A Look at the Privatization of Kashrut and, Above All, at the Debate About It (Column 427)
In recent days, the kashrut reform of Minister Matan Kahana passed in the Knesset as part of the Arrangements Law. The Haredim and the national-Haredi (“hardal”) public are furious and explain that this is raising a hand against the Torah of Moses, Reformism, etc., etc.—which plainly shows that something was probably done here in the right direction. On the site here, too, the question was raised as to my view of this reform, and even though our Shatzal has already seasoned us all with a pinch of his learned arguments against the reform.
The law itself (see there p. 1165 and on) is long and convoluted, and it is phrased as a collection of amendments to the existing law (the Kashrut Fraud Law). It’s hard to get into its details, and I also lack practical experience that would allow me to examine whether the law, in its present form, will help improve kashrut and the kashrut system or not. One thing emerges clearly from reading the opinion pieces in the various directions: almost everyone speaking in this field has a stake in it, and many of the claims are not substantive. For example, the Haredim, who as is known always cling exclusively to the state kashrut of the Chief Rabbinate and keep away from private kashrut and privatization—God forbid—are crying out against the privatization and the kashrut disaster it will bring upon us (in general, lately the Haredim are truly concerned for the honor and status of the Chief Rabbinate. Footsteps of the Messiah). Suddenly it turns out that the kashrut of the Chief Rabbinate (a synonym for food that in a Haredi home one would not touch even with a ten-foot pole) is the paragon of virtues, and any deviation from it will lead to public eating of non-kosher food. Supporters of the reform also point to its economic and kashrut advantages (opening the market and breaking the Rabbinate’s monopoly), which doesn’t inspire much confidence in me (since it’s reasonable that at least some of the concerns have merit). Their arguments regarding the welcome (but insufficiently mortal) blow to the status of the Chief Rabbinate are, of course, correct, and need no embellishment.
The Principled Claim
To form a well-based position on the matter, one must know the field and its constraints, and of course go through the wording of the law in detail, hear critiques from all sides, and weigh them. That is hard and complicated work—but fortunately also unnecessary. As I will now explain, my main claim is a priori, and therefore it hardly requires establishing the facts and does not depend on them.
What most of the arguments have in common is that they deal with the level of kashrut and with the advantages and disadvantages of the reform on that axis. The discussion there is: Will the level of kashrut rise or fall? Will people stumble into eating forbidden foods or not? Will the wicked Reform movement gain a foothold in the State of Israel, God forbid? And of course: Are the Tzohar rabbis and all supporters of the reform Reform? And I haven’t even mentioned the chillul Hashem (desecration of God’s name) or kiddush Hashem (sanctification) that will result from the reform. I mean the claims that the reform will endear Judaism and halakha to the general public and lead to kiddush Hashem and more people eating kosher, or alternatively that it will make halakha hateful and bring about its complete collapse and a spiritual apocalypse.
In my eyes, all these claims are irrelevant to the discussion—neither those for nor those against. The debate is not taking place on the relevant plane at all. I support the reform even if it causes thousands of people to eat treif in broad daylight, lowers the level of kashrut to the depths of the Dead Sea, and inflicts a mortal blow on the status of halakha and Judaism in the eyes of the public. Even the welcome blow to the Chief Rabbinate—something that by itself justifies almost any outcome and any price—is not a central argument, though it is connected to my decisive reasoning. My main argument is that every citizen has the right to consume whatever kashrut he or she wants. If someone wishes to eat food according to the kashrut criteria of the Reform Chief Rabbi of Indonesia and Zimbabwe, or of the Dalai Lama’s adjutant (or the Dalai Such-and-Such), then if there is sufficient demand for such kashrut, it should be allowed. My claim is that there is no justification for a monopoly in any field unless there is a market failure that necessitates it—certainly when it comes to a monopoly whose chief aim is the imposition of values on a broad public that does not want them. The fact that this is a monopoly whose main interest is to reinforce the status of a corrupt and sclerotic body like the Chief Rabbinate (continued supply of positions and jobs for “our people”) of course strengthens my claim, but is not essential to it. It follows that the questions of whether the reform will improve or lower the level of kashrut, and whether it will lead to kiddush or chillul Hashem, are simply irrelevant.
The Ideal Model
To my judgment, the ideal model for the kashrut market in a democratic state is a completely open market. Whoever wants to take the name may come and take it. There should be kashrut by Christians, Hindus, Reform Jews, Tzohar, Haredim, the followers of the holy Baba Buba shlita, and anyone else you can imagine—except, of course, the Chief Rabbinate. That is the one body that should in no way be given authority to grant kashrut, since it is a state body and there is no reason for it to function as one of the agents in an open economic market. Needless to say, what I have described here is the mirror image of the current situation, in which only the Chief Rabbinate is authorized to grant kashrut (!!). Let that teach you how far the absurdity goes, and what all the kashrut warriors are defending.
Alongside this open and free market, as with any product that requires expertise and operates by complex criteria, there must be a regulatory body whose role is to ensure that each kashrut system provides what it says it provides. The regulator is not supposed to enter into the criteria themselves and determine what is called kosher and what is not. It is only supposed to ensure transparency and congruence between the product and the promises that accompany it. That’s all. Therefore, this body is certainly not supposed to be run by rabbis. It can consult rabbis as professionals to help check conformity to criteria, but there is no reason to entrust the decision itself to rabbis. As far as I’m concerned, it could be a retired judge or any other credible figure.
From there on, the market should operate freely. The Haredim and hardalniks will disparage everyone else—as is their holy custom—and each member of the public will be able to decide whether to believe them or not, and determine for himself the kashrut he desires, and Zion will be redeemed.
Will the reform improve the state of kashrut? Will it lower prices? Will it prevent people from stumbling into eating treif or not? Will it lead to kiddush or chillul Hashem? I have no idea, and that is also unimportant for the discussion. Personally, it matters to me that people eat kosher, but it matters equally that the decision be in their hands and not handed over to a state-appointed monopoly that enforces it upon them. The state is not supposed to be involved in the way a person chooses to live his life. Just as I would not want the state to force me to eat pork (even if there were a majority for it), so I also don’t want it to force me or others to eat kosher.
Of course, if and when this utopian situation prevails here (fear not—it won’t), I invite anyone who wishes to report whether there was a decline in the level of kashrut, whether there was chillul or kiddush Hashem, whether Tzohar are wicked/Reform/liars or not, and so on. This intellectual debate may well amuse various people, and there is no reason to prevent them from conducting it. A free country—did I mention?
A Few Additions of My Own
By the way, I certainly join the critique of the reform, since as I understand it, it did not actually open the market completely. I saw that a committee of three rabbis (one of whom serves or has served as a city rabbi) is still required to approve each kashrut body that will be authorized to grant certification. This means we will still get only very particular types of certifications, and the business will mostly be run by the same clique as before. Matan Kahana did not really open the market as one should have, and that is very unfortunate.
After a continuation to this kashrut reform that will bring it to fruition (and send the Chief Rabbinate to graze grass in the depths of the Dead Sea), I also expect the opening of the marriage and divorce market in the same way. I am inclined to think likewise even regarding the conversion market (although here it is a more sensitive and complex matter, since it also concerns others). In principle, everything should be open—but also completely transparent. I will add that, unlike the great majority of my colleagues who support the reform and oppose the Chief Rabbinate, I am entirely in favor of “black registries” in which the path of marriage and the personal status of every person are documented. In fact, I don’t think this should be recorded in a black registry but in a transparent one, or in the identity card, or in some other way such that the information is visible and known to anyone with a genuine interest in the matter.
A Note on My Fundamental Viewpoint: Normative Duality
I assume that people committed to halakha—especially those who don’t know my positions—will be surprised to read such an “heretical” text. How does a person committed to halakha allow himself to treat lightly the possibility that the multitudes of the House of Israel will eat non-kosher food? Regardless of whether this is indeed what is expected (I highly doubt it), I actually wrote that even if that is what will happen, I still support the reform. So the question in any case stands. I will explain this briefly here, since I have expanded on it elsewhere (see on this in Column 18, and in greater detail at the beginning of the third book in my trilogy).
My claim is that there is no problem with a person or group having full commitment to several normative systems in parallel—even ones that contradict each other. A person can be wholly loyal to halakha and at the same time loyal to liberal values, even where they clash with halakha. Moreover, when such a conflict exists, halakha does not necessarily prevail. In the third book (and briefly also in Column 15) I explained the logical and theological basis for this claim. Not only is there no contradiction to reason here; there is also no contradiction to commitment to the will of God. My claim there was that halakha is only one system of God’s will, and moral values are also God’s will (of a different kind). Therefore, a clash between morality and halakha is an internal conflict within God’s will and not a conflict between God’s will and external values. If liberal values are my moral conception, then, from my perspective, God wants them as well alongside His will expressed in halakha.
You may say that only a heretic like me would think so, and that I am in a minority view. I am not at all sure of that. It seems to me that most religious people are not interested in stoning Sabbath desecrators, flogging pork-eaters, blowing up all churches (even in a hypothetical situation in which our hand is strong), compelling the entire public to eat kosher and keep the Sabbath (including penal sanctions for offenders), etc., etc. When you ask people, many of them (the honest and straightforward among them) will admit that this is indeed their view, but they will explain it by saying that our hand is not strong, or that at present this would cause more harm than benefit. It is difficult for them to say—even to themselves—that they support going against halakha (which requires coercion and punishment). But in my opinion, these are rationalizations given after the fact. In truth, what motivates most people, as I estimate it, is a liberal conception according to which it is not morally proper to impose values on a person who does not believe in them, even if in my opinion he is mistaken. My claim is that a person committed to halakha can indeed oppose a “halakhic state” (at least in its fundamentalist sense; see Column 18).
A Few Examples: The Categorical Imperative
To sharpen this further, think of a situation in which, in Belgium, Jews are forced to desecrate the Sabbath, pray in a church, or eat pork or the Eucharistic bread. What would you say about that? Well, no need to go so far. What do you say about the ban on kosher slaughter that exists in many European countries? I won’t try to ask you about the burqa ban and the bans on building mosques that exist in some countries there, although my view of them is similar to the bans on kosher slaughter (on the contrary, the ban on kosher slaughter is, in my view, far more justified—there is at least concern there for animal suffering). And what about religious coercion in Iran or anti-religious coercion in the former USSR? Is it legitimate for any state to forbid us to marry according to the law of Moses and Israel? It was quite a while ago, but for some reason it seems to me that there was some criticism in the religious public of the Soviet policy toward Judaism. In short, I assume most of us will agree that all this is neither desirable nor proper. So why is it legitimate for us to forbid others in the State of Israel to marry (or eat) as they understand it? When a state imposes religious values on its citizens—even ones I myself believe in—the situation can deteriorate to places none of us would want to be. A democratic state should leave to its citizens the decision about how to live their lives, except in very exceptional cases.
It is important to clarify that my claim here is not merely an expression of fear. My problem is not only that if I impose on others, then when their hand is strong they will impose on me. That is certainly a problem, and I do not belittle it. But my essential problem with a policy of coercion is the categorical imperative, by which I examine my actions according to the criterion that I would want them to be a general law. If you like, it is also a corollary of Hillel the Elder’s rule: What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. I have pointed out more than once the mistake in understanding the categorical imperative as if it were a direct consequentialist argument (see, for example, Columns 122 and 334). The categorical imperative is not based on fear of others’ retribution (that if I steal, they will steal from me). It is a moral principle that says my action should be examined hypothetically: What would the situation be if everyone acted this way? I assume that none of us would want a state law that forces upon us a position that contradicts our values. Therefore, coercion is wrong even if, in the present case, it suits our own positions.
Counter-Arguments: Deafness to Comparisons
At this point the expected claims may arise: Well, but there is no comparing our coercion of others to coercion of us, for we are right. As is known, what we do was received directly from the mouth of the Almighty. And, with all due respect to the categorical imperative and Kant’s inventions, halakha explicitly says that people must be coerced to fulfill commandments, and therefore loyalty to halakha requires coercion (and hence whoever rejects coercion is not loyal to halakha). Our reason does not stand against a divine command. These arguments strike me as very strange, as I will now explain.
First, halakha—almost entirely—is a human creation by people like you and me. Sages throughout the generations interpreted the Torah and halakha and reached certain conclusions. I, and all of us, are meant to do the same. There is no “word of God” here in the sense of the source (only in the sense of sanctity and obligation).
Second, to my judgment the categorical imperative has halakhic standing (see the columns cited). Rabbi Unterman has an article in which he interprets the term “for the sake of the ways of peace” in a similar fashion (and derives conclusions from it, such as the duty to save a non-Jew on the Sabbath and the prohibition on destroying churches in the State of Israel—seemingly in direct contradiction to explicit halakhic directives). We must remember that almost every group or state among those I described above (Iran, the USSR) thinks it is right and others are wrong. So why should we be permitted to coerce, and when others do this to us it is outrageous?!
We have a problematic tendency to ignore such comparisons. Thus, for example, we are very angry at countries that did not bomb the extermination camps in the Holocaust, but today, when we have an army, we do not entertain the thought of carrying out military actions to save populations in distress in various places around the world (to say nothing of supplying weapons and maintaining ties with regimes that create those distresses). We are very angry at countries that do not allow Jews freedom of worship (as the State of Israel on the Temple Mount)—and rightly so—but we grant ourselves the right to deny others freedom of worship or simply freedom. We forbid ourselves and our children to read “heretical” literature that argues against Jewish faith, while it is obvious to us that a person raised in a secular home is at fault, for he is required to inquire and reach the correct conclusions (=ours). One could go on at length with more examples, but the principle is clear. Each of us understands that value-or religious-coercion is illegitimate, and therefore it is wrong to ignore this when we ourselves do it to others.
So what do we do with halakha? It is hard to deny that halakha obligates coercion. On this I will say a few things: First, it is not true that it obligates coercion of people who do not think so. In my view, halakhic coercion addresses only deliberate offenders who know their Master and rebel against Him, and not those who think differently. Second, even if this were indeed the halakha, we should refuse it (conscientious objection) and say: “Had God told it to me through Joshua ben Nun, I would not have obeyed.” A person must understand how and where to implement halakhic directives. In the circumstances prevailing in our world and society today, coercion has no place. I am convinced everyone understands this, including the great majority of decisors, but it is hard to admit it; therefore they hang on technical arguments, such as “our hand is not strong” or “for the ways of peace” (in the accepted interpretation, not Rabbi Unterman’s). But, as I said, this is rationalization and post-factum justification. It is clear to everyone that even if we had no such justification, there is no place to apply these halakhic directives in today’s reality. Call it “Reform”—to your health. I assume you already know I am not afraid of labels and classifications.
Bottom line: Try to answer honestly the following question. Suppose our hand were strong and the nations of the world allowed us to do whatever we wished; would you support an “Iranian” state that coerces Sabbath observance, kosher eating, religious worship, and the like? I believe that in a situation where this dilemma would be realistic and placed before us for a practical decision (and not only an academic question), most of the religious and Haredi public (and most rabbis, too) would not support it. What explanations would we get? How would people reconcile that position with commitment to halakha? “Our hand is strong,” etc., etc. But that already depends on the speaker’s self-awareness and honesty—and no less on his logical-philosophical-exegetical skill.
So much for my main points. I now wish to append a few remarks on two texts that deal with this reform. I chose two texts that were sent to me in the past; of course there are many others. These are relatively substantive texts (unlike many others), and both come from people with a religious-Zionist stance—and precisely because of that I chose them, to sharpen and clarify my principled position.
Rabbi Yoel Bin-Nun
Rabbi Yoel, as is his way, says the opposite of everyone. Not only does he support the kashrut reform, but in his view it is in the Chief Rabbinate’s own interest, and it will improve the level of kashrut among the broader public. I will not address here his stringency to eat only under the supervision of the Chief Rabbinate and not under the various “badatzim” (independent ultra-Orthodox kashrut courts). (I could perhaps agree with that if, like him, I viewed the Chief Rabbinate positively; then I could even enlist the categorical imperative.) I will add that, contrary to him, I see nothing wrong with a rabbi appointed over a kashrut system not eating the products it supervises. On the contrary, Rabbi Yoel’s proposal to arrange kashrut with a hierarchical ranking of levels (different numbers of stars) reflects exactly that conception. The rabbi supervises according to the level dictated by the Rabbinate (one star), but he himself wishes to eat food at a higher kashrut level (two stars). What’s wrong with that? I hope you will also allow me to skip over the “deep” explanation he offers for the stewardess’s kashrut; I will merely permit myself to note that my amazement at that explanation is somewhat less than what he described in his words (I also wonder which yeshiva the supervisor who traveled with him studied in, that he had never heard anything so deep in his life).
My main remark on his words is that he essentially recommends the reform because it will improve the state of kashrut and prevent many from eating non-kosher food. In my view, as noted, that is an irrelevant argument. The considerations of chillul Hashem and future kosher eating, even if correct (and I am far from sure of that), are not relevant to the discussion. A democratic state is not meant to act to prevent its citizens from eating non-kosher food. Its sole function in this sphere is to allow every citizen to live as he understands, as much as possible without harming others. All the rest is a matter for discussion and decisions among the citizens themselves.
However, in principle, what he says in his bottom line accords with me. He essentially proposes that the Chief Rabbinate be a regulator, not one of the agents operating on the ground. That is entirely parallel to the model I described above. His proposal that there be different kashrut “stars” expressing different levels is also acceptable to me. Yet I must note that even under the current situation there are stars ranking the level of kashrut. The distinction between “mehadrin” kashrut and regular kashrut already exists today in the Rabbinate. But contrary to Rabbi Yoel’s words, in my view there should be many stars and not just two—and, more important, it should not be the Rabbinate that determines them but the kashrut bodies themselves. In addition, there should not be a ranking of kashrut levels at all—and certainly not one determined by the Rabbinate.
In principle, at least from the state’s perspective, these are different kinds of kashrut and not necessarily different levels. Each person or group will be able to set for themselves a ranking and hierarchy of kashrut levels as they understand them. Take, for example, the “mehadrin” kashrut during the sabbatical year (shemita) practiced among the Haredim. To avoid the prohibition of “lo techonem” in the sale of land to a non-Jew (heter mechira), they scrupulously consolidate the hold of our cousins on the land of Israel by purchasing their produce instead of Jewish produce. It is hard not to be impressed by this splendid halakhic and logical consideration. That is what they call “mehadrin shemita.” Even if you are impressed by the magnificent logic, I assume that at least you can understand that I do not see such kashrut as a higher level (more stars) than the heter mechira. The same goes for “otzar beit din,” Haredi or not; opinions are divided as to whether it is preferable to the heter mechira or not, and the determination of hierarchy is not supposed to be made by the Rabbinate, nor by any other regulator. Assigning different kashrut grades is possible only when the criteria are agreed upon.
In short, as far as I am concerned, let there be as many stars in the kashrut “hierarchy” as the sand on the seashore, so long as the consumer knows what each star means, and so long as the number of stars does not express a ranking of better or worse kashrut. The regulator is supposed only to supervise credibility and ensure transparency, not to set criteria and rank kashrut bodies.
Kosharot
Another article that was sent to me quite a while ago was published by the “Kosharot” organization. It was published in the propaganda pamphlet “Olam Katan,” which is very dear to me indeed—and that already says something about its content and thrust. But, as noted, our concern here is a substantive examination of the arguments themselves.
Already in the opening paragraph the author, Rabbi Moshe Katz, presents the framework of the discussion: The question is whether such a reform will improve the kashrut system or not. As noted, for me this starting point already renders the discussion unnecessary. That is not supposed to be the goal of the reform, and that is not how it should be assessed. It seems the author takes the opportunity to settle accounts with Tzohar kashrut and chooses it as an example from which to learn about the flaws of a policy of privatized kashrut. He compares the criteria they published with their implementation on the ground. He points to several cases in which their own promises and criteria were not upheld. True, he concludes from this that their kashrut level is low—a conclusion that depends on one’s outlook, of course. But the claim that they do not meet their own criteria is substantive and certainly worth checking and discussing.
I do not have the tools to do that, and therefore I will again relate to his words in general, particularly to their logic. First, I assume Tzohar’s criteria were composed on the assumption that they would be allowed to operate freely on the ground. When the Rabbinate narrows their steps and exploits the state-given monopoly to pester and obstruct them (as is its way always), I am not very surprised that they don’t quite manage to meet their criteria (mainly those that concern competition with the Rabbinate).
Second, his words imply that the Rabbinate is the epitome of perfection—i.e., that it has no cases in which flaws are found in its supervision. Reading this, I did not know whether to laugh or to cry. The small number of cases he brings regarding Tzohar’s supervision is a bad joke next to the hundreds of hair-raising stories I have heard in Bnei Brak (and not only there) about the supervision of the Chief Rabbinate, and no less about the vile and corrupt way the Rabbinate handles failures even when they are discovered—and even when they are publicized.
Third, even if Tzohar’s kashrut organization is failing and causes others to fail, why does that say anything general about privatization? Does the existence of one failing company justify preventing us from opening the market to private companies altogether? This is a well-known communist type of argument—but a failing one. So shut Tzohar down, and that’s that. Why, because of them, do you prevent me from opening a kashrut organization that is stricter than a “badatz” (pardon me—even stricter than the Rabbinate)?
Above all, the logic of his argument fails at its foundation. If and when there is a reform that brings about an orderly privatization of kashrut, one of its main components is the establishment of effective regulation whose chief concern is oversight of these bodies, particularly that they live up to their own promises and criteria. The regulator is responsible for the transparency of the criteria and for their implementation. That is precisely how one should prevent the failings he describes. Therefore, his arguments are arguments for the reform, not against it. Incidentally, as I already wrote, the same failings (and likely far more) exist in the Rabbinate’s own supervision. When it becomes a regulator—or if they will be wise enough to appoint a different regulator (which of course makes much more sense, and therefore has no chance of actually happening)—its own failings will be prevented thanks to that regulation. The reform is supposed to improve also, and perhaps mainly, the Rabbinate’s supervision (even if it remains an active agent on the ground under another regulator).
In conclusion, this text contains a set of tendentious arguments that start from a mistaken premise, employ examples whose representativeness I do not know (perhaps they are), without any comparison to the competing system (which is likely far worse), and with arguments drawn from a single example from which he somehow infers a general conclusion—whereas even with respect to that very example, the conclusion fails.
It seems, however, that Matan Kahana’s reform does not actually do all this—thanks, among other things, to the obstacles placed in its path by those Haredi and hardal bodies (who are very concerned for kashrut, of course). Beyond that, it seems to me that even a perfect reform will not succeed in correcting the failings of the Chief Rabbinate. It has already been proven more than once that its sclerotic systems have no remedy. It has no guard but a knife, and its shattering—that is its purification.
Discussion
“Every citizen has the right to consume whatever kashrut he wants. If he wants to eat food according to the kashrut criteria of the Reform Chief Rabbi of Indonesia and Zimbabwe”
That is already true today. The question is what the law will allow to be labeled ‘kosher’ without this being consumer fraud.
You can divide the level of state intervention into 3:
1. Government monopoly – the state defines a body that is the only one authorized to deal with the issue (the fire department, for example).
2. Government regulation – the state defines criteria and bodies can comply with them (HMOs, for example).
3. Liberal anarchy – the state has nothing to say on the matter and everyone does whatever they want (the high-tech market, for example).
One should also distinguish between state “ownership” of the act itself and ownership only of the definition –
Not only is it forbidden for me to define myself as a fire and rescue service, it is forbidden for me to function as one in practice.
By contrast, while I am indeed forbidden to write ‘kosher,’ I am entirely permitted to supervise businesses that want this (Tzohar pre-reform).
The situation in Israel involved very little “coercion” – all in all, ownership of the word ‘kosher’ belonged to a government body (the Chief Rabbinate).
The reform transfers ownership of the word from situation ‘1’ to situation ‘2’.
From the outset there is zero ownership over the act itself, and anyone who wants kashrut under the supervision of the Reform Chief Rabbi of Zimbabwe can get it and pay for it.
“I assume you already know that I’m not afraid of headlines and labels.:
It’s not that you aren’t afraid of labels; you make every effort to use the most provocative wording possible *in order* to be labeled.
That’s disingenuous. If you can’t write that the product is kosher, nobody will consume it. That’s the accepted term in the field. It’s like saying anyone can be a cobbler, but only I am allowed to write about myself that I’m a cobbler. By the way, needless to say, businesses and supervisory bodies that didn’t write the word “kosher” were also hit with lawsuits and harassment from the Rabbinate.
And if this is only about ownership of a word, then what’s all the uproar about? Why did all the lovers of Zion and the Rabbinate cry out?
Harassment and lawsuits are technical details, not the essence.
Beyond that, in practice there are already hundreds of businesses today under Tzohar supervision even though it’s without the word ‘kosher.’
But cobbler is a wonderful example. Anyone can define himself as a ‘cobbler’ or a ‘programmer,’ but can anyone define himself as a ‘structural engineer’ or a ‘doctor’? Is this post calling for that kind of anarchy? Will every clique of healers with natural oils be allowed to define itself as an HMO?
These are substantive distinctions in the monopoly-anarchy question:
What does the state own? (security services – yes. medical services – no. the definition of medicine – yes).
The uproar, of course, has nothing to do with kashrut or the cost of living, but with the most important thing of all – livelihood. The salaries of quite a few people from a certain political affiliation may be harmed, and it’s always nice to shout about that, though it’s nicer to find another field of work.
These are not technical details, because of their important practical significance. Your distinction between a doctor and a cobbler is of course correct, but even regarding a doctor, every person has the right to go to whomever he wants in order to be healed, and as far as I’m concerned even to call him a doctor. Beyond that, kashrut is like a cobbler and not like a doctor, because here there are no objective, agreed-upon standards.
In my opinion, you are ignoring another important aspect of the connection between religion and state in kashrut: the infringement on the religious freedom of the kashrut providers. The current situation allows the state and the High Court of Justice to intervene in rabbis’ decisions relating to kashrut. The reform, which I actually support, in my opinion actually intensified the problem in that respect. I wrote about this in Shabbat B’Sheva this week: https://www.inn.co.il/news/531294
In fact, most of the Haredi public (and also a minority of the religious public) would definitely impose an Iranian-style state here if they could. The reason is simple – from the Haredi perspective, secularity is not the result of pure intellectual recognition as the rabbi presents it, but the takeover of the evil inclination. That is, even if in secret they agree with the rabbi that it is better to be tolerant, they feel compelled to go with the Haredi fanatical position because in their view that is authentic Judaism. This is the reason they permit themselves to behave disrespectfully and violently toward secular people (and also toward themselves). There is no respect for the other’s opinion in the Haredi world. The scrupulous ones will also add the prohibition “and do not stray after your hearts” [Numbers 15:39], meaning heresy, in order to prevent free inquiry and freedom of speech. We think such a state would collapse within a week, but in fact fanatical states like Iran prove a capacity for survival far beyond all expectations.
Here is a link to a post I wrote on the matter:
https://yuddaaled.wordpress.com/2018/07/27/%D7%9E%D7%A1%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%AA-%D7%95%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%94/
“Now the expected arguments may arise: fine, but one cannot compare our coercion of others to coercion of us, for we are right.”
I am honored to think and raise this expected argument, that there is a difference between a policeman who coerces a thief not to steal and a thief who coerces a policeman to help him steal. Why, in your opinion, can’t a thief say to the policeman: dear officer, you are very opposed to my coercing you to help me steal, so kindly get out of my way.
On the moral level it is obvious (to me at least) that this expected argument is so trivially true that I am really astonished to see the ease with which you dismiss it. And on the halakhic level you presented two reasons (that halakha is a human creation, and that halakha recognizes the categorical imperative and it forbids coercion), and both are beside the point because, as you yourself went on to say, halakha does indeed mandate coercion in certain matters. So all that remains is your claim that sweet, flowery halakha does not coerce heretics at all. Even if that claim is correct, the coercion at issue here is very limited: coercion not to use the term “kosher” unless the Rabbinate approves it. After all, even without the reform there are non-kosher stores and there is Tzohar. Therefore to compare this to coercing people not to desecrate Shabbat or to killing Shabbat desecrators is rather demagogic. States engage in coercion every day in order to promote general interests of some of the citizens, for example the tax on disposable utensils. Every law is coercive, and I find no logic in beginning to cry out on principle about some particular law, “coercion, coercion.” And even if halakha does not *require* such coercion, that still does not mean it is forbidden to exercise such coercion if the benefit outweighs the harm.
Based.
One also has to take into account the harm done to religion as a result of coercing it. And one also cannot ignore the economic benefit the reform will bring.
“You can’t coerce people to eat kosher.” This is a very, very inaccurate sentence. Even now no one is coercing anyone to eat kosher; there are dozens of restaurants in the country serving juicy shrimp to diners, and hundreds (if not thousands) operating without a kashrut certificate.
The claim is that there should be minimal regulation for a restaurant that wants to be considered kosher. That someone who decides (on his own initiative alone!) to eat kosher should do so without any fraud מצד the body entrusted with kashrut (which does not suffice, or does not fully adhere to necessary halakhic details and specifications).
Are you in favor of every homeopath being able, on his own authority, to open a clinic that can consider itself authorized to dispense medicines, and the public will decide for itself whether that suits it or not?
The distinction is “objective agreed-upon standards”?
According to that, ‘programmer’ for example ought to be an official title (from the state’s perspective) and not anarchic-liberal.
What you write regarding medicine is true today with respect to kashrut –
Any person can offer medicine/kashrut according to his own view, any person can consume medicine/kashrut according to his own view, but only someone the state recognizes as a doctor/kashrut-provider may define himself publicly as such.
The ‘original’ distinction stems from classic governmental (/democratic) paternalism –
The average citizen may be stupid,
therefore the government (elected by the people) will protect him by means of regulations.
Thus it will protect him from receiving fake medicine from a shaman-doctor, and thus it will protect him from receiving fake kashrut from a Reform rabbi.
Here there are a few possible counterarguments:
1. The liberal-anarchist argument – we don’t need *some ignorant Knesset member* making decisions for us because we are smarter.
That argument is heard almost always from the more intelligent segment of the population, the one that really doesn’t need government protection, and therefore the problem with it is obvious.
2. A targeted distinction – in area X (medicine) government protection is needed (because the consequences are drastic), in area Y (kashrut) government protection is not needed (because big deal, I ate non-kosher food).
Conceptually this is an excellent argument; in practice each case needs to be examined.
3. A technical problem – the government protection in a given field is simply not effective.
Assuming it turns out that the reform (in this form or in any form) will make it harder for kashrut consumers to obtain kosher food supervised at a proper standard – would it not be worthwhile to relax the principle of separation of religion and state a bit in order to provide the citizen with these needed services? After all, the state also paves access roads to synagogues and supplies electricity to study halls.
If it were clear that the reform is beneficial – or leaves the situation as it is – in the kashrut context, then one could enjoy its fruits in the other contexts. But excessive devotion to separation of religion and state should not be a reason for actions that are too hasty.
Personally I do not understand enough about the conduct of kashrut bodies, but here and there one also hears substantive claims, and the chairwoman of the committee is not one of the people I trust to look after kashrut for me, so I do not feel there is a sufficiently reliable solution here.
You were not precise in the rabbi’s words.
The rabbi wrote, “Rabbi Yoel, true to his way, says the opposite of everyone else.” .
And it seems one should emend the word “true to his way” to the word “true to my way,” and then it comes out nicely.
I didn’t understand. What is the problem with kashrut falling under the High Court? It’s very good that it does. Anyone who wants state kashrut should indeed subject himself to the High Court. That does not mean the judges will decide what is kosher and what is not, but they certainly must examine whether the decisions are being made properly (which unfortunately they do not do today, for example in the case of marriage registration in which I was involved, where the Rabbinate people lied brazenly to the High Court, and still the High Court did not intervene).
After all, it is impossible to receive authority from the state and keep full and exclusive authority in your own hands. That is of course what the Rabbinate wants to achieve, but it is nonsense. They keep claiming that other factors must not interfere in rabbinic decisions, and they also complain that secular people are involved in appointing rabbis, but at the same time they want authority over secular people too. If you have authority over secular people by force of law, you must subject yourself to the law and give secular people involvement.
As long as the reform does not completely privatize kashrut and leaves authority in the hands of the law (at least as regulation), it is necessarily subject to the High Court, and rightly so.
Hundreds of stories from Bnei Brak
“Hundreds of hair-raising stories I heard in Bnei Brak (and not only there) about the supervision of the Chief Rabbinate,……”
I am puzzled by our rabbi – he brings proof from Bnei Brak stories?
In Bnei Brak they also censored the writings of the Hazon Ish and the responsa of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach.
“The posek of the generation” – Rabbi Sternbuch – was turned there, because of one ruling on a certain issue, into a “Reformer.”
And not only in Bnei Brak is it so. In the U.S. too I read accusations by the kashrut organizations of two Satmar Hasidic groups
one against the other.
And well known is the war between Belz and the “Edah Haredit,” which, had our master Michael Abraham heard it, his hair would have stood on end—and fallen out.
Good tidings
This is a subtle point. In my opinion, the typical Haredi person does indeed find himself committed to halakha and is certain that this is authentic halakha, but at the same time it is clear to him that this is not the right thing to do. He simply does not know how to give himself an account of why and how this fits with commitment to halakha. That is why I wrote the trilogy and this post: to enable anyone who feels this way to conceptualize his feelings and understand that there is no necessity to adopt the Haredi position, and there is no contradiction between that and commitment to halakha.
The criterion of whether a state will collapse or not is irrelevant. The question is whether this is the proper way to act.
The difference is that the thief harms others, whereas someone who eats non-kosher is dealing with his own affair. And even if the religious think he is harming the general interest, that is a matter of dispute. The harm the thief causes the victim is agreed upon even by the thief. Therefore this comparison is foolish, begging your pardon.
The comparison to more severe coercion does not require that the harm be of the same intensity. Coercion is improper regardless of intensity. If there is a reason that justifies it, then one must weigh the severity of the coercion against the severity of the reason.
Completely in favor. As long as everything is transparent.
First, the stories are not only from Bnei Brak. Second, that is exactly my point: I have no confidence in stories of failures in kashrut. There are interests and agendas involved here. Therefore, just as I do not believe the stories from Bnei Brak, I also do not believe the stories from ‘Kashrut.’
A. If an external policeman may coerce a thief not to harm others, even if the thief himself holds a moral view that justifies this particular theft, that means he is using his private values to coerce another. The thief agrees that harm is caused, but does not necessarily agree that it is “right” to prevent that harm.
B. Everyone agrees that severe coercions are problematic, and everyone also agrees that mild coercions (almost every law on earth) are in principle justified; the whole question is one of pricing. In the post I understood that you emphasized that you are not interested in pricing (how many will err in kashrut, how easy it will be to obtain kosher food, etc.) but are arguing on principle against coercion, and then illustrate the problem of coercion with severe coercions that everyone agrees are forbidden. That seems highly questionable on the logical level.
A. Well, that’s just empty formalistic pilpul.
B. The pricing is irrelevant here because what I eat is none of your business.
One way or another, a large part of your article is mistaken. The comparison to forbidding slaughter or coercing people to eat pork is simply incorrect. As stated, here everyone is given the option to eat non-kosher.
Second, I don’t really understand your approach. Surely it is clear that the absence of regulation will open the door to fraud, to “cutting corners,” and to tens of thousands of innocent people falling into the trap. Does free choice mean that people will lead their son to death in the name of that choice (as happened with the Haredi father who murdered his son after a “doctor” drugged him)? Is the capitalist approach really correct so sweepingly?
Even economically I am not convinced this is correct, when it comes to a small country where a multiplicity of competitors can lead to the total collapse of sectors of the economy.
As an aside, it would be desirable for you to write additional columns about privatizing the HMOs, the electric company, and more. There it is certainly more needed, since it does not require people’s understanding, but is based on subjective experience. If it really is individual freedom that burns within you, and not bashing the Rabbinate
B. In my opinion, it is my business what you eat
I agree with you. But that is exactly the problem. It would have been possible to privatize kashrut with minimal regulation and allow more religious freedom. The fact that they did not do this is precisely the problem. The problem is exactly that the rabbis want to receive authority from the state and remain with full autonomy, and that really does not go together
What is the comparison between coercing a religious lifestyle—Shabbat observance, stoning, and the like—and taking care that the people of Israel not eat trefot and neveilot? The food will remain the same food, and everyone will eat as they please while preserving kashrut?
Clearly, at least in our times, one cannot force a lifestyle of observing every last commandment in all its details, but if it is in our power to ensure that prohibitions are not eaten without a substantive change in life, there is no reason not to ensure that.
By the way, the fact that the Haredim cried out even though they usually distance themselves from the Chief Rabbinate only proves there is something to it.
Rabbi Michi,
Your whole problem is that you didn’t study in the right beit midrash the verse in Isaiah 12, the favorite verse of the Har HaMor people: “And you shall draw water with joy from the wells of salvation”; and Jonathan translated: “And you shall receive new teaching with joy from the choicest of my righteous ones.”
Go hear Torah from the choicest of the righteous and you’ll understand why the reform is invalid.
A. If you want to hear substantive arguments against the reform, I think Rabbi Micha Halevi is the address. He also has an alternative proposal for improving kashrut.
https://www.makorrishon.co.il/news/377913/
B. Even today anyone who wants can eat in whatever way he wants. But the plain meaning of kashrut is Orthodox (this is implicit as a foundational assumption within the word kosher), and therefore when a person wants to eat at a kosher business he assumes he is eating something permitted according to halakha. Therefore you can’t let everyone call himself kosher, because that is deception of the consumer, who reads “kosher” and understands that this is Orthodox kashrut. Therefore it is impossible to completely privatize the kashrut system; there must be a regulator that certifies that it really is kosher according to halakha. Not everyone can call himself kosher. I hope I explained myself properly.
Clause B is criticism of your “ideal” model, not of Matan Kahana’s reform.
He is Yoel Bin-Nun, he is Michael Abraham.
With God’s help, 12 Kislev 5782
Even before the reform, permission was given, according to a High Court ruling, also to a private body to give certification that a business is ‘supervised’ by such-and-such corporation, so long as it does not say ‘kosher.’ For some reason the public did not flock en masse to ‘Tzohar’ certifications, and therefore the ‘reform’ was needed, in the hope that it would improve the situation.
In the original proposal they demanded forbidding the Chief Rabbinate and local rabbis to grant kashrut certification, authority that would be given only to corporations that receive the approval of the ‘Supervisor of Kashrut in the Chief Rabbinate,’ a title creating the impression that the ‘Supervisor’ is part of the Chief Rabbinate and acts according to its directives, but in truth the ‘Supervisor of Kashrut in the Chief Rabbinate’ is a state employee appointed by the Minister of Religious Affairs. In other words: the one who certifies the kashrut providers will be an official appointed by the Minister of Religious Affairs. A politician becomes ‘the rabbi of rabbis’…
The bill as worked out by Yulia Malinovsky’s committee was more moderate. In the first year the local rabbinates will also be able to grant certifications, but beginning next year and onward a local rabbinate will have to receive approval from the Minister of Religious Affairs to grant certifications. In other words: the honorable Minister of Religious Affairs is the ‘final halakhic decisor’ in matters of kashrut…
And of course the ‘Supervisor of Kashrut in the Chief Rabbinate’ was left in place, even though he has no subordination to the Chief Rabbinate at all, but only to the Minister of Religious Affairs. He will be the ‘final halakhic decisor’ in matters of kashrut, while misleading the public and taking the name of the Chief Rabbinate in vain.
To a situation in which de facto one can give certifications under the label ‘supervised’ and import products from abroad with dubious certifications—we have already grown accustomed, after all we live in the ‘State of All Bagatziya’ 🙂—but for all these there is a solution: one can always look for the inscription ‘with the approval of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.’ But now they got clever and invented the ‘Supervisor of Kashrut in the Chief Rabbinate’ in order to create the false impression that those corporations supposedly have approval from the Chief Rabbinate.
Regards, Sh.Tz. Lavinger
The level of kashrut will drop drastically, since not only the supervisor, but even the rabbi granting the certification, will be financially dependent on the business owner. Instead of the business owner being ‘afraid’ and hesitant to violate the kashrut instructions, now the certification provider is ‘afraid’ of the business owner, who by nature is not eager for restrictions and requirements that cost money, and he will gladly leave in favor of a ‘corporation’ whose demands are lower.
The cost of kashrut, too, will not go down but up. Lowering the bar to substandard level will increase the need to seek ‘more stringent kashrut.’ And since no stringent kashrut body will agree to be under the supervision and approval of the ‘supervisor on behalf of the Minister of Religious Affairs,’ the ‘duplication of certifications’ will continue and even intensify.
If one wants to improve the level of certifications, there should be legislation that guarantees the supervisors’ reasonable wages, including base pay and additions for seniority and Torah learning. I was appalled by what is described in the article about Rabbi Micha Halevi’s ‘supervision corporation,’ where a supervisor is supposed to work for a gross salary of 7,400 NIS for a full-time position (5,500 NIS less than the average wage in the economy!). The work of a supervisor requires fear of Heaven, heavy responsibility, professional knowledge, and not-easy dealings with profit-seeking business owners. Do we expect the supervisor to work for a starvation wage?
Beyond ensuring basic conditions for the supervisors on whom we rely, there is a need for a professional mechanism proficient in the technological problems that constantly arise in the food industry and that will give the local rabbinates ongoing guidance that streamlines supervision. For that purpose I proposed establishing ‘regional courts for kashrut,’ which would guide the local rabbinates on the professional questions.
These ‘regional courts’ could also serve as oversight and appellate instances over the local rabbinates, and thus both the level of kashrut and the public’s trust in it will rise.
Regards, Sh.Tz.L.
And if in the private home or in a restaurant, everyone has the option to consume even ‘substandard’ kashrut—what shall we do for someone serving in the army, or hospitalized in a hospital, and the like, places he did not choose to be in—the public that obligates the citizen to be in these places should also give him kashrut at a reasonable standard agreed upon by the overwhelming majority of Israel’s rabbis.
Regards, Sh.Tz.L.
Rabbi Micha Halevi headed the ‘Team for Examining the Kashrut System in Israel’ on behalf of the Council of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, and worked out a detailed plan for improving the kashrut system that was adopted by the ‘Council of the Chief Rabbinate’ and can be viewed online. See there.
Regards, Sh.Tz.L.
I join what has already been written here, phrasing it in my own way to sharpen it –
The important point is that most people who consume kosher do not know the definition accurately. Many traditional Jews and various religious people, who see themselves as committed to halakha and therefore want to eat kosher, are unfamiliar (or at least not very aware) with concepts like food cooked by gentiles, the laws of mixtures, immersion of utensils, etc., certainly not at the level of detail required to understand whether the standards of this or that body are okay or not. So they look for a man with a beard connected to their religion who will tell them everything is fine. And to say “kosher” to these people about whatever some organization feels like is certainly deception, even if there is room to demand that they investigate more.
If you are willing to have regulation that checks whether the body is faithful to its standards (that is, if it writes insect-free then it is insect-free, if it writes slaughtered on Thursday then it was slaughtered on Thursday, etc.), then why not regulation that ensures that if it writes kosher, then it is kosher at least according to some of the legitimate opinions (and you are right that there is vagueness, but precisely from you I got the insight that even a vague concept has real meaning—for example, it is clear that if the Pope writes “kosher” that is deception, and if someone who observes all the stringencies of all the decisors ever—let us assume for the sake of discussion due to social and economic considerations—writes “kosher,” that is not)
I proposed to the Chief Rabbis that in the ‘basic kashrut standard’ that is supposed to be set by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, the fundamental principle should be established that the rabbis of the locality are authorized to determine the halakha in that place, for they know the spiritual condition of their community members and know when it is proper to be stringent in accordance with the ideal, and when it is right to be lenient in consideration of pressing circumstances.
In my humble opinion it would be worthwhile for the local rabbinates to adopt the framework established by the new rabbi of the holy city of Lod, Rabbi Shimon Meir Biton, who established in the city a ‘rabbinic bureau’ whose members include the neighborhood rabbis in the city, Ashkenazim and Sephardim, Haredim and Zionists. When there is broad agreement among the rabbis, the trust of the public, in all its various shades, increases.
And as I suggested above, to establish ‘regional courts’ specializing in kashrut matters (just as there are unique courts for conversion), and they would add to the local rabbinates the professional dimension, both knowledge in the areas of constantly renewed innovations in the world of kashrut and the food industry, and in the sphere of organization and administration.
And the combination of the local rabbinate, which provides the authority of the mara de-atra and recognition of the needs of the local public, together with a ‘regional kashrut court,’ which provides professional expertise—such a blessed combination will raise the level of kashrut and greatly increase public trust in the certifications of Israel’s rabbis.
Regards, Sh.Tz.L.
“There needs to be a regulatory body whose role is to ensure that every kashrut system provides what it says it provides.”
In order to verify that a kashrut system provides what it says it provides, one needs to send inspectors to the supervised businesses and verify that the food there meets the criteria set by the system providing the kashrut.
That is, the reform creates a double kashrut system in which a kashrut supervisor on behalf of the state checks the supervisor on behalf of the private body.
It is clear to everyone that this is not feasible. The state will not supervise the bodies providing kashrut.
This reform is one big lie.
It is worth noting that the above report presents a minority proposal by members of the ‘team,’ who proposed allowing a certain degree of competition between rabbinates, but only in the geographically nearby area, in order to prevent the absurd situation in which the rabbinate of Metula grants certification in Eilat, as was established in the ‘reform.’
Regards, Sh.Tz.L.
Paragraph 1, line 2
…the fundamental principle should be established…
Paragraph 4, lines 1-2
… unique courts for conversion)…
That is precisely why there are supervisors and a regulator. There is no need for me to repeat myself again. Most of the public also does not understand banking. So should the Bank of Israel provide banking services and not merely regulate the banks?!
According to your view, the Bank of Israel provides banking services alongside the banks, since it regulates them. And the insurance commissioner provides insurance services, etc. When there are several approaches on a given issue, especially if it is a value-laden issue and not a factual one, it is wrong for the state to determine which approach is preferable and do the job in place of people. Instead, different parties should be allowed to do the job each in its own way, and the regulator should do its work of supervision. It doesn’t take a very long day of study to understand this. If you are angry at Matan Kahana, that is of course your right, but it would be good to back it up with arguments and not with flinging gripes and grumblings into the void.
By the way, I once lived in Bnei Brak, the city that and the Chief Rabbinate were joined together. Every morning I saw there a pair of people walking down the street and cleaning it. One held a broom and dustpan and the other walked beside him supervising him. Mark this well.
And by the way of by the way, today the Rabbinate is both a kashrut provider and a regulator, and wherever there is private kashrut (Haredi of course, because only they are allowed), there there is actual double supervision (actually not, because the Rabbinate doesn’t really do its job, as is known). Note well: not only supervision and regulation, but actual double supervision. I am sure you sent them an angry letter saying the Rabbinate is one big lie.
And from here to the conclusion: clearly this reform is one big lie.
The description of the company employing the supervisors in Petah Tikva does not in itself appear to be a great success story, and the company manager does not hide the fact that he reduced the number of supervisors, cut their wages, and even so almost went bankrupt had an investor not been found willing to give him long-term credit. I am not sure the High Court will see as proper the fact that the manager of the manpower company employing the Petah Tikva supervisors is the yeshiva director of the city rabbi.
To the credit of the company ‘Kashrut Be-Achrayut,’ it should be said that its supervisors receive a wage higher than minimum wage—about 46 NIS per hour (based on 7,400 NIS for 162 working hours). By contrast, in the chapter ‘The Pilot and Its Failure’ (in Amihai Filber’s booklet, Regulating Kashrut in Israel, published by the Kohelet Forum, p. 99), in the pilot conducted in Jerusalem and Netanya, the franchisee proposed paying the supervisor 32 NIS while the manpower company charged almost twice as much—59 NIS—in other words: a brokerage gap of about 100%..
And when it comes to a ‘kashrut corporation’ that also has a system of inspectors and rabbis, then the brokerage gap will be on the order of hundreds of percent. The supervisors will work for minimum wage, while the business owner will have to fund the entire array of rabbis, administrators, etc. of the ‘corporation,’ whereas today, apart from the supervisor’s wage and an annual fee of a few hundred shekels, the business owner does not have to fund the rabbi granting the certification and his inspectors, who are state employees.
So what is the benefit in all this? The business owner will pay more in order to receive kashrut of a lower standard that will not win public trust?
The stringency of Justice Rubinstein—who demanded that the supervisor not receive his salary from the business owner—is a “stringency that leads to leniency,” whose meaning is triple harm: to the supervisor who will receive minimum wage, to the supervised business that will pay ‘double payments,’ and receive kashrut at a far lower level.
And the concern for the supervisor’s independence in the old system is not critical, for the business owner would not dare fire him, because if he did, the Rabbinate would remove its supervision from him.
Regards, Sh.Tz.L.
There are many professions that cannot be practiced without state approval:
doctors, veterinarians, engineers, locksmiths, and many more.
It seems entirely reasonable to me that in kashrut too one should have to meet criteria in order to be able to provide kashrut.
That is exactly the purpose of the Kashrut Fraud Law: there are many who want to eat kosher but have no way of knowing which certification providers are genuine and which are fraud.
As for whether the Rabbinate should be the one actually supervising, that is a completely different question, but yes, I do expect there to be clear criteria for kashrut, perhaps on several levels, and that there be regulatory oversight. I have no problem with someone who does not meet the criterion being unable to use the word “kosher,” just as someone practicing some sort of holistic medicine cannot call himself a doctor.
I answered this and will answer again. You are conflating two utterly different situations. In locksmithing and medicine there are agreed professional standards. Therefore there is no problem there with regulation. But in kashrut there is a value dispute, since this is not about facts. There are different definitions of the concept of kashrut. Therefore active regulation (that is, regulation that sets the standards and not merely examines transparency) is problematic. This is also the reason the Rabbinate cannot be the regulator, because the people there have one particular conception of kashrut, and it is not agreed upon. I also explained why it is wrong to rank this into levels, because sometimes it is a matter of kind and not degree. And those are exactly my words.
By the way, I wrote above that I am hesitant even regarding the factual plane. If a person who does not understand medicine presents himself as a doctor transparently, and his patient lucidly decides that he is going to him (as in alternative medicine), this should be allowed, and as far as I’m concerned one may even call it medicine. So long as transparency is preserved.
Let’s be precise: are you in favor of a homeopath presenting himself as a “doctor”? Without saying he is a homeopath (and I for one do not deny homeopathy)? After all, the Reform give “kashrut” abroad (is that only concern for cleanliness?) and do not bother explaining to the diners that there is a bit of a difference between Reform “kashrut” and real “kashrut.” Where exactly is the transparency here? After all, it is clear that the Reform produce an imitation of Orthodoxy, so the lack of transparency is built in. The same applies to Reform conversion.
Correction: “Let us precisely formulate his question:….”
If that is the precise formulation of the question, I would not want to think what the precise formulation of the original question was. What does all this have to do with what the Reform do here or anywhere else? I am arguing that anyone may provide kashrut, with the regulator ensuring transparency. That’s all.
After we saw that employing supervisors through manpower companies and corporations will create a huge ‘brokerage gap’ that will raise the cost of supervision but lower the supervisor’s wages—it occurred to me that if one nevertheless wants to maintain Justice Rubinstein’s ‘stringency’ that the supervisor not receive his wages from the business owner, then it would be possible to establish cooperatives of supervisors, which would not need to invest in an administrative apparatus beyond the wage cost of the supervisors.
Perhaps it would also help to reinforce the array of supervisors with kollel fellows, who would devote two or three hours to supervision in factories as work within a practicum in the study of issur ve-heter and would receive low pay as interns. It would also be possible to reinforce the array of supervisors with pensioners or homemakers, who would do the supervision tasks voluntarily or for a tiny wage. They would find in this an interesting occupation that also involves a mitzvah.
With blessings of cooperation and volunteering, Sh.Tz.L.
Because you are also in favor of Reform kashrut (so long as there is transparency, etc.). That is how I understood the article. But that is exactly the issue: how will you ensure that people like them, whose whole reality is to trick people into thinking they are the same as the Orthodox, will inform their diners that they are not really like the Orthodox and that the word kashrut points אצלם to nothing. It is like setting up a regulator that will allow a swindler to operate on condition that he announce that he is a swindler. No regulation will help here. The regulator catches 10% of the cases (that is exactly the point: to create deterrence and not to control 100% of what happens all the time). Meanwhile 90% have been deceived. Besides, the secular regulator you propose does not care at all about the truth in such a case. Therefore there will be no deterrence here, when from the outset the regulator allows the swindler to operate so long as he announces that he is one. That is a statement that he really does not care about the fraud.
Correction: “that all of their activity in religious matters (conversion, kashrut, etc.) is to trick people into thinking they have equal status to the Orthodox and that they are like them, etc.”
And if that seems impractical to you, I heard a story about a restaurant abroad that declares itself “kosher” (meaning only that it maintains cleanliness) and feeds treif to Jews who do not understand. Rabbis came there outside the restaurant, and when they told people, they left the restaurant, but this is an endless struggle and they cannot stand outside the restaurant 24 hours a day, and advertisements in the local press do not help in warning tourists.
The honorable rabbi does not address the dilemma that arises from political principles.
First let us add a refinement: a democratic state is not committed by definition to liberalism. In my view this is a confusion of concepts. Likewise there is no essential difference between coercing liberal values and coercing religious values; it is the same thing. Both are a value-laden adoption by the ‘state’ (regardless of the ethical school, whether as a social contract or from Heaven), and it is responsible for enforcing it whether these values were adopted or imposed on it by various institutions.
To illustrate: there is no difference between the High Court and the Chief Rabbinate; both enforce different principles. The question is what lies at the basis of those principles once one strips away the layers of rhetoric. I suggest that at bottom this is a dilemma between adopting the principle of the ‘state of the Jews,’ which is nationalistic (and at base religious in one definition or another), and liberalism, especially in light of the implications of deciding for liberalism*.
In the end the question boils down to whether in this case one decides in the liberal direction or not, and why. In my view there is no clear and decisive answer, especially in light of the adoption of the nationalist principle in the Declaration of Independence (even before the liberal one (!); admittedly the word ‘democracy’ is there, but again, it is not identical with liberalism). One can cancel the document, but the claim concerns the spirit of the state and whether privatizing kashrut effects a change in it.
In my humble opinion, one who decides in the direction of liberalism tilts the scale against nationalism (which at bottom is religion), and that is the essence of the discussion, not any other layer.
*To sharpen the point about the implications, one must look retrospectively at the ‘transitions’ of European states from clear nationalism to pure liberalism.
In the second correction it should say:
Paragraph 3, lines 1-2
… unique courts for conversion) …
Tzachi, what do you think motivates the desire to be labeled? Currying favor with a certain clique?
And a question for R.M.A. –
Will you accept anti-vaxxers and COVID deniers with such liberalism as well, provided they are ‘transparent’? 🙂
Regards, Shaya Glazer the glazier
Rabbi Shmulik –
You suggest hearing Torah from the choicest of the righteous – but do we have such people today?
You are invited to go onto Haredi websites and see what the followers of the righteous man Reuven say against the followers of the righteous man Shimon.
(Yes, yes. Brother against brother.)
And if there were such people – are they experts in supervising large economic systems?
I do not possess Rabbi Michael Abraham’s qualities, nor those of Moshe Gafni.
But perhaps the Minister of Religious Affairs is not the sitra achra? (There is some evidence that he is indeed not the sitra achra.)
And a question for the rabbis of Tzohar –
If you desire to benefit Israel through kashrut, why did you go testify in court in favor of someone who presented a forged kashrut certificate (as described in the words of Rabbi Moshe Katz from ‘Kashrut’)?
Regards, just a plain questioner
Sh.Tz.L.,
At one time I don’t remember whether I suggested it to someone or not, but since, as you say, you proposed things to the Chief Rabbis,
you could propose to them that it be possible to do civilian service in the kashrut system of the religious council.
It could be done by means of a time-card at the business.
And the quantity of those serving 4 hours a day for 3 years would provide a sufficient amount of significantly cheap labor for this task.
403 NIS per month for an unmarried volunteer.~
And in my humble opinion there would be many volunteers who would be happy with this, especially if they would need to travel from place to place and that would be included in the 4 hours. And perhaps it could even be done only actually 2/3…
This would give a huge upgrade to kashrut at negligible cost.
Good idea. What do you think about national service for raising pigs or writing hateful articles about the Talmud? Maybe national service for cleaning streets in Ra’anana?
The idea of directing male and female national-service volunteers to kashrut-supervision roles is excellent. I had a similar idea regarding military service. Since the cooks in the army work ‘week on, week off,’ one week in the army and one week at home, I proposed establishing a yeshiva where the cooks would study during the week when they are not in the army, and it would turn out that over three years of service the students would spend a year and a half in yeshiva, which would improve the Torah level of the IDF cooks. I proposed calling the cooks’ yeshiva ‘Yeshivat Rav Ha-Tabachim’ and in English Rabbi Cook Yeshiva
Regards, Sh.Tz.L. [= National Dish Washer]
What do you think about stopping writing hateful comments? Otherwise I’ll start thinking someone is paying you for it.
In commercial kitchens—factory cafeterias and hotels—there may be opposition to sending male and female national-service volunteers to supervision roles, on the argument that a business should pay for the supervision. But in hospitals, nursing homes, and boarding schools, there is definitely room to send volunteers to their kitchens, both for cooking roles and for dishwashing and kashrut-supervision roles.
Regards, Sh.Tz.L.
My claim was that doing national service that from the outset benefits only a certain segment of the citizens (Jews who keep kosher) and has no general civic element in it is a strange thing. In practice it is like canceling national service for those boys, or like creating national service for street cleaning specifically for the residents of Ra’anana.
Another job that would suit male and female national-service volunteers is moderating comments on Atrei HaDin, so that they do not stray beyond the bounds of good taste and relevance
Regards, A.D. Hominem
To Sh.Tz.L.,
It may be that you are unaware of the reality currently taking place.
I am speaking from fairly broad knowledge of the various organizations that are authorized by law to serve as places for civilian service for the Haredi sector. And I do not think this is something not broad enough relative to others, if not more than most of them.
And it even sounds worthwhile.
The low salary of the supervisors apparently indicates that among the religious-Zionist public the supervisor’s position will serve as temporary employment for students until they get settled in an academic profession that pays much more. Those who may indeed find long-term interest in the occupation of kashrut supervisor are Haredi kollel fellows, for whom a supervisor’s wage, low as it may be, is still incomparably higher than the stipend of a kollel fellow.
It appears, then, that whether there is privatization or not, whether the kashrut provider is the local rabbi or some ‘corporation,’ still the overwhelming majority of supervisors in the field will be Haredim, and a minority of them yeshiva students or national-religious students who find in supervision a temporary occupation.
Regards, Sh.Tz.L.
Pooh’s Law
🙂
As I understand it, today the Shulchan Arukh does not bind the kashrut supervisors, and they can forbid things that the Shulchan Arukh clearly permits.
Perhaps it would be worthwhile for a kashrut body to arise that declares it is committed solely to the Shulchan Arukh and to no other external factor?
In addition, today there are factories that received kashrut in the past, but if I establish an identical production line it will be disqualified by that same kashrut organization (see, for example, enriched matzah on Passover, where if you are not the Gatnio brothers then you are openly selling leaven).
Again, wouldn’t it be proper for a transparent kashrut body to arise that applies the same rules to all those it supervises?
And that is before the hair-raising stories I heard from people in the food industry about prestige events with mehadrin kashrut that served pink champagne that was blatantly non-kosher to the honored guests.
And of course claims of double standards, according to which major players get a friends’ discount in kashrut and the small ones are pursued with burning fury until they tithe the salt.
With God’s help, eve of Shabbat “and he encamped before the city,” 5782
To Gabriel – greetings,
With today’s enriched matzah (also that of ‘Gatnio’), there are two concerns: (a) whether the wine they knead it with is 100% wine, since fruit juice with water causes faster leavening. (b) They add baking powder and preservatives that were not present in Maran’s day, and these may lead to leavening.
For this reason great decisors in our generation have disagreed. In the opinion of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and Rabbi Shlomo Amar, one should permit even the enriched matzah of our times, and on the basis of their ruling Rabbi Avraham Yosef, the rabbi of Holon, gave certification to ‘Gatnio.’ By contrast, Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu and Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron forbade it for the reasons mentioned—the concern that water was mixed into the wine and the concern of leavening through baking powder and the like (and in their view, of course, Gatnio matzot are also forbidden).
Regards, Hasdai Bezalel Duvdevani Kirshen-Kvass
As for pink champagne – I came across pink champagne by Carmel Mizrahi that was kosher le-mehadrin.
There are also laws that on a product with less than a certain percentage of tomatoes you may not write the word “ketchup.” In Europe there is a minimum percentage of cocoa in order to be allowed to write “chocolate,” etc., even though the ingredients are listed on the package. Because nonstandard and unconventional use of familiar words misleads consumers who do not read the fine print. That’s how it is. If someone sells dog meat in camel-milk sauce and writes “kosher under Huldai’s supervision,” there will still be customers who are misled, and the state is allowed to enforce against nonstandard use of product headings that may mislead consumers
.
There is no such thing as champagne from Carmel Mizrahi; perhaps you meant sparkling wine, because by law champagne is produced in the Champagne district in France.
Of course one can certify a kosher production line in the Champagne district, except that on the bottles at that event it said ‘not kosher’…
And regarding enriched matzah—you are invited to prepare a pastry in the style of enriched matzah and look for someone who will give you a kosher-for-Passover stamp (grass will grow on your palms and you still won’t get kosher-for-Passover certification).
What do you mean, different definitions of the concept of kashrut? On most things there is agreement among all the bodies. How is Reform “kashrut” different from Reform “medicine”?.. In fact, you say the same thing about both, so from your perspective it makes no difference. But it does cast everything in a different light, and the comparison to coercion to eat pork is very misleading, and the truth is that I am surprised by the really not-sharp comparison.
Once I heard from Rabbi Cherlow, when he was on the ethics committee and they were discussing whether one should tell the family all the options for treating their relative and only then act. He said that he naturally tended to inform them of everything and let the family decide. One of the senior doctors there said that he did that once and the husband told him: “For God’s sake, do for my wife what you would do for your wife”… Most people live this way—trusting, running, not choosing every single thing; it is exhausting and wearying. In economics, they trust the employer. In medicine, the doctor. In kashrut, the rabbi. That’s how it is. This is the default of human beings; they do not have the strength to deliberate and deal with everything. Therefore society is paternalistic to a certain degree in all fields. What is it about kashrut that gets you so worked up?
Regarding ‘enriched matzah’ in our time—see the articles by Rabbi Menachem Burstein, ‘Is “enriched matzah” leaven?’ and Rabbi Yitzhak Dvir, ‘Enriched matzah cookies on Passover,’ on the ‘Kashrut’ website, and Rabbi Moshe Bigel’s article, ‘Enriched matzah on Passover,’ on the ‘Tzohar’ website, and the literature listed there and there. Also Rabbi Ido Elba’s book, ‘Enriched Matzah,’ published by ‘The Institute for Community Rabbis’ in Kiryat Arba.
Regards, Ch.B.Tz. D.K.Y.K.
A strange argument. Whoever wants to rely on someone else’s decision may do so. Who is stopping him? The question is why to force someone who does not want to rely on the Rabbinate but on another institution. Besides, the fact that people want to keep their heads down is one of the obvious facts. So what? So they want to. And Rabbi Cherlow’s claim is correct. That doctor made a mistake by making the decision for them. He should have informed them and left the decision to them even if they do not want it.
With God’s help, 19 Kislev 5782
According to Rabbi Cherlow, that the doctor should give the patient all the information about the options and the risks—so too it would be proper that every certification be accompanied by a sheet specifying according to which decisors the matter is kosher and according to which decisors it is not kosher 🙂
In any case, since the consumer prefers a clear statement, it is proper that not everyone who wants to assume the title should assume it.
Regards, Ch.B.Tz. D.K.Y.K.
Indeed, Rabbi Cherlow proposes a similar method in halakhic instruction, according to which the rabbi presents the questioner with the range of approaches and the system of considerations, and leaves the decision in the hands of the questioner. See his article, “‘The Upright Behold His Face’ – On Tuning Halakha in the Postmodern Age through the Teaching of Rabbi Shagar” (published in Netu’im and available for viewing on the website of Yeshivat Orot Shaul).
Regards, Hasdai Bezalel Duvdevani Kirshen-Kvass
Not that it will matter to you, but his conclusion there was the opposite. He said that there he moderated his approach of presenting the person with all the halakhic possibilities, and that sometimes he does not act that way.
The fact is not merely that people want to keep their heads down. It is actually an understanding of reality and the world in which they live. Companies fight to be the default of the user, and radical organizations try to shape the baseline according to what they see fit. True, choice is very important, but that is not the dispute, and that is exactly what is misleading in this post—as though that is the discussion—whether to allow eating under other kashrut authorities or not. The discussion is around the concept “kosher,” which is a halakhic, Jewish concept. And along comes someone (a problem that is less present in the current reform, but definitely present in the one you propose) who wants to reshape that concept. That is the dispute. Let everyone do what he wants for himself, but I want the familiar code that people identify as having a certain meaning—like “medicine,” “kosher” (or—“family”?)—not to lead to something else that they *do not necessarily want*
“Rabbi” Michael Abraham:
I support the reform even if it brings thousands of people to eat trefot and neveilot openly, lowers the level of kashrut to the depths of the Dead Sea, and causes fatal damage to the standing of halakha and Judaism in the public eye. Even the blessed harm to the Chief Rabbinate, which in itself justifies almost any outcome and any price, is not a central argument, though it is connected to my decisive argument.
Maybe you should start writing articles in Haaretz?
“Itzik,” thank you. I’ll consider it.
Your response to Rabbi Moshe Katz of “Kashrut” is deeply disappointing.
You answered positionally, not substantively.
Rabbi Katz argued that the story of Tzohar can prove what happens to a kashrut system with a lot of good will that operates in a privatized world.
There is no connection or parallel here to the Rabbinate and its failures, which as is known Kashrut does not refrain from publicizing.
The difference between failures and conscious failure to meet declared goals is a vast one when one comes to examine whether privatization can do good for the market (a test you refuse to acknowledge).
Interesting that when it comes to the courts, Rabbi Michi suddenly becomes statist, while that institution is in my opinion and that of many the most corrupt there is in the country, except that it knows very well how to disguise this with the autism characteristic of leftists. There too there are crony appointments, etc.; and moreover, the activist dictatorship imposed on us by the disciples of Aharon Barak (without bearing any responsibility!) is worse than corruption—it is simply absolute evil. And there is also the coercion of progressive anti-values on the rest of the state’s residents. Here you will hear thunderous silence. By the way, this is true of all the public institutions in the state, including the senior command of the IDF, the Shin Bet, the Mossad, and the rest of the government ministries. The officials there do whatever they feel like and do not implement voters’ policy if they do not like it (and even sabotage it), instead of resigning as an honest person should do. Here you will not hear Rabbi Michi say that “its breaking is its purification,” etc. Here he becomes one of Rabbi Tau’s disciples, for whom the state is a holy thing.
I think that in the eyes of the left, the state is more holy than it is for Rabbi Tau. He still believes in it because it is the beginning of the flowering of our redemption. They believe in it because they do not believe in the Jewish people (which is a racist concept in their view, like every national concept), and then because of the vacuum created they worship the formal Moloch of the state and its institutions (which are controlled by their people from the days of Mapai). Thus, for example, the Speaker of the Knesset can translate Rabin’s words “We are all brothers” (which are engraved on the walls of the Knesset corridors) into Arabic. For him all Israeli citizens with blue ID cards are brothers. And that is the essence of their brotherhood—their citizenship (an empty formal concept). There is no Jewish people. There are only Israeli citizens. Now slowly Rabbi Michi too has joined the progressive religion (apparently without even knowing it) because of his unconscious desire to find favor (together with the rest of the empty academics of Bar-Minan University) in the eyes of his leftist friends (like almost every liberal religious-Zionist person). Such is the power of the environment in which a person lives.
Haha, Yoel Bin-Nun says the opposite of everyone else, haha
Come on.
He’s more predictable than Ronit the Bibi-ist.
A Bennett-ist with an intellectual aroma.