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Can a Jew give his Jewish friend a product which is kosher m'ikar hadin if the person giving it would not eat or drink it himself?

The product could be e.g., kosher meat which is not glatt, scotch which was finished in sherry casks, a snack with powder milk which is not halav Israel. All of these are considered kosher by major certifications (Rabbanut Israel, London Beit Din, OU respectively). But some people are stricter with themselves.

Does it make a difference if one knows if his friend eats of these products? Or if he tells him explicitly what the 'issue' is?

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  • Basically just a variation on judaism.stackexchange.com/q/10240/759
    – Double AA ♦
    Commented Jul 4, 2019 at 13:23
  • Not sure it is so close - here you don't benefit from the other. The answers to the question you mention refer to benefiting from the other's possible melacha. Here there might be no benefit, might be to avoid bal tashchit. It is also possible kashrut is different because of timtum lev
    – mbloch
    Commented Jul 4, 2019 at 13:39
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    If Bal tashchit was relevant he could eat it himself. No one has ever used Bal tashchit as a reason to be lenient on a forbidden food law. That's just your morals talking, not halakha. Not consuming food for Halakhic reasons is by definition not wasting.
    – Double AA ♦
    Commented Jul 4, 2019 at 13:42
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    Sounds to me like you're going to have a lot of lenient friends if you buy good Scotch just to give it away...
    – Gary
    Commented Jul 4, 2019 at 17:06
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    @DanF I think you misunderstood my question - or more likely I didn't explain it properly. The person GIVING the gift wouldn't eat of it. The person RECEIVING the gift might eat it. Or his family might. Maybe one doesn't know. I agree that if one knows he wouldn't have a use for it then it is not a gift. As you understand this is a theoretical question - there is no specific situation I am asking about
    – mbloch
    Commented Jul 5, 2019 at 2:50

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I read a responsum years ago that said that if the gift giver feels he would not consume the item due to a personal chumra and the recipient would (e.g. I keep pat yisrael and you don't, here's a nice kosher pat palter loaf of bread) it was fine, but if there was doubt as to whether the item was actually kosher (e.g. I don't trust Octagon-K and think their meat is treif but you're fine eating Octagon-K hecheshered sausages) then it would be assur to gift.

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    +1 Interestingly, asking someone to open containers on Shabbos is pretty much the same thing
    – user15253
    Commented Jul 5, 2019 at 12:39
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    +1 - However, kashrut is a pretty vague area, as well. As you know, much of kashrut certification in U.S. and Israel is "politically"-based. Some of it is the org's "policy". E.g., some people will claim that a product certified by an org. that they won't use is "traif" even though there may be no kashrut problems at all. Seems it would be a lot simpler to relinquish your own thinking in such cases and ask the receiver what he uses and give the gift. Maybe, we need a bit more Shalom 'al yisra'el. vs. Anshei Shlomeinu.
    – DanF
    Commented Jul 5, 2019 at 13:14
  • Makes sense though, doesn't it, @Oranges? Ultimately the underlying transgression we're trying to avoid in both cases is lifnei ever
    – יהושע ק
    Commented Jul 8, 2019 at 5:34

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