MORE ON WHY THE STATE CAN NOT BE A POSEK

A local kosher bakery bought a crucial ingredient for baking bagels from a company called (and we are not using the real name, we are using a made up name, but one that captures the name of the real entity) The Wabasha Dairy Company.

The product was pareve. In those days, it was not always clear if a P on a product meant pareve or Passover.

The State inspector insisted that the product was dairy- as witnessed by the company’s name. He then said that the store was selling dairy bagels without a dairy label and that was against the NYS Kosher rules.

Of course, the bagels were pareve. Always had been pareve and remain pareve to this very day (This was almost 20 years ago).

The mashgiach pointed out the P on the product. The NYS Kosher Inspector insisted that the P stood for Passover. One teensy, tiny problem: IT COULD NOT STAND FOR PASSOVER AS THE INGREDIENT WAS KITNIYOT!

The product was impounded. A long battle followed. The upshot of the story was that the store owner filed a charge of harassment against the inspector and the NYS KLE agency and won. Oh, and by the way: the product was indeed pareve as the letter of certification from the company made abundantly clear.

Where was the letter the whole time? Right in the mashgiach’s files. The State Inspector refused to read the letter. He knew the law, and he was the State certified expert. Sort of like, “don’t confuse me with the facts.”

And that, boys and girls, is why the new, consumer based laws as drafted first by New Jersey and later by New York, are better for us as kosher consumers.

Don’t ever confuse a constitutional challenge with an attack on kashruth.