Cohn, Jacob. The Royal Table - VWC: Faculty/Staff Web

ANNULMENT OF PROHIBITIONS 103
ments unintentionally, he may eat thereof;
but if one
should transgress this law maliciously, he, or the one for
whose pleasure he has done so, may not enjoy this food,
while all others may partake of it.10 An annulled prohibi-
tion is "reawakened" when more of the prohibited stuff
is added. For example, suppose a piece of prohibited fat
became mixed with sixty volumes of kosher meat and was
annulled. Later more prohibited fat fell into the meat.
The meat must now contain sixty times the volume of
both pieces of fat before the prohibition is annulled and
the meat declared edible. The first annulment is not to
be interpreted to mean that no more prohibited food is
present. Its existence is recognized, but under those circumstances
the legal ban upon it is inoperative. Under
the changed circumstances the ban again operates.
Aside
from the case of a single rare exeception, this law is uni-
versally valid for all mixtures, whether of solids or fluids,
whether of identical or different natures. 11
Ignorance of the facts of a case gives rise to many
doubts. For instance, one may not know the size of the
prohibited substance which has fallen into the edible ma-
terial, and hence be unable to tell whether or not it has
been annulled. In this case ignorance is not bliss and the
mixture remains inedible. 13
If, however, the size of the
forbidden substance is known, but it is impossible to tell
whether or not it has been annulled because some of the
mixture was spilled before an appraisal could be made, the
following rules operate. When the two substances mixed
are of similar nature, e.g., kosher and trefah meat, and
it is known that the amount of legally edible substance
10 Y. D. ibid, l, 2.
" See Zevachim 3 la; Y. D. PP, 6 Ramah. The exception is mentioned
by Shack to Y. D. PP, subsection 21.
u Y. D. 98, 3.