Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Kashrus

Everyone keeps by their own level of kashrus. Some people eat only glatt, some eat only beit yosef; some eat/drink only cholov yisroal, while other people don't particularly care. The only two times it is relevant to care if someone is super strict is if the person is keeping unnecessary strictness while simultaneously living on charity (money can be better spent than supporting a zealots cholov yisroal habit) and the second is if a catering-like facility is not upholding by strict kashrus standards.


2 examples of the latter:


1- A catering facility is strictly certified kosher. The hall it is located in has a ton of hustle throughout the week. Then one day of the week, say every Friday, an organization that is local allows outside food to come in from people's homes. The kashering agency turns a blind-eye to it without fully examing where all of the food comes from. Would you eat there?


2- Imagine a scenario in which a catering facility is having a fleishig's meal. The kitchen is fleishigs. If ever there is a need for dairy, the entire kitchen gets covered by tablecloth. If anything needs to be put into the oven, it gets double wrapped to avoid treifing the oven. In the scenario you are imagining picture the facility is having fleishigs for that day. One of the mini-organizations that comes to that hall decides they don't want fleishigs but want milchigs, so they cover one area with the tablecloth- only a few inches away- from the uncovered area/fleishigs location, basically meaning, anything could happen. Would you eat there?



Now, if i told you both 1 and 2 were the same place, would you eat there?

39 comments:

Mikeinmidwood said...

I would trust it, the mashgichim should be doing their job, and I wont be afraid they didnt; unless of course, I was told otherwise.

Ookamikun said...

Same here. You trust people with kashrus when you eat by them. We have people, though those that are trusted, make food for shul. Also, many times we brought our own food to purim party even though it was in a hall.

frumskeptic said...

mim & moshe- I believe I mentioned that the supervisor/moshgiach turned a blind eye.

plus wouldn't you demand stricter supervision from a catering hall? when you eat at someones house you know them, when a caterer allows things to come in from the home, he doesn't know what these do/dont keep.

moshe- your community is full of people you know personally. you all eat in each others homes. om talking about a very different thing- a more diverse crowd, where not everyone knows each other and they may even not be frum- cuz you don't even know. like I said, a very busy place.

frumskeptic said...

for #2- there is no moshgiach, not even turn a blind eye. I just realzed. for #1 suprvisor ignores it, #2 he isn't even there

Jessica said...

I probably wouldn't eat the food. I only say this because I had a bad experience with a catering place and kashrus. These places may be doing everything perfectly, but I just can't shake that experience off of me.

Ookamikun said...

So call the hashgocha.

%Shocked% said...

Oh boy. Umm.. I don't think so. If the mashgichim have such a blatant disregard for halacha how could you trust them on anything? Where I work, my boss, who is NOT religious, sends all of the workers to the mashgiach if we bring anything into the restaurant. He's showing more respect to halacha than these mashgichim.

Mike, their job is to watch the food and the utensils, etc. OFS just told you, albeit implicitly rather than explicitly, that they weren't doing their jobs.

Moshe, what does that say about your hall? That the mashgiach isn't any good? No Kosher hall will ever allow food from someone's house in. It's a policy from all the Kashrus organizations. Yes, there is a difference between an organizations policies and halacha, but we don't play games with kashrus. Ever. There's a reason why being frum is often associated with being Shomer Shabbos and Kashrus; because we don't mess around with either of them.

Hmm.. I think I clarified my viewpoint from my initial dubious one. I wouldn't.

SubWife said...

On the other hand, we don't suspect a person who is Shomer Shabbos of any wrongdoing unless we have a very good reason. Therefore, if the person is Shomer Shabbos, then we assume that the food he brings in is kosher.

frumskeptic said...

shocked- beautiful answer!!!

subwife- wouldn't you want your catering to be strict and just not allow outside food in? especially since they don't even know if the people bringing are shomer shabbos at all?

SubWife said...

My reply wasn't addressing whether I would eat in that place or not. (I should have made that clearer.)This question is easily solved: call up your rav and get a psak. I was addressing comments stating that mashgichim are blatantly disregarding halacha, and I believe this is not necessarily the case.

frumskeptic said...

subwife- course its the case.

we're imagining a case in which the moshgiach isn't there when the food is coming in, he doesn't know who is bringing it. Hence, he doesn't even know if the people are shomer shabbos or not.

Using your logic he cannot even assume they're kosher because he doesn't even know if the premise "Shomer Shabbos Jew" even applies.

Ookamikun said...

In case yall missed my previous comment, call the hashgocha!

Why would you call your rav? He has no idea what's going on there.

frumskeptic said...

Moshe-

What kinda question is that?

A rabbi knows everything. Any LOR was put on this planet to think for frum-kind! Don't you know that calling a hashgocha w/o his permission would be assur and the consequence would be subject to death penalty?!

Ookamikun said...

Only if he finds out ;-)

Jessica said...

If all frummies are corrupt, why would calling the hashgacha make a difference? They could lie to you just as easily.

frumskeptic said...

Jessica- you have to look at it from a capitalist standard.

if their hashgacha loses its credibility, they lose money. its in their best interest to keep things kosher and to keep their good rep.
if they lie, as a caller you'd be expecting change. you'd be expecting them to have a moshgiach come in and not allow outside food in, especially since as shocked said, it is against kashrus facility standards to allow it.
you'd also expect the moshgiach to come on the days the food tends to be brought in from outside so he can actually stop it, not just spit out a few words no one will listen to because he isn't present.

as a caller if those changes don't occur, you'd stop trusting the hashgocha and they lose business.
its hard to be currupt if they're poor.

frumskeptic said...

capitalist standpoint***

Jessica said...

If all frummies are corrupt, it wouldn't matter. No one would ever find out that the hashgacha was bad because everyone would be fine with lying about it.

frumskeptic said...

jessica- when I complain frummies are currupt I don't say they aren't kosher or shomer shabbos, I say they lie about their TVs, summer vacations, etc. I also said they cheat by using yeshiva tuition as a tax shelter, they're known to launder money etc, again I dont/didn't say that they don't keep kashrus. infact I say they compete about who is more kosher.

something like a restuarant or catering facility lying about kosher standards is not the kind of corrput I talk about, nor the type other bloggers I read talk about.

Ookamikun said...

Yeah, frummies are corrupt. This week I received a letter from my yeshiva that I supposedly didn't pay a pledge I made. When did I make it? A year after I graduated, when I was living at a different address, wasn't married and wasn't working. Letter came to this address, to mr and mrs and name was misspelled.

Here's another fine example of how frummies operate.

Anonymous said...

let me ask a more basic question...

are you really talking about a catering hall, or is this some diluted metaphor for the desire to be considered "deep"?

is there really, really, i mean really a "catering hall" that does this?

Ookamikun said...

Yeah, I was also wondering if you're talking about a catering hall or about the soup kitchen.

frumskeptic said...

anonymous- the answer to your question is irrelevent information. Its not like it would better aid you in answering the questions I've asked in the post, so I will not answer you.

Anonymous said...

didnt think you would

Ookamikun said...

I wouldn't answer anonymass cowards either. You got something to say, put a name in front of it. Otherwise, STFU.

frumskeptic said...

moshe- those anonymous people bother me. how hard is it to think of a name for yourself?
but then again I wouldn't want to give myself a name if I pathetically stalked blogs with nothing substantial to comment.

Jessica said...

If they would lie about those things, why wouldn't they lie about other, more important things?

frumskeptic said...

jessica- its not in their best interest to do so. when the guy in monsey was caught selling treif chicken it was a huge uproar, people went nuts. when Rubashkin hired so many illegals, the frummies defended them.

there was a point someone made on another post (forgot who and which post) about how frum people justify their cheating of gov't by using it as an excuse to afford and enable extensive torah learning. they can't claim they cheat on kashrus to do that, the argument doesn't work because they're hurting jews not the goyim who they believe were created for the sole purpose of providing for the Jews.

its simply not in their best interest to cheat on this type of stuff.

Anonymous said...

There is no real catering company that does this. OFS is just trying to make a point to justify her hatred of some organizations. And while trying to get her point across, she is doing her other chessed to society by making believe that this is a real catering hall and that all frum people do bad things. whatever, we get it, you dont like frum people. blah blah blah

ofs - I remain anonymous here for a reason. Dont worry Ill tell you who I am next time I see you and the reason of my being anonymous.

frumskeptic said...

anonymous-
"whatever, we get it, you dont like frum people. blah blah blah"

So why don't you do the the world a favor and stop stalking my blog.

In order to make a point, I have to assume that the right people are reading what I'm writing. How do I know who is reading this?

Why don't you just email me with your identity?

Anonymous said...

ofs - better now? I will try what we talked about then let you know what i see...

Ookamikun said...

"I will try what we talked about then let you know what i see..."

What language is that?

frumskeptic said...

anon- nope, not better now. you come on here, you assume you know exactly what I'm talking about (and clearly you didn't) yet you still made a gross comment. get yourself principle and next time abstain from attacking!

~bklyn frummy~ said...

In scenario 1 I would be very worried if I was one of the other organizations that used the facility during week and why the people who certify the kashrus of this hall look the other way for Friday night events. I would think there might be something fishy going on in this place on Friday nights. Is their another mashgiach that works Friday night who is unfamiliar with kashuras law? let?s put that assumption aside, I have not found any restaurant or catering hall allow outside cooked food into their facility because it is NOT ALLOWED BY ANY major kashrus agency that certifies them.

In scenario 2 all I can say is that this would never be allowed in any reputable place so this facility must be ignorant in the laws of kashrus and the person or people who are supposed to be mashgichim probably have no background in these laws and should not be watching over such a catering facility.

After hearing that this has happened in the same place I would think that there is a lack of supervision and anything goes. I would question whether or not it is ok to eat anything that comes out of the kitchen that was prepared, but packaged items opened in front of me I would not have a problem with. I would say if these scenarios are true this facility should fix their problems before word of mouth spreads and it gets a bad reputation.

Anonymous said...

what gross comment?

That you have and spread hatred? If its that - I meant it. If its something, please clarify...

And before you criticize people of attacking - look back at some of your own comments to people, who G-d forbid, are arrogant enough to disagree with you.

Ookamikun said...

anonymass, what's your address? I'll order you and your friends some cheeseburgers, my treat. Or should I have it delivered to the catering hall?

Anonymous said...

ofs - before u respond, I apologize. Blogs are an expression of someones opinion. If I disagree with your opinion, I shouldn't read your blog. Insulting you is not the right way to do things especially when I have such hakaros hatov for your friendship with my family.

frumskeptic said...

anon- yay!!

u see you shoulda respectfully brought up the issue -either on this post or elsewhere-rather than question my intentions with the post before even knowing the full story- which you have to now admit I have a point-

also, I don't attack people personally (unless they're really stupid- then I pull the mark levine) for their views, I attack cuz the lack of logical substnce in their POV.

my only mistake with this post was asking "would you eat there" as opposed to "is it appropriate". because someones lack of inhibition to eating their is their pov, but a kashering agency is not opened to viewpoints. the have strivt guidelines to uphold too.

Anonymous said...

I would not eat there. If this eating establishment really exists, this is a Shonda.. This is just terrible.. I get Shpilkes Min HaRabbonim from this...

Where are the leaders of this place? Are the officers/ presidents/directors Shomer Shabbos?

Where is the Rabbinacal supervision?