Haholchim B'Torat HaShem
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Thursday December 21 2017, 10:18 AM Kashrut
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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Thursday December 21 2017, 10:14 AM Kashrut
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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Thursday December 21 2017, 10:13 AM Kashrut
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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Thursday December 21 2017, 10:12 AM Kashrut
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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Thursday December 21 2017, 10:10 AM Kashrut
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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Thursday December 21 2017, 10:08 AM Kashrut
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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Thursday December 21 2017, 10:07 AM Kashrut
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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Thursday December 21 2017, 10:06 AM Kashrut
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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Thursday December 21 2017, 10:05 AM Kashrut
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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Thursday December 21 2017, 10:04 AM Kashrut
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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Thursday December 21 2017, 10:03 AM Kashrut
That there is no way to kasher an earthenware utensil is a famous principle throughout the Talmud, both in the areas of kashrut and ritual purity. But there are tantalizing hints to the contrary in some rabbinic writings. There is a reference in...
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Thursday December 21 2017, 10:02 AM Kashrut
As I pointed out in my post about bugs, there is often a huge gap between theory and reality. Some avoid green vegetables altogether, as eating a bug involves transgressing five Biblical prohibitions. But, in fact, one would have to plan their bug...
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Thursday December 21 2017, 9:58 AM Kashrut
As in many things, confusion comes in with stoves and ovens, as the ancient forms of these objects had little resemblance to what we use today. Rules stated about the ancient ovens may or may not be applicable to today's ovens.. The ancient oven...
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Thursday December 21 2017, 9:56 AM Kashrut
The Talmud tells us that if one cut a cucumber with a knife, and the knife had residue of meat, dairy, or something not kosher, all we need to is clean off the cucumber where we cut it, and we are good to go. However, if we cut "tznon" (usually...
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Wednesday December 20 2017, 2:01 PM Shabbat
Nothing, other than the existence of G-d, is more central to Judaism. In fact, the Torah makes clear that observance of Shabbat is the ultimate recognition of G-d's creation of Heaven and Earth. This is no minor matter, since, until the twentieth...
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