HERE WE GO LOUPEDY LOUPE

We saw an ad in a national magazine for a jeweler’s loupe that you can use to check your veggies. The ad said: DON’T GIVE UP YOUR VEGETABLES. GET YOUR LOUPE TODAY. The loupe is advertized as a “30X jeweler’s loupe for spotting insects, inspecting esrogim (sic) and other close work.”

The halacha is abundantly clear about bugs- if you can not see them, they are not there. There is never a halachic need to use a magnifying glass or a loupe to inspect for bugs. For those who would remonstrate saying, “But don’t you want to be 100% certain that there are no bugs?” Yes, we want to be certain, and when the halacha says it is okay to eat, that equals 100% certain for us.

Nadav and Avihu also wanted to do something that they thought was m’hudar, and look what happened to them!

People who use the loupe to examine their veggies should never eat commercially prepared kosher chicken. Why? Let’s say one of the shochtim on the line discovers that his chalaf (knife) had a nick. The whole line stops. All of the schechted chickens are in a large bin. It is impossible to discern which chicken was done with the bad knife. The shulchan aruch tells us that the proper thing to do is to remove A chicken from the bin and designate it as the trefe one. As a matter of course, it could actually be the trefe bird, but what are the odds? It is overwhelmingly likely that in the bin is a trefe bird- one that we are halachically allowed to eat!

It seems to us that if you are going to ignore the shulchan aruch and use a loupe, then you probably should not eat commercially prepared chicken, either.