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Veal, in American English, refers to the meat of young cattle.
It actually doesn’t.
According to Wikipedia, it does. What do you think it means?
It is a case in point that we don’t necessarily say something is kosher just because one person says so.
At the CRC Mesorah dinner, I believe that swordfish was served, however there was a caveat that it was not appropriate for all to eat.
Newbee, a shul has an obligation to maintain itself as well as tzadaka.By the way, why shouldn’t a mskom tephila and learning be expanded if it is overcrowded? The average yeshiva or shul usually don’t spend big sums of money on unnecessary expansion as they know mispallilim won’t approve/pay for it.
One is not required to eat a cheaper food in order to give more to Tzdekah.
One is also allowed to choose which Tzdekah he wishes to give.
I wonder if peacock is kosher. I know there’s no Mesorah for it, but mistama it’s still kosher. We know the Biblical word for peacock because the Queen of Sheba gave peacocks to Shlomo Hamelech as a gift, and it is not one of the non-kosher birds listed in Yayikra.
newbee
Why is it yetzer hara?
I dont know about kedusha and tahara but there is talmud torah. In fact seeral posters here would have learned a thing or two regarding topics they clearly know little about like mesora of birds, the controversy regarding swordfish etc
(at least at the mesora dinner, I dont know the content of lectures at this dinner)
You are getting sidetracked. My gripe is not about expansions, was about the idea of the “halachic dinner” being a seudas mitzvah of kedusha, tahara and talmud torah when really its just an excuse for people to satisfy their yetzer hara for exotic delicacies.
There is no such thing as a “Yetza Hora for exotic delacies” If its Kosher its Kosher and a Mitzvah to eat it, If its treif, then its an Averah to eat it. In the case of the Locusts, If your Rav or Mesorah hold its ok, then its a mitzvah to eat it and if not then an averiah to eat it.
ANyone can call anything an “Exotic delacy” Ive heard sushi called that by some
People got sick because the cooks didnt know how to cook this stuff.
They certainly should have been better prepared how to cook exotic foods, most chiefs dont know how
newbee- I think you’re trying too hard to criticize.
Mesilas Yesharim is not a book of Halacha like the Shulhan Aruch.
Im not sure where its quoted, but If a rich man decides he wants to only eat old hard bread and water, you are supposed to make them eat the better stuff otherwise he wont have any pity for the poor and be stingy on his tzdekah(He will say things like, If I can eat hard moldy bread, so can the poor)
Newbee, you’re the one who brought up kollels and expansion. Why is is it so hard for you to understand that yours is not the only opinion and others can disagree?
Newbee- so you’ve never eaten at a nice restaurant? you’ve never eaten anything other than bread and water outside the context of a seudas mitzvah? Maybe you’re just as bad as them!
That is chapter 15 in Mesilas Yesharim, most people have to work on zehirus and zerizus before you make them feel guilty over the higher levels. Not everyone is as holy as you are, and shouldn’t jump stages in the Mesilas Yesharim so that they meet your standards of tzidkus.
Reading the menu made me feel sick,but clearly there are people who are interested in this sort of thing.
newbee- So they have taavos for good food just like you. But instead of just eating good and exotic food, they tried to mix it with Talmud Torah… and you’re criticizing them for it.
Reading the menu made me feel sick,
I never said I wanted to eat it, I actually refuse to eat Foie Gros and I have no desire to eat locusts. But who am I to tell someone else to eat
I cant stand Gefilte Fish, Chopper Liver or Borscht and Pitcha is nausiating and I have friends who refuse to eat Sushi as they think its disgusting. Food is a very personal thing and if you want to eat a Locust Genzenda Heh and if you want to eat Chopped Live go ahead, jsut dont offer me any. Its disgusting
Newbee- Let me be clear. I understand your point. You’re criticizing that they’re trying to pretend that their ta’avah is a mitzvah. I think that’s a very cynical and unnecessarily judgmental way of looking at it because you could just as easily argue that they are trying to turn their ta’avah into a mitzvah.
newbee You said””instead of just eating expensive and exotic food, they tried to rationalize it with talmud torah.”
This is siliness. Why does it need rationalization? becasue they, are not on the level of following mesulas yesharim? That doesn tneed rationalization. That is perfectly ok
How about this:
even when eating exotic foods they engage in talmud Torah
newbee- Exactly. The next night some of them will probably just go to a fancy restaurant. They don’t need a rationalization to eat expensive and exotic food. They do it anyways! So now, maybe only this one time, they are doing it in a Talmud Torah context. Baruch Hashem! Kein yirbu!
I never said I wanted to eat it, I actually refuse to eat Foie Gros and I have no desire to eat locusts. But who am I to tell someone else to eat
I’m surprised that veal was discussed quite early in this thread but it took so long for foie gras to be mentioned.
akuperma: Real veal (and at a meal this fancy it will be real veal) is made from specially-fattened calf that have only ever been fed Tarfus, which is Assur to eat according to the Rama.
PBA: A fish that picked up scales floating in the water is not Kosher. The Poskim talk about how to distinguish.
I don’t think it is taavos for tasty food that makes people want this as much as interest in the unusual.
Real veal (and at a meal this fancy it will be real veal)
Not if it’s assur. Then they’ll serve the stuff like the roast I bought today l’kavod Yom Tov.
What is real veal? What is fake veal?
DY: All of the Kashrus organizations, even Heimish ones, give a Hechsher. That’s why it was half tongue-in-cheek.
“Bread will satiate one to the same extent as the delicacy of fattened geese.”
What about on shabbos?
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Newbee, you’ve got a point about the halachic dinner, although I don’t think you have yet to articulate it well, but when you start bringing lofty levels of prishus in, you’re preaching to the wrong audience.
newbee: Do I look forward to some of the foods I have on Shabbos? Absolutely! Not because I stuff my face (which I try not to do!) but because the foods are good! Isn’t that the point, to eat special foods on Shabbos?
Honestly, there are plenty of foods I don’t eat during the week. There are some I don’t have on Shabbos, but only on a Yom Tov. Do I do it purely l’kovod Yom Tov? Probably not at this point. I actually am careful to say “l’kovod Yom Tov!” while preparing the food. Even if it’s not the case, I hope that one day I will get to that level.
Newbee, do you subsist on bread and water? I know I don’t. I enjoy my blintzes and cheesecake on Shavuos, aside from the fact that I’ll (gasp – oy vey -) have pizza or chicken or hamburgers and even cake and ice cream during the week. I am aware of the fact that it’s not ideal, but it’s the level I’m on.
I think your objection to the halachic dinner is that it’s a more extreme form of redifas hataavah than we’re used to, and cloaked as a religious experience.
Newbee
I think the only reason the posters are being deliberately thick on this issue, is because they are all rationalizing. You have articulated your point quite well. Your point is obvious and true.
Bottom line
If you are a baal mussar, you choose to work on yourself and one main area that all people need to work on themselves in , is limiting the gashmius in their life.
But we are a spoiled society and we are americans who have succumbed to the pursuit of liberty and happiness.
Look at the mansions in Brooklyn, Lakewood etc. Ask someone why they feel it is necessary to live in a mansion and you get all sorts of rationalization. “I have a big family, I give a lot to tzedukah, its not an aveirah.”
Same goes for all the lexus’s and acura’s being driven. “It was a good lease” “its a business car” etc.
We are mostly not balei mussar and its a big problem.
So I agree with you 100%. And every day I daven to Hashem that I should not be swayed by gashmius.
I do not go to tzedukah events that are big productions. I don’t go to charity events that are excuses to make a big BBQ.
Do I like a good chulent on Shabbos, yes. But baruch hashem my tefillos are being answered and food is having less of a hold over me.
Unfortunately, you and I seem to be the minority.
Daas Yochid- that’s exactly Newbee’s objections. And since these people are (and I quote) “very wealthy MO BTs who love expensive food and Rov Joseph Ber Soloveitchik (in that order)- “, pashtus is that dan lechaf zechus doesn’t apply, they’re obviously reshaim and avaryanim who are using the Torah to rationalize their bottomless stomachs, and we must assume that they are the lowest common denominator. Not only that, but the mitzvah of hocheiach tochiach es amisecha requires us to criticize them anonymously in a public forum that they probably don’t read because obviously loshon hara and possibly motzi sheim ra doesn’t apply to these beheimos.
There is no Mitzvah to live like a Pauper if you can afford better and in fact many say you should live better.
For the simple fact If one say, Well I had an inexpensive wedding with only 50 people with a shmogasboard, why should I contribute to Chanasas Kallah for a big fancy wedding, simpler weddings shoudl suffice.
or I if I can eat day old hard stale bread so can the Annim and they deserve less tzdakeh because they are eating “too fancy”
Mentsch1, if someone wants to make a point by saying we should all be eating only bread, the point will be lost.
We should all be working on limiting gashmiyus (at least during the week; I’m not so sure about Shabbos and Yom Tov) even though we are far below the ideal. There’s plenty of room for growth, and it’s not all or nothing. The Mesilas Yesharim is a valid source that we strive towards prishus, but it must be put into context.
The problem with the halachic dinner is that it absolutely glorifies pleasure seeking as a Torah value, which is backwards. It’s one thing to enjoy a good cholent on Shabbos, or even a hot dog or steak during the week, but the search for exotic, unusual foods is qualitatively a worse act of pleasure seeking, and is taking us backwards instead of forwards in the quest to connect to kedushah. I do not think newbee presented it this way.
Simcha613, I agree that making it about a particular group completely clouds and distort the issue, but don’t dismiss a very legitimate point, just because you don’t like the way it was made.
It shouldn’t be about knocking a group, or even individuals. There’s nothing very productive about that.
We should see, however, how far our pursuit of our ta’avos has taken us, and take the mussar to work on ourselves and hopefully reverse the trend.
Newbee
“if the main reason you look forward to shabbos is that you get to stuff your face with stuffed chicken and meat, you should not be stuffing your face with stuffed chicken and meat”
you could not be more wrong!
Shabbos is meant to be enjoyed. If you enjoy it via hoieche inyanim MAzel tov!
If you enjoy it with chicken and meat, then absolutely you should, and one day you too will enjoy it with hoiche inyanim.
I have never heard anybody say that if you enjoy eating or even “stuffing your face” on shabbos (assuming we arent dealing with achila gasa) then you should avoid it. This is a perversion of Yidishkeit and deserves protest
“Same goes for cheese cake and baked ziti on shavuos.”
Wrong again! Believe it or not (and you arent the only one who has trouble with this point) There is a mitzvah of lachem especially Shavuos! Just by eating cheesecake and baked ziti, and enjoying it you get schar!
Obviously there are other ways to get schar too, a lot more schar. But dont pervert our religion into something it is not
DY- You could look at it in two ways: Glorifying pleasure and pretending it’s a Torah value, or taking a pleasure that one already has and enjoying it in the framework of Talmud Torah. I don’t know why you and newbee assume the worst.
Ubiquitin, this is what I mean that I don’t think he presented his point well. I don’t think he means what you think he does.
He isn’t saying, I hope, that one shouldn’t enjoy delicacies on Shabbos and Y”T. He wrote, “if the main reason you look forward to shabbos is that you get to stuff your face with stuffed chicken and meat, you should not be stuffing your face with stuffed chicken and meat”. Let’s take it literally, and illustrate. Someone is preparing for Shabbos and realizes that instead of looking forward to a day to connect with Hashem, or a day to connect with his family, he is looking to connect with his boich. He feels bad, and wants to move the focus towards what it should be, instead of to the gashmiyus. It might make sense for that person to have a simpler Shabbos to move him in the right direction, with the ultimate goal of having a Shabbos focused on ruchniyus, but merely enhanced by good food.
Is that a perversion of the Torah? I think not, but I read newbee’s words that way.
Simcha613, because they weren’t having that for dinner anyhow. They reached so far to provide exotic cuisine that the chef couldn’t even cook it properly so that people wouldn’t get sick.
I am not “assuming the worst”. I don’t think they are evil people trying to pervert Torah values. I think they are misguided, and somewhat lacking in an important value.
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