Hello Everyone, Today we discussed two subjects. First we discussed the definition of the word “treifah.” In modern usage “treif” means anything that isn’t kosher, we say “shrimp is treif.” But this is not accurate. “Treifah” means that an animal suffers from a terminal disease or injury. It is important to keep in mind that the “treifah” applies to live animals who suffer from this type of injury. Once the affected animal dies from the injury , it is a “n’veilah.” So for our purposes, an animal which suffers from a perforation in its heart is a “treifah” and killing it via shechitah will not make it kosher. When this animal dies it is a “n’veilah.”
After we covered these basic ideas we discussed a contemporary issue involving treifot and milk. An animal that is treifah may not be eaten, but its milk is also prohibited as well. One of the treifot listed in the Mishnah in Chullin is a perforation in the “inner stomach.” An old question (it goes back at least 200 years ) is how to judge animals which had abdominal surgery for digestive problems. On the one hand these animals most certainly had their stomachs perforated, on the other hand they heal and live on many years giving milk ( We will discuss later the question of whether the healing of an injury makes the animal kosher again . For today’s purpose we took the position that “treifah” is irreversible).One authority, Rav Menashe Klein zt”l ruled that given the incidence of bovine surgery (between 5-15% of cows in dairy herds) and the ease of determining which cows had surgery (farmers keep veterinary records) there is no excuse to consume milk without appropriate rabbinic supervision ( and this has nothing to do with the question of Chalav Yisrael)
We also saw material provided to me by the OU. The OU examined this issue and came to the following realizations. First, not every cow treated for displaced abomasum (“indigestion” of sorts) is treated in a fashion which makes it treifah. Second, it is not at all easy to ascertain which cows were treated and how they were treated. To put it briefly the records are not as a ccurate as described by Rav Menashe Klein zt”l. Since the majority of cows are not treated for displaced abomasum we can say that the treated cows are “batel b’rov” and since we cannot easily ascertain which of the cows were treated (in order to remove them from the milk supply) we can ignore them.
Chag sameiach to all, Stuart Fischman