The Questions (and Answers) of BDJ

View a printable version of this Q & A here.

Q: Can you share some guidance for pareve foods? Obviously, it's ideal for pareve foods to only be prepared on pareve dishes but that's kinda hard to do in the real world. If a pareve dish was prepared on meat utensils, can one consume it on dairy dishes? What if it's leftovers that's reheated and consumed the next day? Could I even add cheese to that dish?

A: (RYK) Important question! Let’s begin with basic principles. 

• A parve food that is cooked in a clean dairy pot or a clean meat pot, remains parve. This is true even if the pot had been used for dairy or meat within the prior 24 hours. The halachic explanation for this is as follows: Whenever a pot which has been used within the past 24 hours is being used to now cook something else, the pot imparts the “brand” (dairy or meaty) of the prior cooking to the present cooking.  But this rule only applies when this “imparting of brand” results in the creation of a food that is halachikly forbidden to be eaten (e.g. when you cook a dairy food in a pot that had been used for meat within the prior 24 hours, which results in a forbidden product.) But when it is a parve food that is being cooked now, since this parve food will remain permissible to eat regardless, the entire rule doesn’t apply. (For those keeping score at home, this is the category of נ”ט בר נ”ט דהתירא.)
• Ashkenazi Jews, based on the ruling of Rama in the Shulchan Aruch, do apply one “chumra” (stringency) when we cook a parve food in a pot that had been used for meat or for dairy within the prior 24 hours. This “chumra” is that even though the food does retain its parve status per the above, we don’t eat it together with the opposite brand of the food that had been cooked in this pot just prior. So for example, Ashkenazi Jews don’t put cheese on top of a potato that was cooked in a pot that had had meat cooked in it within the prior 24 hours. But this potato could certainly be eaten on dairy dishes, and cheese (or ice cream) could certainly be eaten after the potato is finished. 
• For Ashkenazim who eat leftovers (as we all should 😊) it is therefore beneficial to own a couple of parve pots, so that you can cook potatoes or rice or pasta to eat with meat sauce on Monday, and then with cheese on Tuesday. 

As a final note, I’ll add that having a pareve knife or two is also a good idea. This is because there are circumstances under which a knife can render an onion (or other types of “sharp” foods) dairy or “meaty.” But we’ll save this discussion for the next round.

Q: In certain circles, I’ve noticed “YOSHON” has become an increasing trend. Is there any halachic benefit to eating YOSHON? Is it comparable to GLATT but for wheat?

A: (RYK) Super question. It could very well seem to the average kosher consumer that Glatt and Yoshon are two peas in a pod, the pod of “being more meticulous than the law actually requires.” But the two issues are actually unrelated, and each has its own story. 

“Glatt,” which translates as “smooth,” refers to the condition of an animal’s lungs. (Which makes terms like “Glatt Mart” technically incomprehensible.) Sephardic halachic tradition requires that an animal’s lungs be "smooth” i.e. free of any adhesions of lesions, for it to be deemed kosher (i.e. not a traifah). Ashkenazic halachic tradition is more flexible on this requirement. For Ashkenazim, eating “glatt” meat is a voluntary stringency, though it should be noted that in practical terms non-glatt kosher meat is very hard to find in stores anymore. (As a point of interest, the lungs of chickens must be “glatt” according to all traditions for the chicken to be kosher.)

“Yoshon” is something quite different. The Torah (Vayikra 23:14) requires that grain, which is planted after Pesach in any given year, must wait until the following Pesach before it becomes permissible to eat. (In the times of the Bet haMikdash the Omer offering on the first day of Pesach effected the grain’s permissibility. After the destruction of the Bet HaMikdash the “day itself”, i.e. the very occurrence of the first day of Pesach does the same.) During the period that grain is waiting to become permissible it is termed “chadash” (new grain), and once it has become permissible it is termed “yoshon” (old grain).

The Sages of the Mishna debated whether these laws apply only in Israel, or also outside of Israel. And somewhat unusually, even though most of the medieval Halachists took the latter position, the prevailing custom in the diaspora (supported by numerous later Halachik authorities) became to not observe these laws in the diaspora. Various explanations have been offered for the leniency, with the most prominent one being that while it is true that the law applies outside the land of Israel as well, the law only applies if the owner of the land that produces the grain is himself or herself Jewish. This is why “non-yoshon” products routinely carry mainstream hashgachot on their package.

Yet, despite the prevailing custom and the Halachik rationale provided for it, a nagging feeling persisted in the Halachik literature that maybe we really ought to be eating only “yoshon” in the diaspora if we can, which would be more in line with the straightforward understanding of the early sources. This nagging feeling has produced the phenomena of some people preferring “yoshon,” and of vendors servicing this preference. Bottom line: The custom to eat “chodosh” (i.e. “non-yoshon”) in the diaspora is deeply established and well-credentialed, and we can certainly continue to follow it. And at the same time, if one would like to take advantage of the opportunity to eat “yoshon,” that’s a meritorious thing to do. 

Q1: Every Jewish community seems to have at least one restaurant certified by a kosher agency that people will get into fights over whether or not it’s acceptably kosher. How much of the kashrut hashgacha acceptance (or lack thereof) is political, based on social trends etc. instead of actual Halacha?

Q2: After consulting with various kashrut-related Rabbis I was comfortable years ago with Triangle K as a hechsher. But I'm admittedly very confused when it comes to the Hebrew National hot dogs they certify. Can you please help me understand? If I'm good with Triangle K should I be good with all of their products including the meat?

Q3: As far as I understand, Tablet K is the only non-Orthodox hechsher, so in theory I should be able to trust all products with all other symbols on them, right?

A: (RYK) I’ve grouped these three questions together, and express thanks to the people who asked them for raising these important questions. The thread that runs through them is the question as to what contributes to certain hashgachot being deemed “acceptable to the community” and to others not being regarded as such. I’ll begin by reproducing something I wrote back in the Summer for this series. Please note that the oil example I cited is a practice associated with Triangle K.

It is of course always possible that “political considerations” are at play when a particular hashgacha is not accepted. Kashrut supervision invariably involves money, turf, and personalities, and as result bad stuff can happen. At the same time, the field of kashrut supervision is much like other fields in that some practitioners have gained the confidence of colleagues and the respect of competitors for maintaining high standards, performing consistently good work, and rarely making mistakes. One’s reputation is one’s calling card, and for good and for bad this reputation determines how reliable one’s work is considered to be.

In addition, there are often differing halachic opinions in play. For example, while Rav Moshe Feinstein ruled, somewhat innovatively, that products that contain non-kosher grape juice or wine are nonetheless kosher as long as the wine or grape juice is less than 1/6th of the product’s total volume, other rabbis disagreed with this position and as a result the position was not adopted by the majority of kashrut agencies (though it was adopted by one). Similarly, there is a halachic disagreement as to whether boiling oil (as opposed to boiling water) can be used to kasher factory machinery between its non-kosher and kosher oil-heating “runs”. Here too, the lenient position has its advocates (and is utilized in practice by one kashrut agency), but most kashrut rabbinical authorities disagreed, and the majority of Kashrut agencies developed their policies accordingly. As a result, there are indeed certain certifications that we do not use (when they appear on products that require certification), as they are utilizing Halachik positions that have not been accepted by the kashrut mainstream. 

Tablet-K is another example of a hashgacha that utilizes an authentic-but-not-accepted halachic position, which is why it is a mischaracterization to refer to it as a “non–Orthodox hashgacha.” Tablet-K certifies cheese that would have been eaten by Rabbenu Tam and the Sages of Narbonne, all pretty Orthodox people. These sages understood the Talmudic ruling prohibiting non-Jewishly produced cheese to not be applicable to cheese that was known to have been produced with non-animal rennet. And this is the position that the Tablet-K has adopted. However, Rambam and most other rishonim disagreed with Rabbehnu Tam, understanding the Talmudic prohibition of non-Jewishly produced cheese to be an absolute one, not dependent on the particulars of any given rennet situation. This is the position that is codified by the Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh De’ah 115:2), and this is the reason that we do not eat Tablet-K cheeses today. [The comment of the Rama these is interesting by the way, as he makes exceptions for specific communities with long-standing historical practices of following Rabbenu Tam.] 

So, to return now to the specific questions above: 

1. Typically, when there is a debate over the kashrut of a given restaurant, there are concrete considerations regarding either the specific kashrut policies that are being employed, or the general quality / rigor of the supervision that is being provided.  That said, these considerations can often be assessed by your “local Orthodox rabbi” who is happy to provide guidance. And I would hope that this guidance would prove helpful in an instance when non-halachik (i.e. social or political) factors are driving the debate. This is the sort of work that had been done by the “Hashgacha Pratit” kashrut organization in Israel, which has now become part of the Religious Zionist organization, Tzohar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzohar_(organization)
    
2. Because of issues such as “kashering by oil” mentioned above, Triangle-K products that contain oil do not comply with the halachik norms adopted by the majority of the kashrut agencies (and their halachic authorities), and we should therefore not use them. 
   
   The reasons our community does not consume Triangle-K meat is a different one, chief among them that they utilize more lenient halachik positions regarding what renders an animal a traifah (non-kosher by virtue of an internal physical blemish) than the majority of kashrut agencies do.  So, one issue is not directly related to the other, though both present situations in which Triangle-K products depend for their kashrut upon halachik positions that the majority of the community does not accept.
     
3. No, not right at all. Any given symbol is as good as the people who stand behind it, the halachik procedures they follow, and their reputations for working with integrity. You should never simply trust a symbol that you do not recognize. The easiest way to find out if a certification is generally accepted in the Orthodox community is to check Rabbi Eidlitz’ Kosherquest Symbol List. And again, never hesitate to contact one of your rabbis!