Argument About Chalav Yisrael

Stop kashering pots you claim are kosher

One day in the Touro lounge, I got into a debate with a girl about Chalav Yisrael. She kept it, but she insisted that non-Chalav Yisrael was still “perfectly kosher.” This wasn’t even her opinion, it was just whatever her father told her. And the funny part was that neither of them actually believed what they claimed and it took about sixty seconds to prove it.

Me: Your father holds non-Chalav Yisrael is completely kosher, right?
Her: Yes.
Me: So if I walked into your kitchen, grabbed one of your dairy pots, boiled some OU-D milk in it, rinsed it out, and put it back, your father would still use it?
Her: No, of course not.
Me: What would he do to make the pot usable again?
Her: He would boil water in it.
Me: And what is boiling water in a pot to fix it called?
Her: Kashering.
Me: Exactly. Why would he need to kasher a perfectly kosher pot? It is quite clear that he himself doesn’t believe that non-Chalav Yisrael is kosher and is just saying so for politically correct reasons to appease the modern orthodox.

Her face did the polite-smile version of “I just realized my argument is dead.”

Now, some people really will eat out of that pot and pretend they invented a new category of kashrus called Chalav Stam. This is the religious equivalent of a participation trophy. I will dismantle that cute invention in a later article, because it deserves its own autopsy.