YOU MEAN RABBIS WILL NOW HAVE REAL KASHRUTH INFO??

This is a news brief from this week”s Kosher Today(1/22/08)

The Orthodox Union is planning to establish a liaison with synagogues throughout the U.S. The liaison would, at first, proactively reach out to the rabbi and offer whatever help and guidance the rabbi wishes. ‘From that point on,’ read an OU memo, ‘he could be the address – your personal kashrut pro – the rabbi will turn to for direction in kosher matters.’
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Our hope is that this will mean the end of rabbis giving out outdated kashruth information. Far too often, rabbis rely on the old saw “everybody knows” to justify their positions. Far too often, what everybody knows is not the truth at all. There is a lot of old, outdated info out there, and too many rabbis just pass it on without giving it any thought.

Recently a rabbi told a friend of ours that the hashgacha on a can of mandarin oranges was ok usually but not good enough for a shmitta year. We phoned the company and found out that the can in question was produced many months before the start of the shmitta year. The rabbi who gave out the info was either lazy or uninformed. Even worse, when our friend phoned the rabbi to tell him what he found out, the rabbi simply said, “Oh, I didn’t know.” No apology for being wrong. No notion that he had erred. Just a simple admission of ignorance. That rabbi could have made the same phone call we did. It was not hard to do.

Our hope is that this endeavor from the OU will bear real fruit! Anything that spreads accurate kashruth information is ok in our book! Congrats to the OU.