My mind, and the places it goes

There's no need for a hechsher for bottled water, by the way. The certification is a marketing ploy.

I recall when the OU first gave out a hechsher for bottled water, and my brother-in-law (who worked for the OU and is one of the world's experts on food chemistry and kashrut) called me to let me know — because he knew it would annoy me.

The OU and other organizations accept the money that's waved under their noses, but they're doing a disservice to the Jewish community when they certify something that doesn't need certification.

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sethg

I actually heard a very good explanation for hechshers on bottled water et al.: if you're the mashgiach for a restaurant or some other institution, you'd rather just tell the buyers "anything with one of these hechshers is acceptable" than tell them "anything with one of these hechshers is acceptable, and here's a three-page list of all the foods that are acceptable even without a hechsher".

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I don't find that argument persuasive, especially since I heard at the time it happened exactly why it had happened.

Sadly, the hechsher companies continue to certify things that don't need to be certfied, which brings them money but creates FUD in the Jewish commmunity.

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ghilledhu.livejournal.com

Interesting...there are groups that do that in New York and NJ, too. Usually they hand out granola or other breakfast-type bars.

One time there were several of them lining my way to the PATH entrance. Three separate people offered me a cereal bar; I accepted, and thus had free breakfast all week. Not one of them tried to harass me, or do any prostheleysing other than the little card.

I considered it a win.

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IMAO, a true christian shouldn't care whether the person they're doing a good deed for (like handing out water) is their "target audience" for new church members or not. sounds like this was mostly true of these folks.

so in that regard, the "kosher" water might have been on purpose by the planners...they're not trying to convert you, they're trying to be nice to fellow boston humans by giving out water. identifying themselves was for a (presumably) secondary benefit of "hey, if you're christian and looking for a new church, come on by." so giving out kosher water so more folks could have some water, is a good thing.

tho part of me wants to say, if they were being truly alturistic they would not have identified themselves at all because they would rather not have the attention/thanks, it should be "enough" for them simply to Do...but i can understand in this modern age the likelihood that the water would be rejected if folks didn't know the origin (whether to trust some random stranger giving out water for "no reason," not like passersby are marathon runners or something) so they're identifying themselves to put folks' mind at ease that they're not some crazy people spiking Kool-aid.

or maybe i'm just thinking too much.

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altruistic, not alturistic. i can too spell, i just can't type.

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magid.livejournal.com

The water would help the same number of people whether it's got certification or not, because bottled water is completely kosher whether it's certified or not.

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"and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple -- truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward." (Matthew 10:42ish)

I would have poured it out on the ground, on the basis of the taint of avodah zarah. While generally water would not be susceptible in the same sense that wine would be, in this case they are clearly giving the water out as an act of worship of their god.

For the record, Matthew 10 is the chapter where the apostles are named off and given their task as missionaries. In v. 6 they are told specifically not to bother with the Samaritans, but to go to the "lost sheep of Israel." Granted, I'm twisting v 42 around a bit, since in context it refers to someone welcoming the missionaries and giving them a glass of water. But I have met enough evangelicals who could not read, either, so fair's fair.

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so if a christian is giving out water, it must be because of that passage?! for it to be an insult to you, for you to not want to accept it?

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When a Christian gives out water along with advertising for his church, then he is fulfilling his commandment (as it were) to bring the Good News to others, to encourage belief in Jesus and his salvationary mission, etc. In that regard, what he is doing is an act of worship of his god. (I'm not going with your suggestion that the card was merely to assure you that the water wasn't poisoned. The content of the card makes the act most probably one of advertising, i.e. engendering good feelings toward Christianity in general and their church in particular.)

I'm guessing that my use of the term "avodah zarah" threw you, since you respond suggesting I've been insulted. I haven't -- they're doing their religious thing, fine. It's not like I said "no" and they kept at it. But I have a right to do my religious thing, which in this case involves being concerned with the requirement in Jewish law to separate from all taint of idolatry (avodah zarah). It has been argued that Christianity is not avodah zarah for non-Jews, but it certainly is for Jews.

In Jewish law, an object tainted by idol worship may not be used by a Jew. This not a question of being insulted, this is not a question of whether the water distributor's intent was to convert Jews specifically (though I was having fun with my citation, the church's choice of water was probably deliberate -- Jesus is the "living water" (John 7) not the "living Snapple Iced Tea"). The law on this is strict: a bottle of wine which has been merely handled by a non-Jew is no longer kosher, unless certain technical exceptions apply. So it's a question of whether (1) water can take on a taint of idolatry, (2) advertising given with the water is sufficient to assume intent on the part of the donor, which would impart that taint, (3) is the nature of the taint such that it merely can't be used by a Jew (he could give it away, return it, or water his plant with it), or must be destroyed in a way to give no conceivable benefit to him (i.e. poured out on pavement). There is almost definitely a requirement against insulting the donor by pouring it out in front of him. I assume

gnomi understood all the parameters of that question inherent in my comment, but you're right, not everyone reading the comments would understand where I was coming from without my being explicit.

In a case of doubt, and having no one with sufficient education in this area to ask at that moment, I'd pour it out. This is at the risk of breaking Jewish law's injunction against wasting human-edible (potable) foods, but weighing what regrettably little I know of law in this area, and assuming I couldn't carry the bottle with me until I could clarify the question, I'd take the chance. The question is sufficiently interesting that on reflection (as I said in my followup comment) I asked my local Orthodox rabbi how the law would fall in this case.

Again, this is not a question of having been insulted, just of my being concerned with following the strictures of my own (and

gnomi's) religion. And no, the passage I cited wasn't necessarily in the donor's minds at all, particularly since I turned the context of v. 42 on its head. I suspect that if I wanted to think a bit harder (or actually find a book) I could come up with many other N.T. passages referring to water. This one, however, is particularly cute because of the context of missionizing earlier in the chapter, and the specific mission to Jews. (I doubt very much that it dawned on the water boys for a second that they'd be missionizing to anything but marginalized or unaffiliated non-Jews.)

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yikes! "insulted" was definitely the wrong word. sorry about that. i was only guessing what you meant by "avodah zarah" by the context. i am neither an evangelical christian nor even a jew (much less a kosher-keeping one) so both sides of this exchange involve a foreign (to me) mindset i'm trying to understand. thank you so much for your patience with me!

in this particular case,

gnomi asked them if they were intending to convert her (at least i think that's what she was asking), and they said no. so does that come under the same heading?

also, why pour it out on the ground, as you said you would earlier? why not just hand it back to them and say "no thank you?" then you're neither wasting it nor accepting it. or wait, you're saying if you got too far away before noticing the little card with the church info. gotcha.

Me Thinking Too Much: this whole thing gets a new wrinkle when you realise that the gospel writers were themselves Jews earlier in their lives. the "whole world" was a lot smaller then. so we can only guess (tho we usually draw upon traditional interpretations instead) to what aspect in each case of using the term are they referring, religious vs. geographical/political origins. never MIND that the entire new testament went through more than one editorial review (so to speak), long after the original authors had gone beyond. ;)

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(at least i think that's what she was asking), and they said no.

I actually read that as a nice way of saying "no thanks, I'm Jewish" and being honest that she wasn't the target audience. But I don't think their intent to convert a Jew, specifically, as having anything to do with the problem in Jewish law. The fact (assuming it is one) that they were trying to influence *anyone* to be interested in Christianity is sufficient, because a Jew happened to receive it. Their intent regarding her or Jews specifically doesn't change the problem for a Jew.

also, why pour it out on the ground, as you said you would earlier? why not just hand it back to them and say "no thank you?" then you're neither wasting it nor accepting it. or wait, you're saying if you got too far away before noticing the little card with the church info. gotcha

Well, because in the strictest case legally, a Jew can take NO benefit from it, which would include the incidental benefit of, e.g. the good will that could happen if I gave it to a goy coworker, or to a homeless person. Returning it makes it available for furtherance of avodah zarah, so that's a problem, too. But if I'm wrong and the strictest case doesn't apply, then yes, I'm wasting it in a way that's also against Jewish law by pouring it out.

Me thinking too much...

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here. While the original text and its meaning have been obscured by translation, editing, what-have-you, the current interpretation is based on the KJV or other texts and that's the part that counts now.

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I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here. While the original text and its meaning have been obscured by translation, editing, what-have-you, the current interpretation is based on the KJV or other texts and that's the part that counts now.

yeah, that's what i was ruminating on. just thinking my way off onto a tangent. KJV was originally written for a target audience of one, that being the king. it's just an "alt-history" daydream on my part, wondering how much it diverges from the original authors' original messages. ::shrug::

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I had asked my local orthodox rabbi about the water, and his response is at the bottom of this comment set. Briefly, it's ok for a Jew to accept and drink it.

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seborn.livejournal.com

The law on this is strict: a bottle of wine which has been merely handled by a non-Jew is no longer kosher, unless certain technical exceptions apply.

Huh. So if I walk on down to Libby's Liquors or some other fine non-Jewish liquor purveyor to pick up a bottle of Baron Herzog with hechshers and everything, despite what the bottle says it's treif?

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No. All kosher wines sold in the US have a double seal. One is the plastic/metal/wax cover atop the cork (screw cap), and the other is the cork (screw cap) itself.

On top of that, the majority of wines sold in the US are "mevushal," which means they have been ruined for idol worship purposes (I just report the stuff) by boiling. This would indeed ruin the wine, but the better ones are flashed up to the required temperature and then right back down, so their taste is more or less indistinguishable from non-mevushal wines.

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(Sorry, kids jumping around while I'm typing, so I forgot to connect that up...once it's mevushal and can't be used for idolatry, then it can be handled by all the goyim you want, sealed or not, without becoming trayf. I'm not sure what would happen if someone took a mevushal wine and specifically poured out some of the bottle to, say, Zeus, but my gut feeling is that it would not be permitted to drink that wine. It's immune from the handling restriction, though.)

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seborn.livejournal.com

I'd heard about wine being mevushal, but I was never clear on what heating it accomplished. Thanks!

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Since we've run across several practical issues with idol worship in our house — it's not as bad as it sounds, but sometimes your non-Jewish, non-European friends will give you the oddest gifts — I've studied both Maimomedes and Shulchan Aruch recently on the laws of "avodah zarah."

You're certainly correct to dispose of the water if you think it's an object of idolatry. The question is whether it is such an object or not. It hasn't been used in a service, hasn't been venerated, and hasn't been dedicated to the use of a god. I don't recall any reference to a prohibition about receiving gifts from someone who wishes to sway you to his religious practices, especially unsoliticted gifts, or what to do if you should receive such a gift.

If you're trying to argue that the act of giving away water is a religious service, I can still argue that the water is incidental. For example, a hospital run by a Catholic religious order is dispensing health care to fulfil their religious requirements; if you should wake up in such an ER, would you be required to hobble out, even if doing so would kill you?

Note to non-Jewish readers or non-Halachically inclined readers: A question such as I posed in the last paragraph is not disrespectful. It's part of the Talmudic method of proposing various cases in point to help determine the legal boundaries. When I ask a question like that, I'm showing respect for the person's ability to reason out an answer.

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Well, that's one of the reasons why I tossed the question over my rabbi's fence. The problem is that the nature of Christianity is fundamentally different from that of classical idolatry, enough so that there are many opinions as to whether it constitutes avodah zarah. (For a nice summary of opinions, see the practice responsa from the 2004 Summer Beit Midrash program.) Models of "use in service" and "dedication to a god" are difficult to relate to what the Christians do, since the ikkar of their idolatry is intellectual (i.e. believing in Jesus' salvation, rather than bowing down to statues of him). In my gut reaction regarding the water, I am saying that by using the water to further the missionizing goal of their religion, they are implicitly dedicating it to their god.

Against that, since water (not even Perrier) is not a chamer medina, so that it's invalid for, e.g. havdalah, it's reasonable to say it's not liable to dedication to a god in the first place. It's also reasonable to say that only something verbally and explicitly dedicated to a god is forbidden. (L'havdil, our oaths need to be explicit to be binding, except for the weird situations when they're not -- i.e. hazakah.) But there's enough doubt on this in my mind for me to toss the water.

Your question about the Catholic hospital is particularly harif for me, since my first two kids were born in a Caritas Christi hospital, and b'ezrat haShem my third will be born there in the next couple of weeks. I haven't wondered about the hospital specifically, but there are plenty of other situations around my heavily Catholic town that have left me wondering. I guess I'm differentiating between the water and the hospital on a number of bases:

The water was given with an invitation, essentially, to worship at a given church, and had a specific religious message attached, even if that message referred to "God" rather than "Jesus." The CC hospital, while it has crucifixes and assorted saints' statues all over the place, seems to treat these as decoration. They have no mission statements posted that refer to their being a Catholic hospital or their having any religious mission whatsoever; their chapel is "interfaith," they provide a wide range of chaplain types and attempt to satisfy a wide range of religious food restrictions; and they are under orders by the archdiocese to remove or cover the crucifix in a patient's room on request.
The majority of the CC employees are not Catholic. If they are Christian, they're there to do a paid job, not be religious, and in that they are no different from a Christian worker at, say, my auto shop; and presumably they'd be just as happy to work for, say, Beth Israel-Deaconess Hospital. OTOH, the men giving out the water can be presumed to be volunteer members of the donor church, and that they were out there specifically to further the ends of their church or of Christianity. Moving the primary activity from the realm of "a job" to "an activity for my church" is crucial in thinking about the taint on the medical services vs. the taint on the water.
The CC hospital offers services in exchange for a fee, without regard to the patient's interest in their religion. The water-donating church offers services in exchange for belief (or prospective belief) in their religion. Maybe this is not the case with the water, specifically, but that is the business they're in, while the CC hospital is in the curing people business. That said, the CC hospital does have policies limiting what its employees may do, in conjunction with its being a Catholic hospital.
(Doesn't apply to someone choosing the hospital over an equally good hospital that's not Catholic.) While you are obligated to die rather than transgress on actual avodah zara I don't think you are obligated to die (or risk dying) to avoid using an object or service tainted with it.

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(Just as I was writing my response, I got your ping about your rabbi's response. Thank you!)

First and foremost, B'sha'ah tovah u'mutzlachat.

Now, as to your comments about the water. I wonder about the extent to which "thoughts don't count" (d'varim she'be'lav anum d'varim) applies in this situation. They may have a purpose or an attitude, but that doesn't translate into any measureable action regarding the water that fits into any previously-defined halachik category. If you start trying to determine the attitudes someone may hypothetically take and use that to make things impermissible, that could be a real problem. (Example: you purchase something for your kids for Channukah, and the salesperson says "Merry Christmas." Perhaps she sold it to you in order to celebrate/advance her religious beliefs?)

Howver, I think that you would absolutely correct to not accept the water in the first place if you knew what is was. I certainly would not in normal circumstances. This to avoid encouraging them in their efforts to convert the heathen (that's you and me, kid).

Your comments about the hospital are well-taken. I have something else to say on this topic after you are discharged from the hosptital and are blogging again...

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Thanks for your good wishes.

You're probably right that "thoughts don't count" here, but that's one of the things I have a hard time with about Christianity in Jewish law, because (at least based on my extensive discussions with Protestant evangelical fellow grad students) the ikkar of Christianity is thought/belief. Of course, the Catholic position on this is different, but the hardcore Protestants (one Methodist, one I-don't-know, one Churches-of-Christ, and one (I think) Church of Sweden) seemed united on the idea that what they did didn't matter, it was all what was "in [their] heart[s]." Which creates this weirdness, if correct, because someone could be considered a good, faithful, "saved" Christian by his coreligioners, but because he doesn't pray aloud, go to church, sing hymns, and whatever else would qualify as an idolatrous ACT, he could be a non-idolater in Jewish law. Perhaps that weirdness is why we don't worry many about the various prohibitions in commerce with Christians. But I fear that ambiguity also gives organizations like (may their bones rot in their lifetimes) JforJ an opening.

Do post your thoughts abou the hospital; 'twill give me something to muse on instead of why I'm overdue yet again... :-)

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At first I was poised to reject what the grad students were telling you, but on further reflection I think I agree: some branches of Christianity are heavily preoccupied with what you think. I wonder if the Inquisition was a symptom of that preoccupation.

On the other hand, I think I can guarantee that if you wander into church, steal the collection plate, and shoot the minister, people will wonder about your devotion to Christinaity. In that sense I have to believe that outward acts do matter even to Protestants.

The Calvanists who dominated life in Scotland in the 1600s strike me as the type who were deeply interested in regulating every aspect of your life in order to ensure the salvation of your soul. By regulating your outward actions they attempted to influence your inward beliefs. Now perhaps in a perfect world the outward actions wouldn't matter, but in practice that was their method.

Judaism doesn't really care about the scarey notion that someone might be a secret J worshipper. We don't prosecute people because they might turn out to be a secretive member of another religion. No Inquisition.

Commerce with outright pagans is permissible within certain limits. Since Christians are not considered idol worshippers commerce is permissible. How selling Christmas decorations can be considered permissible is beyond my understanding.

Then again, on the subject of paganism, Judiasm has much worse problems: Jews for Schneerson, who worship a dead guy as the Messiah (not Moshiach — last I checked more than a few had moved beyond Moshiach to Messiah). My wife believes that rejecting JforS entirely will push them further over the edge into leaving Judiasm entirely. I worry about further contamination of Judiasm by the end-logic of chasidicism. (Can you tell I'm a Litvak?)

Do post your thoughts abou the hospital; 'twill give me something to muse on instead of why I'm overdue yet again... :-) Nope. You'll have to occupy your time speculating about what you think my thoughts might be...

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(For his actual words, see the bottom of this comment set. Briefly, the water's ok to accept and drink.)

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mollydot.livejournal.com

Hi, hope you don't mind me being nosy (over here via savepluto).

I know very little about Judaism, and have never heard of the taint before, so everything I know about it comes from these comments. One thing I don't understand: if a Jew can't use the water (and I know the Rabbi said you can, but just assuming for the sake of argument you can't), how can he/she water plants with it, but not give it away because of gaining goodwill? To me, watering your own plants would be more on the self benefit side of things than giving something to someone you have no connection with.

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(BTW, on some further thinking about it, I decided to ping our shul rabbi. It's the sort of question that will give him great joy to answer. I'll post his response (trimmed if need be) here when I get it.)

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42itous.livejournal.com

On a separate but related topic:

Once I was walking on the main shopping street near Brown University, with my cousin who had just returned from a brief stint in the Israeli army. We were stopped by a couple of young Chasids who asked first if we were Jewish and then whether we had our own menorahs. My cousin, without thinking, started chattering in Hebrew, and the two men responded in kind, so I missed the rest of the conversation.

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