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Up until about 1970, kosher restaurants in the United States, and most other countries, were either 'self-supervised", or had a local rabbi pop in for a spot check, usually once a week. For canned and other packaged goods, the consumer relied on...
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To me, one of the greatest heroes of modern Jewish history is the much hated, but much feared, Rabbi Yitzckak Abadi. Imagine, if you will, an erudite figure who studied at the feet of great rabbis of the last generation, and is looking over the...
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Another area of Kashrut is not Biblical, but rather rabbinic. During the Roman occupation, the rabbis were concerned about the Jews becoming Romanized. In addition, many Jews were fleeing Eretz Yisrael for what seemed to be safety. What better way...
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The issue of milk is a contentious one, which divides us into factions. Many put it into the same category as wine; expanding an existing law (in this case, the milk of non Kosher animals) into a safeguard against intermarriage. Others consider...
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Cheese, too, is a most contentious topic. As with milk, the confusion is due to a lack of information. In this case, however, it seems that the Sages did not want us to know. We read in the Mishnah, that right after the decree had been made by the...
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The array of opinions as to the kashrut of cheese has led to many different standards. There are those who consider any cheese made by a non Jew to be forbidden, regardless of the ingredients. This view is the one accepted by most Hareidi (Ultra...
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Another two enactments, whose goal was to limit the chances of intermarriage, were "Bishul Akum" (Idolater's Cooking), and "Pat Akum" (Idolater's Bread). Both of these have extremely strict and extremely lenient interpretations. The implications...
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One of the most misunderstood aspects of Kashrut is the issue of utensils. How can a utensil become non kosher? How can it be made kosher again? (n.b. the almost universal folklore of burying a utensil over night has absolutely no basis in...
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The status of glass is very interesting. Glass was so rare and expensive that it is no wonder that the Talmud did not list it among the other kasherable items; metal, wood, stone, with rubber coming in later. Only the richest owned glassware. Most...
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In the quote from Numbers I mentioned earlier, the rabbis derived from "that which has passed through fire, you shall pass through fire..." the principle is "as it absorbs, so it releases". That means that in the same way a utensil has become non...
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