Whenever people look at my wedding album, they inevitably
are shocked to see the picture of our outdoor chuppah. Well over 1,500 individuals attended.
This was not due to my charisma or popularity. Rather, that our chasunah was a merger of Toronto klei kodesh. My father was the rav of the largest shul in the city and my wife’s father was the head of the Vaad Hakashrus of Toronto, the COR, Canadian Orthodox Rabbis.
With over 1,000 companies through-out the country and all of the local establishments and caterers, he ran that organization from the early 1980s until a few years ago.
Several years after our wedding, while living in Lakewood, I was offered the job in Buffalo, New York, where I would have to lead not just an active shul but an estab- lished vaad as well, founded in 1981 by noted writer Rav Yirmiyahu Kaganoff.
The job was a unique one in today’s rabbanus, and it was also the perfect merger of both sides of my family dynamic. I would call on my father for rabbinical advice all the time; and when it came to the kashrus front, I would call upon my father-in-law.
I was always very careful in kashrus. I have never made a unique decision with-out speaking to someone. When we opened the pas Yisrael bakery in the local supermarket, it took me ten months to set it up, and only after I had five—five!— national hashgachos visit and let me know their chovas daas.
Coming from yeshivah, dealing with the myriad issues in kashrus was a culture shock. It was not enough to chazer Yoreh Deiah well; rather, one had to be proficient in so many other matters like equipment, production, packaging and even science.
In truth, without a kashrus veteran like my shver, I could not have done it. In fact, it was through kashrus that we bonded and our relationship became very real and unique.
In light of this being Ami’s annual kashrus issue, I thought I would treat the reader with an interview with my father-in-law, Rabbi Mordechai Levin, well known and beloved in the world of kashrus, who now works with the Kof-K.
MT:
What do you feel are the greatest challenges of Kashrus for restaurants?
RL: The rav hamachshir and his mash-
giach’s ability to guide and give practical
instruction to the kitchen chef and staff is
priority. The rav hamachshir has to have a
presence felt, either by himself or through
his mashgiach. There also has to be clear
instruction to the working staff for hala-
chic guidance with regard to bishul akum,
vegetable checking, basar she’nis’aleim min
ha’ayin [meat must be accounted for at all
times], and an established procedure for
the bringing in of “any food products”
(e.g., the mashgiach should be aware when
food deliveries typically arrived). We have
to remember that even the best suppliers
can make mistakes.
A restaurant should therefore avoid
ever being on “cruise control.” The chang-
ing of staff makes this, at times, difficult,
and therefore there has to be a periodic
refresher of instructions by the mashgiach
to staff members to harmonize their work-
ing relationship. The mashgiach has to be
halachically knowledgeable and feel inde-
pendent enough that if there is a problem,
he should report it. A mashgiach is always
aware that reporting a mistake may result
in the closing of the establishment and
therefore the actual losing of his job! This
is why the most important feature of a
mashgiach is yiras Shamayim. In addition,
the mashgiach should always be comforted
with the knowledge that his vaad will find
him another position in the case of a more
serious transgression on the part of an
establishment that he needs to report.
MT:
Same question, but on the
industrial end of kashrus.
RL: Industrial factories have sim-
ilar guidelines, but since most food
manufacturers are high tech and have
state-of-the-art computers and processing
equipment, knowledge of halachah alone
is not enough. Here’s where the blending
of halachah and food technology is impor-
tant. The rav hamachshir and mashgiach
have to understand the new dynamics
of food processing and be able to ask the
necessary questions that pertain to food
production. The understanding of the
chemistry make-up of ingredients and
knowing how to read specification sheets
and production flow diagrams is a must.
Walking into a modern day plant with
the myriads of piping from the processing
tanks to the homogenizers, spray dryers
and packaging equipment is very chal-
lenging. Looking for the suspicious “little
chazir” and points of kashrus contami-
nation became more difficult and many
times is disguised in the terminology.
MT:
What type of foods seem low-risk but in
truth are not?
RL: In past generations, some didn’t
know any better and would just look at
the ingredient food display on the wrap-
per of a food item and as long as it did not
have lard or tallow, gelatin, glycerin, wine
or grape juice printed on the label it was
“kosher.”
The words emulsifiers and stabilizers,
artificial and natural colors and flavors,
gum base didn’t mean very much other
than it must be okay because the product
was “natural.”
Little did they know that the manu-
facturer didn’t want his product label to
look like a page out of a chemistry book,
and the government allowed those terms
to be used instead. For instance, arti-
ficial and natural colors is really a list
of another possibly 10-15 components
that actually could be from non-kosher
sources. Carmine color is a well-known
example, which is commonly used as a
‘natural’ crimson red color component,
and which is derived from a female cochi-
neal insect. Castoreum, musk and civet
oils are animal gland derivatives used as
boosters for flavor components, and don’t
forget ambergris, which is from whales.
The word gum base is a general term used
in chewing gum, which, too, could con-
tain —besides food-grade rubber from
Goodyear—tallow, which is an animal fat.
One fascinating example of a seemingly
harmless ingredient is, surprisingly, salt. I
once visited a plant where the salt came
premixed with glycerin, which could have
come from animal fat!
MT:
You have close ties with Rav Shlomo
Miller. Can you share some of the
psakim he had given you over the years?
RL: The beauty of what I do is that in
the 45 years of my work in kashrus I was
able to be in the daled amos of great poskim
of our generation—and ask them kashrus
sh’eilos.
In Toronto, Rav Shlomo Miller was con-
sulted on many difficult and technical
questions in halachah for the COR.
The COR did not approve of Diet Coke
for Pesach.
Rav Shlomo felt that the artificial sweet-
ener Aspartame was considered kitniyos.
Other poskim—which the OU accepted—
felt that kitniyos shenishtanah (changed at
the molecular level) was no longer kitniyos.
This goes to show you that two very
reliable hashgachos could have two very
different psakim. Just because something
has a good hashgachah does not mean that
one should assume it is according to all
views or in keeping with their own rav’s
minhagim.
MT:
What final message would you like to
leave our readers with?
RL: Everyone should have a rav who is
proficient in kashrus matters. The world
is changing fast, and the complications in
kashrus will only grow with time.
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