Passing on food I can't eat. (S/O)

cinnamon

Mon, May 25 2015, 4:32 am

I didn't want to highjack the other thread but I find this so bizarre.
What in the world is wrong with telling someone "I don't eat rabanut or chalav akum or this specific hechsher. I know you do eat it please enjoy."
???

5mom

Mon, May 25 2015, 4:54 am

Chalav stam, not chalav akum.

If your neighbor offered you clothing that meets your tznius standards but is unacceptable to her, do you feel good?

Just donate unwanted products to a food bank.

cinnamon

Mon, May 25 2015, 5:00 am

yes I would feel very good about it. I am confident in the way I dress and in what I eat. The fact that other people have different standards than I do does not intimidate me.
In fact just before pesach a friend of mine called to tell me that her mother in law gave her some t-shirts but she only wears button down shirts. I was very happy to take them from her.
And sorry on the label it says חלב נוכרי

cinnamon

Mon, May 25 2015, 5:16 am

5mom wrote:

Different sensitivities then.

Which is why I started this thread. I want to see if I am the exception and most people are more sensitive about this.

5mom wrote:

And חלב נכרי is much better than חלב עכו"ם

Maybe it's a hebrew speaker vs non hebrew speaker thing. To me both mean non jews with no real difference between them.

water_bear88

Mon, May 25 2015, 5:30 am

cinnamon wrote:

Maybe it's a hebrew speaker vs non hebrew speaker thing. To me both mean non jews with no real difference between them.

נכרי simply means "non-Jew", possibly "foreign". עכו"ם=עובדי כוכבים= idol worshipers. For those that hold that chalav stam is kosher, it's because they differentiate between chalav stam and chalav akum. It's insulting to suggest that we eat what the gemara specifically bans.

I guess a tzniut example would be over exposed hair. If a friend offers me a tichel she's decided doesn't work for her tzniut-wise, consider two ways she could say it:

(A) "Hey, I have this tichel that I can't get all of my hair into. I know you show some hair, would you be interested in it?"

(B) "Hey, I have this tichel that I can't get all of my hair into. I know you show some erva, would you be interested in it?"

JMM-uc

Mon, May 25 2015, 5:45 am

5mom wrote:

Different sensitivities then.
And חלב נכרי is much better than חלב עכו"ם

It's the same thing.

Giving someone something they eat and you don't might make them feel yucky. Like here the tzadekis is giving the [gentile] her treif food. SHE c"v wouldn't sin and eat it. But THEY would...

5mom

Mon, May 25 2015, 5:56 am

[quote="JMM-uc"]It's the same thing.

Both are terms for non-Jews, but only one suggests that people using this kind of product condone idolatry. That's misleading. It's not worth getting into a snit about, but it shows a certain sense of, "If you don't do what I do, you must be sinning."

If I accidentally buy a product I can't use, I give it to an organization rather than an individual, because I think it's insensitive to say, "Here, you can eat something that's not good enough for me." That said, I think that people who eat things I don't (or people who don't eat things that I do) are absolutely observing halacha. I respect their positions. But I think it's not a good idea to emphasize the differences between people. Otherwise we end up defining each other by those distinctions.

amother

Wine

Mon, May 25 2015, 7:01 am

cinnamon wrote:

I think it totally depends on how it's being presented. If a friend gave me products she doesn't use fr hechsher reasons and she knows I would use- I'd appreciate it!
If someone less close to me gave me some stuff saying: I don't eat non kosher, you can use it- I'd get upset.
But yes I generally agree with you that some of the examples that were given wouldn't be offensive to me at all...

m in Israel

Mon, May 25 2015, 8:13 am

I think a lot of this has to do with personal hangups, but it also may have to do with general perception. If something is widely viewed as an extreme or unusual position, people will be less sensitive about it. For example in the neighborhood I grew up in almost no one was makpid on yoshon/chodesh. There were literally 4 or 5 families in the whole city who were makpid. So if they got something that was still Chodosh they wouldn't think twice about passing it on to a friend because no one would find it at all insulting that they don't keep Yoshon! (Not addressing the Halachic aspect here, which actually would be more complex with yoshon as many hold it is not an issue of chumrah at all but actual baseline Halacha Wink

) OTOH if most people in a neighborhood hold a certain way l'chumrah, and you are one of the few people who don't, then I can understand why it may feel a bit uncomfortable if your neighbors give you their "not-kosher enough" food items.

iluvjerusalem

Mon, May 25 2015, 2:37 pm

We are always giving away to neighbors and friends food that we get that is not the specific hechshers we eat. They always seem very happy to take it. It probably just depends on your community.
Especially easy is giving to our Sephardi friends food that is from Sephardi hechshers, that most Ashkenazim don't eat, like Machpud, or before Pesach we gave our Sephardi friends our food that had kitniyot. This especially - why should it be a big deal for anyone? It's just obvious and accepted that some hold this way and some hold that.

israelgirl

Mon, May 25 2015, 3:47 pm

JMM-uc wrote:

Ha you can't write גוי! lol

Which reminds me -I had a big argument over Shabbos with someone regarding the word g-o-y. She claimed it was highly inappropriate and I'm dumbfounded ....

But back to the subject, I don't know why this is, but I would NOT be insulted if someone gave me something to eat that they didn't. However, if someone gave me clothing they didn't want to wear cuz they felt its not tznius, I would be hurt. Not sure why that is.

vintagebknyc

Mon, May 25 2015, 4:00 pm

israelgirl wrote:

she was correct, totally offensive.

vintagebknyc

Mon, May 25 2015, 4:25 pm

israelgirl wrote:

Please explain.

it's derogatory, often used to put non-jews down. for example "I wouldn't wear that g*oyisha blouse, it's not tznuis"...

israelgirl

Mon, May 25 2015, 5:15 pm

vintagebknyc wrote:

additionally, you misspelled the word because you know it would be censored here. meaning you know people here feel it's wrong.

Clearly, as I was responding to a poster who said that the word was "autocorrected"
I don't think of it that way at all. The word means other nations. I wouldn't wear that goisha dress=I wouldn't wear the clothing belonging to other nations and not befitting to someone from the Jewish nation.

imasoftov

Mon, May 25 2015, 6:04 pm

israelgirl wrote:

Lots of offensive words literally mean something not offensive, but Israeli girls (women, too), if they want to say "nation" use עם.

Also, if you would like to avoid putting down Jews who do not share your standards of halacha you could not attribute the clothes to any nation, but to how you keep halacha.

33055

Mon, May 25 2015, 11:31 pm

vintagebknyc wrote:

additionally, you misspelled the word because you know it would be censored here. meaning you know people here feel it's wrong.

Only some people here think it is offensive. Others think the ban is reactionary. Others think the fact that it is now banned is because some people are very vocal about PC. You claimed to be one of them.

Since Yael mentioned hasidim make the largest faction of amother users, I would say that most do not find the word offensive.