IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD MAD WORLD!

We were at a Bat Mitzvah party. The caterer was a well known New Jersey caterer with a very well known kosher certification. The party was on a Sunday early afternoon, and the food, therefore, was dairy.

Instead of name cards showing the table, there were wrapped chocolate bars with the name of the Bat Mitzvah girl and your name and your table number. We sat at a family table with the baalei simcha (the parents of the young lady). The mashgiach came over all visibly upset. Where did the host buy the chocolate bars?

The host took the outer wrapper off the bar of chocolate revealing it to be an OU certified Hershey Bar.

So what was the problem? The chocolate is dairy. Nu? So was the affair. The chocolate had hashgachah. Last time we checked just about everyone trusted the OU and Hershey to put out a kosher product.

It was not any of that. Nope. The mashgiach wanted to know where they had bought the candy. Huh? The candy comes in a wrapped bar covered with an outer wrapper. The OU is clearly printed on the outside. What more did the mashgiach want? Simple, he said the candy had to come from (and this is a quote) “a heimishe” store.

The host looked at the mashgiach and said, “What difference does it make where I bought it? I could have bought it at a pork store, and it would still be a kosher candy bar.”

We give up. This is what you get when the vaad charges $500 for a mashgiach? Huh???

Folks- it has gotten waaaay out of hand!