no taste. Therefore, if one uses the stomach of a kosher animal that was properly slaughtered, or a piece of it, it is permitted - and this is in fact how cheese was made: they took a piece of the stomach of a kosher calf, placed it in the milk, curdled it and removed the meat, and the cheese is kosher even though meat had been inside it, since there is no mixture of the tastes of meat and milk here.
Davar hama'amid:
If so, why is there a problem when one uses a piece of meat of a neveilah and places it into the milk, given that in the end it is removed and imparts no taste? The answer is that there are scenarios in which, even though no taste of the forbidden substance is discernible, we do not say that it is nullified. When the forbidden substance functions as a "davar hama'amid" - an agent that causes the food to take on its very form - then even though it was removed, and even though its proportion is negligible in percentage terms, one cannot say that it is nullified and gone, because the mixture itself proclaims its presence: what was milk has become cheese, and rennet must necessarily be present. And if that rennet is not kosher, it is not nullified.
This is in fact a major dispute among the Rishonim, but we follow the view of the Rambam, and so ruled the Mechaber in Shulchan Aruch, with the Rema concurring, that a setting agent is never nullified. Therefore, when cheese is produced using a setting agent, if that agent comes from a non-kosher source, the cheese made with it is not kosher.
The bottom line: even those who rely on what we might call, in quotation marks, "Rav Moshe's leniency" regarding chalav akum - that milk produced in a factory and milked under government supervision is not included in the decree, since there is no concern of adulteration, and many in America rely on this and are not particular about chalav Yisrael - that leniency does not extend to cheese. Even someone who drinks milk without supervision cannot eat cheese without a proper hechsher, because this is a separate concern entirely, and it is common practice to manufacture cheese with non-kosher ingredients, including rennet derived from non-kosher animals or from animals that were not slaughtered properly.