Once in a while someone sends me the link to a blog that entertains enough for me to feel competent in posting one of their posts on this here site. To be honest, I’m not much in the writing mood and this week may be one of guest posts and videos, but fear not – I promise it will be entertaining. The following post was taken from Life on a Cotton Ball, it’s a funny read (maybe he’ll even change his theme so we can actually see the damned blog without going blind)
Flipping through a Chinese auction magazine, passing picture of shaitel after shaitel, I breathed a sigh of relief, remembering how our communities survived those dark trying times of the Indian shaitel crisis. I was enjoying this wonderful thought, when suddenly reality hit me, the Indian crisis is far from over. While getting rid of all the shaitelach we overlooked something even greater, teffilin. How is it, that in our homes, houses that are so scrupulous not even to let in one bug filled strawberry, could we have overlooked something so great.
In Hinduism, cows are holy. For all we know, the cow who’s hide was used to make your teffilin was once regarded as a deity by an Indian! My first thought was that we must ban Indian teffilin immediately, but then I realized that it wouldn’t be enough. In today’s day and age, with airplanes, cow worshipers can be everywhere. For all we know, one went to Israel as a tourist, was walking in the Gallil, and saw a cow. This cow later became mixed into the herd, and now we don’t know which one it is! As something that was used for avoda zara, it cant just be ‘batul berov’ of the other non – worshiped cows! It classifies that entire herd as cow – worshiped, and renders them unusable for teffilin!
Therefore, from the makers of the shatnez free baseball gloves, we are pleased to announce a new product, Hindu free cows. Raised in green houses in Lakewood, these cows only eat the finest bodek lettuce, and yoshon oats, and drink only water that has been three times filtered to ensure no bugs. Kept sealed away prowling Hindus until the day they are slaughtered, these cows are the ideal teffilin hides for all ‘yirai’im’.
For more information about how to obtain your very own Hindu -free cow, please contact the LKCRA (Lakewood Kosher Cattle Ranchers Association).
Gay
Cute. But you can’t make someone else’s property avodah zarah according to halacha, so it’s a bit ignorant.
So does that mean if a Goyish waiter pours some non-mevushal wine then that doesn’t change its Kashrut status?
Wine has its own rules, so no, it will indeed become forbidden. But generally speaking, one cannot “serve” something (and effectively make it halachically “an object which was served”) unless it actually belongs to him.
The halachos get into technical differences between thinking and doing an action, and like yankel said, wine has different halachos (there are specific rabbinic laws).
But if you read Hebrew, here’s a good article to start with about the subject:
he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%90%D7%99%D7%9F_%D7%90%D7%93%D7%9D_%D7%90%D7%95%D7%A1%D7%A8_%D7%93%D7%91%D7%A8_%D7%A9%D7%90%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%95_%D7%A9%D7%9C%D7%95
How about Sifrei Torah too ?
(Made from Parchment.)
By the way do 100% vegans use Tephilin and Torahs ?
(Uh Oh.)
Cotton ball, I have bad news, ein adom osser davor sheinei shelo. sorry your out of buisness, all it takes is the tiniest bit of learning. But as they say am haratzos is bliss
Yes, you are correct, it is not halachikly accurate. It was something I thought about, but disregarded as this was written as humor not as a shiur. Besides, I thought its inaccuracies highlighted the point that half of these ‘kol koriahs’ are hogwash.
funny
I thought it was hilarious
i thought about that when i wrote it, but dismissed it for two reasons. A) it was written to be humorous, not halachicly accurate. B) i thought the halachic discrepancies highlighted the point that most of these things that get assered lack reasoning
Speaking of holy cows, our brand new animated short seemed not just timely but also rather apropos…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhv1wWG-WFs
Enjoy! 🙂
Some related points:
1) The Rebbe wrote to someone (a vegan?), that we’re not CH”V killing the cow for its hide for retzu’os etc. — But rather, a cow already slaughtered – ITS hide will be used for tefillin (rather than to decompose and rot..).
See here (hebrew):
http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=15809&st=&pgnum=117
2) To a vegan Chosid (macrobiotic already from pre-Chosid days) — the Rebbe advised to take just a tiny bit of meat on Shabbos to fulfill the chiyuv.
3) Number 1 above, is besides the famous explanation, of the “food chain”, every level needs to survive from the level below it, etc.