Not Wanted – Dead Or Alive
‘A Mouse That Fell Into A Cask Of Beer’
(Avoda Zara 68b)
May one drink water from an aquarium containing crabs, lobsters, octopus, seahorses, or any other sea creature that the Torah forbids us to eat? Irrespective of its lack of appeal, we may ponder the halachic classification of this water.
A Taste Absorbed From Pickled Food
Our sugya discusses the kashrus of beer into which a mouse fell. The Rosh asks what could be unacceptable. After all, we are all familiar with Haman’s claim to Achashveirosh that the Jews considered the king inferior to a fly. If a fly falls into a Jew’s wine, he removes it and drinks the wine, but if a gentile, even a king, touches a Jew’s wine, a Jew rejects it (Megillah 13b). Based on this Talmudic passage, it would seem that non-kosher animals that fall into permitted food do not prohibit it.
The Rosh, therefore, assumes that our sugya concerns a mouse that remained in beer for a whole day and was therefore “pickled” (soaking for 24 hours is halachically equivalent to pickling in vinegar). Pickling food is like cooking food as the food exudes its taste. Tosafos agrees.
Was The ‘Pickled’ Mouse Dead Or Alive?
The Rosh did not dwell on this question, but others did. Some hold that as pickled meat exudes a taste, there is no difference if the mouse is dead or alive. Others maintain that a live animal exudes no taste at all, while still others believe that even though a live animal exudes a taste, only the taste of a dead animal prohibits food (Responsa Shoel Umeishiv, 3rd edition, p. 43).
The Hen That Jumped Into Butter
The writings of poskim are full of examples of stories that generated halachic storms. In Frankfurt, a simple hen caused a tremendous dispute among talmidei chachamim when it fell into a pot of boiling butter. The hen died within seconds but its memory remains alive among poskim.
One rav ruled that the butter had to be discarded; it couldn’t even be given to a gentile as the taste of the hen’s limbs was absorbed by the butter while it was alive and a limb from a live animal is forbidden to gentiles under the seven Noachide mitzvos.
The Chasam Sofer (Responsa, Yoreh Deah 94) tends to agree with this decision and asserts that an animal exudes a taste while still alive. A variant of this case was considered by poskim (Pri Chadash and Beis Hillel, cited in Responsa Shoel U’Meishiv, ibid.) when an infant tragically drowned in a vat of honey and poskim had to decide if the honey could be eaten.
A Kosher Fish With The Taste Of A Non-Kosher Fish
Let us return to the aquarium water. If a live mouse in a barrel of beer all day exudes its taste, then a non-kosher fish, staying a long time in an aquarium, presumably exudes its taste too.
This topic is quite relevant as many shops owned by gentiles sell live kosher and non-kosher fish. By swimming in the same water, the kosher fish are in effect “pickled” by the non-kosher fish for a day or two and should be forbidden.
The Difference Between Land And Marine Animals
The Maharam Schick (Responsa Yoreh Deah 101), a student of the Chasam Sofer, asserts that his mentor’s comment concerns land animals. These absorb the water in which they stay and exude a taste. Marine animals, however, are immune and do not exude a taste.