An Experiment I'd LOVE To Try...

There is a non-Jewishly owned pharmacy near where I work. Like many large pharmacies, they carry a wide range of products, including some groceries, candies, etc.

Around Channukah time, the store put out some Pashkez gold coin candies. They were put out in a Pashkez display box and were sold in the little red net bags. The red net bags had a little tag that identified it as a Pashkez product and had the hashgacha printed on it. In addition, many of the coins had the word "Pashkez" raised on the gold wrapping.

The coins were out for a while, but it seems the store got stuck with a few too many of them. Today, I saw a big plastic jar on the counter. It was filled with red and gold coins -- the red ones presumably being Christmas coins and the gold ones clearly identifiable as Channukah coins. The coins were no longer in the little net bags, but yet, on many of the gold ones, you can clearly see the word "Pashkez" raised on the coin. The coins were on sale for a nickel each.

If I had the time and the guts, I'd love to take 100 frum people (who would otherwise eat chocolate) into the store and offer to buy them a clearly identifiable Pashkez coin. I'd love to know how many people would fall into each of these categories:

a. Eat the chocolate

b. Not each the chocolate because of appearances/discomfort (because the coin was in the same container as possibly non-kosher coins).

c. Not each the coin because they have a very real fear that some non-Jews, in order to trick Jews into eating non-kosher food, removed the kosher chocolate from the Pashkez wrapping, inserted a non-kosher chocolate coin, and re-wrapped it again.

The Wolf