But is it KOSHER?

 

We had a guest today. Her spouse is a well-respected chef who now works at a restaurant in south Florida.

I asked our guest which hasgahah the restaurant used.

It really made no difference; all the local, acceptable hasgahot are Ashkenazi.

Which means that if a Sefardi or Mizrahi aligned with Bet Shamai, that Sefardi or Mizrahi could only eat at home. Of course if the Sefardi's or Mizrahi's spouse wanted to eat out, then maybe for the sake of shalom biet, the Ashkenazi heksures are sufficient. (I was tempted to write "OK," but that could be misinterpreted.)

The problem for the Sefardi/Mizrchi is that Ashkenazi hasgahah is too lenient.

Ashkenazi hasgahah too lenient?

How can that be?

Actually, pretty easily.

CAVEAT I am neither a shochet or mashgeach. What I relate below is what I have learned from various sources.

Start with inspection of a slaughtered animal.

Lesions on the lung?

If the lesions are healed, the meat is acceptable to an Ashkenazi mashgeach.

Lesions on the stomach(s)?

Same thing.

Only if the lesions are open will the Ashkenazi reject an animal if lesions are discovered.

ON THE OTHER HAND, the Sefardi/Mizrahi mashgeach will reject the animal.

Onward to the kitchen.

In the Ashkenazi kitchen, the chef may be a non-Jew (nokar), but as long as a Jew lights the fires on the stove and in the oven, the food is considered kosher (assuming it is kosher in all other respects).

Not so in a Sefardi/Mizrahi kitchen.

Lighting the fires is the first step.

In the Sefardi/Mizrahi kitchen, a Jew must do some of the food preparation. Cut the meat into portions; put the chicken (or duck or other fowl) into the oven; season the fish; something so there is a Jewish hand in the process. (Ashkenazi hands are welcome; Sefardim/Mizrahim are not THAT strict.)

Obviously in the kitchen where our visitor's husband is chef, we know he is an observant Jew and we know he has a hand in the food preparation. (The question of the meat remains, but we're moving in the "Shammai" direction.)

For restaurant owners, following the less stringent Ashkenazi kashrut is logical; the demographics are that observant Ashkenazi Jews greatly outnumber observant Sefardi/Mizrahi Jews in south Florida (as they do elsewhere in the U.S.).

Interestingly, Bet Yosef , a/k/a halak, hecksures can be found at some area kosher markets, along with "Beis Din of Crown Heights Vaad Hakashrus," but there is, to the best of my knowledge, no Sefardi/Mizrahi commercial kashrut supervision in south Florida.

Anyway, the next time someone insists that Ashkenazi kashrut is more strict than Sefardi/Mizrahi supervision, disabuse them of the notion; it simply isn't so.

בתאבון

יתרו Yethro

 

One of my favorite portions, Yethro, nears.

Yethro, hotan Moshe - Moses' father-in-law - reminds me of my late father-in-law, Eliyahu ben Zohara, z"l.

Whatever positive attributes I have today I have because of my hotan, my father-in-law.

As a hakham once said, you can take the Torah and turn it and turn it and every time something new is discovered.

This time it occurs to me that Yethro has good reason to be angry with his son-in-law; to storm into the Israelite camp threatening bodily harm to Moses.

Consider.

Yethro welcomes Moses into his family, as my father-in-law did for me.

Moses marries one of Yethro's daughters and fathers two sons. My wife and I have two sons, a daughter, and now a grand-daughter.

Shortly after the second son is born, he drags Tzpora from her home and reluctantly heads off to Egypt. When our first son was 10 months old, I took my wife and son to America. (My father-in-law got to meet and spend time with my children, but he died before my daughter wed.)

We know the expedition commences shortly after the birth of the child since it is on the way that G-d "tries to kill" Moses. (שמות ד, כ''ד) Why? Because he failed to circumcise the child. Tzpora has to do the job, telling Moses "חתן-דם אתה לי."

After HaShem convinces Moses to go back to Egypt - it only took THREE miracles: a bush that fire failed to consume, a rod that turned into a snake, and instant leprosy with equally instant cure, Moses goes to Yethro and tells him he wants to return to Egypt to see if his (Moses') brothers are still alive. Yethro, probably thinking (as my father-in-law must have thought) that Moses would soon be returning, told his son-in-law "לך לשלום." (For a discussion of לך לשלום vs. לך בשלום see http://tinyurl.com/b2gulde.)

Fast forward.

Pharaoh finally capitulates and allows Moses, the descendents of Yosef, and some others to leave Egypt. True, he has second thoughts and chases after the hoard only to see his forces drown when the sea that parted for Moses and his crowd closes over Pharaoh's people. How do we know that Pharaoh survived? Well, we are told that אחד מהם לא נותר; the rabbis tell us that one person was Pharaoh; someone had to return to tell the people - and record the disaster for Pharaoh's army. Like the nazis centuries later, the Egyptians carefully recorded almost everything.

In any event, Yethro hears of Moses' exploits and goes, with his daughter Tzpora and her two sons - the Torah consistently refers to the young men as her sons - to meet Moses.

But, knowing "things happen" when a husband is away from his family, Yethro delicately stops before reaching Moses' camp and sends a messenger to announce that "I, thy father-in-law Yethro, am coming to you and bringing your wife and her two sons."

If Yethro was angry for Moses running off and abandoning his family, the Torah makes no mention of this.

Instead, it says that Moses (wisely) "went out to meet his father-in-law and bowed and kissed him." (שמות י''ח, ז)

Moses tells Yethro everything that transpired in Egypt and up to the present point. Yethro, having heard of Moses' exploits earlier (שמות י''ח, א) and then again from Moses his son-in-law, "rejoiced for all the goodness which HaShem had done to Israel and said 'Blessed is the L-rd who brought you out of the hand of the Egyptians. Now I know that the L-rd is greater than all (other) gods'."

Unlike the multitude that came out of Egypt, Yethro believed in HaShem without seeing any miracles. We know that the generation that left Egypt was a rebellious group that, save for two had to die out before we could enter what would become Israel. There is no hint, in Torah, that Yethro became a "חוזר לשאלה."

My father-in-law was a simple man. He lacked a yeshiva education, but he knew the Torah and the laws. He worked hard to see that his children - four sons and three daughters - were educated, both in Judaism and general education.

There was no distinction made between his own children and the men and women his children married - well, almost none; I think, speaking as an in-law, that maybe we, the in-laws, got preferential treatment . . . or maybe it just seemed that way.

Eliyahu ben Zohara, ע''ה, was not a "cohen Midian," but he taught me more than Yethro taught Moses, as a husband, a parent, and as a father-in-law.

Silence reigned

 

The United Nations estimated Wednesday that more than 60,000 people have been killed in Syria's civil war, a toll one-third higher than what anti-regime activists had counted in the 21-month-old conflict. http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/01/02/syria.html

The head of the United Nations Human Rights office, which released the numbers, faulted the entire international community, including the U.N., for having “fiddled around the edges while Syria burns.”http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-un-says-more-than-60000-have-died-in-syrian-civil-war-20130102,0,7788105.story

I wonder when the South African-born High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay found the time from Israel-bashing to criticize the "international community."

Why should the "international community" care? This is a "civil" war. It is - mostly- internal war.

And why criticize the "international community?" Let the High Commissioner point her finger at the 22 member states of the Arab League. (See http://www.al-bab.com/arab/docs/league.htm for a list of League members.)

Iran has intervened on the Islamists side while Russia remains aligned with Syria's "president," Bashar al-Assad.

Until he was re-elected, the current POTUS kept the U.S. out of the internal conflict. Now, speculation is that he will involve the U.S. - but which Moslems will he favor? His record on the "Arab Spring" is worse than bad for decision making, or in the case of Bengazi, lack of decision making. (Yes, I know Hillary Clinton must take the blame, but as Harry S (Truman) said: "The buck stops here" at the president's desk.)

It's interesting to note the absence of any comments from the High Commissioner about the ethic cleansing in Somalia, although she has spoken out against rape in India.

Meanwhile, POTUS continues to prop up anti-American Islamist regimes with our tax dollars. Better dollars than soldiers.