Bitul B’shishim - Difficulty Measuring

QUESTION: A piece of chicken fell into a dairy pot of soup. I put aside the chicken, but I cannot tell if the soup is 60 times the volume of the chicken. Since I cannot figure it out, can I eat the soup or must I throw it away?

ANSWER: Mixing chicken and milk is a Rabbinic prohibition. One might think that since this is a case of doubt involving a Rabbinic prohibition, we should apply the rule of safek d’rabbanan l’kula (one can be lenient regarding doubts involving rabbinic prohibitions). However, this is not the case. Shulchan Aruch (YD 98:3) writes that in this case, the soup is forbidden even though it is a safek d’rabbanan. This is because theoretically it is possible to measure the chicken and measure the soup and find out if there is enough for bitul. This type of doubt is referred to as a “safek chisaron yedia,” a doubt due to lack of attainable knowledge. This does not qualify as a doubt in halachah. Even though finding this information would be a very tedious task, since the information theoretically can be found out, we cannot permit the soup.

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The Gerald & Karin Feldhamer OU Kosher Halacha Yomis is dedicated to the memory of Rav Yisroel Belsky, zt"l, who served as halachic consultant for OU Kosher for more than 28 years; many of the responses in Halacha Yomis are based on the rulings of Rabbi Belsky. Subscribe to the Halacha Yomis daily email here.