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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. 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.

Is it possible that all milk isn't kosher? This week we revisit one of the most controversial questions of its time. Rabbi Yosef Landa - Rabbinic Coordinator at cRc Kosher walks us through all the details of this fascinating question. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Hello everyone and welcome back to Let's Talk Kashrus , presented by the Kashrus  Awareness Project and the CRC, the Chicago Rabbinical Council. Today I am honored to be joined by Rabbi Yosef Landa, Rabbinic Coordinator at the CRC. How are you Rabbi Landa? R’ Yosef Landa: Okay, Baruch Hashem , how are you? R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Thank you for being here. You're a mashgiach  with the CRC, the Chicago Rabbinical Council. Correct? And one of your expertises is the area of dairy, correct? Correct. What does that generally involve before we get into our topic today? R’ Yosef Landa: Well, dairy as you can imagine, it's milk, obviously, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, the main staple dairy products. And I do some other smattering of some other types of companies also, but mainly those type of products. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Now, I recall years ago, I don't know if this topic has arisen of late, but I remember years ago when there was a big tumult about the stomachs of cows, the abomasum, that they were either punctured, there were holes in the abomasum. For the lay person, give us a little overview about what the issue was then, how the issue was resolved if it was, and whether that's a concern still today. R’ Yosef Landa: Right. Okay, yes. So about approximately 30 years ago, I forget exactly when as time goes on, it was discovered that it was not very common, but not rare, a condition that the cows developed, one of their stomachs became displaced from its normal place. It's usually associated with soon after a cow gives birth when it has a cavity, it has an extra space that wasn't there before, and the stomach falls out of place. It can be on the left side or the right side. It was called LDA and RDA, left displaced abomasum and right displaced abomasum. One is more dangerous than the other, but it needs to be corrected. And it was discovered that the standard it seemed or at least one of the ways of correcting this was to puncture, puncture the abomasum, they call it a keiva , in the lashon of of Shulchan Aruch  and the Gemara . And which is a treifa , which is a treifa . If you puncture, you puncture this organ, it's a treifa . So this created a shaila for all the dairy products in the United States. I mean, because if certainly got cholov stam  where there's no presence of the hashgacha  on the farm, we don't know anything really what's going on over there. We just take the milk as as being kosher inherently, based as a heter  of cholov stam . But even with cholov Yisroel , when the when we have mashgiachs  there on the farm, but same issue, same issue. You got they weren't looking or tracking and finding out which cows had this procedure and which didn't. And these cows gave milk into the general collection of milk that the farm produced. And it was when they're making a cholov Yisroel product, you carefully isolate that milk and send it in a tanker to a different facility that actually makes the whatever dairy product, but you got the same problem. Got the same problem. So this problem came up approximately 30 years ago or so. So at the time, so cholov stam , I'm sorry, cholov Yisroel , any hashgacha  on cholov Yisroel , what they moved to do is to isolate those cows. In other words, when the mashgiach  were sent to a farm to do hashgacha  on cholov Yisroel , they would segregate those cows. They would segregate those cows out and they would not use they would not use the milk from those cows. I'm not sure how soon after the tumult arose, but pretty soon after that, that's what cholov Yisroel decided to do. And that's been implemented and it still continues to this day. It's been implemented. Any cholov Yisroel   hashgacha  in the United States does not take milk from these cows. They they're segregated out. It's a standing system. When you go to any farm to when you want to set up cholov Yisroel , that's one of the things that you got to take care of. You got to have a system of tracking and the mashgiach has to, usually there's a computer system of cows have tags in their ears. When any sophisticated farm, and most are today, there was a lot of consolidation of farms, smaller farms all had to consolidate. There was a lot of pressure in the dairy industry, not too many years ago. So they consolidated and most farms have this type of system where a cow when it gets up to be milked, they have the tag in the ear electronically read. And they have a whole system of tracking the health of all the cows and they and they know which which cows have undergone which procedures and we have a system of of removing these cows. from from being used when when when we use chalav yisrael . So that that that that's what was done and that's that continues till this day. And that's a maalah . That's a maalah  that you avoid this entire shayla with chalav  when you take chalav yisrael . R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: And just to clarify, I know this is a very elementary thing what I'm going to say, but if someone out there watching this doesn't understand, the reason why milk or cheese that comes from such an animal is because once the animal is a treifa , so anything that comes from a treifa  is considered treif  as well. I know that's, you know, R’ Yosef Landa: Correct. If the animal is treif  then the milk is treif . That's d'raisa m'd'Oraisa . The animal has a is a treif , this is a treif d'raisa . I mean, so the milk is is is assur b'achila m'd'Oraisa . Now, however, it's very important to note, the shayla however is only d'rabanan . The shayla  itself is not a d'oraisa shayla because of the rule that min b'mino batel b'rov . As we got treif milk is certainly not majority of the cows. No farm had a majority of the cows. The highest was, you know, at the time, you know, they were looking into it maybe 5% of the cows, tops. Something like that. So it's not batel b'shishim , but m'd'raisa , bitul b'rov  is enough min b'mino  since you can't taste the difference between treif  milk and not treif  milk. So it's it's min b'mino batel b'rov , but m'd'rabanan  it's not batel . D'rabanan is d'rabanan . So so it was a shayla d'rabanan . So that's, you know, that's, you know, less of a less of a serious shayla , so maybe maybe there's room here and there to be meikel , but but but it was it was a problem. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Right, I also wanted to point out that for those who are makpid  on chalav yisrael , besides for the chalav yisrael - chalav stam  issue, this would be another reason, another benefit so to speak, of drinking chalav yisrael , that chalav yisrael obviates any concern of having these abomasum issues. Right. R’ Yosef Landa: Right. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Any other thoughts on this particular topic? R’ Yosef Landa: So, so yeah, so that's what chalav yisrael did. So but even CRC, most of our products that we certify, we have, you know, a little bit of chalav yisrael , most of the products we certify are chalav stam  as well as the the major national hashgachas  that are very familiar with. Most of them are are chalav stam . So that did not take care of the issue of chalav stam . Now the truth is, for chalav yisrael  it was worse. The shayla  was worse. On chalav yisrael  farms? Yes, yes. The reason why the shayla  was worse is because we know what's going on. There's a presence on the farm and we could learn, we could find out, the mashgiach  could see, if he's if he's watching and looking at the cows, you can see if you're a cow that had a recent surgery, you can see an incision. You know, a healing incision on on on the side of the cow. So you can see it. You could see it. If you're looking for it, you could see it. You know, you're not paying attention, you're not going to see it. That mean it heals kind of quick and you know, you're not going to after a while, you're not going to see it, but you could see it. So you can know what's going on, or you could talk to the people, they have a computer system, they can find out. So in a way the shayla was worse. They really had to, you know, because they could be m'varer so to speak what which R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: On the non-chalav yisrael  farms, they were not tracking which cows had undergone this procedure? R’ Yosef Landa: No, the farm itself is tracking, but you the consumer and even us the hashgacha , we when it comes to non-chalav yisrael , we have no connection whatsoever to the to the to the farm at all. In other words, we certify a dairy processing facility that has pasteurizers and homogenizers and fillers and, you know, and packaging and everything. That's where the hashgacha  starts. We, you know, make sure that that everything is because it's it's heated equipment, you got to make sure that there's vitamins, whatever, you got, you know, the stuff to to make sure it's kosher when it comes to the dairy processing facility, but we didn't have any connection to the farm. We can have, you can have a a milk manufacturing facility that gets milk from 100 different farms. Okay, it's probably less now. That was I remember asking someone once, someone's company, how many how many farms they get from? They said about 100 around the area over here. That was years ago. Now there was a consolidation, so so it's probably less than that now. But still, they get from quite a few farms and there is no presence of the hashgacha  whatsoever on the farm. So we don't know anything. We don't know anything. So over here it was good. We didn't know anything. We didn't so we don't know, so you know, I'll explain in a minute, that's that was a maalah . But if you if you're present at the farm, it was worse. So so so so we made it better. It was worse, we made it better that we don't don't don't take any milk from these cows. The question is, so what's what what was the heter ? So so all the hashgachas  all decided that we can they continue doing what they're doing. Right. You know, it was it was a dochek , you know, but but that's, you know, we wanted to have a good heter . We wanted to make a heter  that makes sense. So at that time, there were different, they looked into what exactly the procedure was. You know, without, you know, going into all the details, but so they they they thought they found they saw that it was done in a way that it was not treifa . The incision maybe, the the puncture maybe wasn't done straight through. There were other methods to to that they can accomplish the same thing and perhaps that, you know, it wasn't treif . Also some wanted to say a chiddush  that, you know, because we see that these cows don't don't die within 12 months. Right, right? That's what's supposed to happen to to a treif  cow. So, you know, you could say a chiddush  that that when it's done in this obviously when it's done in this setting, in this manner, it doesn't seem to be treif . But that's a but that's that's a chiddush . That's a very big chiddush . reluctant to rely on that. So but initially it seemed that they they did rely on on on on on, you know, on the svara  that it doesn't actually the way it's done doesn't actually make it treif . But then it was revisited a few years later because, you know, we saw that, you know, the reports coming that that that plenty of places it's done done in a way that's a classic treifa . I mean, if you know, without any chiddushim , it's it's a treifa . So so, so it was revisited and and so there was there was a conference call and so Rabbi Yisroel Belsky zatzal  at that time said, and this is a svara  that that, you know, that was that was said originally, but that le'maiseh  you have a rov . Le'maiseh in all in all in all cows, classically there's 10% treif , right? I mean we we find more today because we're machmir . But there are cows that are treif . Right? The difference is we don't know, nobody knows. Since inside the lungs you can't, it's not checked, you don't know. So what what so why but somebody has a cow in his backyard, it's possible it's treif . He's allowed to he's allowed to drink their milk, right? Because you go basar rov . The Torah says you're allowed to go you're allowed to go basar rov . So he said, this is the same thing over here. We we don't we don't know, we don't have a presence, we have no presence at the farms. We don't know, some there are methods that they do that that don't that don't make it treif . So, it's the same rov . You got the you got the same rov . And and that's what you could be somech  on. You know, the the the chisaron is that is there somebody that knows? There is, the farmers farmers do know. But it's it's extreme it's to set this up and to make this change that if if they understand that they're not going to gain anything by this, they only have to lose, they're not going to give us this information. Why should they why in the world should they change their whole system and say, Rabbi, if we don't tell you anything, you you know, we're going to have to tell them the truth that it's accepted. So, so it's it's really not possible to find out. It's really not possible to find out. The only way to do it was to to say, listen, okay, we're not going to give you a hechsher  unless you do this. So for that, there is Cholov Yisroel . Right. So but al pi din , al pi din , we have the same rov  that we don't know, and and any cow any cow out there could be treif , but the halacha  is that it's you go basar rov  and it's accepted. And even though once you mix all the milk together, there's a high probability that there's going to be even even at the time, even at the time, there's you know, because I'm the situation the situation got better because the numbers improved. The numbers of the cows the surgeries R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: What different today than than from 30 years ago? What is different? What is different today than 30 years ago? R’ Yosef Landa: Right. So it was what's different today is somebody who wrote a sefer , his name is R’ Manis Blumenrucht, his sefer is called Cholov Treifa . And he reanalyzed the whole thing. He did a tremendous amount of polling to many different farms. And he found, and we've I found that in my experience as well, at the CRC, we've heard that the the numbers of the amount of treifas  have gone down. Years ago, the first farm I I had to had to work with, you know, working for the CRC, the numbers was like 5%, approximately 5%. I've had experience with approximately, I'd say 20 farms maybe. In the past 10 years, k'mat , they they don't have any. They don't have any. They have one, they have none. They they get rid of them. I I they've and I've read some place that the veterinarians also say that they don't have they don't have as many. This used to get this used to be a more common procedure, less common procedure. I don't know the reasons. I don't I'm sure there are, you know, reasons for why, maybe they got they got better at controlling it. In different parts of the country also originally there were different numbers. So, you know, possibly they they just got had better systems at of of maybe of the feed or of controlling this, and it's it's it's at the farms it seems it's it seems it seems to be a lot better. So, so then it's it's there's a chance now very, you know, very possible chance now that there's bittel or at least it's battel b'shishim  or at least it's a safek . At least you're getting milk, it's a safek , you know, and it's a safek d'rabbanan . Now, he wants to argue in the sefer  after going through 18 chapters of why he really thinks it's treif , the procedure is treif , but and then he, you know, he talks about how the the polling that he did and the information that he found out, it seems to be that that that the situation is improved, the numbers are much better, and it's at least you can make a good argument that it's at least a safek  and it's a safek d'rabbanan lekula . R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Very interesting. Rabbi Landa, thank you.

Many questions are sent in to us on various kashrus issues. This week we sit down with Rav Shmuel Fuerst Dayan of Agudas Yisroel of Illinois so he can answer some of the questions. This week's Q&A focuses on common kitchen mishaps and other kashrus in the kitchen questions 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 privileged to be joined by Rav Shmuel Fuerst, Dayan of Agudas Yisroel of Illinois . Thank you Rabbi Fuerst  for joining us once again. Appreciate it. R’ Shmuel Fuerst: My pleasure. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Today we'd like to do something a little different as opposed to speaking about a specific topic. We'd like to go through some shailos  that have come in to Let's Talk Kashrus  and present them to the Rav  if that's okay. R’ Shmuel Fuerst: No problem. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: So the first question that we received is as follows, and I'll read the questions as they came in and then allow the Rav  to respond. 1) If a pot became treif  through bishul akum , does one need to wait 24 hours before kashering it? R’ Shmuel Fuerst: The din  is the Shach speaks near the end of Siman Kuf Yud Gimel , that by bishul akum , it's batel b'rov . Not like usually you need shishim , it's batel b'rov . So therefore, the Darkei Teshuvah  quotes over there, brings down kama poskim  that hold that since it's batel b'rov , then you don't have to wait meis l'eis . You don't have to wait meis l'eis because whenever you kasher water it's always batel b'rov . So therefore you don't have to wait, you don't have to wait meis l'eis  before you kasher as you can kasher immediately after it became treif , you can do it right away, kashering right away. And that's the consensus of kama poskim . That by bishul akum , since the whole is issur d'rabbanan , so it's batel b'rov , and the Shach  is in the end of Kuf Yud Gimel , but there's also another Shach  in the end of Kuf Yud Beis , it says the same thing also. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Okay. 2) If someone inherited treif  pots that were never toiveled , does one need to kasher them before toiveling them? R’ Shmuel Fuerst: Pots that were, came treif  and they were never toiveled , there's a machlokes poskim , are you allowed to first toivel  and then kasher it, or you have to kasher first. The consensus, there's a Dagul Mervavah , there's a whole machlokes  in the achronim . L'maaseh l'dina , we pasken that you have to first kasher it, and then you have to toivel  it. If you did it the other way around, that's a big machlokes poskim . And we pasken like the Shach , you should do it again without a bracha . You should toivel  again, you should toivel  again without a bracha after, after kashering, right. If you first toivel  before you kashered, the second time around, that's how we pasken , that's what the Shach holds, not everyone holds like that, but l'maaseh l'dina , rov poskim seem to hold like that. That's how we pasken l'dina. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger:   Okay, this is a common question. 3) A milchig  frying pan was put into a fleishig dishwasher and it went through the cycle. So two questions, what's the halacha of the milchig  pan? And what's the with the fleishig  dishes that may have been in the dishwasher at the same time? R’ Shmuel Fuerst: First we'll talk about the milchig pan. The milchig  pan, since all the dishes, all the pots and pans that were in there, and silverware that were in the dishwasher are fleishig , and by mistake someone put in a milchig  pan and ran it through a cycle, the din  is you have to kasher it. This, the milchig  pan. But the rest of the dishes, you do not have to kasher. Because there's usually shishim k'neged , and plus, you use soap, the davar hapogem , which is davar hapogem , and so on. So regarding the fleishig  dishes, we're meikel . But regarding the milchig  pan, that we, since it's not shishim k'neged , so we, even though it's ain ben yomo , we tell them to kasher the frying pan. And a frying pan most of the time is kasherable. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Got it. Okay. Thank you so much for joining us

Supply Chain Rifts What happens when supply chains get disrupted? How about when ingredients need to be replaced due to skyrocketing costs? What about when certain items are banned by the government? These and other questions addressed by Rabbi Moshe Machuca - Rabbinic Field Representative for the OU, in this week's episode. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Hello everyone and welcome back to Let's Talk Kashrus , presented by the Kashrus  Awareness Project in conjunction with Torah Anytime. Today I am honored to be joined by Rabbi Moshe Machuca, rabbinic coordinator and rabbinic field representative with the OU in Southeast Asia. Thank you Rabbi Machuca for being here once again. R’ Moshe Machuca: Thank you for having me. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: So last time we spoke, we spoke about your fascinating entry into the field of kashrus  and traveling and all the challenges that accompany that experience. Today I'd like to hear from you briefly about innovations and updates in kashrus . You're there on the ground, you go from company to company. I hear this all the time from Rabbonim Mashgichim , from Mashgichim , from Rabbonim Machshirim , that the field of kashrus  as much as any field is constantly changing. Things are always being updated, there are new innovations. So what could you tell us from your experience in the field? You travel overseas, you go to many different countries. What has changed and what updates could you give us from on the ground? R’ Moshe Machuca: Basically, things that started changing dramatically after COVID or during COVID. All of the supply chain got disrupted. Nobody could travel, and then freight when, like for example, from Asia to the United States, a freight was for between 3,800 to 5/6,000 dollars, it went all the way to 32,000. And that necessity creates innovation. So everybody started trying to find local sources and and scouring and trying to develop other ways, which is, which has become an an enormous headache for kashrus professionals. Nowadays you have people that had, for example, in the dairy business, New Zealand supplies most of the powder milk to most of the countries and some American companies too, but because of that, then they started looking into the local governments, and then we had to spend an unbelievable amount of time trying to research if we could even accept those type of milks and to monitor that whatever we say is on the Schedule A was there. So we had to become a... R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Well just for for our viewers, what does Schedule A mean in kashrus  terms? R’ Moshe Machuca: The Schedule A is the list of ingredients that are that have been approved and that by the contractual agreement between the kashrus  agency and the company, they are not allowed to change without prior authorization from the kashrus  agency. And the Schedule B is a list of products. So once they that start happening, it start happening with milk, it start happening with glycerin. I think you touched glycerin briefly with Rabbi Juravel. Glycerin is becoming a major problem because now you have these trend that of use cooking oil. So you have countries like Asia where the main countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, where most of the countries in Asia where the main dish is not beef or poultry, but seafood. But when I say seafood, it's not fish, it's octopus and shrimps and krills and and anguilas and horseshoe crabs and you name it. Fried, steamed, barbecued, in whichever way you want. So they go, they start scouring all these oils from all the restaurants and then in that in that used cooking oil, there's still a mashehu of things that can be used. So they goes, they take it in, they put it into a very powerful piece of equipment that is called a a cracker and it breaks down that cooked oil and then you can recover some propylene glycol and you can get some glycerin. But that glycerin is treif . R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Animal derived? R’ Moshe Machuca: Yeah, animal derived and treif derived, because they eat whales, they eat swordfish, they eat sharks, they eat all that stuff. So all that fat ends up being collected and now reprocessed. And the problem is, is that once you have the glycerin and you put it on the microscope, you have no way of saying this glycerin came from here or that glycerin came from here. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Really? R’ Moshe Machuca: No. Glycerin is glycerin, and that's what it is. So, and everybody start becoming more innovative. Like for example, right now, there is a situation where cocoa, there was a being a drought or the cocoa, either for drought or because of excessive rain, the production, the yield, uh... is reduced, so now most of the cocoa butter, which is what is used to make white chocolate, now you have to use a cocoa butter substitutes because the price of cocoa butter is too expensive. And cocoa powder, now there are companies experimenting with carobs. Carobs have a cocoa-like taste profile. So now they're they started with a 5% injection. I tried it because they gave me we had to approve the carobs for for the R&Ds. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: What's the kashrus  concerns would there be with the carob? R’ Moshe Machuca: Well, there's no kashrus concern per se, but we were very worried because you're putting in a new element. So the emulsifiers that you keep to that you use to keep everything together, they might change and because they might not work. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Got it. R’ Moshe Machuca: So that we were very worried about that. And then once they started doing R&Ds and the things that were working worked, so the taste if you're a chocolate connoisseur, you you're gonna R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: You'll pick up on it? R’ Moshe Machuca: you'll pick up on it. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Very interesting. So to clarify, so you weren't so concerned about the carob itself, but about the emulsifier being used if it's not effective anymore now that you're introducing a new element into the product, they may change it. Yes. So you have to be on top of that. R’ Moshe Machuca: Yeah, we have to be on top of it. And thank G-d, the emulsifiers that were being used, it is they worked. They held everything together, but we were worried about that. That's interesting. Carob is just a fruit, you just dry it and grind it and use it 5% into a chocolate compound. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Would you say now some years later after COVID that things have calmed down or is it still that freight and shipping is so much more expensive than it was pre-COVID and and that's affecting the- R’ Moshe Machuca: It has come down but not to pre-COVID levels. Not to pre-COVID levels. No, no, no, no, no, no. No. That those days are gone. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: So are people still looking for more domestic options as opposed to international? R’ Moshe Machuca: Yes, everybody yes, because and now you have a panic, sort of a panic with tariffs and and the people don't want to don't want to pay more. So they start doing a lot of things. He said right now, I think here there's a situation where we're seeing again, tallow glycerin that we haven't had in a in a while. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Tallow glycerin, that's what it's called? And that's made from? R’ Moshe Machuca: From cow. Tallow is a is cow fat. Lard is pig fat. But but again, you have a fat, you can get glycerin. So so and now so you have an exodus of people getting out of China to places more less, let's say confrontational with the United States with the current situation in the United States. So they have more stability. But at the same time now, we have a we have a new director of the health department that is RFK? RFK? Yeah. that is banning Certain, right? He's banning certain items. So so now, for example, I am in the OU with the committee that is looking into new ingredients. Blue is going to be gone the next the next Right, R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: the colorings that he wants to ban because they're not healthy, right? R’ Moshe Machuca: Yeah. So color blue now is going to be substitute the suitable substitutes are a blue flower, I think it's called Gardenia, if I remember. I don't quote me on that, but I think that's what it is, that is very abundant in Indonesia. So they had to boil it, evaporate, and then spray dry and make it into a usable color. Or there is a microbe that is like a it's an unicell not microbe, I would say it fungi because it's it's like a spirulina. You know what you know what that is? R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: No, I don't know what that is. R’ Moshe Machuca: Spirulina is a single cell algae. Some people call it algae, but correctly it should be a fungi. So, so they they get that, they grow it and they're they made these little tiny green pills that are supposed to be very healthy and very beneficial for you. So there is a one like that that it is blue, but it is found, like have you seen those pictures in in Old Faithful in in Yellowstone that when you see the hot springs, you see like a blue R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Yeah, the coloring, yeah. R’ Moshe Machuca: So that color is produced by that little unicell entity, and so now there's a French company that it is going to be doing that. So the one that is going to become a big problem is are the reds, because as you know, there's no more beautiful red than carmine. Right, no more carmine. Yeah, and carmine, no, I don't know if that one is banned because what they're banning are chemical. But the red 40 and some other type of red, so but the most beautiful red is carmine that it is not kosher. So now we're going to have to be really on top of colorings, and I already have four of my companies that use colors. They say that, what are you guys doing with colors? You need to let me know immediately once you decide where can we buy? because I know it is a year and a half away, but a year and a half away is a nap away. Right. Yeah, it's so, so there are a lot of things that are that are changing and that are becoming challenges and that that all the kashrus  organizations have to dedicate a lot of manpower and resources to keep up. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Yeah, and I know that there's a lot of collaboration between kashrus  agencies, especially under the umbrella of AKO. Yes. Yes, to bring to bring together all the information. Let's say someone like you, you have firsthand information in Southeast Asia and someone else has information in a different region and it's really a kiddush shem shomayim  how people bring it together for the benefit of Klal Yisrael  to be on the cutting edge of kashrus . R’ Moshe Machuca: The AKO organization is a Godsend to the, to the world because it’s the entity by which everybody gets sort of on the same page. Right, right. It's really wonderful. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Rabbi Machuca, thank you for being here. Thank you for providing these few updates. I'm sure there's more, but im yirtzeh Hashem  we'll be able to speak to you again in the future. R’ Moshe Machuca: Okay, thank you.

Do you know what goes on behind the scenes for mashgichim that need to travel to every corner of the earth to ensure your products are kosher? Let's listen in to Rabbi Moshe Machuca - Rabbinic Field Representative for the OU, as he explains the hardships of traveling to places that aren't exactly accommodating to members of the faith. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Hello everyone and welcome back to Let's Talk Kashrus , presented by the Kashrus  Awareness Project in conjunction with Torah Anytime. Today I am privileged to be joined by Rabbi Moshe Machuca, Rabbinic Coordinator and Rabbinic Field Representative for the OU in Southeast Asia. Thank you, Rabbi Machuca for being here. R’ Moshe Machuca: Thank you for having me. It is an honor. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Now, besides for the fact that you're Baruch Hashem  an accomplished professional in the field of kashrus , you have a a fascinating life story which we won't be able to get into here today, but you were born in the Dominican Republic you told me. Yes. Today you live in Baltimore. Yes. But you spend two-thirds of the year, if I'm correct, in Southeast Asia where you certify companies for the Orthodox Union. R’ Moshe Machuca: That is correct. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Just take a moment and give us a little feel for what that involves. R’ Moshe Machuca: In the beginning when I started traveling, since I didn't know these countries, these countries, most of them I've been for whatever the reason ever since I'm 20 years old, traveling jobs have chased me even when I don't want them. And I started traveling and then I started, it was, it was a, is a learning curve which I'm happy to share with everybody that is new and start traveling because in the beginning I used to pack suitcases, two, three suitcases and put food and everything that I could possibly want and used to send back and forth, finding hotels and knowing which neighborhoods were safe, where can I, where can I be, etc., etc. It took, it took a while to get it down to a science. So, the best way to do Shabbat  when you are far away in foreign countries is the number one, common sense. Go to the places, go stay near the Jewish communities that are near safe places. The best places to do that are Singapore, has a beautiful community, has two shuls . R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Really? R’ Moshe Machuca: Yes, Magen Avot  and Chesed El , both beautiful facilities. And then my favorite one is the one in Hong Kong in Kowloon with Rabbi Meoded. It's a Syrian shul  and it is delightful. They have the best food, very warming, very welcoming, same as Singapore. But those are in neighborhoods where you have decent hotels, safe environment. Then you have places like Korea, Philippines, Vietnam, the Chabad people over there are wonderful. However, if you're traveling, their Chabad houses are not in the most… R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Not always in the best location? R’ Moshe Machuca: Not always in the best locations and the facilities are not always appropriate, let's call it. Appropriate I mean, they're not comfortable hotels. I have a… R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Let me ask you. So you've, you've logged thousands of miles, thousands, right? Tens of thousands of miles. R’ Moshe Machuca: Millions. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Millions of miles? R’ Moshe Machuca: Yes. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Okay. Going from country to country, places where frum  Jews are, are not necessarily found, right, literally not found. Would you say, I was just thinking in preparation for our conversation, probably the biggest challenges for a frum Yid  to travel, to give hashgacha  in these places is probably I would imagine, ironically, kashrus . Yes. Kashrus  and food, even though you're going to give kashrus , you know, supervise. Kashrus , Shabbos , minyan , and maybe anti-Semitism, right? I would say probably those, is that accurate? R’ Moshe Machuca: Yes, those, those four are in that order, sometimes depending… R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: What would you say is the, from those four, what would you say is the biggest challenge for a traveling mashgiach like yourself? R’ Moshe Machuca: It depends on the country. Let's say for example, I don't want to mention any country, but in Southeast Asia there are a few Muslim countries that depending on the, there are some of them that are very, I call it reform Muslims. They don't care. They're not very well learned. And then you have other countries that are a little bit more adherent to their faith. I found that they are very zealous of their faith and the hatred for Jews. And but they're not learned. I'll tell you a little story. I was in, I was in this country and I take a, I take a taxi from the hotel. I normally when I'm traveling, since I don't know the places, I need to be safe, so I, even though they rip you off, I get a hotel taxi. So I'm their responsibility. So I get this guy, so I'm with this guy 12 hours in a car and I didn't want to be rude and not talk to to this guy something. At that moment there was this controversy in his country about using the Christians wanted to use the word Allah. And it was a big problem. The court rule, they can use it, but we strongly advise you not to. So since it is something that it is in everybody's mouth, is on the newspapers, is on the news, so I told him, so what do you think about this? And he said, that's because of the Jews. And I said, but there are no Jews in this country. You don't allow any Jews. Yes, but this is because of the Jews. And he said, he just said, tell me why. He said, because of them, there is an old testament and a new testament. And I said, okay, and forgive my ignorance, but the prophet Muhammad, he get the Quran in the early 1100s, the thousands or 900s is a what was humanity supposed to believe? He said, I don't know. I don't know, I don't know about any of that stuff, but it's the fault of the Jews. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: It's like, don't confuse me with the facts. R’ Moshe Machuca: Another time I was going on a taxi from that same country and and I'm crossing from one country to another country, to that other country in the taxi. And I used this taxi guy a few times. And then he tells me, I know what you are. I said, what am I? He said, you're one of those Jews. And I said, how do you know? R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Were you were you wearing a… R’ Moshe Machuca: no, no, no, no. When I'm in Southeast Asia. You always wear, R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: you wear a cap? R’ Moshe Machuca: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You can't wear a yarmulke . No, you cannot wear a yarmulke . And unfortunately, everybody knows that we are the only creatures that have dress pants, dress shirts, and a baseball cap. It's it's it's insulting for them that you try to disguise. You've been trying to… no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's dangerous. You cannot do it. So, so he says, you're just, he tell me, but you're more intelligent than your other friends that come sometimes with the little cap or with the baseball cap on top of it. And he said, but don't just tell them not to do that because there are people watching and they might have a problem. And I right there I freaked out. We got to a factory and I said, okay, thank you so much. How much do I owe you? He said, no, no, no, no, I didn't want to scare you. I'm just giving you a piece of advice. It's okay. How much do I owe you? We're we're done. So that you have to be very, very, very careful. There's another country that I had to do something in the city, and I'm with this taxi driver, and a nun crosses the street, and he tells me so proudly, we are here so tolerant. We have the Muslims, and we have the Christians, and we have the Hindus, and we have this and we have that. We only hate the Jews. So, so, so that's special people. Yeah, so that's a, so that's a a little bit of challenge. That's in the anti-semitism part. In the kashrut  part, most of these countries, they have international supermarket chains, like cold storage. And there you can find a lot of junk food. Potato chips, ketchup, mayonnaise, soy sauce, all of these these things. That's supervised. That that that he had hashgacha . Yeah, that he has hashgacha  from all, from all walk of life. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: And But you, I mean, you eating potato chips for breakfast, lunch, and supper, or? R’ Moshe Machuca: No, no, because thank God, there is something that is called a kumkum  and there is a iron. So you will never know what a good steak is until you cut a piece of meat very thin, put salt, oregano, a little bit of oil, double fold it in aluminum foil and you put your iron on top of it. Oh. Delicious. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: You learned to be creative, I guess. Yes. And the kumkum . And that meat is what you bring along with you from, from America? R’ Moshe Machuca: That was in the beginning, but now there is a kosher supermarket in in Singapore that they bring meat from Australia. So in the hotel I always stay now that I have a set up system, I stay in the same facilities. I leave in the hotel all of my equipment, which I have a bread-making machine, a toaster oven, a George Foreman, a blender, and a cutting board and everything that I need to to to make my meals and to have a proper meal. And they the hotel people go to the supermarket and they buy me steaks or whatever they have. Whatever they have. And I I have a real estate in their concierge freezer. They they let you keep your stuff there? Yeah, yeah, they let me keep my stuff over there. So Singapore is very good for that and Hong Kong is very good for that. But like for example, in Vietnam and Philippines, not so much Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand, Chabad  houses have very good food, unbelievably cheap. It's like you order dinner, the dinner will run you, I don't know, 20, 20 dollars. A whole meal. And you get a whole meal. And you cannot, the portions are so big that you cannot finish the 20 dollars worth of food. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: So your American dollar goes a lot farther there. Yes. than it does here in America. R’ Moshe Machuca: Except for in Singapore. Singapore is a very expensive place. Very expensive. Very expensive. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Interesting. So that's we we we did a little on the antisemitism, kashrus . Talk about the challenge of Shabbos . R’ Moshe Machuca: The challenge for Shabbos  are that sometimes when you're traveling, you are, for example, in my case, I'm doing 18 hour day work days on average. So when I go for Shabbos , I am exhausted. I'm exhausted. So when then you have to, you go to a, to a hotel and then you have to scour the before Shabbos  starts, you have to make sure that the because now all of the most of the hotels have these electric toilets that when you walk in, R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Sure. it goes automatically. R’ Moshe Machuca: It goes automatically. Yeah, it goes automatically up. So you have to make sure that you have a way to flush it while unplugged. Most of the hotels now they are, they have these cards, R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: electric R’ Moshe Machuca: Electric entry. electric entry. So you have, you have you have no other way but to do amira l'akum , but before Shabbos  starts, they already know once And they'll open the door for you? Yeah, once, once you go, like for example in Hong Kong, Intercontinental, Shangri-La, all of the major hotel, all of these major hotels, they see you with a yarmulka  because it's safe there to walk with a yarmulka . Uh, they know, ah, for Shabbos . I know, we you once you start going in the after on a Friday, R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: They follow you? R’ Moshe Machuca: No. You go to the, you go to tell them, they say, no, I know that it's better if you don't tell me, I know what you need. Leave, when you come, we'll take you to your room. Oh wow. Yeah, yeah. So, so, so that's, so that's, so that's you have to do that every time you go to a new place. But once you start going frequently to the same places, so then you you develop your system and they know what you need. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: And they even know who you are by now, right? They probably know. Of course. Yeah, sure. They know you personally. R’ Moshe Machuca: Yeah. Any final thoughts before we wrap up this conversation? Any thoughts about, you know what, let's let's put it this way. There are young people out there who get into the field of kashrus , maybe even traveling nationally, not internationally. What what idea or suggestion have you learned from your 17 years in the field of kashrus that you could offer as a piece of advice? R’ Moshe Machuca: As a piece of advice, the biggest piece of advice, Rabbi Juravel gave it to me. He told me, if you don't know, ask. Don't become your own posek , because you don't know enough. There's always someone that knows more than you and we are responsible for the kashrus  of millions of Jews. And I shiver of the Gehenom  that I will get if I made a mistake and because you have such an achrayus  for Yes. Yes. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: So but listen, you you've you've been around the block as they say, coming from the Dominican Republic and today being a rabbinic coordinator in the OU is no small achievement. Yes. So uh we thank you. We thank you for your service to Klal Yisroel  and for your ehrlichkeit and for being so devoted to bringing kosher food to Jews and in order to do so traveling around the world, it's really incredible. I'm sure it's on some level, it's a sacrifice on your part, I'm sure on your wife's part, having to be without you for months, right, months at a time sometimes? R’ Moshe Machuca: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No. Rabbi Epstein who is my immediate super was my immediate, well he still is my immediate supervisor in my RFR side. He doesn't allow me to go out of the country for more than 18 days unless my wife approves it. And its never, I never go more than three weeks, it's not, it's not, it's not healthy for for anyone. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: No, no, it's good to hear. So you get to come home every couple, every few weeks before heading, before heading back out? R’ Moshe Machuca: Yes, schedule your work like two and a half, 18, 17, 18 days out, and 10, 12 days home. Got it. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Yeah. Listen, it's fascinating to hear your story. Uh thank you for being here today and im yirtzeh Hashem , I look forward to talking to you again.

Kashrus Fables A behind the scenes look into the massive industry of private labels and how it affects the kosher consumer. Also, highlighting the power of the consumer in regard to online buying, Rabbi Dov Chastain - Kashrus Administrator at the KOF-K, has some tips what you should do if something you bought online doesn't have the symbol that was advertised in the online pictures. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Hello everyone and welcome back to Let's Talk Kashrus, presented by the Kashrus Awareness Project in conjunction with Torah Anytime. Today I am privileged to be joined by Rabbi Dov Chastain, director of private labels and an account executive at the KOF-K. Thank you Rabbi Chastain for joining here. All the way from Rochester, New York, where you live. R’ Dov Chastain: Yes. Pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: So it's great to have you here in the Let's Talk Kashrus studios to discuss your expertise, especially what you do on a day-to-day basis, which is private labels. Now for the layman out there who may not know, they don't know what that means. Could you just give us a little summary, what does private label mean in the world of kashrus ? R’ Dov Chastain: The shprach  of private labels, I love to tell the oilam . That's one of the things I really wanted to talk about because a lot of people, they think that the products that they're buying on the shelves are coming from factories and you have this brand, they think there's, I don't know, Kroger factories all over the country. One of the Kroger factories is making pickles. One of the Kroger factories is making ice cream, but Kroger is an example of a private label, meaning you have a store brand that owns a brand name or several brand names, but they are having their items produced across the country in different production facilities. So private labels refers to companies that don't actually have or usually don't have their own production facilities, but they have their items outsourced to companies that are going to make them for them. A lot of those are store brands, but then there's also people who have a dream and chase a dream. They want to create their own product. They have their own niche they want to, they want to fill, or they have their own idea that they want to send out to the oilam and they create a brand name, and then they contract with different companies to be able to produce it. So for example, you used the, you used the example, let's say a pickle factory. Someone may own a pickle factory, and that factory could be making pickles for several different brands. Several different brands, very big brands. Maybe even kosher brands. Probably a lot of kosher brands. They're going to have their in-house brand, which might be the same name as their company, it also might not be. Like an example, there's a company called Walmart. Their brand's not called Walmart, it's called Great Value. Right. So you have brand names or several names it could be. And they're also going to be making for a lot of different other private label companies that want them to make their product. They may have a couple little specifications for their private label product, but just going into my own head for the places that I'm account executive for, there's several of my companies that have over a dozen, a few of my companies even probably 50 private labels that they're making for. In addition to their own brand names. They might have up to 10 of their own brand names, but they also are making could be 50 private labels. I'm sure there's more also. I'm just in my own companies, I'm thinking of ones that have 50 private labels that they're making for. I'm thinking of a Maraschino cherry company actually that has, one of the things I do when I actually visit the facility is I go into the private label room and I spend an hour just looking through the labels to make sure that all the ones that are bearing the KOF-K are on our list and that we have knowledge of it and knowledge of all the varieties that we're making for that private label. So it's it's definitely something that we need to keep on track of and on top of in hashgacha . It's an important thing. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: So what are some of the pitfalls or challenges that come along with the private label industry and just the idea of one company making the same product for multiple labels? R’ Dov Chastain: I would say the biggest pitfall and the thing that needs the most maintenance is that when we're giving hashgacha to a company, so we have a relationship with the company, we visit the company. When we're dealing with private labels, we do sign private label agreements, but we don't have as direct a relationship with them. That's one of the main things that I do is I am actually in touch with private labels, maintain a relationship, maintain knowledge of where they're running their products because they might decide one day, I don't want to run my product here anymore. So if I don't have any relationship with them, here they are, they have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth in private labels that have a KOF-K on the label. They decide they want to go somewhere new. They don't want to throw away those labels. If we don't have a relationship with them, those labels could end up in a new facility that we don't know about. And within the kashrus  industry, sometimes that does happen. We rely on our RFRs a lot, our Rabbinic Field Representatives to find those things. A lot of other agencies work with each other. The first time that that this idea even came onto my radar was when I found some labels from another national hashgacha  in my factory that I didn't know about. I called them, they didn't know about it. So I gave them that information, they were able to work it out. And frankly, it comes to us from consumers also. One of the main things I do is maintain relationships so that we have as much knowledge as we can possibly have, but there are definitely times where we receive consumer inquiries from somebody that found something on Amazon that that had a KOF-K . Now sometimes that KOF-K  or whatever symbol it is, is not actually on the item. It's just on the Amazon product image list of things that they have as certifications. Shouldn't trust that, because a lot of times they'll just throw something on. I've seen plenty of times things from China that have absolutely no shaychus  to us that have the KOF-K  in the product images. One of the things that I do in that type of scenario is I do an infringement report with Amazon. They're actually really responsive to those. Is that right? Interesting. Yeah, I don't speak to an individual at Amazon very often, but if you put in an infringement report, and anybody who wants to know how to do one of those, I'm happy to teach them. I've actually taught other agencies how to do this. But they'll respond. They'll respond pretty quickly. Very interesting. And they'll remove the, they'll often times remove the entire item from Amazon. At the very least, they'll remove the images that have the, the hechsher . So that happens a lot also. You'll have somebody that calls into the KOF-K  and says, I bought this thing on Amazon. It came, you know, there was a KOF-K  in the product images, there's no KOF-K on the on the package. Don't eat that. Right? That's something you wouldn't want to eat. And that's the type of scenario where I would then follow up. And usually when I put in an Amazon infringement report, the company that posted that Amazon product will get back to me very quickly because for every moment that that post is down, they're losing money. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Right. So they get back to me pretty quick. So getting back to the private label, what do you do practically to prevent the misuse of of labels? Like you said, if a company's switching factories or something of that sort and now they have an abundance of labels that have your kashrus  symbol on it and may not be continuing to be supervised by the KOF-K , what exactly do you do? R’ Dov Chastain: Sure. So I'll tell you, we have an amazing system called iKosher that the KOF-K  developed. Rabbi Michael Brukman was really the architect that built it and Rabbi Lazar Weisz is very involved with maintaining it. It's amazing. I have a report that I run every day that tells me anytime a private label has been activated in a company so that I know to reach out. Anytime one's in process and how long it's been in process for, if something's dragging out, maybe they're not going to produce at this company. I should call them, find out. And anytime one is marked as defunct, which is really the most important. If I see that a private label has now been marked as defunct, that means it's not supposed to be made in our company anymore. So if it's not supposed to be made in our company anymore, what happened? Did they go out of business? Are they moving? If they're moving, do they want hashgacha ? If they're not going to be under hashgacha , they have to know they need to destroy the labels. So when something's marked as defunct, that's the first time I get on the phone and just make sure that they know what they need to do. Now, their private label agreement tells them that they can't manufacture those products anywhere else without our knowledge of it. So they really sign that, but who knows how long ago they signed that. It's not the same as a company which has an annual renewal because a lot of times the private labels aren't paying anything. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: And I imagine it's fine print in a in a long contract that they may not even remember, right? R’ Dov Chastain: It's in a pretty long contract, although the PLA is not as long as a regular contract. It's not that long, but usually with them, the bigger idea is they haven't read it in a while. Because even though we renew our companies every year and there's an annual fee, a lot of private labels aren't paying anything. They're coming along for the ride of the company that's paying for hashgacha . Sometimes private labels are, especially if you have a private label, let's say— R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: That's interesting. You mean when they come along for the ride, meaning you're really supervising the factory, not the various individual labels that are being produced in that factory. So you may not even have a relationship at all with the company that's coming in and kind of like sub-producing in that factory? R’ Dov Chastain: They have to sign a private label agreement. No one can run a KOF-K  without signing a private label agreement. Okay. So we do have a signed contract, we do have some contact. My job is to make sure there's more than just some contact, because they are not subject to renewing a contract every year, unless there are examples, and this is really something that has become more prevalent in the last year because I've been more in touch with private labels, really the last two years. And that is, let's say I do find a private label that's defunct. They're leaving our company, they're moving somewhere else. I call them, I tell them, you know, you're going to have to destroy those labels. And they say, Rabbi, that's... $200,000. And I say, yeah, I know. So what do you want to do? Well, can you help us find somewhere that's kosher ? Sure. Let's say we find somewhere that produces what they produce. And then you'll continue to supervise. Yes, now. That's usually the easiest eitzah  I imagine. That's the easiest eitzah , the easiest easiest is if they move somewhere and it's under another hashgacha  like the OU or something like that, and then we don't have to charge them for the entire hashgacha  on the facility as much as we'll charge them a nominal fee and ask the OU or whoever else it is to take over the hashgacha . Yeah. That's interesting. But the label will continue saying KOF-K as long as they want it. Eventually a lot of times in those scenarios, they'll switch over to the hashgacha  that's in the building. Uh-huh. But until they run out of labels, they are going to have to pay a fee to the KOF-K . And we also are going to keep an eye on it to make sure somebody's looking at it for us and make sure that the facility is under good hashgacha . Got it. Got it. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: What other interesting details could you share about the private label industry? R’ Dov Chastain: Sure. A couple other things I would want people to be aware of. I want to swing back to just the idea of what consumers can do. When it comes to private labels, like we said, you know, they could be produced in any number of companies and they don't own their facility. If you see something, I'll give you an example that just pops into my mind for KOF-K  things. If you see like a random meat product with a KOF-K  on it, you should probably think twice about that because we don't certify much of any meat. So if you see something that you don't know, that you don't know the company, That's a red flag. That's a red flag right away. That's true for OU also, but if you see something that just doesn't make a lot of sense, or you see a posting where there's a KOF-K or an OU or whatever other symbol in the product images, but it's not on the actual label, that should be a red flag. If you ever order on Amazon something and it comes and it doesn't have a KOF-K  on it and then the images it did, that should be a red flag. These are all things within the private label industry, you shouldn't just buy that and eat that. A lot of the questions that I get coming into the KOF-K  revolve around that type of thing. I've bought something on Amazon, I've bought something on Walmart. If something does not make sense or add up, then you should definitely reach out to the agency and put that item on a quality control hold on your shelf, right? KQH. That's how we say it in kashrus . Put it on a Kashrus Quality Hold and wait until you hear something about it because that plays into this issue of of private labels being something that we need to look out for. Very interesting. And the agencies are are really starting to work on this. I know the OK has somebody that's just in charge of private labels now. That's something that the KOF-K  has put a lot of time and energy into. And it's something that I think the Olam HaKashrus is coming around to is one of the next big issues to tackle because it definitely is something that needs that maintenance to make sure that we know. And it can't just be reactive. It's got to be proactive so that we have some form of relationship with those private labels and uh and can reach out to them and make sure that we know where our symbols are being used. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Have you had any scenario where you had to take legal action, you know, to really R’ Dov Chastain: Absolutely. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Give us an example of enforcing kashrus authenticity and making sure that uh companies are not taking advantage. R’ Dov Chastain: We had a private label that made crackers. And this private label um was being produced in one of our facilities and there was a kashrus  alert that went out about this, um so people might put it together. But um they had been in touch with us about producing in another country. And then all of a sudden the line went blank. We didn't hear anything more from them. Turns out the guy who was talking to us got fired. But we didn't know that. And his supervisor thought that he had gotten the okay to run this product in this other country. And it came to our attention probably about six months later that they had done that because it was uh it was found by a mashgiach , which again, this is where kashrus  agencies help each other out. And uh we got on in touch with them right away. We sent um a rabbinic field representative to the facility. It came out that it was it was not something we felt we could stand behind. Probably kosher , but not something we felt we could stand behind. And we not only issued a kashrus  alert, but we had them make a recall on all of those products. And there were products that had gone out to market, and we had them send at their own expense, um representatives to sticker over every single KOF-K  that was out on the shelves. So we took achrayus  and we went after it. We did a kashrus  alert and we recalled those products. So that and that is an example that happened with a private label. That was a private label company that did that. And we were on top of it right away and I would say the response from the Kof-K  was incredibly swift and professional. Wow. But that's an example of where the line went dark for a second and this is what happens when the line can go dark. If you don't have communication with these people, you don't really know where these things are going to end up. So that was a an example where we had to track it down, figure out exactly what happened there, figure out if we could stand behind it, and b'dieved  we could have, but we don't like to be b'dieved  at the Kof-K . Right. We're pretty l'chatchila . R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: No, that's great. And I love what you said before. I think it's so instructive for our viewers and listeners who already know that over here at Kashrus Awareness, Let's Talk Kashrus , we're all about education and giving people tools. I think you gave us a great, an instructive tool, which is that if something doesn't seem right, even if you see the symbol on the item, put it on hold. If something doesn't seem right, put it on hold. Find out, hold off a day, make a phone call, send an email. I know that the Kof-K  is very responsive to consumers, as is many of the large organizations. And I think that alone is an important lesson to be learnt and to apply. So we appreciate that. R’ Dov Chastain: Absolutely, my pleasure. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: And thank you for being here. Thank you for giving us this insight into the world of private labels. Continued hatzlacha  in your avodas hakodesh.

Being a good mashgiach, sometimes involves a bit more than just knowing Yoreh Deah. This week when many minds are on the churban already, Rabbi Sholem Fishbane - Kashrus Administrator at the Chicago Rabbinical Council, and Executive Director of AKO, gives us an example involving not having wine and live music at the same meal. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Hello everyone and welcome back to Let's Talk Kashrus  presented by the Kashrus  Awareness Project in conjunction with Torah Anytime. Today I am joined by Rabbi Sholem Fishbane, kashrus administrator of the CRC in Chicago and the executive director of AKO. How are you Rabbi Fishbane? R’ Sholem Fishbane: Baruch Hashem , thank you for having me. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: As always a pleasure to have you and a great topic today to discuss. And that is music and wine and specifically you shared with me that you were at an industry event for a certain field and you were surprised to see and observe that here were frum Yidden , erliche Yidden , bnei Torah  who work in this particular industry and they're at an event for company, company affiliates and things like that and colleagues and friends and so on and so forth and they're serving wine, they have a bar, and they also had live music. And you bring it to the attention of one of the organizers and they had no idea that there was anything halachically questionable or even maybe outrightly forbidden about what they did. So explain what the concern was and explain what you do when you when you encounter such a thing. R’ Sholem Fishbane: Right, yes, it's true. I was a guest at this, it wasn't a CRC event, I was a guest over there. But it's, the first time this came about, we were doing a, it was actually a Pesach hotel. It was our first time working with them. And the way Pesach  works is there's something called a welcome barbecue. So you come the first night, it's not Pesach  yet, and there's a beautiful barbecue with, it's the hello, it's the wow factor. And there's things you can't believe what's going on and food and there's violins and harps and sushi. It was kosher l'Pesach . So obviously the sushi had to be made from quinoa, but it's a wow. And I walked in, then I was giving the hechsher , and there they were, they were playing and there was a major bar and I went over to the caterer, I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, there's wine here? There's a halacha  in in Hilchos , actually Hilchos Tishah B'Av Siman Taf Kuf Samech , that you're not allowed to have live music and wine. It's one of the Zecher l'Mikdash . He looks at me like, what are you talking about? He says I've been doing I've been doing food, kosher food forever and I have my Rav HaMachshir  and he doesn't talk about it. It's a common mistake because it's not a Yoreh Deah halacha where most rabbonim , mashgichim  are very familiar with. It's an Orech Chaim halacha  but it's a halacha . So he didn't believe me. So he called his Rav HaMachshir  that he uses during the year on the phone and says this rabbi, this new rabbi, and the Rav HaMachshir  to his credit says, he's right, there is such a halacha . He says what am I gonna do here? I said, I have an idea. I got a daughter, you got a son, let's get them married, we'll have a seudas mitzvah  which the Rema  says you're allowed to do, then we're happy to go. It never happened. Instead we found someone else to make a siyum  because the next morning was Taanis Bechorim  and there were a lot of people running around ready to make a siyum . So that's a very important point that this halacha  of not having live music and wine unless it's a seudas mitzvah  is just a halacha  that people don't know about. So in the story that you said, the the owner of this particular event was very excited to be able to maximize and he's an erlich Yid . He got up, he says raboisai , there's a halacha  that we just learned. And we're gonna and he and I actually had just finished in Daf Yomi  whatever it was and I made a siyum  for everyone and a good kaddish  and it was a it was a great learning opportunity. So I'm glad you're bringing it up which kashrus awareness, we bring awareness to Klal Yisrael  about this. And this is for sure. So going forward, all these big events that have in it wine, you know, bars and whatnot, and you have live music, it's actually it's very meforash , Taf Kuf Samach  in Hilchos Tishah B'Av  that it's not allowed. Now, there are variations. When after that happened, I called around a little bit more to different poskim  to understand what different agencies, what do you do? What do you do in restaurants? So like we at the CRC in Chicago, if you have live music, there's no wine being served, we take it off the menu and vice versa. That's what we do in our restaurants. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: I mean it's probably not so common that you have a restaurant with live music. It's probably if they have music, it's background recorded music which… R’ Sholem Fishbane: So that's a great point. Is that considered, is recorded music considered music? Is that considered live? I actually recently was talking to Rav Heinemann  and he believes that that's called kli shir . It's kli shir , so it's no different. The Mechaber  says that talks about kli zemer , kli shir  in this halacha . So it'd be no different. Recorded is a kli , right? That was Rav Heinemann's shita . Rav Elyashiv  doesn't, says otherwise that recorded is not. So I think most places go, most poskim , most agencies follow that recorded music in the background, it's Hilchos Sefirah , it's all the same halachos , you don't have to worry about it. But I was recently at a restaurant down in Florida and a nice bar and there was there was a someone walking around with a violin to every table. That's that seems to be. So I asked Rav Heinemann  about that. So he thought that there's maybe there's a difference between what, because it says in the in the Rama  about the, the Mechaber says beis mishteh . So maybe if you're eating supper somewhere, which is really a restaurant, is not considered a beis mishteh . I said would would these big, you mentioned these events, the conventions or these events where we go and the bar. So he described a beis mishteh  as a place where the drinking is not agav . It's whether it's a pub or a bar, but these type of places, it's a central part of the experience. Which I'm sure you've been by them. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: I have not but… R’ Sholem Fishbane: Okay. It's very central to to these big barbecues, the bar, the particular place that I was at, not only was it a big central part of it, like every drink had a logo made in the foam. Oh, from the company. Yeah, it was a big deal. That's called a beis mishteh  100% according to him. He, Rav Heinemann said a very interesting chiddush  though. This is his own chiddush , he said this is my own chiddush . Which I don't know others that say this, that basically if someone is singing along with the music, the music becomes what he called tafel . Tafel . Interesting. So it happens to be many cases you will have a singer, not the case where I was where there was the violin, but so that was… R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Just saying it's, he's suggesting that it's even better when you have a singer? R’ Sholem Fishbane: Yes, it's actually better. That's interesting because singing is not assur  with yayin , it's the music that's assur  with yayin . Right. Even though if you look if you look in Shulchan Aruch , it does talk about shir b'peh  also. But l'maaseh  where we're halacha l'maaseh , I believe his STAR-K policy is is if there's a singer then it becomes tafel . But the bottom line is, it's a very clear halacha  in Shulchan Aruch . You cannot have kli zemer  with yayin  unless it's a seudas mitzvah . So the practical takeaway for these events that we've been talking about is to make sure to have a siyum , someone get up and make a siyum , make a kiddush Hashem  with a kaddish , with a siyum . And it is, it's all frum Yidden  and everybody wants to do the right thing. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: It could be and maybe even explain why. Especially now. Explain why. Yeah, that Zecher l'Mikdash  is is a serious matter. It's a halacha meforashes . So it's it's beautiful to be able to not only be be spreading awareness of here on Kashrus Awareness, but literally teaching a a halacha meforashes  in Shulchan Aruch . Rabbi Fishbane, thank you for joining us as always.

After last week's introduction to the mesorah of birds, let's dive right in to some practical halachik applications. R' Chaim Loike - Rabbinic Coordinator at OU Kosher, brought in some live birds to demonstrate for us these applications. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Hello everyone and welcome back to Let's Talk Kashrus, presented by the Kashrus Awareness Project in conjunction with Torah Anytime. Today I am honored to be joined by Rabbi Chaim Loike, Rabbinic Coordinator at the OU. Thank you, Rabbi Loike, for joining us once again. R’ Chaim Loike Thank you. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger So the last time we spoke, you gave us a little background about your experience in the field of kashrus as well as the mesorah  of birds. Today I'd like to talk to you about the practical applications. What can you tell us in this area of the halachos  of kashrus of birds? R’ Chaim Loike Thank you for having me. When we accept birds as kosher, in the Ashkenaz  community, it's only if there's a tradition, if there's a mesorah . And the first example I wanted to present was something that was at first very controversial. The Gemara describes a tradition can only be given over by a Rav baki b'tzayad , if a scholar who understands nature identifies the bird as kosher for his student and then the student can go and identify this bird as kosher. Many people recently have advocated that picture books should be able to present this tradition and that you could preserve the tradition of kosher birds based on pictures. And the Rabbonim  in general did not approve. Change is never a good thing. And I have an example of where that became very relevant practically. I have here kosher  quail. These are the, I'm just going to take the tape off so they look nicer. So these are the kosher quail. These are the quail that that there are four different kinds of quail according to the Gemara , but very likely these are the kind of quail that migrated that they do migrate from Africa to Europe. A strong wind comes, they'll get exhausted and collapse in the desert so they fit with the what happened in parsha  in the Torah . And these quail are kosher . No question. And the OU certifies their eggs. We would certify the meat also, except there's a practical issue. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Not much meat there? Or? R’ Chaim Loike There's not much meat, but there's a bigger practical issue which is there are a lot of feathers. And the feathering machines can't really get the feathers off well. And once you finish taking off the feathers, R’ Yitzchok Hisiger There's not much left, right? R’ Chaim Loike Right, and the expense is astronomical. So nobody is willing to pay for a minimal amount of meat. You you get a toothpick of meat and you're going to be paying a lot of money. But these are kosher and the quail are certified and you can find them in in a lot of restaurants as well as certain groceries will carry quail eggs with an OU on them. The quail itself we would certify but it's not le'maaseh . And if you take a look at these quail, You'll see that these quail look very similar in their form, in their coloration. You could see the shape of the beak is the same, the shape of the foot is the same. And when you look at this alone, it would look almost identical to the kosher quail. And you could imagine if someone had a picture of the kosher quail and they would look at these, they might think that they're actually the same bird. But if you hold them side by side, you'll see that they're very, very different. The kosher  quail are much bigger. They're not able to hybridize well. And they're completely different species, but that's not going to be apparent from a picture. It's only apparent when you see the birds live. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Interesting.Which is...Yeah, I was going to ask you, it looked like those were younger versions of what's on bottom. R’ Chaim Loike Right, and they're full grown. And not only that, just by coincidence, these are particularly interesting because they lay among the largest eggs relative to the body size of any bird in the domestic... and I have here a bunch of different quail eggs. This is the quail of those tiny quail. I'm sorry, this is the egg of the tiny quail and these are the eggs of the kosher  quail. And you can see how similar they are in size. So if somebody went to buy quail eggs, these are available in America. The kosher  quail are obviously available. And this is the quail of, this is the egg of a bobwhite which is also available. So there are many different species that are called quail, but they're completely different species. They don't hybridize, they don't breed together. They can't produce viable offspring. So when we want to identify the quail, you have to do it holding the actual bird. And if you want to certify the eggs, it's very important that we verify that the farm is producing the right kind of quail egg because chas v'chalilah , we wouldn't want to certify a quail egg which doesn't have a mesorah. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger So  to clarify, you can't extrapolate from the fact that we could buy regular eggs in the store without a supervision, quail eggs on the other hand, for the reason that you just delineated you would definitely need reliable certification. R’ Chaim Loike Correct. And it's interesting that you mention that because according to the Shulchan Aruch , it's not so pashut  you could just buy eggs without certification. You can only buy eggs without certification under two conditions. One, that you know what the kosher egg is supposed to look like and two, it's identified to you as that egg. So for example, if somebody says this is a chicken egg and you've been cracking chicken eggs your whole life, so you know what a chicken egg is, in that case, you have, you do not need certification. But if you're not familiar with a quail egg, without certification, you can't be certain that the quail egg they're selling you is a kosher  quail egg, even if they identified it as a kosher  quail egg. I'll tell you the first time I ever spoke in Lakewood, when I first got hired by the OU, they gave me an agenda of what they wanted me to speak about. And one of the things they had on the agenda was to show people how to identify kosher  chicken eggs. I objected. I thought this was... who doesn't know how to tell if an egg is kosher ? And when I finished, I went back to my office. In those days, we had those phones with the red lights. So I I had just been hired. No one even knew I worked there. And I see the red light is blinking. Who's going to call me? And these were people who had been at my presentation and they were all saying the same thing. I looked in my refrigerator and my eggs did not match the way you described chicken eggs. So I called the first person back, asked them where they bought it. I called the farmer and I said, what are you raising? And he said, guinea fowl. And he b'chlal  wasn't selling chicken eggs. He wasn't even saying they were chicken eggs. And guinea fowl, according to the Chasam Sofer , is a safek  of being a duchifas , which is one of the 24 birds listed in the Torah as not kosher. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Wow. R’ Chaim Loike So you could see that sometimes people don't realize that just because someone's selling an egg, you first of all, the person has to tell you what it is, and second of all, if it doesn't feel like an egg, it doesn't look like a a regular chicken egg, and these people were just taking these eggs and and it's it's a terrible thing because they were trying very hard to keep kosher  obviously, but at the same time, they didn't read the Shulchan Aruch  careful enough and they didn't realize that they were buying eggs of a guinea fowl. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger So where were those people buying the eggs if they were not buying them at the local grocery? R’ Chaim Loike At a farm stand outside of Lakewood. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger I was going to ask you, we have to allay the fears of all our consumers watching this that they could still go into their regular kosher  or non-kosher  supermarket, buy chicken eggs off the shelf. We're talking about your particular case was where I guess these people were going like you said, they were going to a farm. R’ Chaim Loike And and I also just to allay the fears, these eggs do not look like chicken eggs. A guinea fowl egg feels different and it's shaped differently than a chicken egg. So the fact is is that if you go anywhere and you're buying eggs that are identified as chicken eggs and they don't look like chicken eggs, you have a problem. And if they're not even being identified as chicken eggs, then you surely have a problem. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Very interesting. What else did you want to tell us about the practical applications? R’ Chaim Loike So the the other thing I wanted to discuss is how we identify species in practically when we're trying to identi- to discuss that. So I have here my friends from the last time. These are pigeons and this is a turtle dove. If you look at the pigeon, I don't know if we can see it, but the pigeon is a very meshuneh  kind of a pigeon. This pigeon was part of an attempt by people in England about 500 years ago to get their pigeons to look like the malachei hashareis l'havdil . And what they would do is they would breed the pigeons. They they knew the golis  had happened, so they weren't going to go for six wings, but they wanted them to have four wings. And they bred them to have these, I don't know if you can see it, but on their feet. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger No, you might have to take, you might have to take it out so people can see it. R’ Chaim Loike I'm going to try. They don't like me so much. Okay. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger I see they're running away from you. R’ Chaim Loike Yeah. Come on, come on. So you could... So you could see that it has, right, feathers over here and a wings over here and it looks like wings over here. Even though they don't flap these, it looks like they have four wings. Uh-huh. And they also have, as you could see. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Now a regular pigeon does not. R’ Chaim Loike No. I I thought that people... R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Most of us don't have pigeons. R’ Chaim Loike No, but people you see them outside. I didn't bring a regular pigeon because it was a bracha levatala , I thought everybody, Brooklyn, Lakewood, their pigeons are all over the place. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Well, we don't take such a close look. But a typical pigeon has two wings. These have four. R’ Chaim Loike Well, they look like they have four. The bottom wings don't really work. Are really just aesthetic, it's not practical. And and if you were to look at the pigeons outside, they look very different than this. And this was done by people taking abnormalities and breeding them into the pigeons and making them look bizarre. Some people would say they still look like pigeons, some people wouldn't. But depending on the kind of bird, chickens, they can make even more bizarre. And the question is, how do you know what a species is? So this is a kind of turtle dove, this is a kind of pigeon. And generally with turtle doves and pigeons, we're a little bit more lenient because there was a tradition from Rabbeinu Yonah  in the Issur v'Heter  that he said that we have no species of pigeons and turtle doves which are not tahor . So as a result, there are many people who for specifically Chasidim , when they do the mitzvah  of shiluach haken , they want to consume the offspring. And one of the prime opportunities in Williamsburg is mourning doves. And mourning doves are indigenous to North America, so they can't be a mesorah  from Europe. But since they look very similar to the European turtle dove, even though they don't breed together well naturally, still many people are somech  on this Rabbeinu Yonah  that all species of pigeons and turtle doves are kosher . And and if they look the same, we assume that they're both kosher . However, we're not sure the limits to the shitah  of Rabbeinu Yonah . And I have here a very small, so he doesn't escape. I have here a very small dove, which is called the diamond dove. And if you look at it, I'm I'm not going to release it from my hand because then I won't get it back, but you see how small it is. And even though the structure of its face, of its beak is very similar to the turtle dove, it's tiny. They can't and the question is, what is the limit to understanding this tradition of all the species of pigeons and turtle doves are all the same when you have some that are so different. This one doesn't grow larger. And if you go to the zoo, I don't have one here, they have pigeons that are the size of turkeys, they're called Victoria Crown pigeons. And the question is do those qualify as um pigeons and turtle doves? But at least the normative is that if you have a pigeon or a or a turtle dove that looks like a pigeon or a turtle dove, so we assume that they're all qualified under the same mesorah. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Thank you, Rabbi Loike, for joining us once again. Thank you for bringing us all these birds so we could actually understand what you're talking about. It's been a tremendous experience speaking to you. Thank you. R’ Chaim Loike Thank you.

Let's take a trip back in time exploring the mesorah of birds. R' Chaim Loike - Rabbinic Coordinator at OU Kosher, made it his life's mission to ensure that certain birds don't lose their mesorah. Let's take a look at the various birds he's brought in today to share with us. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Hello everyone and welcome back to Let's Talk Kashrus  presented by the Kashrus  Awareness Project in conjunction with Torah Anytime. Today I am privileged to be joined by Rabbi Chaim Loike, Rabbinic Coordinator at the OU. Thank you Rabbi Loike for joining us. R’ Chaim Loike: Thank you for having me. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: And thank you as well. First of all, I know you live in West Hempstead. So thank you for making the trek out here to the Let's Talk Kashrus  studios. And thank you as well for bringing your little show and tell here, which I know you do, you're a popular, besides for being a rabbinic coordinator, you give popular classes and shiurim across the country on the mesorah  of birds. You're, you're a bird expert among other things. And so you brought us some beautiful show and tell, which you'll use to demonstrate some of what we're going to talk about today. So, to start off, what would you like to show us? R’ Chaim Loike: I would like to start with talking about the biblical kosher birds. There are in the Torah, 24 birds which are listed as not kosher. And there are very few kosher birds that are specifically listed in the Torah. However, the overwhelming majority of the avian species are identified in the Gemara  as kosher. I have here three of the most prominent of the birds that are specifically mentioned in the Torah. We have here a turtle dove. We have here a pigeon. And over here we have the slav , we have the quail. In the Gemara  in Chullin daf nun tes , it describes how we could identify kosher birds. And even though today, we only consume and accept as kosher birds which have a rabbinic tradition of being kosher, according to the Gemara , there are certain signs by which kosher birds can be identified. Kosher birds can be identified first and foremost by their behavior. Kosher birds are not what are called dores , which is a term that is translated as predatory but it's not precisely predatory. The word dores  in the language of the Torah, either according to Rashi , it refers to a bird that when it eats, it puts its hand on the food or it lifts with its foot the food to its mouth. So for example, if you had a parrot and you would give it a seed, it would take the food with its foot and bring the food to its mouth. Or, if you ever saw the birds of prey when they eat, what they typically do is they hold with their foot the food in place so that the food won't move. So those would be characteristics of predatory according to Rashi . According to the Baalei Tosfos , preeminently Rabbeinu Tam  among them, a predator is much more in line with how we define the word predatory, which is it takes bites out of an animal while it's still alive and doesn't wait till it dies. So if you were to feed a duck a fish, the duck is going to swallow it whole. If you fed a massive fish to an eagle, if the eagle could overpower the fish, the fish is still going to be flopping around and it's going to be taking bites out of the fish. So that is a predator according to Tosfos . According to Rashi , it doesn't matter what it eats, it just matters how it uses its foot while it's eating. There are certain birds such as the turtledove and the pigeon, which are very easy to identify as not predatory because they're very calm birds, they're not so likely to attack other species. The quail, chickens, ducks, they will eat high protein foods such as insects and small animals, and for that reason, Chazal  said, the rabbis decided that it was best that if somebody wanted to consume a bird, they would only consume a bird if there was a rabbinic tradition that it was kosher and they wouldn't rely on their observations. In addition to the characteristic, the other way that kosher birds are identified is by the construction of their foot. Kosher birds have three toes which face one direction and one toe which faces another direction, while non-kosher birds sometimes, not all of them, have two toes which face front and two toes that face back. Internally, the stomach of a kosher bird, they have, well they have a stomach and then they have an auxiliary stomach. Kosher birds generally consume vegetables and grains. And we have teeth to grind up our food. The kosher birds, they swallow stones, they swallow seeds, and then inside they have an auxiliary stomach, a gizzard or a kurkavan . And this kurkavan  which is called niklaf b'yad , it has two pouches, an inner and an outer pouch, and it uses it to grind the stones against the seeds. And as it grinds up the seeds, it's digestible. So that kurkavan niklaf b'yad , this extra thick gizzard, that is a sign of a kosher bird. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Is that the famous heilige kurkavan  of Rav Boruch Ber  fame? R’ Chaim Loike: Yes. Or whoever your favorite Rosh Yeshiva  from Europe was. And the other aspect of most kosher birds with the exclusion according to most Acharonim  of waterfowl, is they have a crop. At the, they swallow the food, it collects in a pouch at the base of the neck, that's called a zefek , a crop. And before they finish eating, they can keep on collecting the food at the base of the neck and then over time as they want to digest it, the food moves from the zefek , from the crop into the stomach and where it's digested further and that's how their digestive system works. So kosher birds have these three physical signs and this one characteristic, behavioral characteristic, while the predators generally are first of all predatory, and second of all most of them, or a lot of them have stomachs which do not have a discernible gizzard where the gizzard does not separate into two membranes. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Now, this conversation, this introduction that you gave us, is it merely, you'll forgive the term, academic, to someone learning Chullin  and someone learning the halachos , or someone going into kosher supervision, or does it have a practical application to the kosher consumer? R’ Chaim Loike: So in terms of the ability to identify birds based on their signs, that's for Ashkenazim , it's primarily academic. There are some Sefardi  communities which will rely on the simanim , on these kosher signs, but the Ashkenaz  community, it's primarily academic. Obviously, if we were certifying a bird and so or we were thinking about certifying a bird which we were certain was kosher, and then we saw it misbehaved, we'd have to reevaluate our certification. But first of all, that has not happened to the best of my knowledge in the OU. And second of all, that would be a terrible mistake because that would mean that a lot of generations had been making mistakes. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Mistakes, meaning the mesorah is flawed. R’ Chaim Loike: Right. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Which which would be a bigger problem. R’ Chaim Loike: Correct, but there were Acharonim that discussed this and they said if you have a mesora  on a bird that it's kosher and it behaves in a way that's indicates that it's not kosher, so then R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: So what do you do? R’ Chaim Loike: Well, you abandon the mesora . Abandon the mesora . Because presumably the mesora  was an error. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: You don't say that the that the species suddenly changed behavior. You say that for some reason along the line there was a broken chain of a mesora  of some sort. Right. Which is interesting. R’ Chaim Loike: But this is a theoretical. We have not yet found any birds which we were eating in the last 2,000 years, and the Gemara talks about that. That deviated from this, call it, you would call this system or these characteristics. Right, the Gemara  in Chullin  talks about situations where there were communities that thought a bird was kosher and then they observed it and they discovered it was predatory. But since the time of the Gemara , there have been most of the communities have accepted to rely on rabbinic tradition and not outright research, and as a result, there haven't been too many instances where somebody has found a bird that's they're eating and discovered that it was predatory. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: What is the one of the classic bird controversies that you could discuss with us, you know that has been discussed in Torah literature? R’ Chaim Loike: So I mean, the most relevant controversy is usually with chickens. And chickens are something that are very close to predatory. They're kosher. I'm not saying they're predatory, they're 100% kosher. But chickens can become very aggressive. And in certain cultures, they raise their chickens to be aggressive. And as a result, you can have a chicken that is going to behave in a way that's confusing. And if you look in, and there are times that people have seen birds that were similar to chickens since the time of the Gemara , thought they were like a chicken. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Is that where, is it those cock fights? R’ Chaim Loike: Well, right, cock fighting is different because even though they're very violent, the cock fights do not result in them behaving in a way that's predatory. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Uh huh. It's just that they act wild. R’ Chaim Loike: But not that they're biting the other bird. Right. But you could have a chicken that's going to be very aggressive in terms of what it eats, and it's going to attack and try to overpower everything. And if you're not really paying attention, you could think that just like the chicken did that and it's kosher, the similar bird which behaved in the same way might be like a chicken and it's not. And that's why if you look in the Gemara , most of the examples of people of communities which made a mistake and misidentified a bird, it was some kind of a tarnagolsah or a tarnagol  because it had to be a chicken-like bird because the chicken is a very can be a very wild bird. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Got it. Now, before we go further, I hope our listeners will forgive me for digressing for a minute, but most of the guests we have here, we don't ask them how they got into kashrus  or why they do what they do. But with you, and you gave me a little tour of your van downstairs, and I see you're carrying around cages of birds of all types. We have our is that a parrot that's been making a racket in the other room. And apparently you drive around with these, are they called animals or birds? You drive around with these animals in your truck. So it's obviously a passion of yours. How did someone like you get involved in the of all fields of kashrus , the kashrus  of birds? R’ Chaim Loike: No one ever asked me that. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Is that right? R’ Chaim Loike: No. So when I was in smicha , the first, in those days, I know most smicha  programs have digressed, but I'm not as young as I look. In those days, the first thing you had to learn was shechita . And I like to do things practical. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Where did you get your smicha ? R’ Chaim Loike: Yeshiva  University. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Yeshiva Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan . R’ Chaim Loike: Yes, whichever way you want to. And when I was studying there, I wanted to do the practical. And at the end of studying shechita , I became certified and they asked me to teach the shechita class. And when I went to give the first class, I went to the live poultry market and I discovered that I couldn't identify which birds were worthy of being shechted . I didn't know which birds we had a mesora  on because all I knew was the classical chicken. And for the first time I went to the live poultry market, I saw so many birds and I didn't know what to shecht . So I called up the OU and they asked me, well, do you want to research it? So I went and I purchased all the birds in the market. And in those days, the market was much more diverse than it is today. It's become much more uniform. And I went around with a number of Chasidishe Rabbonim  who spoke Yiddish , because the people I need to speak to obviously spoke Yiddish  much better than English. I went to the old shochtim and we went to presented the birds to them and we said, what did you shecht ? And after that, suddenly I was the person who knew, even though all I had done was go around for a few days with the birds. We documented it very carefully, but we went around and we just asked. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: That's fascinating. R’ Chaim Loike: And then things just snowballed. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Wow. So it was really just it came from a desire to know more. You ended up becoming an expert in this area. Correct. And I guess that grew into ultimately once you finalized your smicha  and you entered the kashrus  field, this was naturally your field of endeavor. Right. R’ Chaim Loike: I found it very interesting, but I also found it a little bit tragic. As you know, we only have 613 mitzvos , and one of them, lehavdil bein hatamei u'vein hatahor  as it applies to birds, was on the verge of there was no, you know, was not being preserved. And I felt that I had the opportunity to make sure that as much of the knowledge that we had how to identify kosher birds could be preserved. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: That's really, really eye-opening to think to think that for whatever reason this field wasn't being explored. R’ Chaim Loike: Is that, I don't know if that's the right term. Well, I'll tell you what I found is that many people were very, very supportive. Primarily, I mean, birds aren't these birds aren't expensive, but a lot of birds are very expensive, and I never had trouble having people say, don't worry about it, here's a credit card, do the research, figure it out. And you know, there were times where, you know, I was sneaking into a nursing home with a box of birds, and sometimes I was driving a 26-foot-long U-Haul going around communities to identify different species. But it was really something that I feel, unfortunately, if I tried to do it now, many of the people who I was able to speak to are no longer here. No longer here. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Wow. I'm sure someone like Rav Belsky , who seemed to know everything was someone who you consulted and spoke to. R’ Chaim Loike: So I consider Rav Belsky  to be my Rebbe  in all regards. Every bird that I would say I know something about, whether good or bad, would be what Rav Belsky  said. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Take a moment to share how just incredible Rav Belsky's  knowledge was in the field of everything. R’ Chaim Loike: Well, I'm not I'm not fit to give him accolades, but what I found is that what he said was always right, it was just a matter of time until I understood what he said. So sometimes we'd show Rav Belsky  a bird and he would say, yeah, it's good, but we have to get X, Y, Z. And he would be correct, we'd find that and it would be kosher. And sometimes say we don't have enough information and the information just wasn't available. And I don't think I'm fit to even describe Rav Belsky zichrono livracha , but everything that I know about birds is attributed to him taking the time to really sit down and teach me. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: So from all those years of of doing research which you're indicating was really you were kind of, I don't want to say you were breaking new ground, but you were really bringing information to the fore that may have otherwise possibly been forgotten or preserved. You were preserving our mesora . What would you say is one or two of the biggest revelations that you discovered that you could share with us that would that we would understand? R’ Chaim Loike: My biggest regret is how much information was already lost. So for example, I think everybody knows what a peacock is, and there were many communities that there is adequate documentation that they accepted the peafowl as kosher and they consumed the peafowl. You could see Sheilos u'Teshuvos  written in the last hundred years about treifus  in peafowl. You could find communities that speak about it. I've spoken to children that remember their grandfather shechting it, but I couldn't find any shochet  who is able to testify that the peafowl is kosher and as a result the Ashkenazi  community does not have any evidence to the best of my knowledge that peafowl can be consumed. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Very interesting. Well, what's another example? Of such a thing, a revelation that you discovered in the course of your research. R’ Chaim Loike: Well, the other thing I realized is that sometimes mesorahs  are kept by coincidence. So for example, in Europe, the aristocracy were the ones who were allowed to hunt certain kinds of partridges. And as a result, these partridges were not rare. So even though nobody was eating them, everybody knew they were kosher. And then you get to America and you can buy these partridges for seven or eight dollars. You're able to show them to shochtim  who were like, yeah, we know that's kosher because they were everywhere and our parents and our grandparents and the Rabbonim told us they were kosher, but nobody had ever been able to eat them. And these partridges, their mesorah  was preserved because they were protected by the local aristocracy in certain parts of Europe. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Very interesting. Thank you Rabbi Loike for joining us. Thank you for bringing us all these birds so we could actually understand what you're talking about. It's been a tremendous experience speaking to you. Thank you.

Not Anymore! Introducing a revolutionary new app! A game changer for the industry of kashrus. Have you ever seen an unfamiliar kashrus symbol and werent sure if you can rely on it? With over 1500 kashrus agencies worldwide, it can be quite the task of finding out their reliability. Rabbi Sholem Fishbane - Kashrus Administrator at the Chicago Rabbinical Council, and Executive Director of AKO, introduces to us the all-new logo scanner feature in the new cRc Kosher app, available on the app store. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/crc-kosher/id397991421?platform=iphone cRc Kosher - Apps on Google Play R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Hello everyone and welcome back to Let's Talk Kashrus , presented by the Kashrus  Awareness Project in conjunction with Torah  Anytime. Today I am privileged to be joined by Rabbi Sholem Fishbane, Kashrus  administrator of the CRC and executive director of AKO. Thank you Rabbi Fishbane for being here. R’ Sholem Fishbane.Pleasure. Thank you for having me. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger I'm very excited today to talk about the new revolutionary CRC app..It's amazing what you and your team have produced here. Really an app that we've been hearing about for so many years because people have always asked. They've asked, how come there isn't such a thing? And today there is such a thing. And this app has many different features. But I would start off by asking you about what I would think is the most prominent feature of this app and I encourage everyone watching here, if you have a device that could, that could handle such an app, get it because you'll, you'll really benefit from it. And that is the, the Hashgacha scanner, is that what it's called? R’ Sholem Fishbane Yeah, the logo scanner. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Logo scanner. Basically, if you're in a supermarket and you see a kashrus  symbol that you're not familiar with and you want to know, is it good or not? You simply scan it with this app and it will, it will tell you immediately, is it on the CRC approved list. It's incredible. You don't have to call anyone, you don't have to do anything. So that alone, I think just for that, this app is revolutionary because it, it empowers people with information. R’ Sholem Fishbane Yeah, we're very excited about it. It took us about two years to do. I'll be honest, it was close to $200,000 at the end of the day. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Wow. R’ Sholem Fishbane And what people should know is that it's completely, you know, there's no one sponsoring it, there's no monetizing. I mean, we're open for sponsorship, but the point is that it's not a business where we're being paid. It's completely to help the consumer. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Wow. R’ Sholem Fishbane Completely to help the consumer. And a lot of credit to Rabbi Akiva Niehaus in our office to the brains behind it and making it and seeing it from beginning to end. And we're very excited about it. The amount of calls that have come in have increased by, I don't even know the numbers. The hits we're getting are through the roof and we're very excited about it. And, you know, really, it used to be in our office, we had on the back of our, on the wall a picture of the United States, because we get calls. Hi, I'm in the supermarket. I'm in Trader Joe's. There's a K. I'm not sure if this is Michigan, Wisconsin, maybe. Oh, maybe it's Peru. You know. And then we'd have to, okay, does it look like this, does it look like that. Um, and you know, my best, my best one was that someone called, um, that I'm, I'm in with there's a K and it's, uh, it's in a square, but it's a funny looking square. And, uh, finally the, you know, the, the lady that answered said, you know, she says, okay, it was a bochur  that called. Okay, describe the square. Well, it's got like three sides. Oh, that's a triangle. Oh, was that, that's a triangle? that's a triangle. True story. Uh, so, um, because so we, we spend a lot of time. So this, what this does now is as you said, you just take your phone, it's called CRC Kosher on the app, on the Apple store, on Android, you know. You just put your, and it will give you maybe three, four suggestions of what it might be. Now you'll see, oh, that's what it is, and you press it. You'll press it and you'll get either recommended per the CRC or not found on the CRC list. Not found doesn't mean it's no good, because we don't list everyone that's good. We don't have a very clear black and white list, so to say. But it just says, find out more. So you can either call us, there's actually a, a place where you can write a question and press submit. We'll answer it. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Through the app? R’ Sholem Fishbane Through the app. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger And how, how quickly do, could a person typically expect a response? R’ Sholem Fishbane Yeah, it's all pretty fast. You know, I don't know if you're standing there now about to buy it and you know, you're waiting right away, but it's it's, you know, hopefully a ben yomo . So. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Wow. R’ Sholem Fishbane Yeah, yeah, now we're very, very, we have great, a great staff answering. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Now, talking about the logo scanner and the CRC approved list, this is something I've always wanted to ask. How, how did you and the rest of the CRC team formulate that list of what's considered accepted? R’ Sholem Fishbane Oh, wow. You know, if you ask me what do I do most of my day, it's this. It's researching other hashgachos . The CRC is made up of Rabbonim . Okay? The CRC is a department, the kashrus department is to, is to help the Rabbonim . The CRC itself is made up of, um, we have different parts of life where there's a Beis Din  for, from what they call cradle to grave. Right. Yeah. So, so the Rabbonim  said, listen, all these people come over to us, ask us about this hashgacha , we don't know. Help us out. Put together a list. That's how it was created. It was created to help the CRC Rabbonim  be knowledgeable to help their congregants, to help their mispallelim . That's why it was created. It was an internal Chicago only, I'll call it. And because I think we're really the only one that does it, it it just exploded. And with the internet, it just exploded all over the place. Right. Now, there are about 1500 kosher agencies in the world. Wow. Can you imagine how hard it is to research all of them? Sure. It's, it's a tremendous job. And, and I'll, the truth is over 80% do not meet the criteria. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger So I was, I was going to ask, I don't know if this is sensitive to ask on camera, but do people give you a hard time or are people upset at you when they don't make the cut? R’ Sholem Fishbane Very much. But what you just said is the exact reason why we still do it. What do I mean by that? At the end of the day, we're all here to make, you know, to, to make the, to make this a better place, to make kashrus , to bring kashrus  awareness and, and to take away timtum halev . That's why we're, we're put down here in this world. Do you know how many agencies and how many hechsherim  have said, what's it going to take for us to be put onto the CRC list? So it's an incentive for them to better themselves. It's an incentive. So we send down a team of experts. We sit with them. We spend time with them. We review their places. We give them a plan, stability, standards, poskim . There's a long list. I look for stability. That's the most important. And, and besides the actual how to train to check vegetables and all of that. But we, Baruch Hashem , have been involved in helping, and we don't charge by the way. And to do these reviews. Maybe some expenses, whatever, but it's not this is a... Not a moneymaker. A money loser. We do this and you know, Baruch Hashem , how many agencies have were able to raise their standard in order to get approved. That's what makes it worth it. So for all the people that are upset with us, and there's a lot. There are so many people, Baruch Hashem , that first of all appreciate the fact that there's someone doing this. Uh, but also that we were able to raise standards. We're in the middle of right now three other agencies that we're in the middle of helping, we're reviewing and there's a long list afterwards. I also work for a living, so it's, it's, it's hard back and forth. But that is honestly, um, why we continue to do it. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger But that's a tremendous zechus that you have, that the CRC has, that you're enabling, first of all, the kosher consumer to be educated, and also, like you said, on the other end, you're, you're educating, you're, you're, uh, enabling, uh, the kashrus  agencies to up their game, so to speak, and make it to the list. It's really unbelievable what you've done. And here another feather in your cap is this new app, which is just, uh, revolutionary. Like I said, whoever downloads it and takes a look at it will see how amazing it is. The ease of use also, very easy to use. Sometimes people get scared of the new technology. I assure you nothing to be worried about. R’ Sholem Fishbane It's easy to use, and, and they'll, they'll get it, the hang of it right away. So...And even the, even the, the, the, you know, the tags of the world that, you know, my understanding is that, um, they, you're able to get it even if you...Because it's an approved app. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Approved app. It's an approved app by all these agencies that filter out, uh, objectionable apps. R’ Sholem Fishbane And there are many, many other new things on there that we, we don't have time for today, but this is, this is the main thing that people should be...The main thing. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Okay, we have to leave some, uh, you know, some, let some curiosity, we'll pique their curiosity. Check it out. It's where, it's definitely worth the time. And again, thank you for all you do. We really appreciate it. Thank you. R’ Sholem Fishbane Thank you.

Look At the Leibel Can you rely on a kosher symbol you see online? Sometimes you buy something online, but the product has a different packaging when it arrives at your door. Rabbi Binyamin Berkowitz - Kashrus Administrator at the KOF-K gives us the rundown on what to look out for. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Hello everyone and welcome back to Let's Talk Kashrus presented by the Kashrus Awareness Project in conjunction with Torah Anytime. Today I am privileged to be joined by Rabbi Binyamin Berkowitz, Rabbinic Coordinator with the Kof-K. Thank you Rabbi Berkowitz for joining us once again. R’ Binyamin Berkowitz: My pleasure. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: I'd like to talk to you today about a common question related to Amazon. People buy thousands, tens of thousands of items on Amazon. Many of them bear a kosher certification, at least online. And it's very hard for people to know if something is authentically kosher, if it's not. What have you found in your experience with regard to items, food items being sold on Amazon? R’ Binyamin Berkowitz: So first of all, it's not only a problem with Amazon. It's really any of the websites. I guess the reason why I always brought attention to it is because many of these products are coming from foreign countries, specifically China, because a lot of these items are more specialty items like herbal extracts or different types of sweeteners, health products that people are looking at are very often coming from China. And they can be very specific and very hard to find, things that are not as common. So people look for them on all these different types of websites. Sometimes they're one of the bigger e-commerce websites. It can be a small website just for a company. And they'll often either have an old certificate or an old symbol, and they'll put it on their website and claim that they're kosher certified or think that's enough to make them kosher certified. And then that could obviously lead to problems. Usually what happens is that somebody will either get the product and they'll see that the symbol's not on it or start wondering, does this make any sense? And then they'll contact whichever hashgacha happens to be on it. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: And then they'll find out that, let's say, it's not authentic, but there's really no way to know before you order an item, especially if a website is claiming that they're kosher certified. R’ Binyamin Berkowitz: There is a way. The way is for, let's say, all the national hashgachas. Let's say it says they're under the Kof-K. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: You can really call the Kof-K and first find out. R’ Binyamin Berkowitz: You can call the Kof-K, but if it's 12 o'clock at night, you don't even have to do that. You can go onto our website. Every one of the big agencies has a website. You can do a product search and you can look for the product. And you can look based on the company. It says this company. That's always the first thing a person can do. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Do you recommend doing that for every single item that you buy online? R’ Binyamin Berkowitz: If it's an item online that's not a common recognized company, clearly coming from a foreign company, I definitely would recommend that a person does that. You're online anyways. Just opening up another website, doing a search. Not always is it so simple for the regular consumer to figure that out and go through it because sometimes the name could be a little bit different or it could be a distributor, so you don't really see the right name. Once you try that, then the next thing would be to call the hashgacha or email the hashgacha. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Are there any rules online as regards to what websites may write when it comes to kosher? Or is it just totally unregulated? R’ Binyamin Berkowitz: The websites will definitely take action if they recognize that something was fraudulent. So they'll take something down, but you have to usually file a complaint. Some are better than others, but they will definitely take action, most of them, once you file the complaint. But there are so many of these out there that it's almost impossible for an agency to be the one to investigate. And this is one of the cases where the consumer really becomes the front line of hashgacha. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Now you mentioned extracts. Is this issue more prevalent with, let's say, health products and things of that sort? R’ Binyamin Berkowitz: I do find that it's a little bit more prevalent because, like we said, those are things that are a little bit more, let's say, less common. If a person is looking for a specific extract, it's not necessarily something he'll find in a health food store. And if he does, it might be more expensive. So he might be looking for something a little cheaper. So he'll say, look, I found a great deal on this. But then you have to wonder, does it make sense or does it not make sense? R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Right, right, right. It's like we always say here on Let's Talk Kosher, an educated consumer is the best customer. And always check if you're not sure. That's the bottom line. Anything else to add on this topic? R’ Binyamin Berkowitz: Yes. So consumers should realize that a lot of times the reason why you're finding, let's say, a symbol is because they have an old picture. Even on name brand websites that are reputable, but it could be old artwork. Hashgacha does change and a symbol could come off. So besides questioning whether is this true or not, once you get the product, it's always worth it to check, double check and make sure that it has hashgacha. And like I said, you can always check the websites and see if it's still certified. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Okay, Rabbi Berkowitz, thank you so much.

Is It Fowl Play? Have you been noticing more blood spots lately? Let’s get the real scoop what’s going on lately with the eggs together with Rabbi Sholem Fishbane - Kashrus Administrator at the Chicago Rabbinical Council, and Executive Director of AKO. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Hello everyone and welcome back to Let's Talk Kashrus , presented by the Kashrus  Awareness project in conjunction with Torah Anytime. Today I am joined by Rabbi Sholem Fishbane, Executive Director of AKO and Kashrus  Administrator of the Chicago Rabbinical Council. Thank you Rabbi Fishbane for being here. R’ Sholem Fishbane: Thank you for having me. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Today we'd like to discuss something that many people have been talking about and that is eggs. Especially as relates to Pesach , eggs are are quite a common product and with the fluctuation of prices, I'm curious to hear from you how that specifically impacts the kashrus  of eggs, if it does?. R’ Sholem Fishbane: It's it's very true. As we we like to look in our office and see the amount of questions coming in and what's the latest, and the latest questions are eggs, eggs, eggs. It's not about the pricing, but it's more about we're finding more blood spots. We're finding more, what's going on with the eggs? Is that related to to the fluctuation of the of the pricing? And it absolutely is. So just to understand what is a blood spot? So what's blood spot, you know, when the Gemara  talks about blood spot, if you find a blood spot in an egg, that was the beginning of an embryo and that means it's completely not kosher , the whole egg is not kosher . So you crack an egg, you know, certainly when they were raised hens and there were roosters around. Uh today, most places when they raise hens, there's no roosters around. So what is the blood spot? So basically, the blood spot comes from inside the chicken while it is producing the egg, when the chicken gets frightened, usually from thunder, it will it will rupture and you'll get a blood spot or something like that. And it's in a place called the stigma that's inside the chicken. And therefore the question is now what? I mean blood is not kosher . You can't eat the blood. What do you do with the whole chicken? So there's a machlokes . Rav Moshe  says eggs, you know, throw out the whole egg. Rav Ovadiah Yosef  says no just take out the blood spot. Everyone has their way of doing it according to their own moirah derech . But the question is today, why are we finding so many blood spots? What is going on? So it's very much related to the fact that supermarkets need to sell eggs and there's a tremendous amount of pressure on the egg layers, give us eggs, we need our quota. We don't have, they killed off a lot of the uh hens from the avian flu. So two things are happening. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: So you're saying there was a shortage? R’ Sholem Fishbane: Major shortage. There's actually three things happening. One is that the government itself is now reconsidering no longer destroying the entire farm when they find one hen rather like by section. They're rethinking it because they can't... R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: As far as the avian flu? R’ Sholem Fishbane: The avian flu, yes. Okay. But in terms of why there's so many blood spots. So two things. Number one, the candling, you know what happens is when the eggs come out, they run it through a conveyor belt, underneath there's this big light that's called candling. And the workers look to see if there's anything irregular which tells us that there's something going on inside and they'll pull it off usually and not sell it. Today a lot of those are passing through because they need to meet the quota. So that's the first reason why there's so many blood spots today. The second is because there's no younger hens coming in, they're letting the older hens stay much longer than they usually do. And you know, the body begins to break down. It's interesting. Yeah. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: And you're saying because of that when an older hen produces an egg, it's more likely to have a rupture or something. R’ Sholem Fishbane: Yeah, yeah, very interesting. That's fascinating. It is. And I don't know, this is my own particular thing that one of the complaints we're hearing, nothing to do with kashrus , is like, you know that the shells are actually much thinner than the old shell, like you know, you touch it and it's breaking. I wonder if it has to do with the aging of the hens also, I don't know. I'm not an expert but or, you know. But that's something that is also just so very interesting. So, you know, that is what's going on. And therefore there is an increase of blood spots. Now, it's very important to point out though. And this is where we help a lot of people. Is that a blood spot or are you seeing something else what we call a protein spot? What's a protein spot? You know, every egg has spots in it. They're actually something called a white spot. You know that? You won't know it cause it's blended into the white, but there are spots that come up in every egg. When the shell is of a darker, especially the brown shell, it takes from the shell and those spots get colored. So what's really a brown spot, people confuse with a blood spot. We call them protein spots because it comes from the protein of the shell. So therefore, how do you know a protein spot is kosher , a blood spot is not kosher ? How do you know the difference? So there's a couple of ways. One is look at the color. If it's not red and it's brownish or off white, you're good to go. The second way is that a red blood spot is actually round. Um a protein spot is more um.. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Like streaky? R’ Sholem Fishbane: Streaky. Yeah it's like, it's not oval. it's a little off you can tell. And then the third one is that the majority of the blood spots are on the yellow, the yolk. And the protein spots which I said earlier is kosher , that will you'll find it on the white. So those are the three ways that you know the difference. We, in the restaurants, one of the things we like to do is the mashgiach  checks the eggs, but sometimes he can't get to it and there's a lot of eggs being cracked and then... So we put up a sign, all workers that find a a blood spot gets a dollar, okay? And that's a good incentive. They walk up, I found one, the Rabbi, oh very good to go. It's a great system. So we set this up once in Mexico in one of the programs. Over there I think it was 50 cents cause a dollar is like, you know, a lot of money. And there was just this one lady that was finding blood spot, blood spot, blood spot. And the mashgiach  called and he says, you're not going to believe it. She was actually pricking herself and and putting in drops of blood. Putting in blood. Yes, so that she was making a killing. But there's a lot of other things that come up with eggs. You know, one of the things with the shortage that we're talking about, is that we're studying, okay, are they trying to change up the different types of chickens that lay eggs so that they get a better or can fight avian flu? R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Like manipulate the genetics? R’ Sholem Fishbane: Genetics, or find or breed different types of chickens. which makes a lot of sense on the business, but we follow chickens for kosher  with a mesorah  only. So we're watching that very carefully and Baruch Hashem  I can tell you, there hasn't been any… everything so far everything's going al pi hamesorah . But in kashrus , these are the types of things we start thinking about. When something happens, we start thinking about it and that's one of the things we've been following. I want to explain because of the shortage. So you're going to see supermarkets they're going to be having something called free range, cage free, organic. And if you're finding what does that mean there's roosters? Does that mean I have to be choshesh  like maybe issur d'oraisa ? No. Don't worry about it. Don't get worried about those words. I mean I know in Trader Joe's they're starting to sell now free range and cage free much more and all that. That doesn't mean there's a rooster. If it says somewhere on the package the word fertile, then you would have to worry about it. But all those other things they don't have to worry about. So that's the story with eggs. And I'll just tell you that the first time I walked into an egg factory, two things occurred that hit me. One is that what happens is they bring in the eggs from the coop and the coop is very dirty and they have to wash it off and it came in dirty stuck onto the eggshells with the the feed. Okay. And this was it was actually before Pesach . And I'm looking at the feed. Is this chometz ? it's grains, you know, what's going on there? But, you know, obviously when you buy it, you're not buying a dirty egg, but what I was looking at was the way they were washing it off. They were washing off with hot water. Let's say it's chometz , is it going into the egg? So the bleeya  an egg. But the good news is it was under yad soledes . And you're good to go. I also saw in that particular factory they were actually sprinkling on every egg mineral oil to make sure that it lasts longer. Like to seal it. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: to seal it, really? R’ Sholem Fishbane: Yeah. So mineral oil's okay, you know, I looked around in the industry do they use vegetable oil? It turns out they don't. So these are just types of things. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: No, but that's interesting both on the oil and then also on the feed end, both with regard to the throughout the year and Pesach . Is there an issue let's say that people like in my family, we put the eggs directly into the cholent . You know, you make cholent eggs or if you put eggs into a a maichel  of some sort with the shell, is there any kashrus  concern at all? R’ Sholem Fishbane: No. So the maskana  is there are not. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: And for chometz  for Pesach ? R’ Sholem Fishbane: So the mineral oil is not a chometz thing. The only thing that we in the CRC are machmir  on is some of the eggs actually have the name of the company ink jetted. So there's ink. That is edible ink. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Really? R’ Sholem Fishbane: That's edible ink. Well it has to be by law. So the edible ink could either be kitniyos , it's most likely kitniyos . Sometimes it could be chometz . So I would tell you the majority will be kitniyos . So if you put it in and you're like, oh no, what did I do? Don't worry. But that would be maybe something to think about. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: To think about. Interesting. Yeah. As always Rabbi Fishbane, you never fail to amaze. Thank you for sharing your knowledge on this interesting topic. R’ Sholem Fishbane: Thank you for having me.