Q&A: Tzohar
Tzohar
Question
Hello Rabbi, what does the Rabbi think about Tzohar’s kashrut certification? The claim I hear is that a body like the Rabbinate, even if it has problems, must not be attacked from the outside but rather strengthened from within. Beyond that, this opens the door for Reform groups and the like to provide kashrut that isn’t really kosher, and the average secular/traditional person won’t know how to tell the difference between them.
Answer
You’re probably new here, or a troll. The Rabbinate is something one is commanded to attack from within and from without until its complete collapse, speedily in our days, amen.
Discussion on Answer
I was joking. It just amused me because I’ve written several times what I think about the Chief Rabbinate—that it is a mitzvah to attack it and shut it down—so a question like this addressed to me is like asking Gafni what he thinks about criticism of Meretz, or Bibi about Iran.
As for my opinion on the Rabbinate, see for example here:
And there’s much more.
You’ll receive your punishment for supporting the toppling of the Rabbinate when the Rabbinate falls and all the questions and problems it currently handles are passed on to you (because in reality there is no vacuum).
Do you rely on the eruv arranged by the Rabbinate? Do you eat food under the Rabbinate’s certification?
Regards, Shatz Levinger
Y.D., it’s been a long time since I hoped to receive punishment. There’s always a first time.
Shatzl, usually yes.
And if so, don’t cast aspersions on the host from whose food you ate!
Regards,, Shatz Levinger
Except for the “beer you drank from” all year, which on Passover is forbidden 🙂
With God’s help, 26 Adar 5778
Privatization is good in business and services, where competition improves the quality of the product or service and lowers the price for the consumer.
However, when it comes to supervision, the opposite is true. The supervisor is not supposed to be nice and pleasant, but a merciless skeptic, who won’t hesitate to sniff around precisely where the factory owner or restaurant owner does not want him to “stick his nose.”
One cannot rely on the good will of the producer or marketer of food products—either because they lack even basic knowledge of the requirements of kashrut, or because the requirements of kashrut force a significant increase in production costs.
To let the factory owner or restaurant owner choose the certifying body is like letting the cat guard the cream. Clearly, the food seller will want the cheapest and least intrusive supervision—in plain words: the weakest supervision.
Many have pointed out the problematic nature of a situation in which the supervisor is paid directly by the factory owner or restaurant owner. But in that case there is still a supervising factor: the Rabbinate personnel, who are not financially dependent on the business owners. What then shall we say about a private kashrut organization, where the rabbis granting the certification are also financially dependent on the business owners they are supposed to supervise?
Regards, Shatz Levinger
On the other hand, there are advantages to a nationwide kashrut organization, which can have more professional tools than a local rabbi. And as a private organization it can demand a higher standard than the minimum.
It is possible to combine the advantages of the state Rabbinate with the advantages of private kashrut. Precisely on the basis of the existing method, in which private kashrut is built as a “second story” above the basic threshold of state kashrut. The supervision of the local Rabbinate would be strengthened by substantial supervision from the national kashrut department, which would add professional expertise; and on the basis of two witnesses—the local Rabbinate and the national kashrut department—the foundation of kashrut would be established, while private kashrut organizations, among them Tzohar as well, would strengthen the element of higher standard.
And see further on this subject in my comment, “In the very place of our life we are afraid,” on the article “The Supervisor Didn’t Come,” on the “Shabbat Supplement – Makor Rishon” website.
That’s an interesting novelty. So then the Rabbinate is also forbidden to criticize the state that funds it, right? And we’re forbidden to criticize the Americans because they fund us, right? Neither their honey nor their sting.
A. You’re not merely criticizing; you’re demanding the complete dismantling of the body you rely on.
B. You’re doing something self-contradictory: if in your opinion that body is corrupt and rotten, how can you rely on its certification and its eruv?
Regards, Shatz Levinger
What does the Sabbatical year have to do with an omelet? Its very existence is corruption. That doesn’t mean its certification isn’t kosher. My main claim is that it’s a shame they have a monopoly over certification and that they use it as a spade to dig with. There’s nothing self-contradictory here, not even close, and it doesn’t seem all that hard to understand. Nothing I said implies that there are no problems with their kashrut, just as with any other kashrut body.
Not new and not a troll, but what can I do—people attack me every time I dare say something bad about the Rabbinate, and sometimes I don’t know what to answer. Could you point me to an article of yours or something similar where you explain your view on the subject?