SOME RUMINATIONS

  Category: General Topics

Of late, we have taken to thinking about the current status of kashruth in our communities. Recently at a meeting of a group of rabbis, one of the rabbis said to me, “Your problem is that you want kashruth to conform to the Shulchan Aruch.”

We felt stung. It was an “ahah” moment. Indeed, the rabbi hit us where we live. We do expect kashruth to be based on Shulchan Aruch. What we have gained however, is a system based on finding ever more strict applications of rules that may not even apply.

We wrote a column here some time ago about rabbis claiming that it was assur to eat chocolate “gelt” because it had “in God we trust” imprinted in the foil. Our comment was that those Rabbis had apparently not bothered to read Rambam. Of course, that is unlikely, but, then so was their ruling. Unlikely– as in unlikely to make any sense at all.

We have long commented on the chumra of the week club, but of late the chumra business has grown way out of hand.

At Passover, one chareidi newspaper expanded the list of kitniyot. Gosh, that was blatantly anti halachic!

It is common for Vaadot to issue rulings that require a total suspension of textual background.

Remember Glatt Yacht? They needed the non Orthodox community to add their support to make the entire thing possible. So what did the kashruth agency do? It forbade mixed dancing. Never mind that they were hired to watch the food- they decided to rule over the entire gesheft. The result? Non Orthodox Jews stayed away in droves, and Glatt Yacht went out of business.

At the last Passover time, we wrote about one of the Kashruth agencies saying that we could not kasher glass for Passover. We got a letter from an agency rabbi who took us to task. We wrote what we thought was a well reasoned response. Gues what? We never heard from the rabbi or his agency. Nor did we ever get an explanation of their position.

Frankly, it can’t go on. It has to get better. Ah, but when?

We hope to continue this over a period of time. Call it ramblings from a soaked and salted mind!

To be continued……………..

(RJR)