Soy Many Questions Today we travel to China with Rabbi Binyamin Berkowitz - Kashrus Administrator at the KOF-K. Come along as we explore the process of certifying factories in China. 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. Pleasure to be here. We've wanted to speak to you for quite a while about China specifically, which is kind of your forte, your expertise. We get a lot of questions about products made in China, about Kashrus supervision in China. People wonder how is it even possible to supervise a product, no less a factory in China. And you have extensive experience, over a decade that you're doing this. So walk us through what it means when a Kashrus organization like the KOF-K takes on the responsibility of supervising a product in China. R’ Binyamin Berkowitz Sure. So first of all, there's really two types of Kashrus that's done in China. There's what's called special supervision, which would be, let's say, for a candy, for a very specific product. And then there's more of a general, for ingredients. So as far as it comes to specific products, that's usually done by what we'd call more the Haimeshe Hechsherim, or some of the Israeli Hechsherim, the Badatz, the Eidah Hachareidis and others. They'll go into a factory or they'll have a customer who's interested in going into a factory. And they'll make a product, let's say a candy or something like that. And they'll have a Mashgiach come in, assess the situation. If they have to Kasher, they'll Kasher, they'll approve all the ingredients. And you pretty much have a Mashgiach there for the whole production. And once the production is over, they control the labels, they check the labels, they make sure it has the proper labels. And then they leave the factory, and then the factory goes on and does whatever it does. As far as, let's say, the more national Hashgachas, such as us by the Kof-K, or any of the other nationals, OU, Star-K, et cetera, et cetera. So we mostly do what you would call ingredients. What I mean by ingredients or by processing aids, that could be anything like flavor chemicals, which is a whole discussion. And then it could be something like a processing aid could be an enzyme. We certify a lot of enzymes. It's more like a factory that does one type of product, meaning they might do a lot of things. They might do a lot of flavor chemicals. They might do several types of enzymes. And then we have companies that are even simpler. Believe it or not, we have companies that do active carbon, which you can ask, why does active carbon need Hashgacha? We can talk about that. Then you have companies that are doing simple things like nuts. Or you could have vegetables, canneries, which are just doing some basic tomato sauce, et cetera, et cetera. More the ingredients that are exported to America, to Europe, to Israel. So those are really the two types of Hashgachas that are done. So when it comes to the type of Hashgacha that we do, which is mostly ingredients. So the first question, yes, so how can we give Hashgacha on such a place? So really the first... R’ Yitzchok Hisiger You know, before you answer, I want to add something to the question. And tell me if I'm wrong. Maybe it's just my perception of how people perceive things. But from speaking to people, people hear China and they think they have a certain way of looking at it. Either it's like the Wild West out there. It's not organized. There's no accountability. I think there's a certain perception among the Hamon Am about China. So is that an accurate perception and is that a challenge? Or is there a total misconception about what's really going on? R’ Binyamin Berkowitz Obviously any conception, there's always some truth to it. But that's why when you come into a factory, that's the first question you have to ask yourself. Is this something that we can reasonably assume that there won't be any chaos? And it'll be something that we could control. Because if you can't control it, then there's going to be something that they're going to do that's going to... R’ Yitzchok Hisiger So that's already a red flag, right? R’ Binyamin Berkowitz That's already a red flag. So how do we go about that? So actually the first thing we do is we look at what is this company making? What are they doing? It's not so hard to find out, believe it or not, because they're very open about it. You can go onto their website and they'll advertise exactly what they're making. If you see that they're making things that are very questionable, how they could be kosher, or they have certain ingredients or certain products that will use certain ingredients, so that's a red flag. We wouldn't even go into such a factory to start with. So that's first of all. A lot of what it has to do is being able to assess, is this a simple enough factory for us to go in and reasonably assume that we can do Kashrus there? There's definitely something to the conception. Someone just asked me last night, what does it mean when something is made in the PRC? So obviously sometimes people are trying to cover up, because PRC is People's Republic of China, so people are trying to show that they're trying to at least cover up a little bit where it's made. But the bottom line is that that's how we go in. The first thing is we make an assessment when we get an application. We look over the application. Obviously we don't only trust the application. We look at what they're claiming they make. Does this make sense? Is it possible to do it this way? And if it makes sense, then that's something that we feel that we can reasonably go in and be able to give a kosher for that. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger So once you do your kind of pre-visit research, now you actually send a mashgiach down to China? R’ Binyamin Berkowitz Correct. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger And he has to stay there for an extended period of time? R’ Binyamin Berkowitz No. So like we said, we're talking about the simpler things. A lot of it is, as well as hashgacha that's done here, it's based on visitation, meaning you'll go in and you'll evaluate that this is something that can reasonably be given hashgacha, because we can assume that nothing is changing here. We'll come in, we'll do spot checks, but the basic assumption is that things aren't going to change here. This is all they're producing. There's not much else they could do here, and therefore we can reasonably assume that it'll stay kosher. And the other point to make is that in China, as opposed to in the United States, they really don't understand what kosher is, and they really don't even know. One of the advantages is they don't always know what to hide. They're much more open about those things. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger You mean, it's not necessarily a chisaron. It might even be a mailah because they don't even know what to manipulate. R’ Binyamin Berkowitz They don't understand what exactly to look for. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger So you said sometimes right. Sometimes actually less educated is better, ironically. R’ Binyamin Berkowitz But what we do is we do some education to explain to them what the rules are, and that's one thing that they're usually very good at is when you tell them what the rules are, they'll usually, a company which is used to regulations will follow the rules. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger What else could you tell us that we didn't touch on as far as the supervision of these products? R’ Binyamin Berkowitz So just we were talking about when a mashgiach goes into a factory. So just it's interesting. There are a few things that you wouldn't commonly think that you have to look for that a mashgiach looks for in a factory in China. So in China, the way it works is often you have, sometimes you have a factory that's run on its own, meaning it's self-contained, and sometimes you have a factory that can be in a large industrial area. So the first thing, one of the things you have to look for is steam. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Shared steam? R’ Binyamin Berkowitz Is there anything shared? It could be a common thing. And what's very interesting is it's one of the first Chinese words I learned was boiler because every time I would ask a Chinese person where your boiler is, they were very confused. And the reason why they're confused is they don't even view that that has anything to do with the kosher process or the process at all. So they don't understand why do you need to see a boiler. So that's something that you always have to check out and be aware of, that is this boiler shared? Is this something shared by a large industrial area? And if it is, who else is in that area? So that's one thing. And another interesting thing is that, you know, sometimes we think that hashgachah is just what's in the factory. So we had a case, often in China, the way that it works, if you have a factory, let's say, doing an extract, an herbal extract, or doing a sweetener, so it will be right near the crop. So if that's where the farms are, so they'll have a factory near the farm. So a popular item now is monk fruit extract. Okay, so monk fruit extract is considered like a healthier sweetener. It's anywhere between 100 to 250 times sweeter than sugar. So it's very sweet. And it's cultivated in China, in specific regions, like the southern mountainous regions of China. And a mashgiach was going to a plant. Like I said, it was right near the fruits are right near the plant. And he'd gone a few times. And he mentioned to me, you know, it's very interesting, but I noticed that the plants are cut down every year or two, and they plant new plants. So, I mean, he was calling them trees. And so he said they seem to be cutting down the trees. So isn't that orlah? Why don't we have to be worried that maybe, you know, we were certifying something that's orlah? So we thought about it, and it turned out we researched it, and we call it a monk fruit, but it's actually a vegetable. So it's more of a vine. Not a tree. What was happening really was that every few years they were dying out, and they were planting new ones. But just an example how, you know, you think you just have to certify in the factory, and here this is something that was out there. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Now you mentioned about certifying carbon before, which sounded very interesting. What is carbon typically used for? R’ Binyamin Berkowitz So active carbon is used in filtration. In other words, if you're making a product and you need to clean it to filter it out, make an extract. So an extract involves using a solvent, which means you're taking, let's say, an herb, and you want to extract out of that herb, you want to extract out the taste, the nutrients, all the flavors, and you'll use, let's say, ethanol, alcohol, and there could be other processing aids they use, and you want to be able to filter it out. So active carbon is used. Really, if you look at a common filter even in a refrigerator for water, there is carbon involved also. So you'll use carbon in order to filter that out. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger What does carbon actually do? Meaning carbon is like, you know, coal. They'll take coal, and there's a process just to mill it in a certain way. Then that's used in filtration. It'll filter it out. It has to also be held from going. It'll go through that in order to filter it out, and it comes out the other side. Just like if you want to look at, you know, a refrigerator filter. The water goes through it. There's something in there that's filtering, and it comes right out the other side. R’ Binyamin Berkowitz Got it. So you're saying it is certified because? R’ Yitzchok Hisiger We have many that are certified, and usually it's never a problem. The reason I was mentioning it is just recently someone brought to my attention that or he questioned it. There was a factory that was marketing that they were making another product, which was clearly not kosher. So the question was how was that possible, and Baruch Hashem, when we did our inspection, we already knew what the issue was, and it was a completely separate workshop, no connection at all, no equipment connection, no connection as far as, you know, steam, and not even a possibility that they could be connected. But had we not done our inspection and seen that, then that's something that we could have wondered how that is possible. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Rabbi Berkowitz, thank you for joining us. Thank you for sharing your experiences about China, and thank you so much for being here. R’ Binyamin Berkowitz Pleasure.

What can be wrong with canned corn? All the ingredients are kosher. Let's listen to Rabbi Mordechai Stareshefsky a Rabbinic Coordinator at the OU as he explains some potential issues with the most basic food items. This serves as a reminder why one should always ensure that there is a good hechsher on everything they buy. 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 Mordechai Stareshefski, Rabbinate Coordinator at the Orthodox Union. Thank you Rabbi Stareshefski for joining us once again. R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky Good to be here, thank you. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger We'd like to discuss today the topic of retorts. It has tremendous ramifications in the field of Kashrus . For those of us who have never been to one of these large factories, we may not have seen a retort, we may not even know what it is. Tell us what it is and then we'll talk about the  halachic  details. R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky So there's different types of retorts. Let's talk about first the purpose of a retort. A retort is, there's two ways of cooking food. Food has to be cooked obviously, some food is not edible without cooking, but a lot of food has to be cooked as a preservative to make sure it's shelf-stable, to make sure that the bacteria, the pathogens have been killed. A lot of times that cooking process is done in a retort. A retort is a steam cooker, which means that it's done under pressure because steam is by definition is under pressure. There's different types of retorts. They're all the same principle, it's cooked with steam if under pressure. The most common retort you'll find is a batch retort, which means that these cans or you can have fruit cups, they're loaded, they're sealed, but the point is that the product is already sealed. Like canned vegetables. Canned vegetables. Canned fruits. Right. The can, already done, they go through into this chamber called the retort. It looks like, if anybody ever saw a picture of a World War II type of submarine, like a long tube, you put the torpedo in, so it looks like that, this round tube, and I have a plant actually on the Idaho-Oregon border. They actually have an old-fashioned one, the technology is about 100 years old, it works. They actually go take the retort and spin that wheel around to pressurize it. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Manually? R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky Manually. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Because labor's cheap. Today, most retorts are done, even batch retorts, are done by a robot. It's a whole cart, a whole train, the door opens up automatically, the goes in. Shoots it through? Shoots it in, there's like four or five baskets that go in, seals it, and then the robot moves on to the next one. Obviously much more efficient that way, but the point is it goes in, it's sealed, and it's cooked with steam. There’s another type of retort, which is only the really big companies have this. It's called a continuous feed autoclave, continuous feed hydrostatic retort. And what a hydrostatic retort is, is it has hundreds of thousands of cans at a time. It goes in this big chain through a water leg. Which means water there? There's water, no, there's steam in the middle, there's different chambers. So steam obviously is under pressure, and the cooking section is the steam section. The water on both sides is to make it heavier than the steam, that the steam shouldn't blow out, keeps it contained, so the cans go through. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger And that makes it hotter? R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky No, it doesn't make it hotter, it just makes that the steam is contained, because it's not under pressure. You know, when you have just the steam in one batch retort, so all the steam there, it's being held in place by the metal. Here the steam has to be held in place because the steam is always looking to blow out. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger So it cooks faster that way? R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky In the steam it cooks faster because it goes up like 280 degrees, but the water is there to hold it in place. It goes through in this, the in leg and the out leg, first the in leg, then the in feed, then it goes through another. This is about six stories high. You drive to a plant, I went to Tennessee, drive up there, it's like this smoke billowing out the top, this big building, eventually the snow, that is a hydrostatic retort. So when you have, there's a lot of interesting  halacha , Shailos , that come out from a retort. First of all, it goes through, some plants can even have a double chain. So you can have your canned corn, which is like, what can be wrong with corn? Yeah, but it might be sharing, actually it might be sharing the steam, not just the steam, it can actually be in the water, the water is also hot. You're going into the steam and actually sharing a chain. With another product that may not be kosher. So we're talking about  bliyos , in a  kli rishon , because the water is cooked. It's like they're sharing, the  bliyos  pass through the shach, the  taz , siman pey daled etc. So retorts, one interesting thing, which one of our experts, one of our experts discovered is that we have a plant that does pork and beans. So of course they  kasher , we don't certify the pork and beans. We  kasher  it and then we just certify the beans. Discovered that in one of these retorts, the pressure cooling section, that means that water, after it's cooked, they have to cool down those cans. So water gets down, water sprays on the cans, makes the cans cold, and in turn the water gets hot. That water has to be cooled off. So they came up with an ingenious arrangement that water coming into the plant, which is going to be used for the sauce, called city water, regular water, you open up a tap, coming from the city, it's ambient, which means in kashrus  terminology, plant terminology, which means it's room temperature ambient, and they want to get that hot, and they want to get this water cold. So it runs against, it doesn't touch each other, but it runs against, it's called a heat exchanger, and heat pierces from one to the other and it cools it off. A heat exchanger is actually off topic a little bit. There's an ethanol plant in Nebraska that I was by, so ethanol is made from the corn, so it goes through first a hydro heater, with water, with an enzyme, to make it very hot, and to start the alpha amylase, to start acting on the sugar, to start breaking it down. Then it goes to be fermented in a beer, and a beer can be three quarters of a million gallon tank, a few. So it has to be cooled off to go into the beer. Then from beer, if it's fermented, it has to go for distillation to make it, without going t through how it gets distilled, it has to get hot again. So a little heat exchanger, coming from hydro heater to the beer, it has to be cooled, and from beer to the still, it has to be hot. That little heat exchanger saves the plant six million dollars a year in utilities, just by having them cooled down and heated up. Fascinating topic, heat exchangers. In this case... R’ Yitzchok Hisiger So as a general rule, when you have a cross-exchanging heat in such a case, where you have kosher and non-kosher, I imagine it's a problem, right? It's a real problem, yeah. So you have to  kasher  in between, or what do you typically do? R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky Typically the OU is going to flush, we don't  kasher the boiler, it's a technical discussion based on a pri megadim, when we say chanan , but not for this forum. But in this case, of course we have to  kasher , we couldn't do it at those temperatures, we had to lower it. At a lower temperature. So that's the general parsha of a retort. There are many different concerns with a retort. For example, even take pork and beans. If you take pork, how much pork actually goes into the bean can? Not very much. But there's a concept called chanan – R’ Yitzchok Hisiger chaticha naaseis neveila , which means, tell our viewers... R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky Let's say you have, for example, a 59 ounce container of orange juice. Let's say you have milk in there, and a schnapps cup of chicken soup gets poured into there, so it's not batul, because you need 60 times the amount to be batul. It comes in a drop below that, it's only 59 times the amount. So if you would not say  Chatichah Na'aseh Nevelah , let's say that orange juice container falls into something else, a few gallons. If you don't say  Chatichah Na'aseh Nevelah , all you have in the bottle is that one ounce. It's a small amount. Once you say Chatichah Na'aseh Nevelah , the orange juice itself now is treif. The whole thing becomes problematic. So in a pork and beans plant, maybe the pork is very small, but then the can becomes also  Chatichah Na'aseh Nevelah . And then once it goes, the source becomes also  Chatichah Na'aseh Nevelah . And that goes into the retort, that's going to  assur  the whole retort. So you end up with the cascading, exponentially  assuring  everything, and that's why you have to have an expert mashgiach  go into this plant to make sure that everything is done properly, kashered  properly. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Right, like we always say, you can't just walk into a place and, oh, everything, the ingredients are kosher, the tube that it's going through is kosher. You really have to know the structure of such a facility. Any final thoughts on this, because I know you mentioned to me before, we were talking about acidic fruits and vegetables. High acid fruits and vegetables, which very often will be self-preserved. Talk about that and its ramifications as far as kashrut  is concerned. R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky Right, so we know that, for example, corn, beans, it's low acid, it goes into tomatoes, I'm not sure what acidity, but let's say watermelon, bananas, low acid, and it has to be, we know it has to be, it has to go through a kill step, like we say, to be heated to kill the pathogens. And that we know is going to be  halachic shailos  like we discussed. High acid fruits is... R’ Yitzchok Hisiger That would be, R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky let's say, peaches. Peaches, pineapple. So the pineapple, the fruit itself has enough acid in it and the source has enough acid that there is a thought that you're not going to need to do any kill step because the acid itself acts as a kill step. For example, vinegar, which is an acidic acid, there's enough vinegar in there. Vinegar plants don't have a cleaning step because vinegar is used as a cleanser. So there's enough acid, but I don't believe, I'm almost 100% positive in this, there's not enough acid in most of these fruits to act as a kill step. So it does need to go through, you know, they put in the potassium sorbate or sodium benzoate as preservatives, but even with that, it has to still go through a heat treatment. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger What's the relevance of the acidic level to  kashrut ? R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky If it's a high acid, then you can be pretty confident that it didn't go through, and those ingredients are all  kosher , and it's high acid, you know, of course it's always ideal to buy with a  hechsher . Canned oranges, because oranges are very high acid. Pineapples, pears, peaches, let's say. Very often buy the little orange tidbits like that. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger You could buy that without  hashgacha ? R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky No, so there's a few things you have to watch out for, I don't want to just not try this at home, you know, speaking in theory. More theory, okay. First of all, you have to check the ingredients, and not always if there's flavors in there that could be, you don't know what flavors. Flavors, additives, things like that. It could be a concern. Okay. We're talking just, let's say for example, just pineapples and syrup. Now, a lot of times, there's one trick that they use, they say natural, it has to be all natural syrup, but they don't want to put sugar in or high fructose corn syrup, so they just put in white grape juice. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger And that won't appear on the ingredient panel? R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky It would. It would? It usually would. It usually would. So, that's something which you can't always assume that pineapples are, it's going to be  kosher , because a lot of times they'll use grape juice as a sweetener, white grape juice, which wouldn't be  kosher , it's stam yaynum. But let's say you know for sure, you can trust the ingredient list, and you know that it's not going to be, ingredients are fine. The issue is that if it's in a can, it usually goes through a retort. Then it went through a retort. That's the bottom line. Even a fruit cup, it doesn't go through a, see a fruit cup can't go through a steam retort. Glass bottles, for example, are also retorted. I had a company in Spain that I was by, they don't go, it's a glass bottle, if it goes through steam, the volatility of the steam will cause the glass to break. To break, right. So what you do is it goes through a retort, the steam goes into the bottom of the retort, and it heats up water, and the water sprays around the continuous spray. It's like a more gentle way of doing it, to protect the glass. But either way, it's over yad soledes, you have issues. Even the fruit cup, the plastic is going to be a spray retort. Interesting. And you have, now again, can I raise my right hand and say it's for sure  treif ? You know, chanan , let's say you don't say  chanan , the Rem”a, you don't say  chanan balach balach , hefsed meruba, me’eis le’eis, issur derabanan of  balach balach . There might be eitzos, you know, but we believe in kosher without compromise. Right. If you're stuck in some deserted island somewhere with only kosher ingredients, R’ Yitzchok Hisiger To summarize this conversation, first of all, everyone should try to buy canned vegetables and canned fruit with  hashgacha , obviously. That would be highly recommended. But I think the takeaway from this conversation is that you could go into a supermarket and see canned vegetables or canned fruits on a shelf. All the ingredients are kosher, everything looks good, but what you as a consumer may not know is that this can or container went through a retort and we don't know the kosher concerns that were in that retort. That's the takeaway here. And that's why... Maybe real kosher... Maybe real kosher issues might be nothing. Right. So, you know, once again, it's so enlightening to speak to someone like you and learn about this because once again, the lesson is you can't take anything for granted and you can't make assumptions. I think people, including myself, we very often make assumptions about things. We see something. Yeah, exactly. Or maybe you're just a  chumra , a very extreme chumra  over here. We have a real, real kosher concern. And if you don't know, then you don't know what you don't know. So it's very important to be educated on this. And once again, a fascinating topic that you've brought to the table here. So any final words on this? R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky We covered everything. We covered everything. But in general, not just when it comes to these high acid fruits. In general, a person should buy, always buy something with reliable  hechsher . It's not enough to say, well, the  hechsher may not be reliable, but for this, what can be wrong with it? R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Right. You hear that often, very often. You hear people say, on orange juice or on canned fruit and vegetables, maybe I don't need as good of a  hashgacha , so to speak. R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky Mentioning orange juice. Orange juice is, because of the nature of the beast, most of the, you know, it's expensive to ship things around the country. So a lot of these big orange juice companies will just rent out space by different bottling facilities nearer to the market where they want to sell. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Is that right? Even brand name orange juices? R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky They'll bottle different places because it's more economical that way. Instead of trucking something from one side of the country, you might as well have a plant somewhere else, of course. And those plants can actually do grape juice, can do  treif things, and then  kasher . Those are shared facilities. You have to basically check it out. Very interesting. A pleasure being here as always. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger Thank you so much.

What Are The Facts? That shiny coating that can be found on anything from jellybeans to fruit to hard-wood flooring. What is it made of? Is it Kosher? Let's listen in to a fascinating (and slightly discomforting) discussion about Shellac otherwise known as confectioners glaze, with Rabbi Sholem Fishbane - Kashrus Administrator at the Chicago Rabbinical Council, and Executive Director of AKO. R’ Yitzy 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, Executive Director of AKO and Kashrus Administrator of the Chicago Rabbinical Council. How are you Rabbi Fishbane? R’ Sholem Fishbane : Baruch Hashem , thank you for having me. R’ Yitzy Hisiger: Thanks again for being here. I'd like to discuss a topic that people may have a cursory knowledge of. They've heard the terms, but they don't really know what it is. So let's delve into it. And that is what we'll call shellac, otherwise known in the field as resinous glaze or confectioner's glaze. It's used very often in candies. Sometimes you'll even find it on fruit, which I hope you'll get into. Tell us, number one, what it is and why there's a Kashrus concern regarding its use. R’ Sholem Fishbane: Okay, yeah, sure. It's known in the industry as E904, but you're right, better known as shellac, confectioner's glaze, etc. And it comes from a lac bug. It actually comes from a bug where there's these little insects, female lac bug, that they suck the sap of the tree. It's found in India and Thailand. And it takes about 50,000 to 300,000, depending on the bug, to make about 2.2 pounds of it. Believe it or not, the word shellac doesn't mean shel lac from a lac. That's Hebrew now. Actually, the word lac in the Indian numbering system is 100,000. So it takes about 100,000 of these to get a small amount. And it was actually used for many years to help with the phonograph and the old record players. R’ Yitzy Hisiger: Really, is that right? R’ Sholem Fishbane: Yeah, and wood finishing and that type of thing. R’ Yitzy Hisiger: They would coat it. Right. That's where the word shellac of like a shine, shellac on the floor. R’ Sholem Fishbane: Right, so that's where it comes from. But then they discovered, hey, this could go well, does a great job if you put it on fruit, like you said, or candies and whatnot. And in order to do it, now, please know when it comes out, it's terrible tasting. So they have to put stuff into it in order to make it like a coating. And they put in water. They put in alcohol. They put in oleic acid or fatty acids, which could be a kashrus issue, soy or even dairy protein and whatnot to make it. And then they spray it on. And then it does. So there's really two sheilos . One is the actual shellac itself. And then there's the other things that go in. Because once it's dried off, some of these things are way over shishim it’s like 11% on the fatty acids. Those are the two sheilos  in halacha . Now, as you said, it's in candies. It is in candies. And believe it or not, there's a pretty long list of fruits that they'll spray it on to give it. It does two things. It makes it shiny, appealing to eat. And it holds in the water. It's water retention. Like a sealer. So here we go. Ready? I'll try to go through some of them. Apples, avocados, bell and hot peppers, cucumbers, eggplant, grapefruit, lemons, limes, mangoes, melons, nectarines, oranges, papayas, parsnips, passion fruit, peaches, pears, pineapple, plums, pumpkins, rutabaga, squash, sweet potatoes, tangerines, tomatoes, turnips, yucca, aseres bnei haman.  So that's a long list. R’ Yitzy Hisiger: So these are all fruits and vegetables that are generally coated with shellac? R’ Sholem Fishbane: And it could be with shellac. And especially the ones that you're going to find being sold to consumers where it has to look nice and seasonal and whatnot. So there are some that use a petroleum-based wax, which is fine. But the problem and the most common is the shellac one. And the question is, how does halacha look at that? So there's a basic machlokes , we'll call it, between Rav Moshe  and Rav Elyashiv . Rav Moshe  says, the halacha  is called hayotzei min hatamei tamei . And the question is, what about something called pirsha ? Like, mei raglayim  is called, is that pirsha ? Hayotzei  is that pirsha ? Pirsha , which we have much more room to work with. So Rav Moshe  says that since shellac comes out and it's rock hard, he says, miskasheh ke'etz sheba la'avir olam, v'lo hayah davar ochel . It's nothing. It's pirsha . Just ignore it. It doesn't have a din  of hayotzei min hatamei . Rav Elyashiv  has a chiddush . He says, wait a minute. Pirsha  is only a svara  and mutar when it comes from a pleasant-tasting animal, like the mei raglayim  of a beheima temeiah . And then the chazal  says, okay, don't worry about that. But if the insect is inherently inedible, so it's still assur because the pirsha  has the same din  as a yotzei . So that's an inherent machlokes . And we could be here all day. It's very gishmak . Svaros  back and forth. And, therefore, most of the major hashgachos follow Rav Moshe . And, therefore, we'll not only allow it on products, but they'll even certify it. Okay? We'll certify the actual shellac. I've seen it with hashgacha , even if it comes from a lac bug. We'll call it more the heimishe and Eretz Yisrael . They're saying, you know, stay away from it. And you know why it came back to light. It was actually after October 7th. So after October 7th, there were many things that happened, obviously a terrible tragedy to Klal Yisrael . But one of the things that happened was they couldn't get to the farms that they were used to getting their produce from. So they were bringing produce from the United States and other countries. And what happened was the Badatz   Eidah Hachareidis  issued Raboisai . There's stuff coming in from overseas. It's talking about produce, your apples, whatnot. Make sure that you get rid of it before you eat it because, you know, it's assur . Now you'll ask how do you get rid of a coating because it's pretty stuck. It's pretty hard to get off. R’ Yitzy Hisiger: Unless you peel it? R’ Sholem Fishbane: So you can peel it. You can peel it. Another possible way is you can actually rub it off. It won't come off. But you can throw it in boiling water for 10 seconds, which will loosen it. Then you can take a shmata . R’ Yitzy Hisiger: Really? R’ Sholem Fishbane: Yeah. R’ Yitzy Hisiger: And you can actually see it come off? R’ Sholem Fishbane: You'll feel it. It's a waxy thing. So, you know, that's something that is a possibility. You can't do that with the candies, though. You can't do that with the candies. So someone asked, like, okay, so if I want to be machmir , like, which one should I do? It's going to be hard for me to do one. What about the candy? Like in Chicago, we had a store, a candy store, where they had a whole section shellac-free, confectionery-free. So if someone wanted to be machmir . They go and they know they can get the candies from that area that were okay. Yeah, so we did that. So, you know, there's interesting stories. On one hand. R’ Yitzy Hisiger: Just to clarify before you go further, you're talking about someone wanted shellac-free, they were being machmir . Now, if I pick up a box of kosher candy and I say it's kosher because it has national certification, or even sometimes a heimeshe hechsher  on the box, isn't that telling me that either it doesn't have shellac or that the shellac is not a problem? R’ Sholem Fishbane: The latter. Most agencies that write that, if it, let's say, candies, if it has a national hechsher , it usually means, well, saying it's shellac, and it's true. R’ Yitzy Hisiger: Because they hold halachically  like R’ Moshe? R’ Sholem Fishbane: Right, yeah. That's not a problem. Not a problem. I have reached out to some of the heimeshe hechsherim  to understand what goes into maybe a sticker on a candy that has it, and so far, my research is that they're basically saying we also agree with R’ Moshe , that they are not removing the shellac, at least the ones I've contacted. So there you go. I haven't seen that they're going into these massive candy companies and making them remove it for their small run. R’ Yitzy Hisiger: Is there a way for the layman, for the man on the street, the kosher consumer, when he picks up a box of candy and he sees that certification, is there a way for him to discern, okay, this candy does have shellac, but the kashrus agency is saying that it's okay, or that this box of candy does not have shellac, and therefore he could rest easy because he's not relying on any kulos . Is there any way to determine that? R’ Sholem Fishbane: So, if it's a national hechsher  and it says the word shellac, or some of the other words it comes up with, then it would be relying on R’ Moshe . If it would be a, let's say, a badatz   Eidah Hachareidis , obviously that means that they put in something special. A lot of the in-between, the heimeshe , call them. R’ Yitzy Hisiger: Could you check the ingredient panel? Yeah, it will be there. And it will be there either as shellac or as confectioner's glaze. E904, confectioner's glaze, resinous glaze. Resinous glaze and so on. R’ Sholem Fishbane: That's what will be over there, right. So that would be the best way. Call them. And that's what I did. I called. What are you, what's your standard exactly? So just one thing that I heard from R’ belsky , interesting. R’ belsky  had a geshmak sevara . He says the candies, when you suck it, so the coating is the first thing that comes off. And R’ belsky  was actually more worried about those other fatty acids that went into it than maybe the shellac itself because, you know, R’ Moshe  is R’ Moshe . But he said, interesting enough, when you bite a fruit, so you have shishim . Because it's a very small amount. And when you take a bite, you have all sorts of other parts going on, including the apple or, you know, if you like biting into, you know, a parsnip or whatever it is, then you're okay. So that was one, that was a very interesting thing. And at the same time, as we said earlier, the fruit, you possibly could have an eitzah , and that is you could put the fruit in the boiling water for 10 seconds and scrub it off. The bulk of the wax will come off. Now, again, the major agencies, including the CRC  and all the other agencies do rely on R’ Moshe . I think the point of kashrus awareness is to just, like you asked, what's this all about? What's behind it? It sounds pretty scary, coming from a lac bug. A lot of lac bugs that get a small amount. But it's a fascinating sugya, and our goal today is just to give some information, and then, of course, every consumer should ask their own shaila . R’ Yitzy Hisiger: Okay. Thank you for the education. Thank you for the information. And like you said, everyone should speak to their Rav , their Posek , their Moreh Hora'ah , and, you know, do what's appropriate. But thank you for the background.

Lab-Grown vs. Nature Today's topic is very futuristic. Cultured meat, clean meat, lab-grown meat... Let's get a behind-the-scenes peek at this topic which is still in the theoretical stages. Rabbi Mordechai Stareshefsky is a Rabbinic Coordinator at the OU. 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 Mordechai Stareshefsky, Rabbinic Coordinator at the Orthodox Union. Thank you Rabbi Stareshefsky for returning and coming back to speak to us once again. R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky: Good to be here again, thank you. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: So last time we spoke about baby formula and other... Pesach  Right, Pesach , some other interesting topics and it's great to have you back and for you to bring your expertise to the table to discuss about another very interesting topic that was raised and that is lab-grown meat. There are many articles that have been written about it. If people look into it, it's a very, very interesting topic. So first of all, tell us what it is and then take us through the halachic  ramifications of such meat. R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky: So lab-grown meat is otherwise known as clean meat, cultured meat. It just refers to the... There's two parts to it. They capture the DNA of a cow, of a chicken, of a duck, anything, and that can be done through scrapings of the feathers, that can be done through the skin, that can be done through the actual meat and they put it into a serum to grow it. Now, it sounds pretty simple, but first let's talk about why they do it. Untold billions have been spent on it and it still hasn't gotten very far. They still haven't mastered the secrets of creation. So it used to be when we were children and maybe we’re dating ourselves a little bit, so when we were children, we met a vegetarian, a vegan, either because he had some philosophical difficulty, why should I eat a cow, maybe a cow... who said, I'm more important than a cow, or he felt bad for the cow. Today's vegetarian is not that. It might also be that, but today's a new type of vegetarian. Cows give off methane and global warming. By him eating meat, he's literally destroying the planet. So it's like a religious exercise almost with a zeal to create alternate forms of meat. And it's not just meat. They create plant-based whey to take... Also genetically indistinguishable. They make it out of a plant and they ferment it in these fermenters. And it's officially... I never tried it, but officially they give an allergen warming because it can trigger an allergen, a milk allergen, anaphylaxis, the whole nine yards. And they're going to be... They have to put an allergen warning on it. Okay, now we digress. So in terms of meat, they're trying to create this meat in order to get... They want to get rid of these cows. That's not trying to save Elsie, They're trying to kill Elsie, the cow. So they've invested a lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of expertise into something which is really space age, which happens for free since sheishes yemei bereishis . What they're doing is is that every cell... If you take a cell, a human cell, a skin cell, it constantly replicates itself. Cells have an innate ability, put in by the Aibeshter,  to make one become two, two become four. So a person is constantly in movement. A person's cells don't stay the same. They're constantly growing. So they use that same technology. They take a scraping of a cow or a chicken, whatever it is, and the cell grows and replicates and replicates out of the animal in a growth medium. That's the theory behind it. That's actually in practice what they're actually doing. The issue is that you can't just... There's one technical issue before we get to halachic  issues. One technical issue which they have so far not yet been able to solve, at least not on a large level. It's scalability, what they say, to make it affordable. A few years ago, they had a taste. They had a burger that they made out of this. The burger cost $350,000. It was sponsored by one of the founders of Google. Definitely not cost effective. But to make it scalable, somewhat economical, what they need to do is they need to... In this, you can get... For example, they can get a chicken nugget. You get just the cells of chicken that's replicating, replicating, replicating until you have enough mashed chicken you can put together. But to put together a steak, k’shmo kein hu , you need not just meat. You need fat. You need muscles. You need skin. You need marbling. You're looking for grain. You're looking for... Now, an egg, stem cell research comes up in the political world. They can use stem cells and embryos to... Stem cells have the... All cells in an egg look exactly the same. And they are told by the master plan that you're going to become the leg and become the wing. But the cell in the egg looks the same. So they're trying to not just to do that. That's already a feat in and of itself, take stem cells and make the yesh me’ayin from there, so to speak. But they actually are looking at taking a cell of meat and trying to reprogram it in this growth medium that they have and make it into a fat cell. A meat cell to a fat cell is unbelievable. I don't think... I'm not up to date on the science of it, but I don't think they've been able to solve that problem in small doses perhaps, but not in large doses. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: So basically what you're saying is as they're working to replicate it so far, the lab-grown product, the cultured meat, as good as it may be, it hasn't achieved the perfection that they're looking for yet anyway. Right. But whatever it is that they're producing, and I guess it's not... Could it be bought? Is it even for sale? R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky: Not for sale. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: It's not for sale. But it's out there in some laboratory somewhere. So I guess this conversation is more theoretical at this point than it is practical for our viewers. But that's what we're here for, you know, to learn and to be informed and to be educated. So this item, this cultured meat, this lab-grown meat, if we were to have one right here, obviously the first question people probably would want to know, is it considered real meat? Is it considered fleischigs ? Right? And what would the answer be? R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky: So with regard to the halachic  sense of it, you know, fleishigs , the R’ Asher Weiss  writes a whole teshuva  saying why he considers it to be a fleishigs . He writes a Raya from a Gemara in Sanhedrin  a Gemara in Menachos, a Tosfos in Menachos.  It’s meat, it looks like meat, it walks like meat. That's his feeling on it and really, it's the most conservative approach. That's the approach, the OU would take if it would ever become feasible because the shailos  that would crop up otherwise, has real meat, it tastes like meat, it looks like meat and it's pareve . I mean, that's like a... R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Even though there are things like the Impossible Burger, which people who had it and people who eat it say that, you know, it's pretty good, it feels like meat, it somewhat tastes like meat, it resembles it. So, you do see there are imitations that are pretty good. R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky: Imitations are imitations. Everybody understands that they take pea protein or whatever it is, chickpeas and make them possible beyond meat, whatever. But, you know, there's a whole flavor industry making chemicals that replicate... The real thing, right. So, now we understand that somebody has no issue with. They understand that's not what it is, you know. A lot of butter products and milk products are not actually milk and butter That's fine. But, when it comes to... It actually looks like meat, tastes like meat. It actually is indistinguishable from regular meat. You never, you have the same sizzle on it, in theory where they're hoping to get it. So, I'll just tell you one fascinating discussion. R’ Hershel Schachter of the OU and the OU Baruch Hashem has been zoche  throughout the years to have Rav Belsky  and Schachter yibade   l'Chaim and Rav Asher Weiss  is a posek . So, this is not something you open up a Shulchan Aruch  and find, obviously. You have to go back to the sugya  and try to find a ra'ayah and really boi ois , it’s like R’ Moshe  style to boi ois  something yesh me’ayin , a Rash”i somewhere. So, R’ Schachter said like this. He doesn’t  subscribe to it. It's not meat. It's not meat. What you would do at the end? I don't know. We'll have to wait about that. But, as R’ Schachter said, when it comes to chicken, however, you take something from a chicken cell, from an egg cell, make a chicken out of it, imitation chicken. That, he holds, is going to be the same halachah  as chicken. Because meat, basar b’chalav, is from the Torah, Oif is a derabanan . Why were Chazal   gozer derabanan on chicken? Because it looks like meat. This also looks like meat. It's the same thing. It's the same halachah . When I take regular meat, OK, regular meat is not meat. So, it wouldn't even have it's a derabanan . It's... But here, I'm making chicken, and chicken is itself a gezerah . It's not a new gezerah . It's that chicken that Chazal   asur , he feels I would have the same halachah  over here. When it comes to chicken, he would hold it's a real problem with derabanan . That's a problem. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Right. But that's a fascinating distinction that he has. That's interesting. So, he would hold that chicken is a problem, meat is not a problem. We're talking about lab-grown. R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky: We're talking about lab-grown. You can't make your own gezeros . Meat, the Chachamim , the Chachamim  didn't asur  meat. And that's not a gezerah   l’gezerah , because it's the same thing. That's one of the Chachamim   asur , because it looks like meat. This also looks like meat. So, that's one, that's really the style that we deal with at the end of the day. But really, it's good they came to the OU in the beginning, because these cells have to be taken from a behemah tehorah . They can't be taken from a behemah temei'ah . They have to be taken from a ge shuchtene   behemah . It shouldn't have a problem of ever min ha'chai . Even when a behemah  is ge shuchten , it shouldn't have been a neveilah  or a tereifah . Interesting. And even though you can provide a shtickel Torah  with each thing, you know, my shver  says over, R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Your shver is? R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky: Rav Hillel David . A talmid of Rav Hutner. So, he says over, that Rav Hutner  liked the Veitzner Rav  from Chicago, Rav   Meisels , because of the following story, that he built a mikveh  in Chicago, and the ba'alei batim  came to him and said, We have a mikveh . A kosher mikveh . We sent the shayla  to Rav Moshe  and Rav Moshe  wrote a 20-page teshuvah saying it's mutar . So, Rav   Meisels  said, I'm going to send my, I'm going to describe my mikveh  to a Rav Moshe . And if a Rav Moshe takes more than a half a page to say it's mutar , I'm going to use your mikveh instead of that. So, you know, the OU has to give a hechsher , lechatchilah . I can't come with a shtikel Torah  of 20 pages and say why it's, it's particularly interesting when it comes to the fourth question. So, we're done with three questions. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Well, let's review the three again. R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky: Number one, it has to be behemah tehorah . Two, it has to be shechted , so it shouldn't be ever min ha'chai . And three, it has to be a kosher if it's shechted . I'm saying kosher that it was nivdak  and it wasn't a tereifah . The fourth issue is the serum. It grows, and this serum is really the secret behind the whole thing because you have the DNA and it has, this thing that the Aibeshter did for free by the way, to make an animal with blood going through it and the blood grows the meat. This is all in the laboratory, these geniuses, and I said it without any sarcasm, they're really geniuses. They are geniuses. Yeah, they come up with, to replicate and they can send the growth medium and sends a message to the cell how to reproduce and what to reprogram it before. So far, I believe they're still doing it with blood. I don't think there's found a way to do it without blood. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: The serum is blood? R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky: Yeah. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: It's blood from the same animal? R’ Mordechai Stareshefsky: Or not the same animal or maybe a derivative of it. And you're saying the blood would also have to come from... Even the blood, the blood, it's an ingredient. Right. When something's in a behemah , the blood is kosher. Once it's an ingredient to something, it's obviously going to be asur . And again, you can say a shtikel torah, its zeh v’ze gorem . So that's the fourth thing that they have to be careful with. And of course, so before the O.U. would give a heads-up that it has to meet all those four criteria. And it's good they came to us because even though it's not yet scaled up, but the cell banks are already there. that they have already. Wow. That was all done on the under the OU to make sure it was kosher. R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: And it sounds like it's an evolving field where they're probably learning new things and things are changing. So, I would tell our viewers to stay tuned. This is just our first conversation with R’ Stareshefsky. But when you have an update on how they're doing, well, maybe the next time... Yeah, you'll come. The next time you come, I want to have a sample so we can check it out, we can feel it and really learn more. But thank you again for being here. It is a fascinating, fascinating topic. It sounds like something really definitely beyond my pay grade. Takeh  something for the Gedolei Poskim  and something that's going to change over time because as they learn new things and as the kashrus  field, which is the OU is together with these large kashrus  organizations really at the forefront of staying on top of these changes within the food production field, you know, we'll look forward to hearing more. Thank you.

Ensuring a kosher kitchen. Let’s listen to Rav Shmuel Fuerst - Dayan of Agudas Yisroel of Illinois on the topic of keeping a kosher kitchen with 1 sink vs. 2 sinks. RYH 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 Rav  Shmuel Fuerst, Dayan  of Agudas Yisrael  of Illinois. Thank you to the Rav  for being here. I'd like to ask the Rav  about one very specific topic within the realm of Kashrus , and it's a domestic issue, something related to people's homes, and that is sinks. Many, many people today are privileged to have two sinks in their kitchens. I wonder when the Rav grew up if the Rav  had two sinks. RSF We didn't know there was such a thing as two sinks. RYH There was no such a thing as two sinks. Where did the Rav  grow up? RSF In Williamsburg. RYH In Williamsburg, probably in an apartment. RSF Yeah. RYH The Rav 's parents had one sink, right? RSF Yes. RYH It was used for milchigs and fleishigs . RSF Yes, yes. RYH And now, especially now, Yidden are moving out to peripheral areas outside of the popular Jewish areas. They're buying houses that were previously owned by non-Jews, and most of them have one sink. So, you know, there is a portion of our population that has two, but many have one. What guidance could the Rav  give as far as that's concerned with the milchigs , fleishigs , pareve ? How do you make it work with one sink? RSF First, I just want to mention that if you buy a house for a few hundred thousand dollars, or a half a million dollars or more, RYH Halevai, it's only a few hundred thousand dollars. RSF Whatever it is. I come from Chicago. So, you pay a lot of money for the house. You can already afford to have two sinks. You should change the kitchen right away before you move in to have two sinks. And it should be not close to each other. You should ask a Rav . He'll tell you how to set up the two sinks. L'chatchila , just like everything else you want to be, kosher   v’yashar  in your house, you have two beds, you have this, you have everything. You have kosher v’yashar , the kitchen, which is the main portion of a person's house, should be 100% L'chatchila . L'chatchila , you should have two sinks, not one sink. If you buy with a sink and for some reason you can't do it right away, then you have to be very careful. L'chatchila , you should always move into a house or apartment that has two sinks or try as soon as you move in to change into two sinks. That's L'chatchila . Now, we’re talking about if you have only one sink, like we had when we were young, when we grew up, we only knew of one sink. We didn't know that there existed two sinks. To have one sink, you've got to be very careful of milchigs  and fleishigs  and pareve . A lot of people, what they do is they have like a tub with a plastic, they keep in the sink, which is only used for milchigs  and another tub used for fleishigs . That's how they wash in the one sink to avoid the problem of mixture  oo milchigs or fleishigs  because you have to be very careful then. You have to be careful who washes the dishes, how you wash the dishes, where you put the dishes and so on. You have to be very careful if you have only one sink. So you have to be very zohir  in the inyanei kashrus  when you have one sink. Sometimes you go on vacation. There's only one sink there. Same thing also. You have milchigs  and fleishigs . You have to be very careful that you have two tubs and you wash in each one a separate tub or you just wash by the running water. You don't put anything in the sink directly into the sink. You put it in the sink, then you might run into problems. The sink is treif . So you have kasher . Not all sinks can be kashered so fast. Sometimes you have ceramic sinks and so on. There are shitos  that say you can't kasher  at all. Some people  kasher  three times. Then you ask a shaila to your Rav . But you have to like I said, the chiyuv   l'chatchila , you must have two sinks. If you own a house and you're going to rent something for a long time, it's k'dai  to get two sinks. It costs a couple hundred dollars, maybe a thousand dollars. It's k'dai . Just like you invest to buy kosher clothing, you invest to have a kosher  kitchen also. Like I said, people call me when they have a kosher  kitchen, should they have one microwave and two microwaves. I say, have two microwaves, one for milchigs  and one for fleishigs . Don't be someich sometimes, I'll keep the fleishigs  and the  milchigs  because I'll double wrap it. Because you might remember that, but your children won't remember that. They’ll want pizza, they’ll want other things. A person, if you can afford to buy a house and other expensive things for the house, you can afford to buy another microwave. The same thing with Pesach . People call me and say, can I kasher  my microwave. I say, most of the time you can't kasher . What is the cost of a microwave? You don't have to buy it. You use a microwave only 3-4 days chol hamoed, on Shabbos  and Yom Tov you don’t. You use it three or four days. So you don't have to buy the most expensive one. You buy one for $50, $75. You still can buy it at that price and have it for Pesach . How often do you use it? RYH Right, right. Going back to the sink for a second, even if someone has two different tubs, they're not putting anything directly into the sink. Is there any issue with the fact that there's only one faucet and there's steam rising? RSF We're not worried. We worry about nitzok chibur . Nitzok chibur  is a Machlokes, Rem”a, Sha”ch  and Taz . We hold the l’dina , R’ Moshe  held l’dina , that nitzok chibur  is only a problem for Pesach , not for all year round. So that, if you have hot water coming down, you don't say nitzok chibur  for milchigs  and fleishigs . So you can have only one faucet and you're okay. Also, one more thing. If you do put in a kosher kitchen and you open the sink, some sinks have only like a milchigs  and fleishigs and the hot water and cold water come from the same place. You should have separate cold water and hot water, the water comes out from. RYH Meaning two different knobs? RSF Two different knobs. Knobs for cold, and knobs for hot. It shouldn't be coming from the middle out because then sometimes you don't turn it completely cold and then on Shabbos  you have a problem with hot water coming out. RYH Oh, that's what you're talking about. You're talking about where the water is dispensed by picking up one handle. That you could either swivel right or left. That's a hilchos Shabbos  issue. Those people who have those types of handles, as opposed to two knobs, very often what they'll do to prevent it is they'll turn off the hot water for Shabbos . RSF Or they'll turn it all to the right when only cold water comes out. RYH Right, but like the Rav is saying, sometimes people are not careful to do that. RSF Right, correct. RYH That's a separate issue, Shabbos issue with sinks. Okay, thank you so much.

Industrial Kashrus Systems Everyone loves to know what goes on behind the scenes. Today we take a tour of a typical factory with Rabbi Yitzchak Hanoka, Senior Rabbinate Coordinator with the OK. We’ll find out all the systems in place to ensure kashrus at the highest level. Rabbi 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 Yitzchak Hanoka, Senior Rabbinate Coordinator with the OK. Thank you Rabbi Hanoka for being here. Rabbi Hanoka: Thank you for having me, it's a real honor. Rabbi Hisiger: So we're here to discuss with you the topic of industrial kashrus. I know you've put a lot of work and time and effort and thought into systems of industrial kashrus. We'll break it down into different segments. Let's start first with the rabbinic side of industrial kashrus and the systems that you've implemented. Explain to us in layman's terms what that means. Rabbi Hanoka: Basically what it means is that in order to be able to manage and oversee thousands of ingredients, thousands of products and thousands of facilities frankly, you have to have a system. Without a system it's impossible to do that. So every hechsher on a national scale, the reliable hechsherim, they all have their own system, but the concept and the focus is really the same. They have to have a system that's going to provide the elements of security, traceability and follow up that's necessary to be able to give the hashgacha and to maintain the quality. Rabbi Hisiger: So it's more than just dispatching a team of qualified mashgichim to factories and companies and things like that, right? It's more robust than that. Rabbi Hanoka: It's much more robust. Essentially what we have is in the food sector, the food industry, you have probably about 20 sectors of the food industry. The baking industry, the flavor industry, the cheese industry, the wine industry, the meat industry, etc., etc. And you're dealing with, in a large agency, you're dealing with a team and a pool of colleague rabbis, some of whom are experts in various industries. And then when you're dispatched to go see a company and to do what's called an initial visit, an expert rabbi who's well-versed in kosher law and halacha, but also is well-versed in manufacturing processes, walks into a facility, understands machinery, understands processes, understands how to synthesize, how to merge halacha with processes that are going to work in the actual, in the real world, so to speak. That's when we talk about a kashrus system because you have to make sure it's going to work halachically, but also make sure it's practical. We can't give an eitzah to a customer to do something that's not going to be practical. It's not going to work. So we always look for things to make sure it's multilayered in terms of security. Rabbi Hisiger: Could you give us an example of that multilayer where one level may catch something that slipped through another? Rabbi Hanoka: Absolutely. Like, for example, if we go to a facility that they're processing both dairy product and pareve product. So, if the machinery and the processes and the products are totally noncompatible, which means you cannot interchange the dairy product with the pareve product, it's different machinery, different kind of equipment and different ingredients, then we know really inherently it's segregated so we have safety with regards to kashrus. On the other hand, if it's the same type of machinery, same type of ovens, there's more risk there. So you have to put in safeguards to make sure they're not going to mingle or proximity gets into the question. So we really do what's called a risk assessment. What are we talking about? What are the possibilities? Let me just share a story with you to illustrate the point. I had a customer who used to repack product by hand. They would take scoops and, you know, take it from a box to a small container. And then they grew and they got machinery to do it automatically. And then they were testing the line. And then they, what we usually do in such systems when we do it electronically, we'll often have them, and it's all cold processing. They wash them between, and there’s no bliah. But we'll have them run pareve products first and then dairy because they break down the equipment after dairy. But they said to me that the supplier, by mistake, put dairy chocolate in a pareve product. And the supplier that they were referring to happens to be a supplier that I also certified. And on the phone, I was driving on the road. My mashgiach reported this to me. I said, it's not what happened. I said, what happened is they're used to hand packing and they see what they're doing. They're now packing by machine. They're not used to cleaning the machine. When they broke it down, there was a piece of chocolate that got stuck to the machine because it was sticky out. It was moist, moisture in the air. And it got dislodged by the next packaging. And they have to get used to it. It's like, go see. And he said, Rabbi, you're right. That's because, not because, because I know the process. Rabbi Hisiger: So you also knew that the... Rabbi Hanoka: I knew that they switched this, but I knew what the risk was. And they were testing. I said, that's what they need to, and they were right. Rabbi Hisiger: Wow. Rabbi Hanoka: So just, and it's all because when you understand the mechanics of it, what the risk assessment is, then you see from what's behind. Understanding what the real question is. And that's how we train rabbis. That's how we train mashgichim. We train all our staff bezras Hashem to do that. And then, of course, Hashem is the active partner. But that's our, that's our... To do things in an Erlicha way, we have multi-layers of security in place. So that in case one of the layers falls off, you have the security in place. Rabbi Hisiger: Now, when you say layers, are you referring to personnel as well? Where you have different levels of senior coordinators, and then mashgichim, and things of that sort? Or is it just like you were mentioning in the facility itself? Rabbi Hanoka: I'm focusing on the facility itself. It happens to be that every facility that's certified by a national agency will have a rabbinic coordinator, who's an expert rabbi with smicha, who's very knowledgeable in halacha and food manufacturing, oversee that facility. Part of the process is that we write an extensive report describing the on goings of the facility, and exactly how we give a hechsher, what we're doing, so in case someone else has a question, one of our colleagues, they can review our reports. Plus we do peer-to-peer review. And then included in that, we talk about what the areas of sensitivity are in place, what safeguards we're putting in place, and how we're addressing them. And, of course, we have mashgichim instructions, which will come later. But an example of things that we'll do is, if it's a facility that handles kosher-sensitive ingredients, for example, they handle hard cheese. Even if it's not chalav Yisrael. Hard cheese, that's not chalav Yisrael. To make a kosher is quite expensive. To make gevinas Yisrael, you need a mashgiach temidi. So there's a lot of non-kosher cheese out there on the market. So we may require the customer to have a large supply of kosher cheese on hand at all times. We may require the mashgiach to visit more often. We're going to have safeguards in place to secure against what we would consider a more sensitive type of raw material. And that is diagnosed by an expert rabbi. Rabbi Hisiger: Who makes that diagnosis of the risk assessment? Okay, over here in this facility is a little more risky, or we have reasons to suspect, so we're going to put in X, Y, and Z safeguards. Who makes that? Rabbi Hanoka: The rabbi would make that assessment, but he's using principles that are known in the industry. Kosher sensitive ingredients are treated with more sensitivity. Kosher setups that are more sensitive are treated more sensitively. And some setups require a mashgiach temidi, depending on what we're dealing with. But all that has to be factored in in the setup process. So there's many things going through the rabbi's mind in the process itself. Rabbi HIsiger: Talk about what goes on in the office of the OK in terms of implementing some of these, we'll call them safeguards and structures that you put in place. Rabbi Hanoka: All the hechsherim, reliable hechsherim, have a data system. Exactly what they do, there may be slight variation, but the general theme is the same, where they want to be able to get the requisite data from the customer. So just so the consumers and our audience understands, every raw material, every ingredient that's used in a kosher certified product has a kosher letter that actually attests to the status of that product. They'll say this particular ingredient is kosher pareve, kosher dairy, or whatever it is. And they'll also say it's got to have a symbol on it, or it doesn't have to have a symbol on the industrial level, or if it's bulk, if it's coming by a tanker truck, how it's supposed to be received. It gives instructions of under what circumstances it's actually being certified, known as a restriction. So on the industrial side, we harvest all this data. The customer will send us all the ingredients with the kosher letters. Rabbi Hisiger: To clarify, when you say customer, you mean the company you're certified, right? I just want to make sure, because viewers may be hearing customer, and they're thinking of themselves. Rabbi Hanoka: So I mean the certified client will submit the kosher letters with the ingredients. In many cases, many hechsherim require the formulas. Some do and some don't, but formulas are important as well. Product lists, and then we also look at the labels. So we call these critical control points. You have the receiving of the ingredients, and then you have the final product that they're producing, which refers to the finished product label. We want to make sure the label is accurately printed with the right kosher information, pareve for pareve, dairy for dairy, or Passover for Passover. So we try very hard to have the customer send us a soft copy image of the finished product label whenever possible so we can review that. Sometimes the mashgiach will review that on the field. But we try to review that before it's printed, so human error does happen, people make mistakes. We try to vet that out in the process of our harvesting of our data. Another thing that I want to make it clear to our audience is that there are thousands of product labels out there on the market, but a little-known secret, without revealing who, what, when, and where, is a lot of products are made in the same facility under different brands, known as private labels. So you'll have some people that don't even have an entity of a factory, but they just have a brand, and they'll make it by various factories. Of course, that's kept confidential. But again, the hechsherim has to harvest that information, know where to issue a kosher letter for that. So the data side of the support system of kashrus is very complex. There's many, many different angles to it. As I said, you have the ingredients, you have the finished products, you have the formula, you have the private labels, you have the contract, all these things, and they're all tied in to provide support for the kashrus and the company. Rabbi Hisiger: Now, I'm curious, because on an office side, that's quite a lot of information to store. I'm imagining you don't have file cabinets, right, with papers of, or maybe I'm wrong, maybe years ago. But I imagine, do you have a custom-made computer software that digests all this information? Rabbi Hanoka: Right, so there's custom-made software that digests all this information, but even more than that, it's built in such a way where if you ever have one of the ingredients that could lose their certification mid-year, because usually the certification is from year to year, then you can just say, tell the system that this particular ingredient is no longer kosher, and it will spit out a report, who is using it, where it's being used, and then we can tell the customer no longer to use it. So we have traceability and targetability instantly. So it's very, very sophisticated. It's not my expertise, but I know it exists, and I know enough about it that if there's something I have to report or to trigger, we'll know what to try to respond to. Rabbi Hisiger: I'll say that it does sound sophisticated, but it's really not a luxury if you want to maintain proper hashgacha, right? I mean, if there's an ingredient that's being used that's losing certification mid-year, and you have products that contain that ingredient, I mean, you have to be on top of that, right? Rabbi Hanoka: It's an absolute must, and I want to share, just to share a mashal, I do quite a lot of driving in my work. So think of it in these terms. If you have a customer, somebody who has a trucking company, if they only own one truck, they can remember in their head that every month they have to change the oil, they've got to check the brakes, whatever maintenance involved in the truck to keep their truck safe. Once you have a fleet of 100 trucks, it's physically impossible to remember exactly what has to be done with each truck. The only way to do that is to have a system. So if you want to be able to enjoy the freedom of the high seas, you have to become a slave to the compass. The compass is your system. You must have that, and the data is a big part of that. And again, what I want to bring out to our viewers' attention is that we're trained to think in systems. Like whenever there's something that goes on, we ask ourselves, okay, is this going to be in congruence with the system or not? And if not, we have to react to it. That's kind of what we do. Rabbi Hisiger: Anything else you wanted to share about maintaining the database and maintaining all the information that you need so that you have this industrial system in place? Rabbi Hanoka: My final thoughts are the people that harvest the data, that bring it in, that enter into our system and monitor the data, they're the unsung heroes because they're sitting in the back. No one sees them. Rabbi Hisiger: No one sees them. They don't get the accolades. Rabbi Hanoka: Right, but they are really the backbone in terms of providing that prong of support. And you couldn't do it without them, so it's quite an important… Rabbi Hisiger: It's our gratitude to them for what they do really under the radar. And they support the rabbi very much in his work. Probably these personnel are available at a moment's notice to provide that crucial information, right? If a mashgiach is in a plant that needs an update or something like that, he's going to rely on them to give a minute to minute update. Rabbi Hanoka: Or if he has a question about what's been changed on the data side to make sure it's all in compliance, he'll rely on them. So there's multi-layers of security. Whenever we see something that doesn't balance, we check it on multiple layers so there's many layers of protection in place. Rabbi Hisiger: Just a final component of the conversation, and that is the role of a mashgiach within the umbrella or rubric of industrial kashrus and the other items that we discussed. So talk about that for a moment. Rabbi Hanoka: So the mashgiach is primarily… His task is to carry out the instructions of the rabbinic coordinator, the rabbi who set up the kashrus of that facility. So the rabbi who set up the kashrus of that facility will have to write detailed instructions. Depending on the facility, they could be smaller in terms of size or very large. Some large facilities may even have 20 or 30 points to cover on every visit. Rabbi Hisiger: Can you give an example of what those points might be? Rabbi Hanoka: Yeah, sure. So we'll talk about if it's a facility that has multi-status, kosher pareve, kosher dairy, or non-kosher, we'll talk about all the segregation systems in place to make sure there's no commingling, and how that's being done, how that's being monitored, making sure all those safeguards are in place. We also make sure in certain facilities where they have steam return, if they're using the shared steam, making sure there's no steam return between kosher and non-kosher. They'll often dump the steam, or they'll treat the steam to make it pagum. There's always a system in place to avoid that concern, and anything that is a potential kashrus concern was addressed by the rabbi. The mashgiach's job is to make sure that those systems, we call them critical control points of security, are in place. In addition to that, I want to stress something else, that I often tell… I've trained many mashgichim. I've also trained a lot of my colleagues, because I have a passion for education. I think I get that from my wife's grandfather, who was also into education. Rabbi Berel Levy who worked for Torah Umesorah. It's a very interesting piece of information. But at any rate, so I've trained many mashgichim, and I tell them that we're not policemen. We're not there to try and catch the customer do something wrong. Our job is to guide them what to do, to do it right. So our job is to guide them, and I really encourage everybody to have conversations with the customer. So when we go to do a visit, or if I do an annual review, I sit down with the customer for about 20 minutes, I schmooze with them. What's happening? I look at the word emes. Aleph at the beginning of the year, Mem at the middle of the year, and Suf What's happening at the end of the year? So where were they? Where have they been? Where are they heading? You want to get a sense. You want to know your customer. You want to know what the client is up to, because they might share something with you. Oh, we're planning an expansion, and we're planning this. Oh, suddenly that changes implications. But again, it comes about through conversation. And I like to have conversations with people, even about information that I may be familiar with already, because I want to make sure that everything is coming across very clearly, and I tell my mashgichim the same thing. So I encourage them very much to have a very good relationship with the client, and that helps kashrus, because when the client has a question, they pick up the phone, they say, Rabbi, we want to plan something. Can you guide us to do it right? And that's really where the security comes in. In addition, the mashgiach has to be very well-versed, exactly what's going on in his facilities. If there's any change going on, he will be able to detect it right away. And I can tell, based on the questions the mashgichim ask me, if they understand the facility or not. So I've had situations where a mashgiach asked me a question exactly the same way that I would ask the question, because I trained him so detailed. That's what we're looking for, such a level of communication, and I would say a bond, if you will. Rabbi Hisiger: Would you say the relationship between a mashgiach and a facility, he's certifying is kabdeihu ve-chashdeihu, right? It's giving them respect, that they feel that the mashgiach respects what they're doing, but also, in the back of his mind, kind of having an eye out for any change in the status quo? Rabbi Hanoka: Yeah, I would say that, but I would say that the mashgichim are also told that if there is a change or there's a concern, that they have to send it over to the rabbi. They have to remain impartial. I would say they have to just say, you know, my job is to report, and in this case, if I'm the rabbi of the facility, Rabbi Hanoka will be in touch with you, and I'll talk to the client. But I don't want the mashgiach to be the one to front it, because they have to interact with him all the time. Because then it creates a tension, and maybe the facility won't be transparent with him. So I don't allow that. In fact, I'll guide them to do just the opposite, and then I'll have to front it. I'll have to navigate, and that's why we're in this position. We have to figure out how to navigate that. And also, which brings me to mind, what my shver Rabbi Levy taught me was, everything we do for kashrus ultimately is also to protect the client, to protect the certified customer. Whatever system you have in place, the amount of visits, the amount of requirements are there to ensure the product remains kosher. So you tell them that I'm doing this for you. It's for your sake. So you can have clients. You can sell the product, make money. So when they see it from those terms, they usually back off and say, thank you very much, Rabbi. They see it from the lens of it's for your own good. We as a hashgacha have to provide an environment where they're well-versed in what they need to do. We support them through the process. The mashgiach works with them on any possible changes. We rebalance the system as needed. And then I would say that you're providing an environment where kashrus is secure, and the customer feels like, yeah, this is working well for me. Rabbi Hisiger: Very impressive. Rabbi Hanoka: One more thing I want to say. During COVID, when raw material supply was hard to procure, and you had all kinds of raw material shortages, I wrote an article about that in our magazine, all agencies did this. We warned our mashgichim, be very careful, because when customers are in short supply of raw material, then they'll be incentivized to find alternates. So we encourage them to submit alternates. But that's, again, being proactive. So we work with the customer. Rabbi Hisiger: You preempted it by reaching out to the customer. Rabbi Hanoka: We understand what their issues are. If a customer is hurting financially, it's very dangerous kashrus-wise. So we'll put safeguards in place. We'll work with them. We'll find alternate suppliers. We'll even help them with alternate suppliers to provide kashrus security and to make sure that the system flows. Rabbi Hisiger: Listen, the lesson that I learned from the conversation with you is that kashrus is by no means a system where you just push a button and just let the system roll. It really involves so much activity and being proactive and really staying on top, staying on the tips of your toes and constantly being active and involved. Rabbi Hanoka: And the certified customer appreciates that. When they see that level of professionalism, they're paying for hashgacha. They see they're paying for something very, very substantial. And they appreciate that. It's very special. Rabbi Hisiger: Well, we appreciate as well everything you've done for the field of kashrus in general over the last quarter century, what you've given to the OK and to the field of kashrus in general. So continued hatzlacha in your avodas hakodesh. And a special thank you for shlepping out all the way from Brooklyn to here to the Let's Talk Kashrus Studios. It was a real honor to speak to you. Thank you. Rabbi Hanoka: Thank you for having me. Be matzliach.

What is the best setup for an office kitchen where all the employees don't keep kosher? How many microwaves do you need? These questions and more answered by Rav Shmuel Fuerst - Dayan of Agudas Yisroel of Illinois in this week's episode. Rabbi 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 Rav Shmuel Fuerst, Dayan of Agudas Yisroel  of Illinois. Thank you so much Rav Fuerst for being here again. Today I'd like to ask the Rav about a very common question that comes up in work environments where there are Jewish employees, there are Gentile employees, there's a kitchen that's used very often it’s a shared space, but more often than not if it's a Jewish owned business they'll have separate microwaves for example for Jewish employees and for the non-Jewish employees for everyone to feel comfortable. Can the Jewish employees assume that because there are separate microwaves that the Jews are using the Jewish microwave we'll call it the kosher microwave and the Gentile employees are using the other microwave. Are there any Kashrus  concerns? Rabbi Fuerst: You can't assume anything today. The ideal thing if you have an environment with frum people and goyim or frei people, best thing if you can to have two separate kitchens one kitchen for the frum people and one kitchen for the frei and goyim. If that could be arranged that's ideal you have less Shailos in Kashrus.  but in most cases they can't do that so they're going to have two microwaves let's say a kosher microwave and a non-kosher microwave. You can't assume that they tell the goyim to use only the non-kosher they're going to use always non-kosher. either it could be broken once in a while could be someone else is using and they're in a rush they want to and sometimes you just don't even look it says kosher, non-kosher. you can't assume that the kosher microwave is always kosher you have to do precautions for it don't have it next to each other have it on the other side of room and tell the goyim that on this side room is only the non-kosher part and the other side is the kosher part. you have to do as much as possible that there should be separation, so it shouldn’t come to a michshol. You have to be very extremely careful because very often the goyim don't care, kosher, non-kosher and even if you threaten them you're gonna fire them they're not scared about that today. there's no mirsas  today and they'll find another job. another Jewish person will chap them so if it's a good worker someone's gonna chap him. so therefore you should not have the microwaves next to each other, they should be far apart from each other. plus you should have a sign on it this is only for kosher, people who keep kosher, something like that. A strong sign, big enough, not in small letters, but in big letters. and you have to let them know verbally also, that's the kosher side and this is not. it's not enough a sign there, you should tell them even when you hired them tell them listen you want to warm up a sandwich a non-kosher sandwich we have a place for you to do it but you have to be careful. and tell them, listen, there are people who have strict dietary laws and so on and if they have seichel they’ll understand it, and then they'll be careful. Rabbi Hisiger: Why if there are separate kitchens is that sufficient? Rabbi Fuerst: Because usually in the kitchen, if it's a treif  kitchen you'll have certain drinks for them which they like that's not kosher, you'll buy things for them that they like, they want it better so they'll spend more time in that kitchen. they have no reason to go to the kosher kitchen. make everything available in the non-kosher kitchen and then you should have less chances of problems. and plus you have to keep your eyes open but the less chances of taruvos. Rabbi Hisiger: Now in a business where let's say they don't have the wherewithal or the space or the money to make two separate kitchens and they have signs that clearly delineate which microwave is kosher which microwave is non-kosher and they have cameras so the Rav  was saying before that there's no mirsas  because there's nothing… Rabbi Fuerst: Cameras mean nothing. cameras won't matter. what I would say if you use the kosher microwave put in a bag to be, on the safe side double wrap everything up and that's it and you have no problem then. Rabbi Hisiger: so if you double wrap it no matter what you're safe. Rabbi Fuerst: even a treif microwave, milchigs, fleishigs… so always double wrap your food and then you're safe no matter what. Rabbi Hisiger: thank you so much you

Walk into a bar. The bartender asks, "What can I get you?" The rabbi replies, "Something kosher that wasn’t blessed by either of them!" All jokes aside, this episode discusses various instances where kashrus intersects with potential Avodah Zarah issues. Rabbi Sholem Fishbane, Director of Kashrus for the Chicago Rabbinical Council, and the Executive Director of AKO discusses some fascinating examples in todays episode. Rabbi 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, Executive Director of AKO and the Kashrus Administrator of the Chicago Rabbinical Council. Thank you Rabbi Fishbane for joining us once again. Rabbi Fishbane: Thank you for having me. Rabbi Hisiger: So you know we talk about Kashrus on this program and we talk about ingredients, we talk about supervision, we talk about systems, but there's one component of Kashrus that is very often overlooked and it's a unique concern and maybe even surprising to people because it's not in the, what we would call the traditional part of Yoreh De'ah  that people study and learn when they're learning the halachos of Kashrus. And I'm referring to Avodah Zarah . You know it was brought to our attention that there are actually concerns of Avodah Zarah  when it comes to certifying kosher food. You're very well aware of this. Give us somewhat of a summary of what the concern is, how people can be cognizant of it, and what they could do you know once they learn about the facts. Rabbi Fishbane: Great point. That is very, very true. And what most consumers don't understand behind the scenes, our bais din  sometimes are dealing with, Avodah Zarah   she'eilos , which I would say a lot of people that learn Kashrus skip right over that, like how could that be nogei'a ? I'll give you one recent example that came to our attention. We certify a company that was making eye drops. Eye drops. Now we used to ask companies, why would you want a hechsher  on something that seemingly doesn't want a hechsher ? But we stopped asking. You know why? Because primarily they understand that kosher is very good for marketing. It gives people an assurance. And you know it's, well I just, we want it anyway. We said okay, if you want it then there's no Kashrus concerns. We're okay with that. So we were giving, we granted a hechsher  to this company that was making eye drops. And it came to my attention once I saw the actual box, there was all sorts of references to Yoshka and all sorts of things that, oh my gosh, what's going on over here? So I asked him to come into our office and we had a meeting. And I have to tell you something, in all my years of training this really took my breath away. It turns out that not only is he an eye doctor, but he's also a priest. And he has a deep feeling that the reason why the world is in a sorry state that it is, he goes back to the beginning of Bereishis , Genesis, where Adam Harishon  ran away from Hashem  and the way you have to come back is through seeing, and get this, the way we're going to come back, he knows, is by Bayis Shlishi . Bayis Shlishi . And he knows that when the Jews build Bayis Shlishi , the concept of Parah Adumah , this is again, this goy is telling this to me. Parah Adumah , you're all going to be purified, but when you go into the mikveh , you close your eyes. And your whole body won't be pure because your eyes won't get the mikveh  water. And how is the Beis HaMikdash  going to be pure? You hear what's going on? So he created this eyewash that is going to be purified through holiness and the entire purpose is for when the Klal Yisrael  builds the Bayit Shlishi , we're going to use it. And therefore he needs a hechsher  because it has to be kosher in order to be. Rabbi Hisiger: You couldn’t have made this up. Rabbi Fishbane: You couldn’t have made this up. So I said to him, how do you make it holy besides for the fact that we’re giving a hechsher? He says he takes certain waters from Ethiopia that the king dipped in and then he pours it in and then he says a three-page prayer. I said what type of water? That wasn't the she'eilah of Avodah Zarah . I said let me see the prayer. I looked at the prayer. Oh gosh. So I gave it over to our beis din  and our beis din  looked at it, studied it, had several meetings with him. And the bottom line is they told me, it was as if he took out chelek gimmel of yoreh deah, hilchos avodah zarah, and found every chumra  to make sure this is Avodah Zarah and he wrote it into his prayer. It was like there's no she'eilah , this is mamesh Avodah Zarah . So we had to tell him that not only can it not be certified but thankfully nothing had hit the market yet. All the products had to be taken off our hechsher . That's one example that didn't even hit the market. Rabbi Hisiger: A wild example. Rabbi Fishbane: But there are many, many others. You know, I go to, we travel a lot so we have factories in India. So in India, if you know that the cows are sacred there, okay? What I mean by sacred is like if there's a cow crossing the street, everything stops. That's why traffic in India is horrendous because they don't shecht  or kill the cows and the cows are sacred so there's cows all over and there's traffic jams galore. Yet, it's okay according to their culture or religion to take milk from the cow. And there are some hechsherim  that actually certify products with milk from India. So I ask you, what do you think? If it's holy, if it's Avodah Zarah , what would be the heter  to give such a, now the CRC, we do not do that because we rely on, you know, Chalav Yisrael , lefi  Rav Moshe, and because there are many behemos teme'os  that are being milked, then we wouldn't give a hechsher . But there are some hechsherim that rely on the Pri Chadash , which is not like Rav Moshe but it's more if the behemos teme'os  milk is more expensive. So they do rely. So what would be the heter  for such a thing? So where do you go for such, right? Where do you go? So that's where the rabbanim  that live in these countries become very valuable. And we spent some time talking to them and understanding, basically the way it works is that the cows themselves are not Avodah Zarah  where you bow to the cow. Rather they're sacred so that they carry, you know, neshamos , whatever they believe on. I'm not, I'm not bekant  in their exact religion. But the point is, is that it didn't make it Takroves Avodah Zarah  to the point where the milk goes out. So that's another example. I have to tell you a story, not related to Kashrus but it's just a great story. Remember the tumult with the sheitels many, many years ago? They were bringing it to the Indians and they were bringing it to Avodah Zarah . So I was one time in a Dunkin' Donuts, certified kosher Dunkin' Donuts and I was waiting to talk to the owner. The owner actually was from Indian descent and he was with his family and they're talking amongst themselves and I'm standing outside and I overhear the conversation. I listen to, you know, we have Yiddish tumults, you know, coffee room tumults. So they have coffee room tumults. Maybe, I don't know what they drink. Okay. And their tumult at the time was, you hear what's going on? In the temples that we thought our daughters are going to give the hair to the temple in India, they're not even making it into the temple. As soon as it's cut, it's taken off to the side to be sold to the wig industry. Ah Chutzpah, what's going on? I was like, this is the greatest news ever. So, you know, that's just a great little story. But there are many, many other things that come up, certainly with drinks. I know Rabbi Niehaus spoke on this great program you have. He talked about sake, which is rice wine from Japan. I've been in Japan and I remember I was in the factory. I couldn't find a room to daven mincha . Every room had a getchke . Okay. You know, that's what they do. Before the production of the day, they bring over and they say something to the getchke . At the end of the day, the same thing. So that's the shaila . I mean, if you go through the sugyos  of Avodah Zara , it seems to be not a problem because they're not actually taking the sake in front and then using that sake to be served. There's various halachos . Another is trappist beer, which I believe Rabbi Niehaus mentioned. That's very interesting because that's being made on the, it's called the abbey. It's by the monasteries. It has to be made for the monasteries. And there's three laws to be called trappist beer. One is that all products have to be made immediately in the surrounding of the abbey, which is chatzer in halacha . The production must be carried under the supervision of the monks or nuns. And finally, the profits are intended for the needs of the monastery, which again, if you learn in Gemara Avodah Zara , it goes through various things. So if you go through, there's something called betoiva , which the Mechaber  and the Rema talk about. Is this called betoiva ? Because you are, you are supporting the monastery, which is pretty much betoiva . There's takroves . Is it takroves? lechoira not. The location, we couldn't get into the abbeys, but that's what Google maps are for. We were able to look over, find out exactly where they're making the trappist beer, how close they are. And it's pretty much a chatzer . It's, it's a problem. Is it called mehana ? Because it's, you know, giving, and of course the overall shaila  of Christianity today is shituf  or not. We follow the Noda B'Yehuda that it is. So, you know, if you go through the list and I'm obviously not going to go through all Hilchos Avodah Zara  at the moment, but if you go to the list, it doesn't look good. But I must tell you that the last prat seems to be the saving grace to buy trappist beer, and that is retail stores. And Rema  talks about that if it goes through a third party, it's talking about malchus , the government. If it goes through a third party, you're not directly giving it to the monks or for the monastery. That seems to be a heter . That's okay. So if you would go into a regular liquor store and you would buy the trappist beer, and there's a certain logo that it's officially trappist. That seems to be okay because it's not going directly. But if you're traveling, most of them are in Belgium. If you're traveling and you want to buy one directly from, not so pashut , not so pashut . And I must tell you, I found out recently, believe it or not, here in America, there's a huge industry of honey being made by abbeys and monasteries, and that helps support them. And to be honest, we're researching this now. Does that hit the market? if you're buying it, and it's in a lot of America, it's a pretty big market. And I was talking to someone, he says, I was talking about the trappist beer. He says, you know, I'm a big honey farm guy. Did you know that they do a lot of business? Oh my gosh, just the last few days, we've been researching. So it's a big deal. Rabbi Hisiger: The trappist beer, what makes it different than traditional beer? That people go, you know, especially these connoisseurs of beer, like it. Rabbi Fishbane: We got to find a connoisseur. You know, beer to me, I'm still like, you know, I barely get it by Shalom Zachor,  personally. I don't know what's the chashivus of it, but it certainly is chashivus . I know 14 facilities in Belgium that's actually an authentic trappist product. That's at least in Belgium. I guess it's really authentic the way they've been doing it for hundreds or maybe even thousands of years, some of these places and people appreciate that. So that would be that. You know, and there's many other sorts of shailos that come up. We just had a restaurant recently that has a Japanese scenario going on in the restaurant. You know, they're trying to. And so we were dealing with the shaila  because they were putting up samurai warriors. Rabbi Hisiger: Oh, really? Like figurines? Rabbi Fishbane: Figurines, figurines. So our Av Beit Din  went in and cut off an ear, you know, made sure that people wouldn't assume it was a Buddha or whatever it is. So, again, Hilchos Avodah Zara , who's thinking about that? The mashgiach  that, you know, learns Hilchos Melicha and Pas Akum . But it really shows what it goes into running a conversation today, the need for a very strong Beis Din , a need for Talmidei Chachamim  as well as practical and knowing how to use Google Maps. Rabbi Hisiger: Rabbi Fishbane, that's absolutely fascinating. And we look forward if you ever have any of those other interesting stories, like the one about the eye drops, that's unbelievable. I think since we started this program, I think that that one takes the cake. So thank you for sharing and thank you for being here.

Aphids & Thrips Let’s join Rabbi Yisroel Langer Dayan at the cRc Beis Din and Rav of Congregation Bais Yitzchok as he gives us a tutorial on how to check your own lettuce at home. Original video of Rabbi Langer on cRc's website https://crckosher.org/videos/how-to-check-romaine-lettuce-and-other-leafy-vegetables/ Article written by Rabbi Langer on this topic https://consumer.crckosher.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Guide-to-Checking-Fruits-Langer.pdf Rabbi 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 Yisroel Langer, Rav of Congregation Beis Yitzchok in Chicago and a Dayan with the Chicago Rabbinical Council. Rabbi Langer, thank you for being here. Rabbi Langer: My pleasure. Rabbi Hisiger: I'd like to talk to you today about a very important topic which is checking for bugs, otherwise known as בדיקת תולעים. On a home level people don't realize that many of the products that they bring into their homes, even those fruits and vegetables that may have officially been checked already, require either initial checking or rechecking. And so perhaps today you could give us a little overview about what concerns people should have when bringing fruits and vegetables into their homes, which items require checking and then we'll discuss specific methods of checking. Rabbi Langer: So when it comes to leafy vegetables, romaine lettuce, iceberg lettuce, all the different lettuces, herbs, these are all growing outdoors and even when they're growing in greenhouses, bugs get in and they can infest a crop. In the olden days, the way we, some people still today, they'll take, the way they check lettuce is they'll take the lettuce, hold it up to the sunlight and see if there's anything crawling, see anything which looks like a bug. And as the ערוך השולחן tells us that even things which are דק מן הדק, they're very, very small and can only be seen לאור השמש, can only be seen by sunlight, those are considered to be insects as well. You gotta be very careful, very careful when you check. Rabbi Hisiger: Did you mention sunlight specifically as opposed to, I guess, electrical lighting? Rabbi Langer: Well, if you have an imitation of sunlight, something with strong lighting where you could hold it up to the, you know, to that light, that would also be adequate. That would be good. The problem is that there are bugs that really get camouflaged into the, into the lettuce. You have these aphids, green aphids, and it really takes on the appearance of the lettuce, which makes it more difficult to check. And people aren't seeing all the bugs on the actual lettuce. In addition, when you have to go after a lot of leaves and you're holding it up to the sunlight, so you can kind of put the strain on your neck and your eyes start to, you know, one leaf after the next. You start getting used to it. It's difficult, becomes difficult to check. So the last number of years, what the השגחות came up with is a new method of how to check, and that is what's called the Thrip Cloth Method. That's how we refer to it, or the shmatte Method. The way it works is that you're going to take the lettuce, you're going to cut it up into separate leaves, and you're going to put it into a bowl of water with a little bit of soap or a veggie wash, something slippery, and you're going to swish it around, swish it around. We like to view this as basically you're like, you clean your, your dirty laundry. You have dirty laundry. How do you clean dirty laundry? Is that you're going to put detergent, you're going to have agitation, and water, and you're swishing it around for about a minute or so. The more, the better you agitate, the cleaner it's going to get. And that's basically what you're doing right now, is that you're in the cleaning stage. You're in the cleaning stage, you're not ready to check. You're going to swish it around for a minute or so. Then you're going to pull the lettuce out of the water, and spill the water out. You spill it down the drain. There are going to be bugs in that water, almost guaranteed. There are going to be bugs in there. There's no need to check it. You spill it down the drain, and repeat a second time. Put the lettuce back into a bowl of soapy water, swish it around for about a minute, pull the lettuce out, and again, you're likely to have bugs in it again, so you're just going to pour the water out. Now, we're going to put the lettuce back into a bowl the third time. Now we think that maybe there's a fighting chance. Maybe this lettuce is going to be clean. So the way it works is you're going to swish it around, just like you did till now. Put a little bit soap in, swish, swish. Pull the lettuce out, and we're going to pour this water through what's called a thrip cloth. A thrip cloth is basically a piece of cloth which is fine like silk. You're going to sandwich it in between two strainers, and you're going to pour that water through that cloth. You're going to examine the cloth now on a light. You're going to get what's called a bug light, and you're going to put the cloth onto that bug light, and you're going to examine the cloth very carefully. If you see that the cloth is clean, there are no bugs on that cloth, then we could assume, for halachik purposes, that it's not מצוי. It's not common for there to be any bugs left back in the lettuce. He just washed it three times really well, and no bugs came up on that cloth after that third round. We could assume, for halachik purposes, that that lettuce is going to be clean and ready to eat. Okay, so now we're going to go ahead and take the, spill the water out of the bowl, and we're going to take that soapy lettuce, and put it back into a bowl of plain clean water. You got to get rid of the soap anyway. You're going to swish it around again, and just in case, just in case, there is one bug that's going to be left behind. So, he'll probably come out now when you swish it around, and you pull the lettuce out again one more time, pour the water out, and that lettuce is ready to be eaten. If you're going to find even one bug on that cloth, we're going to have to repeat the process, put it back into soapy water, and recheck the cloth. Rabbi Hisiger: Now, we're talking here about fresh romaine lettuce, and fresh regular lettuce, and things like that. Rabbi Langer: I just want to point out that sometimes you buy lettuce in the store, it says triple washed on it. You know, you have maybe a certification that you're not really familiar with. You don't want to trust that. The triple wash doesn't really mean anything. Triple wash could mean that there are three shower heads over a conveyor belt. You know, you can have a large tub of lettuce that is going through these conveyor belts, and there's really, some of the lettuce is not even, is barely getting wet. So, triple wash doesn't really mean anything to us. It's got to be checked, just like, you know, fresh hearts, or fresh whole heads of lettuce that you're buying from the store. Rabbi Hisiger: So, just a few questions that I'm sure our viewers would want to follow up with. First of all, like you said, we're talking about fresh lettuce, lettuce that is not produced under supervision. Even if it says power washed, and this washed, and that washed, it doesn't matter, like you're saying, because we don't know what that means from a kashrus perspective. But if I go into a store and I see a sealed package of Romaine lettuce leaves, and it has a reliable השגחה on it, that I could buy comfortably, bring it home, and I don't need to wash it? Rabbi Langer: If you feel, if you're comfortable with that השגחה, you can rely on it, and you can eat that. You do not have to do any further. Rabbi Hisiger: So, I don't have to worry that there was infestation from the growing process, nor from the transport process? Rabbi Langer: Correct. Rabbi Hisiger: Okay, that's question number one. Question number two, if someone wants to follow through your recommendation of this aphid checking process, how do they get that paraphernalia? A bowl, I guess, they just buy, but if they want to buy the aphid... Rabbi Langer: Well, we call it a thrip cloth. You can call it an aphid cloth if you like. We call it a thrip cloth, or a shmatte. You can buy it, you can get it online, it's called the bug checking cloth. You can get it at a lot of the השגחות - at the CRC, other השגחות also. Rabbi Hisiger: And that cloth could be used multiple times? Rabbi Langer: It could be used over and over. Rabbi Hisiger: Over and over. You just wash it off? Rabbi Langer: Until the cleaning lady loses it. Rabbi Hisiger: Okay. Rabbi Langer: It's durable. Even if it catches bugs, you just clean it off, and then you can reuse it. Correct. And two strainers, you can go to the dollar store, get two cheap strainers, and you're good to go. It's not as scary as it seems. Rabbi Hisiger: Yeah, I was gonna say, it sounds a little overwhelming, for someone who's never done it. Rabbi Langer: Once you do it, you get in the habit of doing it, it becomes part of your kitchen. It's really not that difficult. Ideally, a person should get some training, not major training, but somebody who knows what the bugs look like, to point out what bugs do look like. Because many people, when you talk to them about insects and produce, they're thinking about ants and spiders and roaches and things that they see around the house. That's not what you're going to usually find in the lettuce. It's going to be much smaller. They are visible to the naked eye. They are visible, you don't need microscopes and things like that. They're all visible to the naked eye, and you could see them. Usually, I find people are thrown off. You show them the bugs. I wasn't expecting that. It's an idea. It's important when you check the cloth, you should check the cloth the way that you would read the fine print of a newspaper. Some people, when you read the fine print of a newspaper, they’ve got to take the glasses off to be able to see, and they look really close. That's the way you're going to want to check the cloth. Some people have got to put their glasses on, reading glasses, to check it. However you're going to look for the fine print of a newspaper, that's how you're going to check the cloth. When you're checking the cloth, some people like to use their fingers, and they start touching things. You end up squashing the bugs and making them harder to realize that that's a bug. We recommend you taking a bottle of spray, plain water in a spray with a mist, and you spray on something. You're not sure if it's a bug. You spray it, and it has appendages. It's going to spread out a little bit, making it much easier to tell that it's a bug. I would recommend that if somebody's trying on their own to figure out how to use it in order to detect the bugs, you may want to use that water from that first round, pour it through the cloth, just to teach yourself what a bug is, and then you'll see the bigger bugs. When you see the bigger bugs, like the Ramba”n in Parshas Bo, from the גדולים, you'll go to the קטנים, and you'll see the bigger bugs, and you'll learn about the smaller bugs, the smaller insects. You'll pick up on that also. Rabbi Hisiger: Now because I mentioned at the beginning of the conversation fruits and vegetables generally, could you just give us a little summary of other vegetables? You mentioned leafy vegetables like romaine lettuce and regular lettuce, things like that. Are there other vegetables for which this process would work, or are there other vegetables for which people have to be concerned about insect infestation? Rabbi Langer: There are plenty of vegetables and fruits and berries out there that have infestation concerns, and this would be, you know, it can go on for hours, not the time and place for that, but there are some other things that we'll use the thrip cloth. It's really basically leafy, leafy, leafy things, herbs, cauliflower could be checked using this cloth. That's basically what we use the strip cloth for. Rabbi Hisiger: Got it. I wanted to ask you a question that comes up very often whenever we discuss בדיקת תולעים on Let's Talk Kashrus, and in generally in the Kashrus world, this question comes up, especially from lay people, and what they ask is, you know, they say we grew up 30, 40 years ago in a frum home that had a frum mother, and in their house they ate broccoli and cauliflower and spinach and so on and so forth without such intensive checking processes, and they don't remember at least their mother engaging in these such intensive processes, and people wonder what's different? Are we frummer now? Were people not as vigilant then? Should they have been? So what could you say about what may have changed between then and now? Rabbi Langer: Yes, that's the question that we get asked quite often. It's important to know that many years ago there was a, in the earlier days in America, there was a pesticide called DDT. DDT was a very powerful pesticide that really did get rid of the bugs from a lot of the produce that we have today. DDT became banned because it was allegedly killing out the bird population, so they banned DDT, and ever since then it's just been getting worse and worse. So it could very well be that when you're back in the home and you're growing up, when your mother was making that broccoli, so there were no bugs in the broccoli. But today, you know, today things are different. You'll say, what about before the days of America? What about in Europe? What about in Europe in those days? What did they do about it? They didn't eat vegetables then? So the answer is, if you look in the חכמת אדם, חכמת אדם tells you, he tells you, this berry from that country, stay away from it, it has bugs. This fruit from that country, and he writes, all leafy vegetables, all leafy vegetables are מלא, are filled with תולעים, and need a very, very careful בדיקה. So this is not a new thing that we're creating here in the 21st century. This is something that's been around throughout all the דורות, and people have been very careful about it. We had a short reprieve in the earlier days of America, but things are just right where they always are. Rabbi Hisiger: Now you mentioned to me prior to this conversation, we were schmoozing a fascinating אור החיים הקדוש. I was wondering if you could share with our viewers. Rabbi Langer: So another question that we get asked often is, you know, could it be, השם made this world filled with delicious fruit and berries and blackberries and raspberries, and what are the השגחות telling us, that it's not recommended to eat these berries, and it's not recommended to eat these fruits, these are too infested. Why did השם create it? He created it for us to eat and to enjoy. So אור החיים )שמות פרק ט״ז פסוק כ(׳ writes 350 years ago. He tells us that he asked why are their fruits and the produce in his time more infested with insects than the earlier generations, and he says that the bugs in produce come from what's called a זוהמא, the זוהמא, this poisonous אויר which is created by the עוונות of the dor, created by the sins of the generation. And the more sinful the generation is, the more produce is going to be in the vegetables. And if you look around the world today, and you see what's going on, it's quite understandable why our produce is מלא and filled with all these תולעים. Rabbi Hisiger: And I'll just add to this conversation, which whenever we talk about the בדיקת תולעים, either I or our guest mentions, is that every single bug that a person could possibly consume is, we're talking about six לאוין, correct? Rabbi Langer: Between four to six לאוין, depending on the type of bug. Rabbi Hisiger: And so, you know, there's a good reason that there is such careful attention paid to the insect infestation in our foods, and why people like yourself and other experts in the area of the בדיקת תולעים are constantly working to improve the methods of checking and also education as far as the בדיקת תולעים, enabling people to check their fruits and vegetables properly. And so, we thank you for your wonderful עבודת הקודש, and we thank you for being here today. Rabbi Langer: Thank you for having me.

5785 & Beyond Let’s join Rabbi Sholom Tendler - Kashrus Administrator at the STAR-K as he walks us through the sugya of yoshon and what has changed recently, just in time for the start of the new season, 5785. Rabbi Hisiger: Hello everyone and welcome back to Let's Talk Kashrus, presented by the Kashrus Awareness Project in conjunction with TorahAnytime. Today I am privileged to be joined by R’ Sholom Tendler, Kashrus Administrator at the STAR-K in Baltimore. Thank you R’ Tendler for joining us once again. Rabbi Tendler: Pleasure to be back. Rabbi Hisiger: So we're here to discuss the topic of Yoshon today, and before we get into the particulars of what viewers may want to know about this particular season and which items are of greater concern or lesser concern, give us a very brief summary of what Yoshon is and the related הלכות. Rabbi Tendler: Okay sure, as I say it's an old topic, it's nothing new, everyone's heard that pun a million times before, but the fact remains that ישן is a פסוק in the תורה and basically what it boils down to is the following thing, is that every year the crop, the new crop is harvested in the summer. Crops get planted in the springtime, חדש האביב, חג האביב and then חג הקציר, the summertime when crops are harvested. At least in North America and the United States, that means July-August is when every year the new crop is harvested. You go to the supermarket, you find the new fruits are on the shelf, that's when all the new produce that's for that season comes on the market. So what the תורה is saying is that the new crop that's harvested from the חמשת המינים, wheat, oat, barley, rye and spelt, is not allowed to be eaten for the next six to eight months until after next year פסח. So everything that was harvested two months ago, a month, two months ago, is not allowed to be eaten until after next year פסח. So the new crop that's coming in is called חדש. The crop that's still remaining from last year is what's known as ישן and that's why it's called old. It has nothing to do with freshness, I made that joke before, it has nothing to do with how fresh the food is, whether it's stale or not stale, that's how it works, what's the new crop and what's the old crop. Rabbi Hisiger: Just for accuracy's sake, in the time of the בית המקדש, it was until after the עומר was brought, the first day of פסח, now we're referring to it generally as being after פסח. Rabbi Tendler: Correct, because it happens to be all מצה is going to be ישן, and there's not really any other חמשת המינים products that you can eat on פסח at that point, so in essence it's still פסח and then after פסח is when ישן season so to speak ends and then starts again right around now. Rabbi Hisiger: Let's dive right into this season now. I know people know that there are different items, oats and others, where the ישן season either starts early or late and people are cognizant of that fact and they're aware that if they're going to the supermarket, for years people were stocking up on certain items because they were concerned about that. What updates could you give us on specific items? Rabbi Tendler: So first as far as before we get to the actual specific items for a second, I just want to comment what you said about stocking up, is that I generally discourage people from stocking up on many common items, at least on the East Coast area, you know New York down to Baltimore, this whole region, because there's very few products, and I'm talking about not necessarily Jewish products that you can't get the entire year, or at least you can't get until much later in the season. The reason for that is because what we're generally looking at now that the כשרות agencies have kind of taken over the monitoring of the ישן situation, the resources that we have available to us, which means we have משגיחים who are going into all the plants, so we no longer have to guess or use estimates based on harvest times, we actually can go to the plant and say when are you getting in the new crop for this year, and they know exactly, because every year the crops are different, the protein content, things are different in the crop, and they have to make adjustments to the recipes based on that, so they know, most companies that process, make cookies, pastas, they know exactly when they are getting a new crop and exactly when they're starting to use it, so we try as much as possible to go with those dates and get those dates that are as accurate as possible, so while the old, we're still punning all along here, while the old method of doing things was just basically using estimates based on crop harvest time, and then estimating how long it takes, now we know exactly when that is, so if you go back to when the crops were harvested, let's say July, August, which again varies depending on the weather, depending where it's from, it takes time until that crop actually gets into process to be used in cookies or pasta or anything like that, and we're able to monitor the mills, and not only just the mills, there's specific mills that handle pasta companies, and specific mills that handle cookie companies, so we know exactly all along that way when that crop is entering the process, so we can push the date when consumers have to start worrying about this as late as possible, which is always very helpful to know, so that's why the date we're giving right now, when ישן season officially starts, is actually today, September 15th, which is basically, from our understanding, most companies by this week will have gotten in, most companies that we spoke to at least, not just flour companies, pasta companies, cookie companies, are getting in right around now, the new crop of flour that they're going to start using, you know, after that, how long it takes from the time they start, until it hits the shelves, will be some time, so it's very unlikely that this week you're actually going to find חדש, anything except flour, flour is a different story, flour comes in much faster obviously, but pasta, cookies, anything like that, it's very unlikely you'd find it this week already on the market, but we can't tell you exactly when it's going to hit the shelves, because after the manufacturing goes to distribution, it's hard to know, it takes time, but it also could go fast, so we don't know exactly, so we're telling people this week already, they should start checking dates, and the dates are, you know, some of these were released today already, some of them are going to be released over the next two days, and the way the process works is that we're going to give general dates based on about September 15th for the cutoff date, as far as the manufacturing, so for example, if you're going to go to the store this week and look at a package of cookies, we're going to tell you as long as you look at the date, and we'll give you the date code, it was manufactured before September 15th, it's for sure ישן, after, we can't tell you, now, in a few weeks from now, we might have information from Stella D’oro, or any of these other cookie companies to know exactly when they started, in which case we'll update it, in which case the dates will get pushed off later, so that will evolve over the next few weeks, that information. Rabbi Hisiger: Now, to clarify, you're talking about people getting these dates and getting this information, what is the best way for people to access that info? Rabbi Tendler: www.yoshon.com , ישן.com , I mean, all the agencies, including the STAR-K, we have websites, a ישן page on our website, which culls the information that we're providing to yoshon.com , it puts it, you know, yoshon.com is really the best resource for all the information, they have the lists which are going to be made into a PDF file and will be emailed out to anyone who signs up, so there will be paper copies available, you know, hard copies available, I mean, hard to say, hard copies available, they're going to be sent out as a PDF email on their website, through their app, and for those who also don't have access to any of those modes, so in many cities, in Lakewood, Baltimore, Chicago, there will be pickup points that's going to be listed in the email that was sent out today, where people can pick up a physical hard copy of the list. Rabbi Hisiger: I want to go back to something you said before about stocking up, you don't recommend stocking up, now, I don't know if I revealed something, but stocking up really is a memory of my youth, and it was a different world then. People would indeed stock up on pasta, I remember oatmeal, and things of that sort, to have enough to last them till פסח, and you know, over the years, first of all, more and more people today keep ישן, how would you describe in brief what changed from then to today, just as far as availability, and you alluded to before about the availability, not just the product, but of information. Rabbi Tendler: Right, what's happening now is, like you said, more and more people, I don't like to say the term ישן's becoming more popular, you know, it's hard to say that about a מצוה, something in the תורה, but it's definitely becoming more aware of this issue of ישן, and the fact that information is becoming more and more available in a clear fashion, makes it so much easier for people to keep ישן, and what I mentioned before also, you said about being list written on the product, that's true, but a lot of the Jewish companies, they are writing ישן on it, but even by the non-Jewish companies, just because we know more about the industry, we're able to ascertain much more clearly what things are 100% ישן, and also what things maybe not, and these sometimes are things that are available all year round, I'll give you some quick examples, let's start with the kids, pretzels, roll gold pretzels, roll gold pretzels is a very popular pretzel, non-Jewish company, it's found anywhere in the United States of America, every rest stop, roll gold pretzels, 100% winter wheat, which means they're 100% ישן, all year long, so for those who don't know what winter wheat is, I think we threw that term out really fast, winter wheat is wheat that was planted in October, September, October, sits dormant in the ground until the summer, so since it sat through פסח, it's always ישן, spring wheat, which is the one that's typically used for breads, is planted in the spring, you know, April, never happened so far that it was planted before פסח, so we never got that lucky, and it's harvested in the summer, so spring wheat is always a ישן problem, and winter wheat is never a ישן problem. Rabbi Hisiger: Is it a different consistency that they like to use winter wheat? Rabbi Tendler: It could be, the protein content is different, typically for things like pretzels, you'll want to use the winter wheat, but I want to say this very carefully, it's not exclusively true, you can't just assume something like a pretzel or cracker is going to winter wheat, because a lot of companies blend, I have companies that we certify, I know for a fact, they blend winter and spring wheat in a pretzel, so you can't know for sure, but again, as I was saying, just information we know, since we're working directly with the manufacturers, we have much more clear information. So roll gold happens to be for winter wheat. And then you have a company like Pillsbury, Pillsbury, this is fresh information, literally, new information, Pillsbury retail five pound bags of flour, you find in every supermarket in the country, the all-purpose flour, and the bread flour, are all made in a mill that only processes winter wheat, so it's exclusively winter wheat product, so this is something that anyone... Rabbi Hisiger: So if you're in a store, you don't have access to yoshon.com , you don't have the guide to חדש, you don't have an item that says, you know, קמח יושן on it, but you see Pillsbury flour, five pounds, you're good to go. Rabbi Tendler: Again, not necessarily a whole wheat, and the all-purpose and the bread, whole wheat is a different story. The old, the old, we love throwing this term around, right, the old information everyone always said about the general mills, the gold medal KC mill, which is the Kansas City mill, everyone assumed that that was ישן, now it does happen to be true, that the KC mill processes all-purpose flour and bread flour exclusively using winter wheat, however, that mill is a shared mill, they do process חדש on that same mill, and that, everyone can decide from the sales whether they want to be מחמיר about it or not, but it's not an exclusive mill. From what information I was just given today, actually, the Pillsbury all-purpose and bread flour is made at a mill that is exclusive for winter wheat, there's also some other ones on the list, I believe Hecker's also, is flour that's also produced exclusively from winter wheat, so you don't need to stock up, these are flours you can find anywhere in the country, and a lot of flours also, you know, the turnaround is not so strong, for example, a lot of the big stores target Walmart, right, we have very clear dates on when these flours turn over, and, you know, it's not like a heimeshe store where you're going to, people are buying bread flour for חלה every single week, you can find a target in a random place, chances are you're going to be able to find ישן flour available there in one form or another, so, and then in the frum communities on the East Coast, for sure, since it's so popular now, the stores make sure to keep stocks of it, and it's certainly better for the stores to keep stocks of it than for you to keep stocks of it at home, because they make sure, for infestation reasons, they keep, and also you don't have space, I mean, if you have space, you don't have to, but I'm saying infestation reasons becomes a big problem sometimes, when people stock up too much, and then you end up coming to פסח, you still have a pallet left in your basement, it just becomes a whole issue, so therefore, you know, I have found personally, I could say, the last many years, there was almost nothing that I found I needed to stock up on, maybe oatmeal, maybe some oatmeal, but now they have oatmeal from ארץ ישראל, that a lot of stores bring in, which is always ישן, so again, you know, it's not something that people necessarily need to be running to the stores to stock up on, again, in the East Coast, for sure, and even the rest of the country, if you follow the list, you can generally find things that are going to be ישן all season long. Rabbi Hisiger: So an interesting thing I wanted to ask about was cut-off dates and expiration dates, very often the כשרות agencies will give out cut-off dates that don't seem to correlate with the expiration dates, what are these dates, and how do we read them properly? So we try as much as possible to tell people information that you need to look for on the package, so if we tell you on a package you should look for 2594, that is a code, which basically is a Julian date, for example, 259 is the 259th day of the year, which some companies use as an expiration date for their product, and then 4 would be 2024, sometimes it's 5, so if you look, let's say, at our quick guide or in the ישן guide, you will see some products will say, look for 2595, if you see 2595, which in that case means, I believe that is September 15th, actually, of 2025, if you see 2595 or lower, that means it was produced before today, that's what that means. So we try as much as possible not to give you the whole torah behind it, this one's 12 months, 18 months, 12 months and 5 days, we don't want to confuse people, just to give you the exact date to look for, so in general, the date we give you is the date to look for, either that date or earlier, and that is for sure, and then that product is guaranteed to be ישן. Rabbi Hisiger: It seems that oat is getting a later date than usual, is there a reason for that on the production end, is there something that changed in the industry? Rabbi Tendler: So the oats is interesting, oats historically seemed to have been one of the earlier things that was assumed to become חדש right away, but now what it seems is not like that, and part of that is because all the food grade oats that are used, I don't want to say all, but most, the bulk of the food grade oats that are used come from Canada, not grown in the United States, so even though we were always monitoring the United States harvest, it seems that that was not necessarily correct, those are all the animal grade oats, predominantly the food grade oats are coming from Canada, which just because of the way the weather is, it comes from Western Canada, which is much later, because colder harvest only grows much later, so that's why oats really are now one of the later things to become חדש. That's interesting, interesting development. At the same time, I just want to mention on that, one of the big questions we get is Cheerios, the oldest cereal, and still the question is on Cheerios, it's a very popular cereal, Cheerios, it varies, every year is different when they get it in, last year, people remember the date for Cheerios, which is what General Mills told us, they are not getting in the חדש oats until sometime it was in December, this year they're getting it in September 30th, which hasn't happened yet, but they know already they're getting it in September 30th, so we have that date going to be listed in the guide, so just because oats come in later, when the companies actually start using it, again, as I mentioned earlier before, couldn't vary, and that's what we're going to try to do as much as possible, to get really as accurate information, this way, the product becomes much more available when we can push the dates off as late as possible. Rabbi Hisiger: One final question, other items that also seem to be much later, specifically our malt and beer, does that also have to do with where it's made and production-wise? Rabbi Tendler: It does somewhat, meaning barley kind of follows wheat, the cutoff we're giving for barley is also today, right around now, September 15th, but malt is kind of a long type of process. Before the malt ends up being the product, the malt, the barley flour, whatever it is that's used in flour or as an enrichment or whatever it is, it takes time to process that, and that's something where it ferments, and then they have to mill it into a flour and it probably hits the market, it takes a lot longer, it's a longer process. The estimates that have always been around historically were December 15th for malt, we're working on that this year to try to figure out, it does kind of make sense, we're going to see if we can try to figure that out a little bit better, but it does kind of make sense to say that malt will take until sometime in December until the חדש malt becomes on the market, and beer kind of also follows the same path, the beer, a lot of the breweries we discussed are not yet getting in the new crop yet, it was just harvested, it takes time for them to get it in, and then it takes a couple of weeks to make the beer until it hits the market, so it doesn't seem like one of the big breweries that we work with, that we certify, they start using the new malted barley usually around Thanksgiving time, so by the time that hits the market, again, end of December, January time, so that's why those things are kind of pushed off, but we have some time for that, and by the time that rolls around, hopefully we'll have some more clear information. Rabbi Hisiger: Very interesting. Any final thoughts on this topic of ישן in the coming year, תשפ״ה? Rabbi Tendler: So, again, as you mentioned, it's something that's becoming easier and easier, it's definitely a little bit לא בשמים היא, I'm not here to tell people what to do and what not to do, it's a personal preference, speak to your own רב, whether you should be מקפיד ישן, not מקפיד ישן, our job as the כשרות agencies, and I will mention, it's a project, a joint project, bipartisan, all agencies together, it's something we're all spending a lot of time and working on to clarify the information, to make it as accessible as possible and make it as user-friendly as possible, with, you know, partnering with yoshon.com , who already has a great website and app and information, and, you know, we're hoping that this will increase its availability and make it as easy as possible for people to be מקפיד ישן. Rabbi Hisiger: And I'll add to what you said that, you know, most of the conversations that we have here on Let's Talk אש״ס are more general, we don't always do such specific topical type of topics, נוגע to the זמן, to the time, and because I don't know when people will be watching or listening to this, maybe in a year or two from now, they should know that a lot of what we discussed, obviously, today is germane to this particular time period, and obviously people have to stay up to date, and depending on when they're listening to it or watching it, they should make sure to avail themselves of the most up-to-date information, like you mentioned, whether it's from the particular כשרות agencies or going to yoshon.com to get the most up-to-date information. Rabbi Tendler: Right, exactly, and that's the, you know, that's, again, like you said, the information will change from year to year, but I think it seems by now the process that we have of being in communication with the companies, all the agencies, sharing the information together, it's a system that seems to be working very well, and at this point, moving forward, we're just going to keep updating the information for people to be able to access. Rabbi Hisiger: Well, we thank you for doing that, we thank you for being on top of it together with the other agencies in a unified effort to help כלל ישראל keep this very important מצוה. So, כל הכבוד, and thank you for being here.

Enough Quality Mashgichim Why is it so hard to find quality mashgichim in the food service industry? Let's listen to Rabbi Nosson Dubin - Kashrus Administrator of HKA (Houston), and founder of the Kosher Institute of America as he explains the root causes, and how we can address the underlying issues. Rabbi 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 Nosson Dubin, Kashrus Administrator of the HKA in Houston and founder of the Kashrus Institute of America. Thank you Rabbi Dubin for being here. Nice to speak to you once again. Rabbi Dubin: Yes, pleasure to be here. Rabbi Hisiger: And thank you for being here all the way from Houston, here in the Let's Talk Kashrus studios.  Rabbi Dubin: An opportunity. Rabbi Hisiger: So today we would like to speak about actually a very important topic, a topic that affects really the health of the Kashrus industry. I don't think we have discussed it here on Let's Talk Kashrus before and that is something that you told me just a couple of minutes ago, is a really serious issue facing the world of Kashrus, and that is either a shortage of mashgichim or difficulty getting mashgichim in the food service industry. So give us a little overview and then we'll get into some of the details. What is the issue at hand? Rabbi Dubin: Yes. I think it would not be an overstatement to say that the biggest Kashrus challenge that we have today worldwide is finding quality mashgichim. Finding and quality. Both. It's remarkable. I mean, we're talking about, not so much in the factory world, industrial. Those are not nearly as difficult, but in the food service world where restaurants, caterers, supermarkets, bakeries, that kind of environment, finding quality mashgichim and being able to maintain and retain those mashgichim is a tremendous challenge to Kashrus today. Around the world. I speak to hashgachos from in the United States, North America, in Europe, South Africa, everywhere. Everyone is struggling with the same issue and it's a really, really big challenge. Rabbi Hisiger: I'll just jump on this. Is the issue as simple as compensation? That there's just not a lot of extra money to go around and if you're not paying, then you're not going to get good people? Is it as simple as that, or am I oversimplifying it? Rabbi Dubin: So I think that if we were able to solve that 100%, then I think we would be dealing with a lot less of an issue. But I think there's a few components, a few pieces here. Number one is definitely your point. Money. It boils down to money. And really what's happening here is that when you have a factory, you have a huge company, you have a Nestle, you have a Coca-Cola, you have a production company, they understand that there's cost, there's research and development, there's all kinds of associated costs with, if they want to have organic certification, they want to have non-GMO, there's all kinds of marketing costs and that they can just build certain things into their budget and understand that the Kashrus fees are just part of it and that's okay. In a food service world where there's a steakhouse, a falafel shop, a pizza store, a bakery, a supermarket, right? If you want to have a mashgiach temidi, you want to have a mashgiach that's there all the time, right? We're talking about a full-time salary and you need someone, you need to be paying them enough that they can support a family. That means that you're taking Moishe's falafel joint and you're telling him, okay, I don't know, what's the lowest amount that we can assume that would be the lowest amount that someone can support a family? I don't know, let's say $80,000 or whatever the number would be, right? Depending on where you live, right? Obviously, New York would be a lot more than in other places. But by the time you're paying your rent and you're a person that has a family of a bunch of children and they're paying tuition and they're paying rent or a mortgage and car payments and all kinds of other things, they don't have that kind of budget to pay a mashgiach, besides for the regular Kashrus fees, besides for everything else. And it just creates an environment that's untenable. It's impossible to be able to pay a proper salary to a mashgiach. Rabbi Hisiger: So from what I understand, one of the ways to address this very, very issue, where businesses don't have extra funds and whatever profit they're making, that's why they're in business, to make that profit, not to give it away, is by employing someone who could be an employee of the business and also serve as a mashgiach, right? Double dip, so to speak. Rabbi Dubin: So this is what's known as a working mashgiach. And I want to touch on that. That's a very, very crucial point. It's a critical point. But I think there's a few pieces. So you have number 1, the pay is too low. So for example, you have a mashgiach that's getting paid $18 an hour, $20 an hour. It's not sustainable. Okay, we'll touch on that. I want to touch on that in a minute. In addition to that, you have, it's an extremely demanding job. You are a policeman. You can call it a mashgiach, but it's a very difficult job. I'm in the food service world. And it's not easy. When I have to function in that role, it's not an easy job to do. Sometimes you have a frum owner, you have somebody who cares about Kashrus, and then it's a pleasure. But even then, you have other people working in the kitchen. You always have to be on top of people. And obviously, there's a lot of social skills and you're trying to do it nicely, but it's a conflict. It's not easy. So you have the pay, you have the conflict. In general, restaurant employees, there's a very high turnover rate, right? A lot of times, like I'll see a Houston, I'll see the same employee, he'll work in this restaurant, and then he's fired from this one, he shows up this one, and then he gets, he leaves this one because he got another dollar an hour somewhere else. A very high turnover rate in general, because it's a hard environment to work, very high stress kitchen environment. And I think that the last point is respect. And it really plays on both. Number one, respect from the owner and the establishment, respect from the community for the integral role that they're playing, and respect from the Kashrus agency. That's also important. So I think there's a composite of a lot of things that are going on here. But I think that if you think about it, right, if you think about it, think about Chinuch for a second, right? What was the status of a melamed 75 years ago, 50 years ago? Very often you had some extraordinary Melamdim, right? But a lot of people who really didn't belong being Melamdim and just couldn't find another job, right? And it wasn't considered a prestigious position and it wasn't compensated as a prestigious position. And over time, we've come to realize that, no, these are our children and we want them to be compensated properly. We want them to be taken care of. We want to put them on a pedestal, right? And now to get a job as a Rebbe is hard, right? The question for, I think that we need to be asking ourselves is the Mashgiach is also filling a crucial role because you could have the best policies in the world for a Hashgacha. Bottom line is, it's only as strong as the weakest link. It's the person who's actualizing your policies, who's doing that. So how do we take the Mashgiach of today? And we have some really excellent Mashgichim, but at the same time, we're forced sometimes to hire people just because we need someone. How do we create that respect and prestigious position and put them on a pedestal in a way that they, in hopefully not 50 years from now, but that it should be something that it should be a hard position to get. Rabbi Hisiger: What is the Eitza? What's the Mehalech? What do you see as a Mehalech? If not to rectify it, at least to alleviate it somewhat. Rabbi Dubin: There are different ideas that, like you said, alleviate. I don't have anything that's going to rectify the problem. Everyone has ideas. So I'll tell you some things that I'm thinking. Number one is, and I think this is the most important, consumers need to care. That's the bottom line. Sometimes when a product is being sent out, let's say with Uber Eats, right? So we have a system of how it needs to be wrapped with chosamos. Once in a while you have a situation where something wasn't wrapped properly. So I'll get a customer, he'll call me. It didn't come according to protocol. Very often I'll tell them, do me a favor, call the restaurant to complain. They say, why should I? It's your job. I'll take care of it too. But when a customer is upset, that has a lot more value. If somebody comes into a restaurant and something's playing in the music and they're not happy with it, so they'll call me, I say call the restaurant. Not that we won't deal with it. We'll also deal with it, but it has a much bigger effect. Rabbi Hisiger: I think for two reasons. First of all, because they're the ones who, they're paying. So, they're the source of the income. And also, because if it's just the Mashgiach, it's, oh, it's the Mashgiach again with his issues and with his problems and with his complications. Why are you bothering us again? And now you're getting involved in, let's say with the music, you're getting involved in something that's not even the Kashrus, right? I'm sure you hear this all the time. Rabbi Dubin: A hundred percent. But that's exactly the point. Meaning if we as consumers would start to just be a little bit more conscious. So, I'm not saying, I'm not a big advocate of people saying, if I'm going to go to an event, I'm going to go into the kitchen and go check it out and find out where the meat is. I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying like, we should have an appreciation. Who is the Mashgiach here? Am I comfortable with that person? And when you are comfortable, make a comment to the owner and say, you know, I feel very comfortable eating here. Meaning if there was a grassroots awareness that we want good quality Mashgichim, I think that that would make a big effect. That's number one. Number two is also what you mentioned in the beginning is dollars and cents, right? Mashgichim at a time are typically paid between 18 and $22 an hour. Okay. So, assuming they're working full time, 40 hours a week, right? So now they don't necessarily have so many shifts, but let's say they're working a full 40 hours, 50 weeks a year. That translates to about $44,000 a year. Rabbi Hisiger: Before taxes. Rabbi Dubin: Before taxes. Right. Okay. So what does that translate after taxes? Pick your number. Texas doesn't have state income taxes. But you're talking about your walk-home pay is what? $35,000? Yeah. Not more. Right. Okay. And after Maaser, and if you're paying Maaser, Rabbi HIsiger: It's not a livable wage. Rabbi Dubin: It's not even, it's not even close. Right. And it's a hard job. You don't really have the capacity to take on so many extra jobs and it's hard. It's physically hard. It's challenging. So it's dollars and cents. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. So sometimes we'll have quality Mashgichim and I'm dying to keep them. Right. You can't afford them. Why? Who's paying their wage? Where's the money coming from? So, some Hashgachos they pay the Mashgiach. Some Hashgachos the store pays the Mashgiach. That's a whole separate conversation. Either way, the money's coming from the same place. Money's coming from the restaurant. Right. Right. So, they're paying $44,000. They're not willing to pay $80,000 or $100,000 or $120,000. So that's, that I think is, is a huge issue. And that's something that, you know, like we were discussing before, I think that the going back to us as consumers being more conscious of it is, I think that's an interesting thing to think about. Would you be willing, I don't mean you necessarily, but the proverbial we or you, would we be willing to pay an extra $2 for each meal that we order for the level of Kashrut to be a little bit higher? Rabbi Hisiger: Right. So, when the question is asked like that, I think most erliche people will say, of course, it's worth $2. It's worth $2. But when it comes down to it, and when you're actually paying the bill, no one likes paying more. Right. And people will kvetch about it. Right. That's the bottom line. And I'll just add, I'm sorry, I'll just add that also, because when you're paying the extra $2 for more pastrami, you see the more pastrami in your sandwich. It's a tangible benefit. Yes. Over here, it's somewhat of an intangible benefit because you're not, meaning you don't see it. Of course, it's tangible, but you don't see it. You don't, you really don't. Rabbi Dubin: Right. So, I mean, like I think that, I think that's something we really, really need to think about. You know, there are hashgachos in the New York area that are paying $28 an hour, but again, $28 an hour in New York. Rabbi Hisiger: Even $28, bottom line, it's not cutting it. And at the end of the day, someone who's super capable and super driven and super knowledgeable, ultimately this is not going to be his calling. Which is unfortunate. Rabbi Dubin: Which is unfortunate. So, you know, some thoughts that I've discussed with different people. Some people have mentioned different ideas. One idea is, and again, this is something that needs further thought. I don't know necessarily if it's the right idea, but there's different things, you know, is for the kehillah, every community, to have a fund for Mashgichim. You know, something like a Torah Mesorah has, and Chasdei Lev for Rebbeim and different things, but to create a fund for Mashgichim, which accomplishes two things, right? A fund for Mashgichim where we're not going to be able to get a Meshgichim salary from $45,000, you know, to 80, 90, 100. This, we're not gonna be able to raise enough money for that. I think that's unrealistic at this point. But what we could do is we could give them a few thousand dollars for Yom Tov. We could give them a few thousand dollars for Bar Mitzvah. We could give them the opportunity to take off and go on vacation with their wife. We can give them, you know, matzos for Pesach. We can give them daled minim for, you know, there are things that we can do as a kehillah. I don't mean, not so much from a Kashrus agency perspective but as a kehila. If we banded together to create a cause match charity campaign or any other fundraiser, to have a fund for Mashgichim, which accomplishes, number one, giving them tangible benefits, but also giving them a sense that not only the kashrus agency and not only the owner that's always mad at them, but people really care. Rabbi Hisiger: I just wonder, not to be the Debbie Downer or the cynic, but I wonder if that would only work out of town, you know, where it's a little more of a cohesive kehillah in a large city, in Brooklyn, you know, Brooklyn, Lakewood, five towns, so on and so forth, big flourishing metropolises. I'm not sure if people will have that feeling, I'm just saying. Rabbi Dubin: I think today, maybe not. But the question is, if we can create an environment where this is something that's appreciated, maybe it's something to think through. Maybe in Houston we could do it.  Another thing is, what you mentioned also earlier, is a working Mashgichim. And I think that's probably the easiest, one of the easier ideas, is to have, you know, like we have some of our Mashgichim who are really providing tremendous value to the restaurant besides for hashgachah. And when you have somebody like that, the restaurant really has no issue paying them a very nice salary. Again, it's not going to be, you know, like equivalent necessarily to other jobs, because in the restaurant food service industry, the salaries are typically lower. But even so, you're talking about something which is somewhat sustainable. Somebody could be in there for a few years. These are some ideas as far as pay, that's just as far as pay is concerned. I think with regards to the respect component, and I think they're really both equally important, like I was reaching out today to a bunch of different people in advance of this discussion. I reached out to some of my Mashgichim, I reached out to other food service administrators, I reached out to some owners, just to have, and really this is what we're discussing a lot of it is a composite of different ideas and different things that people have mentioned. And I think one of the most common things that came up is respect for Mashgichim. We need to understand that they're the ones that are providing us with kosher food, ultimately, and respect them and appreciate it. And really, the Mashgichim that really do stay in it, what I find at least in Houston, in my experience, is people that are idealistic, because money is not going to cut it. It's not the money that's keeping you in, and it's not the respect. As much as I respect the Mashgichim, and I think they're amazing, and without them, we would not have kosher food. But it's a hard job. And this is huge. So, I think the respect is really, really a big deal. And going together with respect, I think there's another angle to that, which is training. And this is something that other people in the kosher world push very much. The reality is that when someone goes to school for two years, or three years, four years to get a degree, there's a higher barrier to entry. And therefore, the salary is higher, automatically, because it's supply and demand, and the respect is higher for the person because they have an understanding that they have something that I don't have. I don't have an MBA. I'm not a CPA, and I'll probably never be a CPA. So, if I have something, an accounting question, this is somebody who I know, knows much more than I do. There's an inherent respect for that. And creating that training and the continual training. You know who does this excellent, is COR in Toronto. They have a phenomenal program for their Mashgichim. Phenomenal. Rabbi Hisiger: Is that a prerequisite to be a Meshgiach for COR? Rabbi Dubin: I believe so. They have a course, which is actually a college course that they get credits for. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. And then they also have like a kollel for them, and they give them supplements. They're doing things right. They're doing really, they're doing it. Really a lot to learn from what they're doing there. As far as training, so we're, you know, the AKO Mashgiach course, I think that definitely helped. Let me tell you a little bit about the AKO Mashgiach course. It was created by us - the Kosher Institute of America together with AKO. And we started it in 2020, January 2020, right before COVID. And by now we have probably about 4,000 Mashgichim who have taken the course, around the world. And it's been completely transformative because really, you know, when we were hiring Mashgichim before the course, right? Let's be real. So, some Hashgachos had really good trainings, granted, and they did like, you know, multi-day trainings and so on. We didn't have that, right? So, if you need a Mashgichim, what do you do? You meet them on site. You show them around. Take a look at this. When your convection oven opens, make sure to look at this. This is how we do vegetables. And that's really it, right? So really what the Mashgichim course did is now every single person who's becoming a Mashgichim for many agencies, right? We have, I don't know, 30, 35 agencies that are using it. OU, OK, Kof-K, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Montreal, South Africa, London, you know, all over the world. And everyone's taking the same training, taking the same test, and really getting a full knowledge in basar b'chalav, in pas Akum, bishul Yisrael, tolaim, and everything else. I think that part of that really was to create that sense of respect that this is somebody who's trained. You get a nice Mashgiach card, a photo ID. Rabbi Hisiger: Besides that, you're actually teaching them very important skills and knowledge. But you're saying from the respect standpoint, it's dignified. It's not like, oh, you need a job. You need to make a few dollars. OK, we'll sit you down and check some vegetables. It gives them a chashivus, which is takeh something very special. Rabbi Dubin: Yeah. Rabbi Hisiger: Any final thoughts on this topic? Rabbi Dubin: Yeah. So, I think that I would say just one thing I would say that if you have the opportunity, if you're in a restaurant as a customer, if you can take the opportunity and go to the Mashgiach, thank him for his service. This is a suggestion that R’ Sholey Klein suggested to me, and I thought that was brilliant. It was great. It's huge. You know, like when somebody's in the army, someone's in uniform, people say, you know, thank you for your service, right? Right, right, right. So, they're in the army of kashrus. Rabbi Hisiger: In the army of kashrut. It's so true. And the truth is that the amount of responsibility that Mashgiach can carry for thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of people over the course of a week who are eating food, relying on their expertise and their responsibility. So, we are really, we have a debt of gratitude to those who are out there in the field. And you alluded to it before, it's not, it's definitely not the best paying job and it's not always the most fun job. A lot of stress in the kitchen environment. Things go wrong. Right. You're dealing with, there's also a social component like you also alluded to of dealing with people and it's the Mashgiach's job to do that. So, you know, for what it's worth, we'll express that here to all those who are in the food service industry and really any part of kashrus serving as Mashgichim. And we are very grateful to them for their service because they're underappreciated and underpaid. And IY”H maybe together with your initiatives and your ideas and with this conversation, hopefully we could raise the level of respect that they receive. And also, hopefully, maybe eventually even the compensation at some point. Rabbi Dubin: Even the compensation. And maybe one day if the kashrus awareness is still going, you know, in a few decades from now, we'll look back and be like, we once had an issue with this. Rabbi Hisiger: Amen. Amen. Rabbi Dubin, thank you for being here. It's a pleasure to see you.

Protecting Kosher Wine Wine in the hands of hired help. Wine as a present from a gentile colleague. These questions and everything you need to know about wine in the hands of people that may cause wine to become Stam yeinam answered by Rav Shmuel Fuerst - Dayan of Agudas Yisroel of Illinois in this weeks episode.