Question:
Dear Rabbi,
I read that a test has been performed onto a metal pot to see if it actually absorbs food. It appears that if any food at all is absorbed, it is but traces. So, even though one may not use the pot lechatchila for meat, (to prevent annulling an issur lechatchila), but bedieved, even a ben yomo should not render the food ossur as the traces of the absorbed food (if any) is for sure botel in 60 times the meaty food…
I’d like to hear your opinion.
Thanks
Answer:
In general we don’t rely on these tests, and even though it would seem from them that there is room to be lenient, however the poskim still don’t rely on them to change the halacha. There are a number of reasons for this.
One is because the test itself is not conclusive, as the amount of absorbed taste can vary from food to food, and different temperatures. It can also vary and change if the materials and techniques used to make the pots will change in a few years. therefore the poskim say to keep the halacha the exact way that it has been until now
Aside from this if someone will say that he can use the same ben yomo pot for milk and meat, he will eventually end up cooking them together or eating them together. Or, he will mix up different material pots and say that if metal pot may be used for milk and then meat, so too other pots such as ceramic can also be used.
This is part of the system that Klal Yisroel has for helping us separate and not mix milk and meat together, and if we start play with this it can lead to a breakdown of people keeping the halacha.
Another reason is that since chazal told us that this is what we have to do, even if we think that the reason no longer (or temporarily no longer) applies, there may have been many other reasons for what they said. Therefore the poskim say, that we shouldn’t change from the way things have been until now, and we do consider the pots to absorb taste and the halacha remain s the same.
Sources:
Teshiuvos Vhanhagos 1-432, Kashrus and Shabbos in the Modern Kitchen pg. 85, Megilas Sefer (end of Hilchos Basar B’chalav), Derech Kochav pg. 311.
