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Can You Use Hotel Coffee Machines? - Keeping it Kosher Clips
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Rabbi Donneal Epstein explains how non-kosher flavors and the halacha of "stam keilim" might affect the status of a hotel coffee machine. The newest episode of the Keeping it Kosher podcast, Navigating Travel, is out now! Host Rabbi Ezra Sarna is joined by Rabbi Donneal Epstein, OU Kosher Rabbinic Coordinator, to discuss practical halachos for kosher travel, covering everything from hotel coffee machines and rental home kitchens to highway rest stops and more. 🎧Listen now at keepingitkosher.org or wherever you get your podcasts.
Categories:Torah/Halacha
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Let's start with hotels. So,
you're on a trip with your family,
and you stay over at the hotel. You get
in late at night. Hopefully, you put your
kids to bed. You wake up the next morning, and
you want a nice coffee. So, most hotel rooms,
they have this little coffee machine, and
they have these brands of coffees and teas
that you've never heard of before. Can you
assume that coffee is coffee and it's kosher,
and I can use this coffee machine because
nothing's ever been used in it besides for coffee?
Any coffee that's non-flavored is always going
to be kosher. And the coffees that are flavored,
if they do not have a reliable certification,
so I would not use them because the flavors
may be non-kosher. However, using
them, if someone else used them,
the person who stayed in the room before,
that will not assur the machine. Okay? The
non-kosher flavors, it's a "zeh v'zeh gorem,"
and it will not make the machine not kosher,
and you can still have your kosher
coffee the next morning, no problem.
You know, I've heard these like
one-off stories about, you know,
there are people who use the machine
somehow to make instant soup. And you know,
I don't know how to do that.
Maybe I'm not savvy enough.
When the need is there, you know, you'll make
Wacky Mac for your kids. You know what I mean?
But you you don't have to assume, you
know, it doesn't change the halacha,
Something is assumed to be kosher. There's
a halacha of "stam keilim einam bnei yomam."
Can you elaborate on that?
Yes. Utensils, equipment, even if they're
owned by a non-Jew, are not assumed to be
non-kosher. I mean, technically, they
might be and you'd have to kasher it,
but, b’dieved, if something was cooked in it, the
item would be kosher because there's an assumption
in halacha that the keilim have not been used
for treif within 24 hours. And this is already
said by Rishonim, in the Gemara in Avodah Zarah,
it's codified in halacha by the Shulchan Aruch.
The only one who I'm aware of who may dispute
it might be the Rambam, according Beis Yosef.
So, that's a huge heter. So, in other words,
if I'm traveling and I mistakenly, let's say,
I go to an Airbnb and I mistakenly use
one of their pots or one of their dishes,
and even if what I use is hot, you're saying
lichatchila, ideally, in the first place, you
can't do it. But after the fact, if someone would
call you with this question, you would say, "Yeah,
it probably wasn't used within the last 24 hours,
and therefore it's okay. You can eat it now."
That's exactly what I would say.
Wow. That takes a lot of
stress out of the kitchen.