CHAZAQ's Torah Talks #50: Rabbi Moshe Elefant - The Road to The Pesach Home

Tuesday night programs with special guests tonight we have us with us a very dear friend Rabbi Moshe elephant from the OU rabbit elephant welcome to the program how you doing fantastic it's a pleasure to be with you guys we always hear what incredible work hazak is doing it's finally I have an opportunity to schmooze with you and talk with you as we get ready for pesach so thank you for inviting me thank you for having uh from taking of your busy schedule to uh have our Torah talk uh the topic for tonight is the road to the Pisa home but before we go get into tonight's exciting topic Rabbi elf and maybe you could give our listeners a little bit of a background of yourself and the great work that the OU is involved with well my name is Moishy elephant I'm here at the OU for almost 35 years already my title is Chief Operating Officer executive rabbinic coordinator of the OU cautious division we in the OU cashless division certify over 10 000 factories and over 100 countries around the world and of course every one of the 50 states of the United States hundreds of thousands of products Baruch Hashem we have in our office here in Manhattan over 50 rabatum working with us we have about a thousand must give him around the world working with us and Baruch Hashem it's a a lot of work a lot of responsibility but Baruch Hashem were able to help feed Chloe throw the main camera if there's no food there's nothing we only need to eat that's the one thing that everybody has in common no matter what what country you come from or what type of Customs you follow you have to eat and that's what we do here hopefully trying to help that everybody should have kosher food besides that where we have a beautiful kevra to learn that feel me every morning and then I also give it that fiomi on the OU all that program I don't know if you or your listeners are familiar with our all that program we have barcash um thousands and thousands of people listening every day at all deaf and out all parish and I will miss them so I'm busy I have very very much so in the OU does amazing work and we know uh firsthand we've had many uh programming and events and uh you know I have a connection to the OU for many many years and the OU is a name brand have we always look for the OU symbol so uh Rabbi uh yagna tariata continue your amazing work and then we're going to jump into tonight's topic as we mentioned the road to the piece at home Rabbi elephant what are the top two guiding principles that we should have in mind when shopping for pesos items we're going to the supermarkets what should we looking out for so the number one issue I can't I can't stress this issue enough there's you know many stores have special pie Sac stores or in the regular kosher store you have a pesach section and people assume that if it's in the kosher section in the pesach section and the pesach store it must be Coastal pesach and that is not true unfortunately and making that assumption is going to cause a lot of aggravation that could have easily been avoided I could tell you a few years ago a terrible story where somebody called me arapasak in the afternoon they had made 24 rolls of gefilte fish for the holiday and they were going to serve it by the side there and buy all the meals the filter fish and then I don't even know what caused them to look at the label and they looked at the wrapper and the rapper indicated that it wasn't coach Le Pace after filter fish it wasn't Coastal basically filter fish it was chromate oh wow something that you know we don't eat maybe we shouldn't eat it was made with Hollow it was made with bread it was from its Gummer so besides the fact that they obviously spent a lot of money for nothing besides the fact that they obviously did not have gefilte fish to Yantis I mean they also all those pots and pans that they used to cook the fish became hummus and the rule is the air pesach after the time they were not allowed to have hummus anymore it's too late to Castle any equipment so all those pots and pans were coming and this was something that could have been easily avoided just by paying attention to look for the proper kosher symbol and not just say well I bought it in the pesach store people tell me you know everybody's so busy and they order food from the store and they get delivery and they don't pay attention they ordered whatever they ordered in the shore that the store sent them food that is coach labesa very very dangerous assumption wow don't make that assumption I can tell you a colleague of mine told me that just last week the OU was having a table with where I bought him at a store answering questions to people who were shopping as they were shopping for pesach and not far from where that table was set up they noticed that they were stocking the shelves with chocolate syrup for pesach and I don't know what caused them to look at the chocolate syrup but the chocolate syrup that was being stacked in the store as the rabbis was sitting there was not Kosher for face oh wow wow wow wow that's that's a big eye-opener don't just assume just take anything you want it's in the store worst assumption you can make okay that's one uh principle something that everybody should be paying attention I this is the first thing I say whenever I speak to anybody about PESA the second thing that wants to know about pesach um as they get ready and this is something I like to speak about as well and that pesach you know every yantus comes with its own rules for its own but the the two rules that are unique to pesach once we have to eat matzo it's the only time the whole year that we eat something and we get a mix with the rice we get a Biblical mixer for eating matzo not tomorrow not the wine just the Matson but there's one other Mitzvah that is unique to pesach and that is the midst of agarita that we have an obligation to teach our children what pesach is all about what leaving with Egypt was all about but also teaching our children what are our customs and one is obligated I use the word obligated literally to discover what are their customs whether you're sitting at the cider and at the beginning you'd say that we put carpass in salt water there's so many different Customs that people have regarding putting the carpets in the salt water what do they use what vegetable do they use and they ask me Rabbi what vegetables should I use I tell them use the vegetable that your father used you use the vegetable that your grandfather used that's the vegetable you should use and everything is a time of customs of course the Customs have to be acceptable hierarchically but I very much urge everyone to try to follow their Customs if they don't know their Customs try to find out what the Customs are and if you don't have parents unfortunately alive or available to ask what the Customs are go to uncles go to aunts go to relatives but if you will connect the Customs then you will have a meaningful holiday amazing amazing Rabbi good good good good stuff good good good good okay I guess inspiration the importance of Iron Man hugging their Customs let's keep them going okay so Rabbi what is the most common question that is based on a misconception that the OU is the ass for with regards to passive with regards to pesach if you would have to the biggest conception is that people make assumptions in both directions but of course more commonly people make assumptions that this food must be kosher for pesach and what could be wrong with that food what could be wrong I look at the food I look at the ingredient panel everything in the ingredient panel looks kosher and what could be wrong and I can't tell you how a big mistake that is I'll tell you something that just happened yesterday somebody came over to me in shoe and he tells me he has a grandchild that needs to eat on pesachs and the screenshot likes to eat rice cereal so what's wrong with rice cereal even ashkenazin who eat don't eat rice children can eat rice what could be wrong with rice good question right it's plain rice cereal so I told them do you know that that Rice Cereal you're asking me about I know for a fact this bait is packed on the same equipment that they that they pack oatmeal just comets come real hummus wow so you make an assumption what could be wrong with plain rice cereal what could be wrong with certain oils because it's just oil but the same equipment that's packing the oil could be packing different type of oils and oil we know is very greasy it's very hard to kosherize that type of equipment and the same looking and ingredient panel very often very often it says flavors flavor a flavor this is not just for pesach but you ask the question about pesos we'll talk about pesach a flavor could have a hundred ingredients to make one flavor that's a simple flavor I'm not going to talk about the complicated flavors they have 100 ingredients to make a coach for pesach all 100 ingredients have to be kosher so that's one of the most big the biggest misconceptions the other one which I often speak about and very very important topic as well you know there are many people great people wonderful people who print these books with the different medicines that are Kosher for pesach and the ones that they consider not Kosher for pesach and I have to tell you and and then and this is so so important if somebody has a chronic condition I want to talk about the definition of a chronic condition definition of chronic condition is not hashan that you're laying in the hospital you could be talking to me I could be talking to you we could look great but somebody has a heart condition or cancer has to Shalom or diabetes or high blood pressure I'm not a doctor I can't mention every disease we should know from any disease never know right the person says all the diseases that would put them in Shrine it won't be on Jews but there are people that are not well and they have to take medicines and then they start asking me well Rabbi is this medicine kosher is this medicine kosher and you know what I tell them I don't want you to ask me last year somebody calls me one day and he tells me Rabbi I have a heart condition and I take this medicine um am I allowed to take it on pesach I say not only are you allowed to take it on pesach you must take it on pay stuff and then I asked them what you know the person I know the person is a good person he's a smart person I said why'd you call me he said well I wanted to hear it's from you so I'm telling him so I'm telling you I you're hearing it from me whoever is listening I know the kazak programs are incredibly popular so it must be many people listening whoever wants to hear is hearing it from me today medicine if you're taking your medicine because you have a chronic condition particularly if it's a medicine which is a tablet that you just swallow you don't chew it's not a liquid that you drink just take it and be healthy and don't cost for Sean come to the end of pesach Pastor sounds sick because you thought you're doing the right thing that's not what God wants from us powerful Gods wants us if we learned anything from covid we learned that we have to start taking care of ourselves like God wants us to take care of ourselves if it's a medicine that you don't have a chronic condition and it's not something that you must take but certainly you're not a person that's that that certainly if it's a medicine that you chew or it's a medicine that you drink then if you could avoid it and it's not chronic then don't take it but otherwise take your medicine that's what Hashem wants from us as much as Hashem wants us not to eat from it someplace powerful is it says but when it comes to watching our health which Martin met oh you have to watch it very very very very very much I heard it from our place moving along we know that 30 days before that you should learn about the uh what are the most important tips and that one should be aware of if they're making pays out on their own home and I can imagine you know God bless our wives uh a lot of preparations a lot of details what would you say are important play a few things the first thing is and the most important thing is God blesses us with peace AK is not a Time everybody's under pressure everybody is stressed that's not what the answer is about janta is supposed to be is Manson you know the villagon was once asked what is the hardest mixer to fulfill that's the 613 myths of navaras which one is the hardest one never asked anybody on your program that question being happy 24 7. you have to be happy it's very hard to be happy for 24 7. that's what the villagon said so if you're going to be stressed for the weeks before pesach you're not going to come into yont of the right way and that's not what God wants from us God wants us to come so the first thing I have to say and it's not something that we should just ignore something we should think about we're all working together to making a wonderful yantus a happy dentist of least stressful as possible that's number one number two very very very important of course as we speak as we get to your house is to look at the Cash Ring of the home how do we culturalize our home it's it's something that we all have to learn it's something that we all have to know and especially what makes it most unique and interesting is the shogunarak that tells us how to culture a home did not the kitchen in the time of Gomorrah 2000 years ago and the kitchen that we live in it doesn't look the same I think the kitchen that we live in now didn't look like that way 50 years ago certainly not 2 000 years ago so now what we need to do is take all take our kitchen with the way it looks now and go through every single part of the kitchen and every piece of equipment we have in our kitchen and every dish and every everything we have in that kitchen and start deciding how are we if we want to kosherizer for pesach how to do it for pesach that's critical and just to give you some examples number one ovens so the oven itself if you have a self-cleaning oven you should run the self-cleaning cycle but even if you're running the self-cleaning cycle that means you should still especially Aston Massachusetts that don't cash a glass there's a glass window on the front of the window in the front of the oven that we don't kosher so you have to put on a piece of silver foil another I'm just going to mention some of the rules we could talk for hours I know you don't have the time and I certainly don't have the time but just on top of your oven usually there's going to be a hood right you should put a piece of silver foil under that hood because the whole year the comet goes on the hood she should cover it you should kosherize the grates the best way what I recommend is get new ones if you can if you can't you should put them into the oven when you cut when you're self-cleaning your oven the same goes for silverware pots and pans and that should be put into boiling water while the water is on the fire and just throw put them in and rinse them with cold water I want to make a very important point I just spoke about it in my shoe on Shabbos there's a very interesting halacha in Hilton and that is that the says that when we come to the cedar we have to make that to say this should be a beautiful table even though we're not eating fast food by The Cider say there is a banquet the savior is the most important night of the year and it's a night that we should be sitting at the table so a lot of people have silver cups and you just to call the Becker all year round that's what they make kiddushan and they tell me we don't have Becker for pesach so we'll use a glass we'll use a disposable plastic because we don't want to close your eyes I have to tell you I personally disagree you gotta you should come to the Cedar and if you own a silver cup coastalize it it's no big deal sticking into a pot of boiling water that that's clean that wasn't used for 24 hours and like that just sit by the side they're like the king the queen and princes and princesses that we all are it's not so hard to do and it's the right thing to do I want to make one more very very important point about culturing a lot of people especially this year where we have a columnar of four weekdays are going to be going on trips and just like you're planning where you're going when you're going what you're going to be doing you have to plan the Cash Link you have to plan what are you going to do the Halal is you're not allowed from error Pace after time that you're now allowed to cook it because you never have comments anymore you can't cash her anymore so if you're assuming well I'm renting this home this Airbnb and I know it's not Kosher it's certainly not pace I think but I'm gonna arrive on how am I and I'm gonna cash her you're not a lot of cash too late too late and what it means is that now we're 11 days away from yantiff and you're starting to make these plans now is the time to start thinking about that because when you arrive wherever you're arriving to it's going to be too late okay amazing so rabbit touched upon uh you know the home and got into kalamot about the Airbnb so there's some who go away uh to uh Pizza Hotel programs and uh you know for for hug what are the most important tips Rabbi that one should be aware of if they won't be at home for the whole place the few rules that we should talk about the first is that many people are not home fiatives are not going to be so the entrepreneur begins this year Friday afternoon the and with diggers comets is going to be Thursday night before and there are many people who are going to leave before that it's like to leave Thursday night so what happens with the last night that you are home so if you're leaving Thursday by day you do because hummus Wednesday night and so on and the biggest comments should be done the same way as you do it on Thursday night there's only one difference if you do betika's comments on Thursday night you make a broccoli uh I'll be your comments if you make the biggest comments earlier you still have to make this you do the same way but don't make the broker but you have to do badika's comments along the same lines if you come to a hotel or you come to a rented home you have to make the biggest hummus and that is not just if you're arriving on Thursday night or Friday before yantef if you're arriving you're going somewhere in calamoid the first thing you need to do when you walk into your room in the hotel or wherever you're going if they did not have the biggest comments before you on Tiff you have to duplicate's Hummus obviously you're not going to use 10 pieces of bread it's a millipeda and obviously you don't need a candle and a spoon but you should you're not sure you must do but because comets in the room you certainly have to check if there's stuff in the refrigerator that could be hummus you should check and look around that there's no comments I know I've said this in a number of places this Rule and people tell me Rabbi you should tell more people this rule because it's so important that people don't know it so this is very very important to somebody who's not home I want to make one more point you know again we could talk for many hours but we'll try to keep it short people the many many pesach programs you know we suffered unfortunately from covert for the last two years this year hopefully we've turned the corner and there are many more pesach programs than there ever were before just because a program is advertised in a newspaper as a pesac program is not adequate I always use the following example if somebody needs a doctor so you just got to open up the Yellow Pages and look at the first actor in the Yellow Pages and say oh it's in the Yellow Pages it must be a good doctor I don't think anybody would do that you check you ask who is this doctor they look what uh do you ask your friends your relatives do you know a good doctor you don't just say well if he's in the Yellow Pages he must be a good actor is no different as you said just because the program is advertised as kosher what does that mean and making an assumption that well I saw the advertisement in the newspaper so how could it not be kosher it is unacceptable frankly it's unacceptable you wouldn't live that way you wouldn't choose a doctor that way you don't buy food that way you don't buy anything that way and why is password any different especially when we speak about pesach so if you want to go to a place like program and you want to enjoy yourself and you should enjoy yourself as we said but you need to check who is the kosher agency or Rabbi giving the supervision and if you don't know ask your Rabbi to help you do that homework I know people call me from my shoe you know the OU doesn't have any pestic hotels what's what's the reason for that Rabbi uh nobody can stay into our high standards we only do a hotel we'll be completely Kosher for Bayside we won't certify a hotel that has electronic clocks we have to have a key on the room to get in on Jarvis we won't certify our hotel that we need many much gigam you know usually we need at least seven eight nine Magic so and and it's a big responsibility and what happens if something happens during yantus and they have a question pick up the phone so we're not anxious to do it but there are other very reliable rabbis to do it then good for them good for them but the rabbis who are doing it you need to know who they are right and you need to make the right decision and not just assume that you could go anywhere for pesach that is not the way to go amazing Rabbi 100 definitely we always get these questions and uh we agree with you a million percent very very important to make sure uh you know uh just what you know everyone's very very careful with regards to uh not everyone but I'm saying it's very important that people are careful with lotion or what comes out of their mouth equally is what comes into our mouth with what we eat and cash shoot so Rabbi elephant what an amazing program it was so far but we have a Min hug we have a custom that uh before uh we let the rabbi go we asked for one final message and one final thought that you can leave to our brother audience it was such a like like rabbit Rabbi said this talk could really go on literally forever just out of the places I've gone and on baby elephant where could one find out more of you know questions via the OU is there like well we have we have we have a rabbi who answers questions all year round that's his job just answer the app line from pesach before pesach we increase the hours and we increase the staff two one two six one three eight two four one oroukulture.org you could call we're here to answer amazing okay great so one final message if you get it from Rabbi we're gonna make two messages very quick first of all you know there is that I said at the beginning of our conversation that there are not that many there are many different customs and many different different customers but there's one custom and it's interesting it's really the custom that we begin the holiday with that I think everybody agrees with and then we put out 10 pieces of bread before we do particular's comments everybody does it and I was just thinking about that custom why is that such a universally accepted custom and why is that the custom that we begin the pesach holiday with error pesach by Knight you know because when we come to the house airplanes let's play Night by that time our houses are spotless our wives and our mothers and our everybody our families have been cleaning the house it's perfect you're not going to find comets in the house so somebody could start thinking that at this point at this point I think that I'm perfect I'm perfectly clean so we put out 10 little pieces of bread you're not perfect you're sure what to look for but never perfect keep on thinking what could I do better that's one powerful that I want to conclude if I may I want to conclude what a great vart that I heard from Natasha wrapper a number of years ago I had the privilege of being a Montreal and visiting the Tasha River and we had a wonderful conversation I'll never forget it and at the end of the conversation I asked the rebel Rebel tell me what should you work on what's important so he says to me he says what is the holiest night of the year the holiest night of the year is decider that's the holiest night of the year it says and and I tell them you're right you know we see at the OU it used to be that all Jews kept across a shot on Yom Kippur they went to shoe nowadays they say the holiday most Jews Keepers pesach I guess it's better to eat than the first so everybody keeps pesach and the rabbit said what do we call the night the pesach what do we do Seder why don't we call them matzo why don't we call it four cups why don't we call it anything else why don't we call manistana why do we call it say that we know the side that represents that by the side that we say each one of the things that we're supposed to do so it says because what a Jew has to learn is that it has to be organized it has to be thinking an organized person is planning and thinking how am I going to become a better person how am I going to better serve Hashem and that's the lesson of pesach we want to become better we want to become closer to Hashem and that's what paystock is all about and if we do it the right way I kind of Sparkle certainly looks at all the people like the people who are listening to our program they want to do what's right and we want to do it right that's what kind of struggle says you see these are my children they're so anxious to make me happy I'm gonna make them happy and we'll all be packed we'll all really be healthy and we'll all be have knocked us from our children we'll all have paranosa and we should indeed maybe hopefully still this year be able to enjoy the carbon pesach in your slime have New York um meanwhile Robin what amazing powerful words at the end very very very powerful of course the Torito thread was amazing uh your Chicago elephant for all that you do for Claudia for the Jewish people thinking to the OU for all that they do with cautious and uh another amazing Tuesday night Torah talk uh kazak Susie night program uh we want to give a shout out and thank you to our friends at dailygiving.org a dollar a day really goes a very far away please check it out when you have a chance shout out to Torah anytime and the many different platforms that are hosting this uh great uh Torah talk program and uh we want to wish everyone a hakash America happy healthy amazing holiday and once again remember elephant thank you Rabbi my pleasure it's nice to meet you good to see you have an amazing hug everyone thank you