Believe It Or Not

One year my wife decided to give out salt and pepper shakers filled with candy for mishloach manos. My wife always prepares the Purim gifts and I usually have nothing to do with them besides their delivery. However, this year was different. After researching the matter and asking a sheilah, we decided the best approach was to toivel all the shakers. In my house, tevilas keilim is the man’s job, so the task was left to me.

We gave out the mishloach manos and included a note that the shakers were already toiveled. (This was the subject of a previous article.) A week later I received a phone call from my friend’s child asking me if the salt shakers were toiveled. I guess they didn’t see our note. I responded in the affirmative and hung up the phone. However, something was troubling me. The halachah is that a minor should not perform tevilas keilim without adult supervision (Shulchan Aruch YD 120:14–15). One could argue that the reason is due to the complexities of the laws of tevilas keilim. For example, the halachah is that the entire utensil must be submerged under water at one time. Also, air bubbles are considered a chatzitzah. Even many adults are unaware of these halachos.

However, the Aruch HaShulchan says that the reason a minor cannot perform tevilas keilim alone is that halachically we cannot believe him when he says that he did it. The tevilah would be valid if done right, but we can’t trust him that he did it. I thought about my phone conversation. The child will relate to his parent that the salt shakers were toiveled. Was the parent allowed to believe his child?

Sometimes shuls have difficulty gathering a minyan. It happens that occasionally exactly 10 people are present. As you scan the faces you notice a young man that is one of the ten. You challenge him, “Are you bar mitzvah?” “Yes,” comes the response. Can you believe him? If he’s bar mitzvah then you certainly can believe him. The problem is you asked the question because you don’t know! It’s seemingly a catch-22. You can only believe him that he is 13 if you already know that he is 13!

Perhaps the recent daf yomi can shed light on the issues. A first-born male domesticated kosher animal (e.g., sheep) has the special sanctity of a bechor. The animal must be given to a kohein. After the Churban Bayis, the law is that the kohein permits the animal to graze until it develops a blemish that makes it unfit for a korban. Once that happens, the animal may be slaughtered in a regular fashion and its meat consumed. The kohein would prefer that the animal develop a blemish rather quickly so that he doesn’t have the expense of raising the animal. Further, if the animal dies on its own before it develops a blemish, then the animal is a total loss. Chazal therefore suspected kohanim of deliberately injuring the animals, to invalidate them for sacrifices and permit their consumption.

An intentionally caused injury does not permit the animal for slaughter. So, the law was established that kohanim are not believed to declare that their animals were injured as a result of an accident if the injury could have been deliberate. However, the Mishnah states that a kohein is believed to say that a chacham inspected his first-born animal and permitted its slaughter. This seems to contradict the above. Why don’t we suspect that the kohein’s tale of the sage permitting his animal is a fabrication? Wouldn’t he lie just to permit his animal?

The Gemara explains that we have reason to believe him in this case. The term is “milsa d’avida ligluyei”—it is something that will end up being revealed. The kohein is not suspected of telling us such a blatant lie that can be readily checked out. We can just ask the sage if he did indeed permit the animal.

Rav Shlomo Zalman, zt’l, ruled that a child who may be bar mitzvah is believed to say that in fact he is. He would not tell such a blatant lie that could be readily discovered. Someone could just call his father. It is true that a minor doesn’t have believability as a witness, but in this case we have strong indications that he is telling the truth.

Perhaps the same reasoning can apply to my phone conversation. The child wouldn’t lie to his parent and say that I said the shakers were toiveled if in fact I didn’t say that. That fabrication can be readily disputed. He knows that I might meet the parent at any time. In any event, even if this logic is wrong, I didn’t see the benefit of calling the parent back and saying, “By the way, you can’t believe your kid, but the salt shakers were indeed toiveled.”