Comments on: Keeping Kosher

By: Phyllis Bieri

Phyllis Bieri — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:14:05 +0000

Thanks for bringing this up, Anna. I really appreciate open and respectful discussions about kashrut issues. Over time I am learning to take things less personally and be more comfortable with our household’s practices, but it’s still a struggle. Two examples. I bought locally made organic yogurt for my daughter’s preschool class’s snack, and the teachers returned it because it didn’t have a heckscher. The ingredients were all kosher, which I checked of course, and while I checked for grams of sugar per serving, I forgot to find the heckscher. Trying to get the kids’ Jewish day school to re-think its food policies seemed too overwhelming, e.g. kosher ingredients vs heckscher only….

The other example is more mundane. Just couldn’t invite a couple over for shabbat dinner last week because I knew our standards weren’t sufficient.

Agree completely about meat being hugely important and treated as such, but separation of milk and meat still brings up too many unanswered questions for me. Wondering what the “law of sight” is that RivkaK was referring to.

I am warmed by your heightened awareness and appreciation of the laws of kashrut, and the spiritual anchor those laws provide.

By: Anna Stevenson

Anna Stevenson — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 18:07:22 +0000

it’s funny — rivkaK you said that chicken parmesan is a regular at your table, and to me that sounds decidedly _not_ within the realm of kashrut — but it’s so arbitrary, because i’d say beef from my neighbor’s farm, happily raised and humanely killed, is totally acceptable (to me). so….it’s some combination of rules, and habit, and taste. complicated.

thinking about all the OU monopoly stuff….maybe we really need more traveling shochets. simon’s eco-kosher project Kosher Conscience — which combines the values of small-scale, geographically spread out agriculture with strict halacha — really might be the perfect next step.

thanks all for your thoughts…

By: chillul Who?

chillul Who? — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 14:48:40 +0000

Two comments for Rivka:

A lot of people I know don’t consider Rubashkins kosher at all, because of the abuse their animals face, the exploitation of their workers, and the fact that they run around screaming “Antisemitism!” whenever they’re caught doing something else wrong. While the meat itself may be *technically* kosher when all you’re looking at is food rules, it’s ennabled by a host of other averot/sins.

As for keeping Chalav Yisrael and not drinking regular milk, even with regular hechshers, there’s only a minority of Orthodox Jews who don’t accept Rav Moshe Feinstein’s ruling that all cow’s milk produced in America is kosher because the FDA/USDA does the job of ensuring that there is no milk from treif animals masquerading as cow’s milk.

By: RivkaK

RivkaK — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 22:07:53 +0000

I have my own Kosher rules, certainly not halachic by Orthodox standards. We have 2 sets of dishes. We eat very little meat anyway. I live in no way near any kosher meat, except heb National hot dogs. So my dear Jewish friends are long time cattle producers. Their cows are grass fed and as organic as you could want. The cows are not killed according to halacha. But this is the only beef I will cook for my family. I think that knowing the cow was treated good while alive, rather than the moment of death, far exceeds Rubashkins methods.So to me this is my humane thought over the actual killing.
We also do not abide by the law of sight, so chicken parmesan is a regular.
I think, in my own mind, not Halachaly of course that being kosher is far more to just buying a Hecksher.
Th whole monopoly thing drives me nuts, the whole Halav Yisroel drives me nuts. I buy raw milk from our CSA. I don’t know if it is pig milk! But I am sure that the kind dairy people only have cows on their milk operation. And they are not interested in ruining their reputation.All the milk I buy has a U or K something on it, but I know my Orthodox pals don’t consider this good enough.

By: Jeffrey Yoskowitz

Jeffrey Yoskowitz — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 07:24:52 +0000

Anna, I totally hear you. As someone who considers himself kosher I can tell you that more and more I think about and wish that I wasn’t. Especially being here in Israel. There are a lot of restaurants here that only serve kosher ingredients and are closed on Shabbat and other holidays, and yet they can’t get kosher certification because they are not observant Jews themselves. Or sometimes the restaurant owners don’t want to deal with the religious bureaucracy here because of nightmarish prior experiences.

The same corruption is true in North America. It’s become a game of power politics: who controls kashrut? It’s been this way since the beginning of the kosher industry (thank you OU). Some of the most arbitrary rules are actually completely arbitrary and are just part of Star-K or Circle-K’s particular methodology to differentiate itself from the other hecshers.

Another frustrating point is that there’s hardly incentive to change and improve among kosher institutions. So many have a fixed clientèle, which explains why so many kosher restaurants in Israel stink while the non-kosher ones just get better and better. I have family here that wants to eat at kosher restaurants but after the fifteenth restaurant bust in Jerusalem they feel forced to eat at treyf places only to meet their minimum standards. This is even more true in NA.

By: Larry Lennhoff

Larry Lennhoff — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 02:56:40 +0000

For a different view about kashrut and rudeness look at Rav Shlomo Aviner, a religious Zionist rabbi living in Jerusalem. It is interesting that he says that host should be accepting of guests’ lower standards.

A couple of quotes:
all kosher certification is acceptable, whether it is Mehadrin, Badatz, or the Chief Rabbinate. Any product with any kosher certification is presumed to be acceptable until proven otherwise. We rely on the principle of “chazakah – presumption” based on the Gemara in Niddah (15b) that a Torah scholar “does not allow food to leave his domain without its kashrut being ensured.” Sometimes there are differences of opinion, but one needs to prove that something is not kosher. It is true that sometimes there are people who are deceptive. There is a list which is constantly updated on the website of the Kashrut Department of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. There is, however, a general principle: We must not doubt the kosher certification of Rabbis.

What is this? You are invited by people, and you say that what they are eating is not kosher?! If this is how you feel then don’t come, or say that you have a stomach ache or I don’t like this food. You are not obligated to eat everything, but don’t come to someone’s house or event and say it is not kosher enough.