Q&A: Kashrut
Kashrut
Question
There is an Arab hummus restaurant.
There is a pot used to cook the chickpeas.
There is a specific blender used to prepare the hummus, and all the ingredients have kosher certification. In terms of utensils and the kashrut of the products, everything is definitely kosher.
Can one be lenient regarding food cooked by non-Jews? Is there any basis to rely on?
Answer
There are quite a few kashrut problems that could be there. As for food cooked by non-Jews, this is not eaten raw as is, and in my opinion it is fit for a king’s table, so it is forbidden.
Discussion on Answer
As far as the chickpeas themselves, it’s the same variety and the same bag used in a mehadrin hummus place. The knife they cut with? And without pitas…
In short, before I became religious I was a big fan of hummus places, and it’s no small craving for me… I checked that same hummus place, and indeed from a kashrut standpoint it really seems possible to be lenient… only the issue of food cooked by non-Jews keeps me from it… If only there were some leniency. It’s hard to subordinate my desire to the decree of the Sages, who enacted it by virtue of their authority, and I have to bow my head and give it up…
Apparently that’s part of serving God… it’s hard…
I meant the knife used to cut vegetables served with the hummus. There are also kosher hummus places, and I wish you that this will be the hardest struggle you’ll ever need to face.
Moving this here:
What problems? I was there
and saw exactly how they prepare it, what the utensils are, and what the recipe is… a utensil designated for cooking the chickpeas,
and afterward the utensil used to prepare the hummus is a utensil used only for making hummus, and the ingredients are kosher. So what problems?
My answer:
Tithes and terumot, orlah, worms, the knife they use, the pitas, and more.