1. When one does not have ready access to a full fledged kosher mikveh, what bodies of water are acceptable for toyveling new household utensils?
2. Can a large rain puddle do?
3. What about a man-made stream that's an extension of a river?
4. When can an untoyvelled kli be used?
5. Once food has touched it, is that food forbidden? Or, can that food be transferred to a kosher toyvelled kli and be consumed?
6. If you can't toyvel them, is it permissible to sell them to a goy then borrow them for your use?

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4. When can an untoyvelled kli be used?

I understand from disposable aluminum that any metal item can be used once before toyvelling.


We have a pond near us which is fed by a stream which flows year-round, and a rabbi I consulted said we can use it as a vessel mikvah.

Someday I hope to find out how to construct a vessel mikvah constructed to be flled by water caught by roof gutter system - I understand there is a requirement that the gutter not be flat or have dips since that would collect water which would then be still, and invalid.

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4. When can an untoyvelled kli be used?

If it's in a restaurant or other commercial enterprise.

If it's being used to store food rather than for serving at the table.

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6. If you can't toyvel them, is it permissible to sell them to a goy then borrow them for your use?

I know people who rely on this in order to avoid tovelling electronic things like toasters.

Yisroel,
You say utensils being used commercially may be used without toyveling, but does that assume your guests are not Jews?

There are a few corrections that should be made here.

1.Metal Utensils should not be used even once without tevilla.

2.The question of whether restaurant utensils require tevilla is a machlokes. The Shach and Taz say they must be toiveled.

3.Accepted halacha is that Any vessel that is subject to tevilla and comes into contact with food should be toiveled

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Originally posted by MosheYisraeli:
Yisroel,
You say utensils being used commercially may be used without toyveling, but does that assume your guests are not Jews?

No, it assumes they are Jews. The idea is that you are not using the plates etc. for eating off (which would require tevillah) but to make a profit (which doesn't require tevillah).

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2.The question of whether restaurant utensils require tevilla is a machlokes. The Shach and Taz say they must be toiveled.

Many Kashrus Orgnaisations (the London Beis Din Kashrus Division for one) do not require tevillah.

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Many Kashrus Orgnaisations (the London Beis Din Kashrus Division for one) do not require tevillah.

Is it accurate to say that Kashrus and Tevillah are independent / orthogonal?

That both are required for halacha is not at issue.

Thus the kashrus of food in a restaurant or in a private home which doesn't know about tevillah is apparently not in question.

I think it goes further that there may be a violation for a person to serve a Jew food on dishes and with utensils which have not been toveled, however there is no kashrus violation for that Jew to eat it / with it.

Rob,

While tevilla is not a kashrut issue, it does become kashrut when feeding Jews and a Jew owns the utensils in that the food becomes unacceptable.

Most commerical food establishements in the US are leased buildings and equipment anyway, so the issue of ownership of the utensils in irrelevant in most cases. Tevilla is germane to the transfer of ownership to a Jew. If the Jew doesn't own the utensils, the utensils don't need tevilla. If the leasing company is a Jew, then he needs to do the tevilla.

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While tevilla is not a kashrut issue, it does become kashrut when feeding Jews and a Jew owns the utensils in that the food becomes unacceptable.

No, it does not become a kashrus problem...

It becomes an issue of desirability of the food being sold to the customer base to whom it is expected to be desirable!

Rob,
If you went to a restaurant owned by a Jew and you knew he had not toyvelled his utensils....I'm sure you would find out if he actually owned the utensils. If he did own them, the good Jew that you are, you would treat the food as though it were treif, wouldn't you?
So I agree with you that it is not a kashrut issue but in reality it becomes so parallel to kashrut in such a way that it is kashrut.

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If you went to a restaurant owned by a Jew and you knew he had not toyvelled his utensils....I'm sure you would find out if he actually owned the utensils. If he did own them, the good Jew that you are, you would treat the food as thought it were treif, wouldn't you?

It really depends upon whose psak you rely. Reb Moshe Feinstein zt"l is machmir [strict] except in certain circumstances and Rav Ovadyiah Yosef paskens that not only does a restaurant owner not need to tovel his kelim, but if he wants to he must do so without a Bracha.

Yisroel,
That's new to me. What is Rav Ovadia Yosef's rationale for toyveling without a bracha? What does the toyveling achieve without a bracha?

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the good Jew that you are, you would treat the food as though it were treif, wouldn't you?

I would not call kosher treif, nor would I call minhag halacha.

I might choose to not eat the meal since either my family wouldn't let me, or maybe I'd say that I'd rather not be the cause of the Jewish restaurant owner violating a halacha of serving a Jew food on non-toyveled dishes, even if he might prefer that a Jew help him with his parnossa.

Or I might in fact eat it knowing that it is permissible to me, not treif.

I don't think even if he reduced his retail cost by the reduction in effort that he saves by not toyvelling dishes, that I would seek out such reduced cost restaurant food.

And perhaps many good Frum Yidden would be suspicious that a Jewish restaurant owner who willfully violates something as simple as toyvelling would be likely to cut corners in ways that matter even more to the propriety of the actual kashrus of the food, or propriety of other business practices involved. I would not put on blinders to such risks.

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That's new to me. What is Rav Ovadia Yosef's rationale for toyveling without a bracha? What does the toyveling achieve without a bracha?

What is the rule regarding shul-owned (therefore public, likely) dishes and silverware and cookware?

Should a shul toyvel the congregation-owned dishes? With or without a bracha?

Rob,
You said;

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I would not call kosher treif, nor would I call minhag halacha.

First, I'm in agreement with you that I would not call kosher trief, but my comment was;

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the good Jew that you are, you would treat the food as though it were treif, wouldn't you?

not eating food is treating it "as though it were" treif. That's not the same as calling it trief. To your credit, you have enumerated several reasons why you would, in effect, treat is as treif. Basically, any reason you give for not eating it justifies its "treif-like" status.

Secondly, I don't believe that toyveling is minhag. Even where leniencies exist, they are leniencies in halacha. In fact, toyveling is from the written Torah, not shebalpeh.

Bamidbar (31:23), Everything that may come into fire, you shall pass through the fire and they shall be clean, except it must be cleansed with the water of separation.

Moshe:

I did not mention the analogy of blurring the distinction between minhag and halacha to suggest that toyvelling was other than halacha, but rather to underscore that I call things what they are, and not what they may be treated like.

Thus, that I might not eat something doesn't mean that I consider it treif. I see treif as a very specific thing within the dimension of kashrus, and toyvel, and food served on a vessel which likely should have been toyvelled, as an orthogonal dimension.

Sorry for any confusion.

Rob,
Okay, we are in agreement but orthogonal? Why not parallel?

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orthogonal? Why not parallel?

orthogonal because similar to a Pirkei Avos 2x2 analysis:

Food can be kosher and served on non-toyvelled vessels that should have been toyvelled. And food can be treif and served on toyvelled vessels (that might then need to be kashered, if possible).

Of course there are many cases of kosher food served on toyvelled dishes, and also many cases of treif food served on non-toyvelled dishes.

I thus think that orthogonal is the right term.

And that parallel would imply that one must go with the other?