Holy e-Smokes!

Kashrus In The Clouds

What’s really in that vape? Join us as we explore the surprising kashrus questions behind e-cigarettes — from flavorings and glycerin to halachic principles that meet modern technology. Rabbi Sholem Fishbane - Kashrus Administrator at the Chicago Rabbinical Council, and Executive Director of AKO clears up some of the fog behind this very important topic.

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R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Hello everyone and welcome back to Let's Talk Kashrus. Presented by the Kashrus Awareness project in conjunction with the Chicago Rabbinical Council. Today I am joined by Rabbi Sholem Fishbane, Kashrus administrator of the CRC and the executive director of AKO. Thank you Rabbi Fishbane for joining us.

Today we'd like to discuss a topic that many youngsters may be interested or surprised or dismayed that we're discussing. Parents, I'm sure, will be very excited about it, and that is e-cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, and the kashrus questions related to e-cigarettes. And I would put out a disclaimer before we get into the kashrus conversation as relates to e-cigarettes that, you know, obviously there are health concerns with smoking, whether it's tobacco, regular cigarettes, or electronic cigarettes. And by no means by having this conversation are we condoning using these cigarettes.

I know that the Poiskim in Lakewood put out a very pointed letter warning people about the dangers of smoking, al pi haTorah, you know, haGedolim of previous generations, and that and they feel that the same concerns that apply to regular cigarettes apply to electronic cigarettes and things of that sort. So just as a disclaimer, we're not condoning its usage, but at the same time because they are quite prevalent, it's important that we discuss the kashrus concerns that there may or may not be when it comes to electronic cigarettes. Anything you want to comment on that before we get into the topic?

R’ Sholem Fishbane: No, I fully agree. It's completely osser and it's so interesting that so many people call anyway. I don't smoke myself or vape or whatever it is, and it's 100% correct and even talking about it is uncomfortable, but I've learned in the industry is that, you know, there's a we recently came went through Purim. So on Purim there's a, the one of the, we all know the story of Purim how the Yidden were punished by from going to the seudas Achashveirosh. Mordechai said, don't go to the seudas Achashveirosh, and they didn't listen. But Chazal say once they went, you know who actually went with them? Mordechai haTzadik.

Because he says if they're going, I might as well make sure that the yayin that they drink is not yayin nesech, right? So he wanted to be, take away the michshol of kashrus. So perhaps, you know, we, these types of things, they're doing it anyway, let me at least go through the kashrus side of it with the understanding that it continues like you said earlier correctly that it's osser to smoke. So I I've been doing some research on it only because so many people have been calling. And is it there's so, it's a, it's a really a shiur by itself.

There's, what is called achilah, right? The Rama says that it's osser to be to'eim something even if you don't swallow it completely. And the meforshim explain as long as it goes into the goren, into the throat, that's what's called achilah. So therefore, the the metzius is that this is, there's a regular cigarette is something called reicha. This is not the sugya of reicha, which is a whole geshmake sugya by itself.

This is a sugya called zeiah. And zeiah, anything that comes from zeiah is considered like itself. It's the, it's the liquid coming off, that is connected. It's different than reicha, which is smoke.

Okay? So therefore, what we have over here is the way e-cigarettes work is there's a liquid and there's a electronic piece in there that when you, when you suck on it, I guess, it it it converts the liquid into vape, to, and that goes to the back of the throat where it's called you get the hit, I'm told by the people that smoke, and that converts the vape, converts to liquid droplets. So that's shtiah according to the vast majority of Poiskim. We have a legitimate case of drinking something, whatever's in that cartridge. I I did see a teshuvah from Rabbi Weissmandl who felt that that's not called te'imah.

Iyain sham in his teshuvah why he's, you know, but most Poiskim say that's called te'imah. Okay? So now that we've established that that's te'imah in the back. back of, you know, that's called to in the goyren, now we got to see what's in it. So there's really four or five things that go on in an e-cig.

I've been in factories that make it. There's a factory in in in Florida owned by a frum yid and I got a very good understanding by studying what they do over there. There's the flavor, which is a smaller amount. There's a propylene glycol, which is about 30%.

Uh, there's nicotine, and uh then there's the glycerin. So the flavors are the flavors. For for the sake of our purposes, we're not really worried about the the kashrus of the flavors making it a point that you can't eat it because of flavor. It's not like soda where you're going to, it's it's different, okay? So let's put the flavors aside, we're not so worried about those.

Propylene glycol at a high percentage is actually something that's called davar mar. It's a pogum. It's about 20%, 30%, whatever it is. Uh, the nicotine itself, interesting, that itself is bitter.

It's it's not good. It's, uh, so maybe, oh, there's nothing to worry about. It's it's uh einah royah l'achila, so let's forget, you know, nice meeting, Reb Yitzchok, let's let's go on, you know. So the the the question in halacha is, a word called achshevei.

Achshevei means if you have something that you wouldn't normally eat because it's pogum, it's ich, right? And you drink it or eat it anyway, you are machshiv it. So that's the question in e-cigs of this thing called achshevei. But the main concern in an e-cig is the glycerin. That's the main concern, because glycerin could be made from two things, from a plant or from a cow, okay? A treif, I mean a not a kosher cow.

Uh, uh it could be made from fat. It's a fat. What is glycerin? It's a sweet, fatty syrup. Okay? And they put it in everything to make it, right? They put it in medicines, they'll put it in cookies, they'll put it in glycerin is huge.

And and if you understand that, so therefore, we're talking about, let's just go back for a minute. We're talking about achila, something that you put in your mouth because you want it, and it's a safek issur d'oraisa. It might come from a behema that wasn't shechted, which is no different than eating a hamburger, right? So now we have a real shailah. What do you do by a safek issur d'oraisa? Usually, you're machmir.

So I went through many, many ways of understanding how they make it and what it is. I came up with actually um, uh 14 different ways of of the shailah of how they can make an e-cig, okay? Uh, so the first thing I understood is actually there's a difference between the throwaway e-cig and the cartridge. A throwaway has a higher percentage of propylene glycol. So the glycerin level is a little lower.

Maybe you don't even have majority, okay? The second is, um if there's nicotine. We talked about the nicotine being pogum. The third is that sometimes on the label say vegetable glycerin. If it says vegetable glycerin, can you trust it? That's a sugya by itself related in in other parts of kashrus.

The fact that it says something on there, do companies actually change the label every time something else comes in? Not so simple, okay? Uh, then, then the big thing and here is the the main sugya, where was it made? Was it made in the United States or was it made overseas? Why is that such a big difference? Because the the majority, the vast, vast, vast majority of glycerin in the United States today is indeed vegetable glycerin. And therefore in halacha it's called kol d'parish m'ruba parish. You go basar rov. Overseas, especially in Brazil, maybe in China, these other countries, forget it.

But the stuff made here, and I studied the glycerin market very carefully, uh and uh and therefore it is, um therefore you if it says made in America, you maybe you can go basar rov that it's that it's vegetable glycerin.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: I'm curious, is there a price difference between animal glycerin and vegetable glycerin that would make it more likely that they'd use one over the other?

R’ Sholem Fishbane: So great question and it really depends on the country. So in America today, the vegetable glycerin is lower than animal glycerin. For some reason the pet industry still uses animal glycerin, has to do with a quirk in the government laws, and some of the medicine industry, uh not necessarily in America, maybe in Canada, also has to do with the way uh the works of government laws.

But for the purposes of what we're talking about, it's much easier and cheaper to buy your vegetable glycerin.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: So is that is that enough halachically to rely on the fact that that uh it's coming from vegetable?

R’ Sholem Fishbane: So Therefore, that that's where it comes down to. What your question is exactly the the bottom line. So I called around the poiskim to find out.

As I said, Rabbi Weissmandl wrote a whole chuva based on Kol DaParash, it's roiv, he says it's mutar therefore.I spoke to Rabbi First, the dayan of Agudas Yisroel of Illinois. I spoke to our rosh beis din, Rabbi Reese from the CRC beis din. They said, no, no, no. There is you're talking safeik d'oraisa, you're talking achshevei.

All because if you take each shailah by itself, it's not so simple, and they said, assur.I spoke to Rav Shlomo Miller. I spoke to Rav Moshe Heinemann, shlita. And they, they they agreed with the fact that it's considered blia, it's considered achila, it's considered zeia, zeia, but they also agreed that you go by roiv. So if indeed, they said if indeed this metzius is that glycerin today in the United States is roiv vegetable, what you want to be soimech on? I said al pi halacha, again.

Not condoning smoking. Right. But that they. So, so therefore that's what we came out with.

But you know, if you and but it's interesting, you know, I mentioned before we had 14 things. So like the easiest way to to be meikel so to say, is if it's a throwaway, it's vegetable says on the label and it has nicotine and it's made in the United States. And the opposite would be the hardest way.But at now there are some that actually have a hechsher. Oh, there are.

There are, yeah. There's one that is given a hechsher by a similar sounding kosher agency to us, and we get angry calls by the mothers, how dare you give a hechsher on something like this? We can't get a word in edgewise because they're so mad. You know, two minutes into the rant, we'll say, it's not us. Not us.

Not us. That happens actually.But I'll tell you the bottom line is because you know, the truth is, if you just ask, I gave you the different shittos, but I can tell you something that I have heard many times from Rav Yisroel Belsky, zichrono l'vracha, and and Rav Schwartz, zichrono l'vracha, and others that are, you know, poiskim in kashrus, they say, when you give a hechsher as a as a as a as an agency, when you are in charge of giving out information, whether you're a hechsher or like we're doing here today. You know, when you're an authority to talk tell people, you you have to go with what's called shailah-free. You tell the Klal Yisroel that this is, you don't go with bedieved.

And whether it could be a Starbucks question, like we've talked about in the past, it could be other types of shailos, shailah-free. E-cigs is not shailah-free. We're talking about safeika d'oraisa.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: So it's an interesting thing. I just, sorry to interrupt, but it is interesting that we've seen letters coming out about e-cigarettes in regards to the health issue, but you would think that based on our conversation, you would think that someone would have put out a letter, you know, lehavi yedu'a, you know, the public should know that e-cigarettes is really not a simple matter when it comes to kashrus.

R’ Sholem Fishbane: So actually, it's a great point and I thank you for bringing that up. I want to quote a letter from Rav Moshe Sternbuch, shlita. And I'll say it in in Hebrew, is that okay? Yeah. He says, oideis sigaria electronia, hineni maskim l'divrei someone who asked me the question.

Shekeivan sheyesh b'soicha tamsis sheyesh bahem ta'am tov she'nisraf v'nehpach l'adim v'nichnasim l'toch hapeh, it turns into steam into your mouth. U'margish ta'am ha'adim b'piv. Keivan she'zeia dino k'mamash, havei k'to'eim b'piv es guf ha'chomer. Ul'chein tzrichim l'hishtamesh rak b'sigaria sheyesh alav hechsher.

Very, very clear. Like there's no no ambiguity with that. So there are others and others in Eretz Yisroel, Rav Moshe Shaul Klein, Rav Wosner, others have also come out to say that it needs a hechsher. And they didn't even talk about the health part of it.

Health part, it was straight up, straight up kashrus.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: As always, we've learned so much from this conversation, then we we look forward to hearing more if things do develop. And as, you know, like you always say, things are always changing, people should stay up to date if the way they produce it is different or maybe even better yet. Obviously, people shouldn't smoke if they don't have to, but if people are, perhaps someone would take the initiative of making sure that the majority of the devices that are being used are under a reputable hashgacha. That would also be a a tremendous service.

R’ Sholem Fishbane: Not under CRC Kosher. No, no, no, we're getting enough phone calls.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: No, no, no.

R’ Sholem Fishbane: You know, it's so interesting why we're getting so many phone calls, because everything else is easy.

We put it on our website. Right. You know, it's kosher, it's not kosher. Because we hold you shouldn't be smoking, we don't put it on.

So people are calling. Uh-huh. It's like the hashgachas that we don't necessarily recommend, it's not on our recommended list. Right.

You know, anyway, but that's a…

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: So it's so it it makes it complicated. Makes it complicated. Makes it a complicated matter. But thank you again, thank you for joining us.