Download a PDF @ Gave Her a Brocha, but I Think the Real Blessing She Received Was Found in the Kosher Spirit
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ב"ה KISLEV 5771 חנוכה תשע"א CERTIFIED SOUL NUTRITION א !Wishing You a Happy Chanukahפריילעכן חנוכה! Dear Reader, s I sit 34,000 feet above sea level, on a returning flight from Johan- QUESTIONS FOR THE ~ 3 Anesburg, South Africa, I can’t help feeling a bit envious…envious of the SHARE YOUR SPIRIT 4 kosher consumer who lives in South Africa. The world of kosher in South KEEPING KOSHER IN... Africa is absolutely astonishing – not just NEW YORK IN THE 1930s & 1940s the amount of kosher food that is readily 6 available, nor the broad variety alone, but By Chanie Brod something far more incredible. ERUV: DEFINING SPACE Johannesburg, South Africa has just one certifying agency, one 8 By Rabbi Yitzchak Gornish Beis Din, that sets the kashrus standards for the whole community. If a company wants to get its products kosher certified, they must HEALTHY SPIRIT go to the Beis Din of Johannesburg. 13 Chocolate Now, you might say, “Well, that’s just not right. They have a monopoly on the whole market … What if the Beis Din rejects a KOSHER NEWS company due to ulterior motives? Doesn’t such arrangement give 14 Camp L’man Achai Celebrates the Beis Din complete (and perhaps too much) control over the en- Bris of 11 year-old Camper tire market? That would (and should) never be allowed to happen here in the U.S.!” CHANUKAH RECIPE But let us just step back a moment — all the monopoly issues 15 Nawabi Murg Ka Tikka might be true, but on the flip side, all of the kosher products in South Africa are subject to one standard of kashrus, and a pretty WHO’S BEHIND THE ~ good standard at that. Though I’m not here to endorse or judge 16 Interview with how the Beis Din sets or implements its standards, one thing I can Dayan Yitzchak Teller say for certain — the kosher consumer is the big winner. ~ IN ACTION One might wonder, “If we all follow the same Torah, don’t we 18 2010 Mashgichim Conference all have the same kashrus standards?” In reality, here in the U.S. and in Europe, every time a company 134 WAYS ~ KOSHERED fails to comply with a kashrus protocol from an individual kashrus 20 YOUR WORLD IN 2010 agency there is always a second-rate agency waiting to give them a hechsher. This has happened endless times here at the ~,when CHASSIDIC INSIGHTS: an ~ certified company decides to lower its standards or violates LOOKING ABOVE NATURE its kosher contract, and the ~ must withdraw its certification. In- 22 Compiled by Dina Fraenkel stead of this company losing the right to produce a kosher prod- SOUL NUTRITION uct, a second-rate hechsher takes over, and the standard of kashrus 23 is lowered. It doesn’t stop there. If the same company chooses even less compliance… an even more liberal hechsher will take over the certification and the standards of kashrus are lowered once again. I’m not suggesting that all the separate agencies form one agency, but just like in the Beis HaMikdash where all the flames of the individual arms of the menorah faced the Ner HaMarovi, it EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: would be wonderful if we all held ourselves to the same one high Rabbi Chaim Fogelman standard that Hashem set forth in His holy Torah and stopped pit- EDITOR: ting agencies against one another. I may be dreaming…but at least Dovi Scheiner I have a dream. ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Dina Fraenkel A Freilichen Chanukah, DESIGN: Rabbi Chaim Fogelman www.SpotlightDesign.com Editor-in-Chief The ~ receives many letters/emails with kosher questions... Dear Kosher Spirit, remember as a child I when the Jewish knife sharpener would come door to door to sharpen knives Rabbi Hanoka responds: t is permissible to get a kosher around the neighborhood. knife sharpened by a professional Now, my only option is to Iknife-sharpener, even if he also send my knives to a sharpens non-kosher knives. Even though the friction from sharpening professional sharpening causes a lot of heat buildup, the heat service. Is it permissible to is meant to take away something from the knife in order to make it get a knife sharpened by a sharper, so it does not pose a kashrus professional knife-sharpener problem. who also sharpens non- Please note, an identifying sign is recommended to insure that your kosher knives? knife is returned to you. ~ www.OK.org • 3 FEEDBACK Share Your Spirit Readers share their thoughts about the last issue... Dear Kosher Spirit, read Rabbi Levy’s article in the Tishrei issue and I can Dear Kosher Spirit, I only praise it, especially the way you addressed the cocoa issue with pride, and a fair and strong attitude. hank you for the amazing Tishrei I also read the interview with Rabbi Lasker and I must Tissue of Kosher Spirit. I am a volun- add a few words to the article. I was with Rabbi Lasker in teer at a prison through Aleph Institute Italy last year and saw his dedicated work, skills and the and I brought a few copies of the mag- professional manner in which he gets things done. Com- azine for the Jewish inmates there. panies look up to him for guidance and direction, the sys- The magazine is so well-rounded and tem of kashering the ~ has in place is great and meets the insightful and the inmates really en- highest standards that many hechsherim will not or cannot joyed reading it between the tefillos. do, the supervision and great detail accountability, the knowledge of the mashgichim, and all about the supervi- Kind Regards, Ephraim sion is perfect. It was a great experience for me to see it first hand and get to know Rabbi Lasker in person. May Hashem give Rabbi Lasker and the ~ leadership Dear Kosher Spirit, many years of avodas hakodesh in providing Klal Yisroel received the beautiful Kosher Spirit in with kosher food. Imy copy of The Jewish Press. I espe- May we all be zoche to a git yur and a shnas geulah. cially liked Chanie Brod’s article, Respectfully, “Keeping Kosher in the U.S. Army.” I am a chaplain for Jewish veterans and Rabbi Benyumin Arye Glick also work with Jewish soldiers. I Executive Rabbinic Coordinator, Kashrus Division would love to distribute copies of this Central Rabbinical Congress of USA & Canada article and reprint it in a few army publications. Kind Regards, We welcome your comments, submissions Michoel, Arlington, VA and letters to the editor. MAIL: 391 Troy Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11213 E-MAIL: [email protected] 4 • www.OK.org Dear Kosher Spirit, had an amazing experience recently involving the ~ magazine IKosher Spirit, which I thought you would appreciate. One late Thursday afternoon towards the end of the school year, one of the students in Machon Chana approached me. She was going to visit friends who are shluchim and had bought a Shabbos treat for the kids: a bag of organic lollipops with a certain hashgocha. She was very excited that they were organic and had the USDA Organic symbol on the package. She wanted to know if I thought it was a good treat. I told her that it looked like a very healthy and nice treat, but that not everybody uses that hashgocha. Maybe she could find an equivalent with a better hashgocha? “But,” she said, “They’re ORGANIC! LOOK! The in- gredients are all ‘natural’ and ‘kosher’! And it has the USDA Or- ganic symbol!” I explained to her that there is a food coloring which is also ‘natural’ but is not kosher because it comes from an insect, and that the USDA Organic symbol means nothing with respect to the kashrus of the product. The kosher symbol and all that it stands for is what we rely on for the kashrus of a product. She still didn’t get it. So I suggested she just make a phone call to the shluchim, tell them she found a terrific Shabbos treat for the kids, it has a certain hashgocha, and is that good for them. We left it at that, and I didn’t see her again until after Shabbos. I didn’t ask or say anything to her, but it was really weighing on me. She’s a very bright girl who has a great passion for learning and a dedica- tion to growing in her Yiddishkeit. By hashgochah protis, I had been reading a number of back is- sues of Kosher Spirit at the time. Kosher Spirit is packed full of in- formation that really gives the reader an appreciation of just some of the complexities that go into making every and any kind of product kosher, and for the fact that not all hachgochas are equal and hold to the same high standards. So I made a visit to the ~. The receptionist very graciously let me take back-issues of Kosher Spirit to my heart’s desire. I put together a package for my friend of about 8 or 9 issues, and gave them to her with an en- 3rd edition of the popular couraging, “I came across these and thought it would be some- thing you’d really appreciate.” Then I went out of town for three ~ VEGETABLE and a half weeks. Within the first few days of my return, I bumped into her by hashgocha protis. It happened to be my birthday, so I sat down CHECKING with her to give her a brocha. Before I could even broach the topic, she said to me, “You know, I really have to thank you so GUIDE much for the kosher magazines you gave me.