A Milchig Dish Mixed with Fleishig Dishes

A Treif Fork got Mixed in with my Kosher Ones. Do I have to Kasher all of them?

If a treif piece of flatware got mixed in with identical kosher ones, one should ideally kasher all the utensils. However, if the utensils can’t be koshered, or there are many utensils and it’s a big bother or expense, the halachic principle of bitul b’rov (the lesser quantity is nullified by the majority) applies, and all of them are considered kosher. (However, one may not deliberately create a situation of bitul b’rov by deliberately mixing in a treif item with kosher ones in order to ‘fix’ the treif utensil; if one does so, all the items would have to be kashered.) 

Some poskim rule that one item should be selected at random and be kashered or disposed of (to allow for the possibility of selecting the treif utensil and thereby we add the possibility that the treif utensil was directly dealt with), but others say that this isn’t necessary—and the latter ruling is the accepted one. However, one should wait 24 hours after the treif item was last in use before using anything from the mix.

On the other hand, if a fleishig fork, for example, got mixed in with milchig forks, some poskim maintain that the solution of bitul b’rov wouldn’t be applicable, since this is a case of min b’sh’eino mino (dairy and meat are not the same type of food), and instead the principle of bitul b’shishim would apply, i.e. sixty milchig forks would be needed to nullify one fleishig fork. Otherwise, everything would need to be kashered. #477

https://halacha2go.com?number=477

Practical Halacha: One minute a day. By Horav Yosef Yeshaya Braun, shlita, Mara D'asra and member of the Badatz of Crown Heights.