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.

R’ Moshe Feinstein’s teshuva on Cholov Stam in America is by far one of the more famous of his. Yet, Rabbi Sholem Fishbane - Kashrus Administrator at the Chicago Rabbinical Council, and Executive Director of AKO, points out that there are many side benefits of being makpid on cholov yisroel besides for the actual Halacha shaila. 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 I'd like to discuss the topic of Chalav Yisrael. We've touched on different angles of Chalav Yisrael in the past. Rav Moshe's heter with regard to what we'll call Chalav companies is quite well known in the teshuvos. And there are people who are machmir on Chalav Yisrael nonetheless. And it's come to our attention, following the trends in the Kashrus industry that there are actually aspects of Chalav Yisrael that it would behoove people to eat or drink only Chalav Yisrael because they are going to avoid certain other Kashrus concerns or considerations. I know that you've done research into this. Give us a little background into what those concerns might be. R’ Sholem Fishbane: Sure. It's funny. When I started my career on Kashrus I started off in Buffalo, New York. And there's a lot of dairies there. So I would say my training in Kashrus might be in the dairy farms. So I follow that industry very well. It's a good point. Rav Moshe's heter of anan sahadi, which Rav Moshe himself writes ba'al nefesh yachmir, obviously. We're not going to talk about it. But there are things that I would say that come up. And it's changing in terms of things change in every industry and certainly in the dairy industry that if you keep Chalav Yisrael you don't have to think or worry about these. And I'll give you some examples. I mean the first most glaring one might be is the fact that the government themselves it used to say the inspector had a piece of paper, he'd walk around, and one of the questions were does the milk come from a sheep, goat, cow, or you know the kosher animals. And that no longer is on. As a matter of fact, it was challenged by someone that wanted to open a factory or a business in California doing camel's milk. So they changed it to hooved animals, which a camel by the government is a hooved animal. Halacha, we know that it's not, but it is hooved. So they changed that. So that really starts with the oh, really? What's up with that? Now, if you look carefully into the government law, there still is labeling laws, there's still other sorts of things that would seemingly be okay, and that's what the agencies rely on in terms of. But you should know that the, when Rav Moshe wrote that, it was very much on the inspector's sheet and it's no longer there. But again, without getting into the details, it still is halachically covered based on other laws and related laws. The second thing certainly is the DA cows, which I know you've spoken about in the past, and that's where they do a surgery, which makes a hole, and you know, anything, any, kol hayotzei min ha-treifah, treifah. So certainly that's a sugya in the Chalav Yisrael farms. They take out any cow that had that surgery, that hole, so you don't have to worry about it. There's also, we mentioned Rav Moshe, but there's a famous machlokes Rav Moshe and the Pri Chadash, does it go by anon sahadi, which is Rav Moshe, or the Pri Chadash says it's more like even if there is benimtza chalav tamei, but as long as it's way more expensive and, you know, that's the Pri Chadash. And there are some agencies, larger agencies that actually rely on the Pri Chadash, so they'll give hashgachos to milk in some countries that many other agencies won't touch because they follow Rav Moshe. So people should do their homework. You know, I buy your product, I don't keep Chalav Yisrael, are you following Rav Moshe, are you following Pri Chadash? Obviously if the Rav says to them we follow Rav Moshe, not the Pri Chadash, but, you know, those are also, it's not just Rav Moshe. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: And to clarify, because the other milk is more expensive, there's no incentive, or actually it disincentivizes them from using that milk in place of kosher cow's milk, for example. R’ Sholem Fishbane: Right, so I'll give you an example. I spent some time in India, and over there it's a fascinating thing that goes on there, where at the end of the day in these little shtetlach, the locals, they'll go and you can bring milk to the center of town, and they weigh it, and they give you rupees per the volume in exchange. But a lot of the shtetlach that are living in the same house with their camels and their this and their that, who knows what's going on. You can research it, you'll see a very high level of fraud. And then a truck comes around, picks up the things at the bigger factory, bigger factory. So all the milk is getting mixed together. So again, you know, there's different, this and that. There are some agencies that might give a hechsher to the casein coming out of that milk. The CRC doesn't, but there are some. So these are part of this. Again, if you keep a close eye, you don't have to worry about that. Then there's different types. So I'll tell you one or two other sugyot that I found. And that's actually making the cheese. Okay? When I started Kashrus, cheese was made hard cheese. Hard cheese means that if you don't put in the rennet, it doesn't become, like, mozzarella, provolone, these things. There's something called soft cheese, which is farmer's cheese, cream cheese, ricotta cheese. That, basically, if you let it sour by itself, will become that. They might put in rennet to quicken it, but that doesn't make it. The rennet hard cheese has to be gevinas Yisrael. Where the Yisrael makes it kasher by making it gevina through the Yisrael. So when I started off in Kashrus, basically, the only way that we were doing it amongst the large agencies was the Yisrael was in the factory. And let's say it was a 24-hour. He'd be up. They'd wake him up. Okay, we've got to put in the rennet. So he'd go and put in the rennet, and that would be gevinas Yisrael, which was a huge problem because you couldn't do these factories that are 24-7. You couldn't do Shabbos. Why not? Because making cheese on Shabbos is an issur boneh. Right? You couldn't do it. So a lot of factories, they couldn't, like, become treif for a day and then kasher on Sunday. It just wasn't working. So let's just skip forward to today. That, basically, was like the Shach. The Shach says you have to put it in. There is a Ramah that talks about ri'iya. And ri'iya means that as long as the Yisrael is watching the goy put it in, which back in the day we didn't use the Ramah primarily, but now a lot of agencies, because of the practicality and for whatever reason, they've gone to the Ramah. Now there's a new thing where it's not necessarily having to see it because you could be in a factory. There could be 25 vats being made. And there's a new thing called, we'll call it yedi'ah. Yedi'ah. As long as, and I know some hashgachas, as long as the mashgiach is comfortable that yedi'ah vada'is, that the mashgiach is putting it, that the company is using kosher rennet, that that's enough for them and they're able to give hard cheese, whether it's string cheese, you know, the various cheeses that are made from it, based on yedi'ah vada'is. Again, if you look at the big picture, take a step back, and even from when I started in kashrus, you know, 25 years ago, whatever it is, 30 years ago, you're looking at, we'll call it a slippery slope. And each thing by itself, it's not my place to say anything negative about big poskim or big agencies. My point is, it's an interesting evolve. It's evolving. And one that keeps chalav Yisrael, it's not lo benimtza. You know, chalav Yisrael cheese, like the Shach, the mashgiach is putting it. There are many, many other examples. There's butter, which the Rema famously says, you know, where it's fine, but today what they put in butter is sometimes they put in whey cream, so it's whey cream comes from cheese. It can mamesh be givanas akum. There are many, many, many other examples. Time is short, but I wanted to give like a snapshot of the dairy industry and what some of the sugyos that come up where agencies have to decide and where someone that keeps chalav Yisrael certainly avoids a lot of these things and somebody that lives in areas where chalav Yisrael is benimtza, what can we say? I certainly recommend it. Like Rav Moshe says, ba'al nefesh yachmir. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Okay, thank you so much.

Post-Pesach Shopping Secrets Where can I buy chometz? Where is it problematic? Rabbi Yakov Teichman - Rabbinic Coordinator at the OK, gives us the full scoop. Download the AKO post-pesach list below, or at https://www.akokosher.org/pesach 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 Yakov Teichman, Rabbinic Coordinator at OK Kosher. Thank you Rabbi Teichman for joining us. R’ Yakov Teichman: Thank you for having me. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Today we would like to discuss the very important topic of post Pesach  shopping. This is a topic that gives a lot of angst to many a housewife. People get very nervous about buying chametz after Pesach . Obviously, there is a very legitimate concern of chametz she'avar alav haPesach . I know that you're a member of the committee or perhaps the head of the committee of AKO in regards to post Pesach . AKO every year puts out a comprehensive list of stores that people may buy chametz from. Obviously, you do research to ensure that there are no issues of chametz she'avar alav haPesach  with these stores. So let's go through this issue one thing at a time. What should people know as a general rule about buying chametz after Pesach ? R’ Yakov Teichman: So we first have to start with the halacha background and we know that chametz she'avar alav haPesach  which means chametz that was in the possession of a yid  over Pesach . There's a knas from Chazal  after Pesach  that we cannot consume that chametz . That is a knas  and it's not mid'oraisa , it's mutar , it's only a knas mid'rabbanan . So since it's a halacha mid'rabbanan , whenever there's a safek  involved it allows a lot more leniency. So that's the first base information that we need to have in order to know where we move from there. Then we have to know that there are different options of how we can get out of this problem of chametz because if you're in your house and you have leftover challah  rolls for whatever reason or cereal and you sell your chametz , so after Pesach you don't have a problem because you sold your chametz . Are there any other options? Let's say you have a business, you're a bakery, let's say you're a grocery store. There are many grocery stores that they cover up their shelves, they have a kosher l’Pesach  section and then all their chametz stuff are covered. Why don’t they have a problem with chametz she'avar alav haPesach ? So we know that Chazal  helped us many years ago with something called mechiras chametz , that there was an option for people who had chametz  in order that they should be able to continue with their livelihood, that they should be able to sell their chametz  to a goy . Originally, if my memory serves me correctly, they used to have the people who had liquor, so they just gave it to their goyish  neighbors. And lav davka , they got it back afterward, they gave it to as a matana . So Chazal were kovea , that you should be able to do a mechira . A mechira , and then it belongs to the goy  and you buy it back. And that morphed into more that different people should sell different parts of their of their pantries that they have chametz . Some people are machmir , that they don't want to sell chametz gamur , some want to sell taruvois chametz , everyone has their minhagim . And a lot of it is based on hefsed merubah , that the original takana  was for somebody who has a business and he has a lot of liquor, so what's he supposed to do with all that whiskey and beer, etc. So for him it's hefsed merubah . For me, that I only have two bottles of beer, maybe it's not hefsed merubah . So these are all shaylas  that are involved in how far you can take mechiras chametz . That's the basic overview. We do have to take into account that there are a lot of non-religious jews that own different locations let’s say they own the chametz , is that an issue or not? So pashtus , if it's a knas , it applies to anyone, any yid who owns a chametz . There are some acharonim  that do mention that if somebody was a tinok shenishba , it might not be such an issue, but it seems that most people want to be machmir  across the board. So after Pesach , you basically have one or two options. Either you only buy from, or three options. You make sure to buy food that was only produced after Pesach , which you have to be able to figure out what that is, but that's option A. Option B is you buy from a location that is only owned by goyim  from beginning to end. And option three is you buy from somebody who did a mechira . So it's very simple if you go to a frum store, frum owned store, and you know that they did the mechira , like you went in Pesach  and you bought your kosher l’Pesach  products, and you also saw all the aisles that were blocked off, that those are machur le'nachri , so you know those are sold to a goy , and after Pesach , they open it all up and you can go and buy it. But not everyone wants to rely on that, and not that there's an issue with the actual mechira , it's all done k'das u'kdin , but some people don't want to rely on that, they only want to buy something that did not go through this leniency. But you also have places that are owned by non frum Yidden , and those places have been sold on some level, and even those are different levels of how those sales are done, and those are a little less of a darga . Now of course with all this, you need to speak to your rav , because the rav  is the one who understands all the sfeikos involved. We mentioned in the past two minutes around three, four sfeikos , and we could probably add in a few more sfeikos , people want to know how much after Pesach  can you assume that it's a new product, and can you go basar Rov  or not, there are a lot of sfeikos  involved, if they know the type of store, that type of product, there are certain stores that the way their ordering system works, is that when you buy a box of macaroni, the computer tells them box of macaroni was purchased, and therefore we have to get new macaroni from the distributor. So such a place, macaroni is going to move much faster than your wheat bran, because there are less people that are buying wheat bran, so wheat bran might sit on the shelf three months, but macaroni might be a turnover of a week. So these are all things that have to be taken into account. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: And one of the things that people are clearly concerned about, is that even if you show me a franchise, a big chain of supermarkets for example, without naming any specifically, that is owned by a non-Jew, but there's concern that let's say the distributors and those who are providing food are Jews, and the food may be arriving on Yom Tov , right? Isn't that part of the issue with going into some of the non-Jewish owned stores? R’ Yakov Teichman: Correct, so let's take a walk back for a minute, and let's say you have a Jewish owned store that sells their chametz on before Pesach , but they continue operating on Pesach , what's the halacha  with them? So R’ Moshe Feinstein zatza”l has a teshuva about it, and he says that even though that they are ganavim , gazlanim , but the mechira  is chal . So they sold their chametz  to a goy, and all their inventory was sold to a goy, but they continue doing business. So yes, the macaroni and the cereal, R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: business with those items, you mean? R’ Yakov Teichman: With those items, they're open to anyone, and there are non-Jews coming to buy, and they're making a profit, so they are stealing from the goy  that they did the mechira  with, but the mechira  was chal , so therefore the other products that they didn't sell, you can go and buy, you as a frum  Jew can go buy after Yom Tov . That only helps for product that was in the store before Pesach  started. It does not address what happens when they get new product in over Pesach , so that's something that has to be dealt with. So when you walk into a store, so you have a franchise, and you know that it's a goyishe  owned franchise, but they are being, the distributor that they are getting their products from maybe is owned by a yid. What do you do with that? So again, like we said, these are all sfeikos  involved, so one main important halacha  to remember about sfeikos  is that it has to be efshar l'vrurei b'kal . You have to be able to find out easily, exactly what easily is, you'll speak to your Rav  and he'll tell you. There's a lot of information that's available online, public information, and for sure 15 years ago, a lot, a lot of information was available online, and you could see who the CEO is, who actually owns it, you can go do a Google search, and there's a lot of information available, and you can even see store X is getting from distributor Y, and you can connect the dots, and you can see there's an issue. As years go on, there's more and more privacy rights, and there's less and less information available online. So there's definitely, that issue has been a little bit mitigated, not to say that it's 100% muttar , but if you're not able to be mevarer it 100%, then the leniency is much more, so there's much more sfeikos  involved. So even though, let's say I knew that a certain store 10 years ago was being supplied by X distributor that's Jewish-owned, and there was a mechira , maybe the mechira  was not so lechatchila , and I didn't want to rely on it, so that store 10 years ago, I knew it was being supplied by this distributor. There has been information since then that has been cut off. The distributor has taken off all their information from online. It's no longer public information. There's no way for me to ascertain if they're actually getting from that distributor or not. So that's more of a safek . We could say that maybe I have, for 20 years they were getting, why should I believe that they're not getting from them anymore? Happens to be that yesterday, I went into a local store, a chain store, and for many years they were getting from a certain distributor, a well-known Jewish distributor that did a mechira , but it's not lechatchila d ike   mechira , and I asked them if they're still getting from them, and they notified me that in the past year and a half, they cut off all ties from that distributor, and they're only doing in-house distribution, and they are 100% non-Jewish-owned. So this is information that you need to keep on top of, and like we say, information is relevant only for that year. We had multiple meetings among the committee in the past few months to come out with a clear list, and as time goes on, every day goes on, there's more information. Different information from last year, for example, last year there was a certain chain of stores, Albertsons. Albertsons is well known, and Albertsons owns, I think, around 10 subsidiaries that, maybe not in this local area, but across the country, that it's relevant. 2% was owned by Jewish people, frum  Jewish people, and they did a mechira , and we'll talk about that type of mechira  in a minute, but there's a mechira , and they will continue to be open on Pesach , so some people didn't necessarily want to be someich  on that mechira . I understand, it's 2%, and there's a makom to be machmir for those who want, but as of this year, they sold us all their shares, so there's no longer a major shareholder that's a Yid . There might be somebody who owns stocks, but not in any way that would affect the mechiras chametz  or the chametz she'avar alav haPesach . R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Now, as far as the AKO committee list, when you list, just for example, if Walmart is on the list, I could go buy food at Walmart without being concerned at all about a Jewish distributor? R’ Yakov Teichman: Correct. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: It means that you'll be m'varer ? R’ Yakov Teichman: Well, so the list has, we'll see this year how many categories it has, but it typically has between five and eight categories, and those categories are 100% Jewish owned, owned by non-Jews, but it is, the distributor comes from a Jew that does a mechira , then there could be a different one that there's franchises that some are owned by Jews and some are not owned by Jews. There's a whole list, and you'll go through, and it's clearly delineated where it falls. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Well, what's interesting listening to this conversation, listening to you to describe these achievements by the AKO post- Pesach  committee is that when I was younger, I remember for years in Brooklyn, just because that's where I grew up, I remember people would go into the local grocery that was owned by a goy , and the owner would give them permission to label certain items or to put a siman , and this way when they would come after Pesach , they would know that those items were there on Pesach , and you know, they had this system in place. In Monsey, for example, for many years, my father-in-law used to go to the local ShopRite, and he was in charge of negotiating and speaking to the owners of the supermarket as to what was coming in, what was not coming in, kind of to regulate it on an individual basis, one supermarket or one grocery store and things of that sort. Now it seems like there's more of a global effort to regulate and control and provide information to people, just interesting to witness how it's transformed over the years. R’ Yakov Teichman: Right, so it's very important that you bring that up because that is true and that's still going on, and in Lakewood, there's by the Lakewood shoprite, there's somebody who takes care every year to set aside a couple of pallets of flour and I think maybe macaroni and cereals, a few staples that they buy before Pesach , and they put it aside in the back, and it's owned by that store that's not Jewish-owned, and then right after Pesach , they bring it out, and that was, you know, that's owned by a Goy , and there's no question about that, it wasn't owned by any Jewish hands at any time over Pesach . The point of this list is really geared towards Rabbanim . We are in 2025, and we know that anything that you're going to put out to anybody is going to be for the entire world, so we try to be as clear as possible, R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Another interesting component of this conversation, whenever it comes up every year, is the, it's kind of a balance, and I hear people always debate this, it's like one of their favorite post- Pesach  topics, and that is, am I, should I be not relying on a mechira , versus, vehechzakta bo and helping my fellow yid who owns a grocery or a supermarket. I'm curious from your standpoint, do people come to you with that question, okay, should I be not to rely on a mechira , and go buy by a non-Jewish-owned store, or should I better go to my local supermarket, who engages the services of a reputable rav, and does a real mechira , but lemaase, I get to help my fellow Jew, and give him the parnassah , you know, I know that this is part of the conversation. R’ Yakov Teichman: So this is part of the conversation, and when people ask me, I say you should speak to your local rav, you should know who he is, and it might be the guy sitting next to you in shul, who needs your assistance, and you don't even realize that you're helping him out by patronizing his store, you know, there's no question about it. But I do want to bring another point to the forefront that is important to keep in mind. So let's say you have a shutfus between a Yid  and a Goy . So you have a corporation that's owned by 40% Yidden  and 60% Goyim , and they're a distributor, or whatever it is. So what is the halacha in that case? So R’ Yitzchok Elchonon Spector  brings down in his teshuvos , he brings down that you can go basar rov , and you could assume that what you're eating is from the Goy , and you have no problem. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Meaning, in this case, the Yid would not have to sell his portion of the company. R’ Yakov Teichman: Correct. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: And it's not considered chametz she'avar alav haPesach , when you pick up an item from that company, you rely on the rov . R’ Yakov Teichman: Exactly. And they say this in the name of, R’ Shimon Eider said this in the name of a Rav Aharon Kotler  zatza”l so in Lakewood, a lot of the poskim  go with this psak . Other people have different mahalchei hapsak , but this is one of the sfeikos  that's important to keep in mind. Another thing we have to understand is the mechira . So we spoke about a mechira , a standard mechira  that you do with your rov . What happens if you have a Yid , he's not so frum , and he's not willing to close down his company over Yom Tov , or he's not able to close down. He's a guy sitting next to you in shul , and he's davening three times a day, and he's going to minyan , but he has Amazon business. And if you close down your Amazon business, he'll lose his whole business. Well, what is his option? What is he supposed to do? So there's an option out there that, and I'm not getting involved whether it's a lechatchila  or bedieved , but it's just to understand what people are going through and what they have to do. There is an option there that they not only do they sell the chametz , but they sell the business also. So therefore, by selling the business, so if I'm selling to John the Goy , so now besides the fact that I sold him $5 million of actual chametz , but I also sold him the company. So now for the next eight days or 10 days or 14 days, however long I make that mechira  on the business, I sell him the business and all the operations of business have to do with him. So he has the right to buy and sell, and whatever is done in the operations of business belongs to him only. And since it belongs to him, there's no problem. As you can understand, that's not the same lechatchila  as when you sell and you have nothing to do with the chametz . Because the chametz , the operations to continue continuously going. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: And it's earning profit. R’ Yakov Teichman: And they're earning profit. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: So the Goy  doesn't keep the profit after Yom Tov , or does he? R’ Yakov Teichman: So there are different levels of mechira , different ways. Every rav  has his way of doing it, and you have to speak to each rav  to find out. Some do a $20 profit because they say, listen, we cancel out. Yes, you made a lot of profit over eight, 10 days, whatever it is. But listen, there's a large overhead. We got to pay for electricity. We got to pay for insurance. And you do a deal for only 10 days, and the insurance you have to pay is very high. We could play around with the numbers to basically cancel it out. Others, R’ Belsky Zatzal  had a mehalach that he said that we have to put it to three arbitrators that are not related to the company to go through all the numbers. And they decide how much. They decide. But if you don't do it within 72 hours after Pesach , then you're going to agree to accept $100 to buy it back, or something like that. So to give them that caveat, if they want to go through the whole arbitrary, to arbiters, which is going to be a big deal, or to just accept the money. And as you can assume, in all the years of everyone doing this, the goy just accepts the money in lieu of going through that whole exercise. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: We thank you, and we thank the rest of the AKO committee for their efforts in providing information. We always say an educated consumer is the best customer. That's what we try to do here at Kashrus Awareness , is educate people, provide them with the information that they could then take to their rav and their moreh derech . So thank you for all your efforts on behalf of Klal Yisrael . R’ Yakov Teichman: My pleasure. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Thank you for being here.

Just Yet... Many people won't sell chometz gamur. Does that mean i need to throw out a closed bottle of ketchup? Rabbi Yakov Teichman - Rabbinic Coordinator at the OK, helps us decipher those hard to read ingredient panels. 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 Yakov Teichman, Rabbinic Coordinator at OK Kosher and a member of the AKO Post- Pesach Committee. Is that the right description? R’ Yakov Teichman: Yes. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: So today I'd like to discuss with you a very specific topic and that is the topic of Chametz Gomur . We very often hear before Pesach , after Pesach  people will say I sell chametz,  but I don't sell chametz gomur . What is considered chametz gomur?  and as a related question when people do get rid of products before Pesach as far as chametz gomur  before Pesach , what items do they have to get rid of and what items may they mistakenly believe to be chametz  when it's really not? R’ Yakov Teichman: Ok so chametz  everyone knows is only from the five grains. Five grains means wheat, barley, oats, spelt and rye. If you have buckwheat, kasha , that's not chametz . If you have rice, it's not chametz . Millet, none of these things are chametz . It has to be kept in mind what is actually chametz  only from the five grains. Not getting involved in the machlokes  of what is included in wheat and then you can go to the matzah  bakeries and find out. Einkorn, not einkorn, that we leave on the side but let's assume these five grains and whatever their subsidiary is exactly what's included in these five grains. Obviously if you have the five grains and they're made into bread, cookies, cereal, spaghetti, all those things are 100% chametz gomur . In America you have a lot of products or anywhere you have a lot of products and a lot of ingredients and you look at the ingredient panel and you usually get a cross-eyed after two lines. Usually about five, six, seven, eight lines. Most people can't even read them or understand what the ingredients are. So how much of these are chametz gomur ? So we have to keep in mind where are you located. If you're located in America, a lot of the vinegar that's coming, most, 99% of the vinegar in America is not chametz derived. It's coming from corn. If it's corn derived, so corn is kitniyos . You don't have to sell kitniyos , you can keep it, you don't have to sell it. Somebody's choshesh , maybe there's a little bit of chametz gomur  in there, fine, so you could sell al hachashash . Let's say you have a certain type of mustard and in there it says barley extract. I don't even know if barley extract exists in mustard, but let's just say. It's a second class ingredient. It's a taruves chametz . Rov of this for sure is going to be kitniyos  or innocuous legabei Pesach . There's no reason why somebody shouldn't be able to sell it. No reason you have, you know, in Costco closet you may have many, many closed bottles of ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: even vinegar, even plain vinegar, which you're saying is predominantly not made from grain. R’ Yakov Teichman: Not from five grains. Corn is also grain. So not from the five grains and you could assume in America that's where it's made from. Therefore, there's no reason not to sell it. You probably don't even have to sell it. You're not sure, so you can sell it. A lot of people sell kitniyos , they want to be 100% sure. But chametz gomur , it definitely isn't. You have to look at everything. Everything that you get. How much, what's the percentage of it that's chametz  and what's the percentage of it that's not chametz . You're going to have a rov of kitniyos , there's a big tzad, that's not considered chametz gomur . If you have, let's say, a lot of schnapps, as long as it's 51% corn, even though the other 49% might be from wheat or from rye or whatever it is, so it's not chametz gomur  and you could sell it. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: I think this is an important conversation. You know, I'll tell you a Hatorah Chassa Al Mamonum   Shel Yisrael , and people, well-meaning people, very often before Pesach , they'll go to their fridge for sure, especially if it's open, they don't want to leave it over Pesach , that I understand. But they'll often go to their garage or their closet, wherever they store things, and they have closed bottles of ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, so on and so forth, condiments, and they see vinegar in the ingredient panel, and right away they panic and say, oh, we have to get rid of it, and they throw it out. And really, as you're saying, it's not necessary. At worst, you could include it as part of your mechira . At best, it's not chametz at all. It might be kitniyos , in which case you could just leave it, maybe cover it up so that people don't mistakenly use it on Pesach . But I think this is a very instructive conversation for people to know, so that they could be aware of. R’ Yakov Teichman: So let's say you have something like oatmeal, right? So quick oats, like people, they have oatmeal and they want to use it in their baking or whatever it is. So how are oats made? Obviously, they grow from the ground, but how are they processed? So they use water to cut them and to parboil them or whatever it is. Those are going to be chametz gomer . That's chametz gomer , right. So even if you get, you know, usually you see beans or dry beans, you assume that nothing happened to it. Oats, even though it's dry and it's coming in a can, it touched water already. It touched water. In a serious way, and therefore it's going to be chametz gomur . R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Right, so oatmeal is chametz , obviously, like you said, bread products, pretzels, we'll call them bonafide chametz products. Another common topic, which may be a whole separate discussion, but I'll mention it here, about people who don't sell chametz gomur  is schnapps. Because schnapps is something that even people don't feel comfortable selling chametz , but they do sell schnapps. Why is that? R’ Yakov Teichman: So there are one or two reasons. Either they want to sell because they don't want to be someich on mechirah unless it's a hefsid merubah . And for schnapps, they consider it hefsid merubah  its more of an expensive item. You know, they might have got it as a present, an expensive bottle, and they don't want to spill it out, or they don't have a neighbor to give it to. That's one reason. Another reason is that there are some shittas  that hold that if it's only zeya ba'alma , that it's not considered chametz gomur . It doesn't mean that you can go and eat or drink it on Pesach! That's not what we're talking about. We’re talking about whether it’s included in the din of chametz gomer , legabei  the din of selling it over Pesach . Very good. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Thank you, Rabbi Teichman.

Labeled In China Part 2 of our travels to China with Rabbi Binyamin Berkowitz - Kashrus Administrator at the KOF-K, focuses on the labeling aspect of Chinese products. 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 for China and the Far East for the KOF-K. Thank you Rabbi Berkowitz for joining us. I'm sure the most common question is what I'm going to ask next and that's labeling. You know over here in the United States there are laws about mislabeling. If you mislabel something or you label something without authenticity, so there's a penalty to be paid. Does such a thing exist in China that would serve as a deterrent to a company from let's say taking a kosher label and placing it in an unauthorized fashion on a product? R’ Binyamin Berkowitz: Right, so there are but it's definitely a little bit of a bigger challenge there as opposed to here. A lot of when that comes out is we try to take action over here because they're importing it here. So, they usually have an arm here that we can deal with. In other words, if a company in China is importing to the United States, they usually have an export arm and they have an import arm that they're importing here, and we'll be able to deal with the company that's on this end of it. But I will mention is that a lot of times because we're dealing with ingredients, we're not necessarily dealing with a retail product that has, let's say, the kosher symbol on it. Often, it's just that this company is a certified company and they're basing that off of their certification that they can now import it here. So there's control in the fact that it's only certified so as long as that certificate is a valid certificate as opposed to like what we're used to in a retail item, where we see the symbols and we know it's kosher. So, we have to protect that symbol and make sure that nobody used that symbol improperly. As opposed to in China, very often it's just based on the fact that this is a kosher certified company. Similar to almost like, let's say, a food service or a restaurant. A restaurant is very often based on the fact that it has a certificate. There's no symbol on every product. So, when something's coming from China, it's more based on the fact that this is a certified company so it's not so much improper use of the symbol because they don't necessarily use the symbol. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Are there any dedicated kosher facilities in China that don't have to be kosher? That are literally just producing? R’ Binyamin Berkowitz: Most of our facilities are, like I say, national facilities are almost always purely kosher. Correct. We do some special supervisions but most of the time it's a purely kosher factory. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Oh, that's interesting. Okay. Another comment you'll hear from people, again it's coming from total conjecture, especially because many, many candies are made in China. You'll hear people say or at least suggest that somebody did something unhealthy about it. There's no FDA in China. What could you speak to about that without getting us in trouble here? R’ Binyamin Berkowitz: I don't know all the rules of FDA but anything, first of all, FDA does have a branch there. And anything that comes into the United States needs to be approved. It has to be approved. And another point is, like I said, we're certifying a lot of ingredients that are coming here. So even if you get a candy that's made in the United States or in Europe or in Israel or almost anywhere, there's a very good chance that some of those ingredients, some of those flavors are coming from China. Hard to get away from that. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Hard to get away from China. But to answer the question itself, you're saying that there is accountability there? They have their own FDA? R’ Binyamin Berkowitz: Like I said, our FDA doesn't have to approve anything that comes from China to here. So whatever our FDA does. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: So what do they do? The FDA from the United States, they do spot checks? R’ Binyamin Berkowitz: I can't say for sure because I've never seen them. But that's how I understand that they do have branches there and they do do checking. And anything that comes into the United States has to be approved. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Got it. Going back to labeling for a second. How do you maintain control, especially because I imagine your packaging and your labels are all there in the factory and then you leave. How do you maintain control over that, that it shouldn't be used in an unauthorized way? R’ Binyamin Berkowitz: Right. So, again, we don't put the symbol on most of the products for that reason because it's very difficult to control. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: So what do you do? R’ Binyamin Berkowitz: It has to have the factory name. We're talking about a non-retail item, an industrial item. Right. It's going to go to a factory anyways, a different factory. So it'll just have the name of the factory and the product name. And a lot number and there's certain Chinese codes that they have that are put on. So all these are. And that's how we track it. Not by the symbol. Not by the symbol, correct. Like you said, if we would do it by the symbol, so then we lose control of the symbol. They will sometimes put the symbol on and then when the factory does lose its certification, we have to follow up and make sure that they get rid of all their labels, which is, by the way, something that happens in the United States as well. If a company loses its certification. You have to make sure that they don't continue to use. Right. That's what I'm saying. It's not so different than the United States. It's just, again, there's this perception. It's a foreign country. Yeah, it's a foreign country. It's harder to be there. Perhaps they're less than locally. I'm not exactly sure, but that's why people wonder about that. Which is why we try to keep the kashrus as simple as possible for those reasons. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: What else did you want to discuss regarding China? R’ Binyamin Berkowitz: So we were mentioning labels. So another interesting thing with labels is what we call bright stock. I don't know if you're familiar, but bright stock basically means all they put on it is the product name because they're thinking they could sell it to this one and they'll label it this way or they'll sell it to different companies and they'll be able to label it. So that's problematic because if it's bright stock, we have no way of verifying that it comes from the kosher company. Like we said, we're basing our kashrus on it's coming from That manufacturing facility and the lot number and so on. Exactly. We're basing it on that, and now we don't have that. So a lot of this is, first of all, educating the companies that if you're doing bright stock, that's fine, but you can consider it not kosher. We're not going to be able to certify it. First of all, and making companies here aware of it, making sure that they're looking out, making sure that things are not coming in as bright stock. So that's another challenge. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: And I imagine bright stock would be an issue here in the United States as well, not just R’ Binyamin Berkowitz: It's the same issue. It's a common thing in China because they're looking to Especially if, let's say, you're making flavor chemicals, they have a tremendous shelf life. And you don't sell everything that you need to sell, you'll be very happy They want to be able to sell it to different companies. Exactly, to sell it off to other companies. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Now, one more question, a little less related to the kashrus of it, and more related to the geopolitical atmosphere. We hear so much about China. You know, during President Trump's first term, he would talk about China and China and China. And now, we're talking during his second term. You know, you also hear a lot about China and tariffs and different types of things. I'm curious how the geopolitical atmosphere actually impacts people traveling to China, the safety of doing so, and the impact on businesses. Do you see that from your perspective? R’ Binyamin Berkowitz: I think since COVID, things have changed. There's definitely less traveling going on to China. So, you feel more of like when you do travel, you feel a little bit more like a foreigner than you used to. So, it's really just that there's less traveling going on. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: It's not like you're going to Wuhan, right? R’ Binyamin Berkowitz: No. I haven't been there since COVID, not for any real reason. I haven't been there, but no, it's a relatively safe country. As far as, you know, as long as you don't like any other foreign country, you don't do anything wrong when you follow the rules. But there's definitely you feel less foreigners around. That you definitely feel. But other than that, it's actually the transportation in the country is easier than here. They have an amazing train system, and their planes are very safe. So, it's definitely a safe country to travel in. Most of the neighbors are safe. You know, you stay in a decent hotel. So, there usually isn't much of a problem. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: And what do you do about, just curious, kosher food, minyanim, things like that? R’ Binyamin Berkowitz: There are Chabads around. So, the Chabads also have suffered because of COVID. There's less traveling. There's Chabad, and you carry it in your suitcase like any other good tourist traveler. So, some fruits and vegetables. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Very interesting. You've taken us on a fascinating journey. I must say, you've piqued my interest enough that I would actually want to go and see it myself. But for now, this will have to do. So, Rabbi Berkowitz, thank you for joining us. Thank you for sharing your experiences about China. And maybe in the future we'll get to talk to you if you have any updates. Sure. Thank you so much for being here. R’ Binyamin Berkowitz: Pleasure.