FAQ's in Kashrut - Rabbi Moishe Dovid Lebovits

good evening everybody my name is Marshall David Lebovitz I'm the one of the Rabbinical administrators of the huff kay part of my responsibilities is the answer the many questions that come up on a regular basis from consumers just as yourself in addition I travel throughout the East Coast making sure that companies that we certify are kosher as well as trying to convince many manufacturers that are not kosher on the value of kosher and why they should get certified so therefore I wanted to start the first half of the program by discussing the questions that come up and then we will leave time towards the end of the lecture of any questions that you may have on cassious whether in your homes whether the things that you buy in the stores so the first question that comes up on a regular basis is the topic of Bissell Occam now Mitchell aqua means that a non Jewish person is now a lot of cook for you in your home and you're not to buy something that a non-jewish person cooks you now the reason is twofold one is we're concerned that maybe the non-jewish person will actually take non kosher and put it in your products put it in your food so the rabbis felt that if that's the concern we can't have a non Jewish person cook for you the other concern is maybe that the fact that food is a staple of life people have to eat and it's something which is social as well and people will come to say wow that's a great food you made what's the recipe and they'll end up coming close to you and the rabbi's felt that if you end up having a social event and asking people how the food was made and the non-jewish people come close to you that is intermarriage and the rabbi's felt that we don't want the non-jewish people and the Jewish people mixing and therefore they separated them by having them not cook for a Jewish person however there are exceptions to the rule one exception is something which is edible raw if you take an apple you can just bite it to an Apple as is and those need for any cooking to be done so that you non-jewish person wants to cook an apple for you that's perfectly permitted in addition let's say you want to have a cup of hot tea and they want to have hot water for you put up because you don't need the water to be heated the non-jewish person could cook a pot of water for your urn of water because no issue of visual acumen that concern the other exception is something which is not fit to be served on the Kings table if you go to a smorgasbord or or wedding and you find the product on those tables then it would be an issue of a non-jewish person cooking for you but things which are not fit to be served on a king's table or on a smorgasbord are not an issue of visual ahkam the question that comes up on as a consumer is that many times you'll find on products they'll say in Hebrew Bashar Israel which means a Jewish person cooked for you but did you go to a supermarket and in random products which is the same item as visually you all you won't see anything on the package all you see is a national huskar on the package and the question is how are you able to buy those products because there's nobody cooking for you in the Jewish plants or the plants that have certification are cooking for you most of the times they're just rabbis visiting on the regular basis but there's no one standing there lighting the fires and the case in point is potato chips if you take the large manufacturers of potato chips nowadays there is no one standing there cooking with a Jewish person or any Mashiach as they call it they're cooking the potato chips for you and the question is has it possible because we just from there saying a non-jewish person is not a cook field and the answer is that a potato is not fit to be served on a king's table because the way they make potato chips is they deep fry the potatoes you will not find a deep fried potato chip on a smorgasbord on a king's table and therefore the rabbi's and the larger kosher agencies maintained there's no issue of Mitchell akhom with potato chips you were able to buy all the potato chips that you want as long as it has a symbol indicating that's kosher status the reason why you will find the potato chips to say bitterly Israel or rabbis cooking it in Hebrew is because these people don't own any factories what they do is they rent space in the larger commercial factories and they have rabbis visiting and staying throughout the production and once the rabbis are there they will make sure that the light light fires are lit because there anyway spending time making sure that the products are kosher certified in addition to the Bissell akhom and cooking for a non Jew in the factories it also comes up at home as many times you have non Jewish help and they want to put something in the oven for you where they want to put something in the microwave and that's also a concern of Mitchell Ockham now microwave oven is a little bit lenient because the oven doesn't work the same way as a regular oven microwave oven is basically cooking they the water in the product and it's not the same method as regular cooking so rabbis felt that you can be little lenient when dealing with microwave ovens in addition something which was cooked already is not initial official outcome so if you wanted to have your non-jewish help or take something from the freezer for you that which was already cooked and you wanted them to put it in the oven there is no concern of this Loch lomon that as well and we get the questions a lot and we want them to take something out and it's frozen and they want to recoup it that is not an issue of Bissell ahkam many times you're traveling especially now with the hot weather and people ask frequently if you're allowed to go into a coffee shop and buy something is there an issue of my rezaian now my rasayan means that you're doing something from the onlooker will say wait a second why is this person doing something which looks a little odd if you're going into a McDonald's for example to just use the restroom people will think wait why is it going into McDonald's and they'll say wait if he's going in they must be permitted obviously that's not necessarily the case but my rasayan is discussed in the code of Jewish law and your idea and it speaks about the fact that we know you know how to cook milk and meat together but what happens if you want her to take milk that's power of non-dairy milk and put that together with me that you got to cook that together so the ramaa no moisture issue is he wrote that he said that if you wanted to cook power of a milk with meat together you can't necessarily do that without putting some sort of indication that it's not real milk because people will pass by they'll see this non-dairy milk they'll see you cooking meat and they'll say wait a second this is milk and meat together and well now to cook milk and meat together so he said you wanted to do that you put out some almonds on the table indicating that the milk is coming from the almonds and then you'll be able to cook the milk and meat together now according to that many rabbis nowadays felt that that should be comparable to a non-dairy creamer if you go to weddings and you go to many Affairs even your own homes do you want to have a meat meal and then you want to have power for non-dairy ice cream do you have to put the container on the table because on lookers we'll say wait a second I'm having a meat meal here and passing by and people will say wait this ice cream is that power of ice cream or dairy ice cream so some rabbis felt that just like we rabbi felt you should put the almonds on the table you should also put the container of milk on the table indicating that's power well now you have margarine or all these non dairy products that look like dairy so Muhammad adios they've maintained that because nowadays everyone knows that there's non-dairy creamers maybe 50 years ago when it just came out it was different but nowadays everyone knows there's such a thing as non-dairy creamers or there's the things that non-dairy milk so therefore there's no reason to put it out at the wedding or an a meal or any kind of indication of a container the stating that it's really non-dairy because it's known the industry is known in the world that it exists and there's no purpose and reason for you to put it out based on that the rabbi's do discuss about going into a restaurant and using the restroom if you're going on a highway and you see a Starbucks you see a Dunkin Donuts you see a rest stop and you want to just use the restroom no one that's looking at you is gonna think wait this guy's person this woman is going into the rest stop to go into a McDonald's or a Starbucks to buy something that's not kosher they're going to use the restroom because it's so common that there's restrooms and rest stops on the highway there's no need for anyone to be concerned of issues regarding my rasayan in that regard however one thing to note is that if you are going into a rest stop and you're gonna sit by the window that's not something recommended because people that are passing by won't necessarily see oh you're just drinking your coffee or something which is permitted which we'll get to in a few minutes let me think you're eating something because they don't see past the window they just see from a distance that you're sitting at a rest stop at a window they don't necessarily know that you're just going to drink a coffee or have a rest for a moment but using the restroom would be something which is permitted because everyone knows you were walking in there to do that there's another question that comes up many times especially when you're shopping and that's the case symbol does anybody know what the case symbol stands for well it's actually a trick question because it depends where the product is manufactured if the product is being manufactured in New York then the case symbol has to be backed up by one of the many many kosher agencies in the world anybody can guess today how many kosher agencies there are well as of today there are 1400 about kosher agencies in the world by the time the lecture is finished there might be another 20 or 30 but that's just the nature of the kosher industry it's such a large industry so many different countries so many different manufacturing facilities that there are many many kosher agencies out there so if you're dealing with a case symbol on the product if it's in New York or one of the other states that make sure that has to be backed up by one of the kosher agencies then you have to check up what is behind the case symbol but the case symbol and other states could be backed up by nobody the manufacturer this could decide or the manager of the factory because they you know what all these ingredients seem to be kosher let's put the case symbol on there so the K is a red flag whenever you see a product that has a case symbol it stands for kosher but means absolutely nothing so therefore your job as a kosher consumer to see the case symbol and ask your rabbi who is behind this case symbol and if it's something that we should be purchased at all getting back to the discussion of going shopping and going to rest areas and and going to different locations many people want to know about buying soda without a certification could you buy Pepsi without a certification could you get Slurpees from 7-eleven so the way Pepsi works is the following Pepsi works that they get their syrups from different countries it goes into the bottling facility which is actually one that we certify in college point and they get the syrup and large containers and then they get sugar some trucks and then when the sugar finishes they get more sugar and then more sugar now the way it works is they take the syrup and they put it in the holding tank and once it's added the holding tank ready to be bottled they'll mix it with sugar and water and different flavors now if a case certifies a few Pepsi Bottling facilities in different areas and because perhaps he wants the syrup to taste the same way as in New York or in New Jersey or different states they make sure that all their bottling facilities uses the same syrup so even if you're a situation where you're traveling and you don't see 1/2 K on a Pepsi obviously we make sure that everything has a kosher symbol on it but if you're in a situation where you want the Pepsi and you're don't see a symbol on the Pepsi you would be able to purchase the Pepsi product as long as has made it and the Pepsi Bottling Authority there's two exceptions one there's a wire punch and one is Walters grape juice so why a punch is made in the different kind of facility it could be made in a juice plant and Walters grape juice can have issues of real grape in it and therefore it would be an issue of a non-jewish person perhaps using wine of a Jew and it gets a little complicated that's why we suggest that if you're gonna buy a wine punch on Walters grape juice it should only be with the kosher symbol on that because of the fact that the facilities are making other products and different kinds of factories are being used to make those products when they're dealing with different kinds of products like Pepsi for example or say many times natural flavors and many questions you know is it considered grape but you're using real grape juice in products even if you have a product that's certified under 1/2 K what kind of grape is actually being used anytime you see a product says natural flavors there's probably 50 to 60 chemicals in that product making it taste like the real thing because if you had real cherries in your cherry Pepsi you'll be $10 bottle perhaps if not more and not your 99 cents or a dollar 59 whatever it costs now happens to be the first time that I went into the facility to certify that product and look at the ingredients was the last time I drank soda because of the fact that what goes into the facility and different things I mean I stopped eating a lot of things I don't need a lot of cake and cookies and pastries because of the fact of what I see that goes on in other facilities it just was better for me to stay on the healthy side of things once we're going to Pepsi will talk about Slurpees and 7-eleven many children especially younger children and some adults go into a 7-eleven looking for a Slurpee and they want to know if they could purchase a Slurpee product now we use to certify Slurpee now in Brooklyn and total came a point where people were buying it before we certified it and they weren't really cared so much about the certification so the company said you know what we're having enough customers without the certification we don't want to pay a rabbi to be constantly coming into our facility and checking on our syrup but the way Pepsi sorry 7-eleven works is very interesting they'll take the syrup that comes from the back and each one has their own separate hoses and when you're buying that coke you're buying the specific coke that's coming from the back and it does have an extra flexor on that pacific syrup but there are five to six non-kosher flavors now how do we know as kosher consumers that when you're buying that coke syrup that there's no non kosher in the machine before the coke was put in so 7-eleven usually works that they're gonna put a flavor in there it's gonna last for a few months and whenever they're gonna change over flavors they don't change over on a regular basis because they know that people like certain flavors and they'll keep it for a certain amount of time especially in different seasons like in the summer they'll have certain flavors and they'll run for a few months and then they'll change to other flavors research has shown that when the change in flavor is over they're gonna wash out the machinery because they don't want the customer to have coke and then he's gonna have some rainbow Fanta people want coke they want coke they don't want other flavors but some rabbis felt that you know there's no one verifying there it's actually in being done and they tell their students that if you want to buy a Slurpee from a 7-eleven it's not something which is recommended but other rabbis maintain that in order for you to be concerned that there's any non kosher in that machine you have to make sure that you're the first one coming out to the 7-eleven when they just is changing over and now you have to be concerned that underneath that coke flavor is actually some non-kosher so some rabbis felt if you wanted to buy this her pee from 7-eleven just gets a little more syrup out put it in the drain obviously you would have to pay for that or ask them if you can do that and then any non-kosher perhaps flavor that may have thought of the bin in there there's actually washed down the drain and that's why some of the rabbi's and you see that the most of the Jewish community is buying Slurpees from the 7-eleven many times people ask questions about Dunkin Donuts I don't know in this area if there's any Dunkin Donuts is actually certifying the entire store but in Brooklyn in other communities they do have Dunkin Donuts that are certified now the way Dunkin Donuts works okay so the way Dunkin Donuts works is following if you have a kosher Dunkin Donuts what happens is that not know baking is done at site what they do is they call the satellite bakery they take the donuts and a satellite baking that's owned by the franchisee and up they'll bake the donuts in that facility if the company is under certification then that satellite bakery will basically have a rabbi on a regular basis come into the facility and he will verify that all the ingredients are kosher and all that's being made in that facility is kosher but when the doughnuts are being made and other products they'll take it and put it on the truck and bring it into the specific Dunkin Donuts that's kosher so if you have a Dunkin Donuts a certified you could buy everything from that store because of the fact that the rabbi that's certifying the store is also certifying the manufacturing of the doughnuts which is done that off-site the problem is that if you go to Dunkin Donuts that's not certified and you want to buy a donut that's not something which you can do because even though you may say they'll look it's just a doughnut and it says kosher stores certified the same doughnut in a non kosher store that's wrong because the non kosher store in their satellite bakery they're not only cooking the doughnuts they're also cooking the bacon and all the other non kosher items in the same deep fryer in that satellite facility so therefore when you go into the Dunkin donut that's not certified the only thing that you can buy it at Dunkin Donuts is a non flavored coffee if you wanted to buy a flavored coffee or even have some of the shots that come along with the coffee you would have to verify that the flavors are kosher certified and the shots as well would have to be kosher certified and they may change from time to time because those things can change on the constant basis so it's the job of consumer again if you're going into a non certified Dunkin Donuts to make sure that you're checking for these few points in regards to Starbucks it's a little different in order for us to discuss Starbucks Atlanta we need to probably a to our share which you don't have time for but the way Starbucks works a little differently because Starbucks have dishwashers in their stores as opposed to Dunkin Donuts they don't have dishwashers they have three compartments inks so anything that they're gonna be using in regards to washing is gonna be done in three compartment sinks and don't have any issues with mixing together with non-kosher as opposed to Starbucks they have dishwashers and they have all their non-kosher being made in the same dishwasher with the kosher coffee or non flavored coffee that is something that the rabbi's felt should be avoided but there is a great website called CRC web org that has about a 60 page article about Starbucks and goes through the two hundred different Starbucks they visited it in their research to maintain what is allowed they don't allow regular coffee but there are other rabbis that are lenient and do allow just a plain simple coffee at a Starbucks once you get you know going with the different detailed drinks and frappuccinos or whatever have you it gets more complicated and it's something which you should ask your local rabbi on many people ask the question especially in the larger supermarkets they're going shopping and they want to know if they go by caught up fruit at their local supermarket now the way it works with the supermarket's is that every department that's in the supermarket have their own knife so a deli has their own knife the bakery if they're using a knife for whatever reason they have the separate knife the fruit department the produce department have their own knifes so the research was done that because all these larger supermarkets have their own knives therefore your ladder buy cut-up fruit from all these larger supermarkets however if you're going to a mild pop store like a local corner deli there's no way to permit that because they may use the same knife to cut up their lunch and because of that the rabbi is frowned upon buying cut-up fruit now even if you buy and cut up fruit from a large supermarket you would not be able to buy the fruit that has issues of insects for example you can't buy strawberries that are cut up at a local supermarket even if it's a larger supermarket because of the fact that those strawberries are not washed properly as well as raspberries and other items which have insects now and according to the Jewish law it's more stringent for you to eat a bug than to eat a cheeseburger believe it or not so that's why when the rabbi's say about eating lettuce and all these things with bugs it's very important to make sure that the follow their protocol as far as washing it out properly and getting back to a supermarket case if they're cutting up strawberries you have no way of knowing what kind of strawberry it is if they actually washed it properly so therefore most of the time they do have options of buying their just melons and things so you would be able to purchase those but not purchase anything that has strawberries in the product now obviously if you're going to a supermarket that has a certification that's gonna go and do a supermarket they're gonna go as well on the produce many times but even for local Jewish supermarket many times they'll have repackaged of different vegetables and lettuce that they were right on it please check for bugs so that's something to really be concerned about nowadays the lettuce is an issue especially because E coli so there are just opinions that say obviously from different locations they're better and from California might be good by Arizona's not good the Jewish brands may come from different states so something to check into with your local kosher supermarket to find out if your items are are affected on that many times people have questions especially now getting the summer months about going into Carvel how many of you have ever gone to Carvel I'm sure there's a few of them right in this neighborhood now the question is when you go into Carvel those stores could be certified and the stores cannot be certified it really depends on what the franchisee wants in my neighborhood for example in Brooklyn we have quite a few Carville's that are certified you go traveling many areas they're not certified it happens to be I was telling oh you live outside that at one point we certified 700 Carvel stores across the United States because they felt that they want the rabbi's to be there and to make sure that people are doing what they're supposed to be doing especially the workers so therefore we at one point certified that many stores now we're down to about 15 different cities across New York but basically Carvel stores that have the huff kay obviously you could be able to purchase everything in that store the problem comes up if you go to a baseball game basketball game you go to somewhere where there's a Carvel stand now that Carvel store is not certified because it's not a store it's just a stand saying they're serving Carvel how do you know that that product in that stand is actually kosher certified you don't so the only way you be able to actually just something from there is if they see a closed container that has ice cream in it perhaps a hard ice cream and therefore you see the coach's symbol on it if you go to certain venues of entertainment you might see some dippin dots at some amusement parks you cannot buy ice cream from those venues unless you actually see the bag that's closed that has a symbol on the bag and now the bag is open for you and now you're taking out the ice cream because how do you know whatever is in that mix and that stand is actually going to be kosher certified and if you have a cone a regular simple ice cream cone can actually have pig fat in there and be animal fat and therefore will not be certified so you have to make sure that the ice cream is taken care of but what about the cones what about the sprinkles I can't tell you how many times I've been in Brooklyn in the years and different parks and they're actually been people with nice beards buying products from the ice cream truck and I'm talking about fresh ice cream from the ice cream truck we have no way of knowing what's actually in that ice cream truck if we don't have a rabbis on the truck and verifying that this random Carvel truck or random ice cream truck is actually gonna be certified so you cannot buy ice cream from ice cream trucks if it's open and not packaged obviously if it's packaged you would be able to buy it it happens to be I was in the five towns with my wife years ago well I mean there was a truck in one of the parks and some of there was a long line of kids lined up and people were coming with these ice cream cones and I told them that you're probably serving your kids non-kosher and they were not happy about it then I went over to the owner of the truck or the driver I asked them you know how you guys saying it's kosher there's a big sign with a huff can it and we're not certifying this truck and they said no look at the check a little closer and the truth is a little closer they check from the fine print and it said only our packaged items what they did was they probably asked the the manufacturer of this ice cream which is under the cuff K and said oh could you please send us your kosher certificate they did that they made a copy of it and it said just on packaged product so the kosher consumer has a job not to assume that everything is just kosher certified and taken for face value your job is to make sure that you're going into those stores and going into those ice cream trucks or whatever you find and think that it's kosher certified just a double-check and triple-check and say maybe the coach assert is expired coach the certificates expired you know every year because sometimes they conspire every few months because we want the customer and the the Hough kay client or any kosher agency that's how it works is that we want them to constant checks and balances to make sure that everything is in place so we don't give certifications for five years at a shot it's all done on a case-by-case basis to be able to make sure that they're following protocol so if you see a certificate that's expired that could mean either that the company actually doesn't want certification anymore or they lost certification and just don't assume that if it's expired yeah it means that the company is this backlog with secretarial work and they plan on giving it out to them again in the future it's something we always to be concerned about when you're going shopping and see in different supermarkets and grocery stores many people have a question about hard cheese they go through different pizza shops and they see Parmesan cheese and they want to know if they have to wait six hours before they eat meat and that question comes up on a regular basis you're getting a salad with Parmesan cheese if it's sprinkled in and you have to wait six hours now the rabbi speaking about waiting six hours obviously it's brought down in the Talmud and it's brought down the court of Jewish law now technically speaking you wouldn't have to really wait anything because the rabbi's say as long as you wash your mouth out and you have some food in between them if you eat meat you can have dairy after however the Rambam the mamala is maintained you have to wait like six hours because those days the meals are spread out that long and and it takes time for the meat to digest so therefore you have to wait like six hours however there are more emotive issues says not like six hours but you have to wait six hours so many people have the custom of waiting in the fifth hour before eating dairy because that's based in the opinion of the Rambam that says can moyshe choice like six hours but the overwhelming opinion of many of the PI scheme is to wait six hours and the rabbi's felt that you should not change that at any point but if you have a community custom or a family practice to wait less that is what you should follow so the question is how has our work with cheese now the way they aged cheese is that they put it into a cave and add certain enzymes into it that makes it has a heart consistently to it most of the cheeses that come nowadays you won't really find that's being hard cheese and a cheese but Parmesan cheese in order for it to be cold Parmesan cheese it has to be aged now you'll say aged six months and above the Parmesan cheese is usually add more than that the rabbi's felt if you're gonna be ageing the cheese the strong taste in that cheese is very strong and therefore you would have to wait the same you do when you wait six hours after me you would have to wait that length of time after dari a hard cheese as well before eating meat so that's why if you go to a pizza shop and they're using Parmesan cheese you have to wait six hours but there is an opinion of the ADI Hooda and they add you who the hold anytime you take that cheese and you melt it then it loses the sharpness and you wouldn't have to wait six hours some rabbis felt that in that case anyways you should wait six hours but if you're want to be lenient you do have an opinion to be linear on that as long as the cheese is melted you can be lenient and not have to wait the six hour period it happens to be that most pizza shops does not use Parmesan cheese because of the expense that the Parmesan cheese cost and it slice of pizza stead of being two dollars or 250 would be five dollars so some pizza stores don't do charge that price for the Parmesan cheese and others and most pizza stores use mozzarella cheese which is not aged and you will not have to wait six hours at all after eating that product the rabbi's also said in the in the Talmud of Sock'em that you should not mix fish and meat together now some of the Sephardic rabbi is whole that it's not fish and meat as fish and milk that's why you some Sephardic people will not have LOX and cream cheese because you're mixing fish and milk together but for the most part most authorities say it's fish and meat how does that apply to a kosher consumer well obviously now it's gonna get warmer and warmer outside and the barbecues and start heating up soon and people are going to start with sauces on their meat and chicken and some sources have anchovies in it versus aya sauce is a good example they actually have anchovies anchovies is a fish how you lighted to use that on your meat products and the answer is you're not allowed to mix fish and meat together therefore that sauce that has anchovies and that will not be able to be used with your products well how do the kosher agencies give certification the answer to that is there's a dispute in the contemporary opinions whether something which is nullified by sixty times the volume of the product is that considered an issue or not is that considered a danger because the rabbi's say fish fish and meat together cooking it is a danger and we don't want to do dangerous things so the rabbi's felt if it's something which is nullified by sixty times the amount then maybe there's no danger involved so the rabbi's say that if you're gonna use this sauce that has anchovies in it but it's such a minut amount then there's no concern and you will find that rabbis do give the certification on the a product now if you will find the product that says Huff k fish on that sauce that means that there's actually an traveese in there and it's not nullified in 60 times the amount and because of that you should not be using that together with your fish and meat products besides the fact that there's barbecue sauce that it could be an issue sometimes there are in juices that add also a mega 3 which is a fish product by product and therefore you would not be able to eat that at a meat meal now in regards to eating it before after obviously if you're not eating it together with it it wouldn't be an issue now once we're dealing with products that are necessarily to be avoided there are many questions which come up as well in labels if you go to a supermarket you'll see it says on the container may contain anchovies or may contain sardines or fish or shellfish and the question is may contain what does that mean women call me up all the time and they say oh yeah I have a chicken soup and I want to use onions and it says make it ain't traces of dairy make it how am I using this and the chicken soup I say just put it right into the chicken so why because the federal government maintains that any times its parts per million of a product on there of allergen it has to say it on the package and because of that the companies are very careful with allergens and they're going to list it on the actual container because they don't want any how to get in trouble with the FDA but according to a lotta that is completely Parv so if you see any time it says may contain traces of dairy that product is not dairy and you'll see that but because the culture symbol will be power even though you'll see traces of dairy traces of shellfish which is not kosher but its parts per million and the kosher law mandates that there's no concern and you will be able to purchase that one other thing with the packaging before we go on to the last set of questions is D and D now I'm sure all you know that D stands for dairy now D e stands for dairy equipment what is the difference between dairy and dairy equipment to make things simpler we'll visit a muffin facility so take a random muffin muffin facility they're making muffins cookies basic pastries what they do is they'll have dairy in the mix some companies will you powdered milk and some will use real milk most of the companies will use powdered milk because powdered milk last very long it has a long shelf life a won't go rancid regular milk you have to keep in refrigerator and it's more costly so they'll use the powdered milk and they'll be dairy and then they'll put it in the muffin make in the bowl and then they'll put it into a hopper and they'll put it into little molds and you'll have your muffins or your cookies and then the company wants to get certification so the rabbit goes down there and make sure that all the ingredients are kosher and now because there's milk in the product or in the formula you'll have a dairy symbol on the product okay what happens if the company says you know what we have so many people that have dairy but people are allergen and allergic to dairy they don't want dairy so we don't want any dairy in the product we say okay take the dairy ingredient out of the product so they take the dairy out now they want to use the same oven for this other product now whenever you're using an oven and there's heat involved whatever you put in that oven the oven takes on so if it's a dairy product the dairy is the oven now is becomes dairy so if you want to take this product that has no dairy ingredients in the product that's just a using the same oven that is what we call de that's dairy equipment there's no dairy in the product it's a dairy equipment issue they're using the same equipment in order to avoid a dairy equipment issue the company can colorize the oven but how do they do that they call the rabbi and say rabbi we don't want to have any de we want to have power because we know that Jewish people they like eating things with no restrictions and they know that de can't be together with meat so we want to have power of neutral so therefore they call us up and we make sure that all the equipment is washed out well there's 24 hours downtime and once the oven is kosher eyes and any all the equipment is kosher wised then we can have a power of symbol on the product obviously making sure there's no dairy ingredients in the product but companies in order to do that have to be down 24 hours sometimes a little longer because we have to make sure the equipment is washed out well and they don't want to be down because if they're down the machineries or for the machineries off they're not making any money so because of that they say you know what we like the power but it's the course has too much money to be down let's just do de so they stay with the de symbol many times you'll have a kosher agency that has a decimal on the item but really a D but they don't use the de symbol so it's the job of a consumer for example if you see a D symbol on a product most of the times that's actually gonna be dairy because you see they'll say contains milk but if you have questionable whether it's really dairy there's one or two agencies that do not use a de symbol so you have to call them up and say I know you don't use a de symbol is this product really dairy I don't see any milk in there it could it be actually de the huff k actually uses a D symbol so if something does say dairy it's really dairy and if it's de then it's de so getting back to the de for example we have another question that comes up because now if you're waiting six hours from me to Dairy could you have a de product within the six hour waiting period now because we just spoke that there's no dairy in the product you will be able to have the de within six hours and that comes up very very frequently because we certify a lot a lot of Isis companies and manufacturers that do Isis and those Isis are not dairy the dairy equipments if you wanted to have your Isis at the end of a meat meal not together with meat but two at the end now that they will have Isis together with me either but you never know and especially your kids so you will have to eat it after their meat meal and not together with the meat another question which comes up with des that many people are concerned and they only eat milk from a cow that's what we call holidays roll call be strong means the rabbi is actually on the farm visiting and viewing the farm on a regular basis and he lives there perhaps and all the time and he's making sure that the milk coming from the cow is coming from the cow and no other milk is mixed in to that milk and because of that you have Halawa straw but the many many many tens of thousands of people eat huh laughs Tom how if Stan means it's just regular milk what they call about companies much of finding which I'm sure many of you are familiar with you wrote a response that indicating that because the federal government goes to those facilities and those farms making sure that only the cow milk is used there's no need to have a Jewish person seeing the actual milking process as long as you know that there's a Jewish person involved in the milking because you have a rabbis visiting there and you have the government that make sure that there's no milk other than cow milk and the facility therefore he maintained you can rely on the fact that you can drink milk and not have any issue of how Tom and it will be perfectly permitted to drink that and that's why many companies and many people you see symbols that say dairy on it and they're eating dairy and that's not all of this well many times you'll see a product people will call us up and say let's cuff K dairy is a harvest well it's only hobby straw if you see the harvester all indication on the package and because call this raw cost so much more to produce and cost so much money to get it shipped and and have a rabbi dear so therefore most of the products that are generically dairy do not have the holidays royal insignia on there now getting back to de if you're concerned and only have products which are higher status of holidays royal you don't have to worry about de because again there's no issue of milk in there it's there's no milk in the product as the dairy equipment concern so if you want to be stringent and have called we straw in your home whatever it is that's fine but again you could be lenient and have a product that only has an equipment issue on it the last thing I wanted to discuss before we leave room for questions is toothpaste and mouthwash now it's not necessarily generally related to a food product but but it is something which is manufactured and we do put it in our mouth now some rabbis felt that toothpaste should have a certification of why because the way they make toothpaste is the following it used to be that they took chalk that they write on the board you know you remember in the days when you're in school you had chalk and they were on the board and they crushed that chalk up and they added glycerin which could be kosher could be not kosher and they also add different flavors now because the fact that the glycerin wasn't the product but it wasn't there fifty percent of the product the rabbis father beocca of kamenetsky that's all maintained that you could be lenient because it's not a food item and if it's not a food item even though the glycerin in there could be from animals but it's not meant to be eaten and then the glycerin there is below 50% nowadays maybe about eight to nine years ago they changed instead of manufacturing the toothpaste with chalk they use sand hydrated silica which is basically just sand and they put it into it as an abrasive to make sure that you're cleaning your teeth properly and now the glycerin is above fifty percent so now they felt that if it's above fifty percent so it's most of the product is glycerine a non-kosher so they felt that because you're taking into your mouth you should have a kosher symbol on it even if you're gonna spit it out I personally for the last I would say 20 years maybe fifteen years use a product called tom's of Maine I'm not a Salesman for tom's of Maine I don't get any Commission but I gotta tell you it does have a reputable certification on there and it's basically the same stuff the difference between the different toothpastes are not really that large and if it does have a symbol on there and they have many different flavors I felt that I'm taking something in my mouth I wanted to have a symbol but there are rabbis that felt that because it's not a food and you never eat toothpaste is not meant to be eat and then you do not need a certification on toothpaste again it's up to your personal preference if you want to go that route regards the mouthwash is a little different because mouthwash is basically something which you do spit out it's not meant to be swallowed a roll but mouthwash again could be glycerin in there that makes it taste good could come from animals can come from vegetable depends on what's cheaper and because of the fact that the tasting in their mouthwash tastes good it could be from non-kosher again some rabbis felt that even if it's meant to be spit out you are putting it in your mouth again there are times when main products out there that do have mouthwash and I did the taste between certain mouthwash and you really can't tell the difference at all it basically does the same trick but if you want to be lenient again you have those opinions that are lenient when the guards to mouthwash in regards to Listerine pocket tags many people have the question on a regular basis all those ingredients are food ingredients they're meant to be swallowed so much so that you see people and then on the fast day eating them or but during daven in for some reason they're eating Listerine pakka packs obviously it's a food item it's meant to be swallowed so that should have enough scuffle on there and in fact the list 3 packet banks do have an ash gopher and you should only purchase those with a symbol when you're dealing with sprays like Listerine sprays those are not certified and should not be concerned it when dealing with dental floss even if it's mint flavored the mint is very minimal even if we don't know where the mints coming from you will be able to purchase dental floss that does have mint flavour on it there's no concern of that when you're dealing with lip balm so it's interesting they did a study a few years ago that a woman I think can ingest 2 pounds of lipstick and lip balm in their lifetime so even though you put it on your lips you're actually eating that you put it in your bread and now goes into your system so you're consuming that and some rabbis felt that why should you have cherry flavored lip balm when that cherry flavor can have other ingredients in there that are not kosher and now you put it into your system the some rabbis felt that you know you can use other lip balm products like Wipro vaseline or lip balm it doesn't have any other flavors in it if you're putting that in your mouth we want to make sure that whatever you're taking in your mouth is certified and that's the rabbi's felt but obviously if you see people who are not concerned with that they hold that the lip balm is not a food item even though you're putting in your mouth you goes in your body they obviously are lenient the last question which I wanted to deal with we talked before about the 1,400 coaches certifying agencies why are some certifying agencies you know sort of recommended and others are not you do see many rabbis on products and many symbols out there and sometimes we have a question that you know why is this symbol different than other symbols and the truth is I was in the facility about three four years ago as I mentioned before one a part of my job is to solicit other companies to get certified and I asked them and they contact me they said we want to get certified we I met them in a show or something and I asked them when was the last time a rabbi was here you say your coach are certified by a agency and you want to get a reputable certification she said I'm in this facility for 10 years I've never seen the rabbi once so even though they have a certification on the product and they have whatever symbol they have on there and it may resemble some sort of K on there and they're not sure what the case symbol is on there it's very very important to make sure that the symbols that you're buying are reputable certifications because we have an hour facility we have many people who had had certifications and many people that didn't have certifications and they want the different symbols and they said what's the difference between that's them on the other symbol and the difference is that we actually are in the factories on a regular basis we have rabbis sometimes the factories that are there every day depending on the level of you know certification needed in a specific factory you know all the reputable certifications out there actually answer up to rabbinical boards if questions come up there's checks and balances we have office staff you know that it's a serious operation we dealing with trying to put kosher food in your mouth not because it has a Jewish letters or anything on it and coming from different countries does that necessarily mean that the level of certification is going to be the level that you actually want so it's very important that just because you see a symbol on there doesn't mean that that symbol is something which is reputable and something which is actually rabbis visiting facility and that's something to be concerned about when you're going shopping and seeing different symbols on there if you're not sure of a specific symbol obviously you can ask your local docks rabbi when you have these kind of questions so I do appreciate everyone coming out this evening I didn't want to leave the last next few minutes for any questions you may have on kosher or any other kosher law but before I end I do know that there is a number of BJ's Wholesale clubs in the area is that correct yes there's a college point is middle village and we certify the BJ's Wholesale Club we're up to 49 clubs now in eight states thank God we had a lot of help from above to be able to make sure that that's happening and I was the one that sort of got that going and I do have many people that ask me questions on the BJ's Wholesale Club in the beginning and now they're usually accustomed to it so I just wanted to make everyone aware that we do certify the BJ's Wholesale club's make sure to look out for the kosher symbol because again only forty nine out of the 215 clubs are certified so you may be traveling and assume that one club is certified and maybe all them are but that's not that's not the case in addition about six seven months ago I authored my latest book on honesty I realized that there's some people who may have different levels of honesty in the world so I before the High Holidays I published the book because that's when we know that the everyone's money is set from the beginning of the year of how much you'll make so the book is for sale outside for twenty dollars it discusses many of the questions that come up on a regular basis in honesty we are publishing the next volume seven of my series of luckily speaking which I have over three hundred pages on summerhall office which deals with many of the bungalows and the catskill questions but I'm sure you'll see that in the media okay thank you very much and have a wonderful evening now it's time for questions what that's excellent question vitamin mineral supplements there is a discussion amongst authorities whether it's considered a food supplement or you're eating as a medicine if it's a medicine and you're taking it as a capsule there are some that felt that if it's gelatin based then there's so many other varieties like I went last night to the store and I wanted to get an Advil for my daughter exactly but because there are some rabbis that felt that the gel caps on there are not really at a bowl and there's some that felt that you just take the gel cap and put in a thin tissue and then consume it and others felt why do you need the gel cap there's so many other advil products that don't have the gel caps even though their rabbis years ago that permitted gelatin the custom is that in the culture agencies now they won't permit gelatin from non kosher sources and you're dealing with medicines you do have alternatives now when you deal with vitamins and food supplements because of the fact that it is a food supplement and it's in a place of food there are so many different vitamins out there that do have coaches certifications on there literally in the thousands so it's preferable to buy those with the kosher certification on there yeah no 100% does not require any certification there are many products out there that do not require any certification at all and it's a job of consumer to probably research that instead of paying a premium dollar for something that doesn't require a certification but because of the nature of the process is that so simple those things would not require any certification has to be a which is right so exactly dealing with the fact that we're dealing with a factory setting we can't have them going back and forth on a regular basis and certify tens of thousands of products that they're making if it's dairy then it's very but most of the time we tell people if they want to use the same oven even if you're going travelling in the hotel the double wrapper if you double wrap products then it doesn't have any issue because nothing is getting out nothing is going into the product but if you're gonna have it open and then there's residue on the oven and it's just the same oven then rabbis do frowned upon using the same oven if you're not going to take any steps to make sure that it's covered yes so most of the times they will put Parv on it at the time isn't they don't they might say a certification with a peon it may be it indicates that it's Passover in addition many of the companies when they pay for the plates the kosher certifying plates there's more money involved if you're dealing with the regular symbol and every letter costs money so the companies will say you know what if we're just gonna put the regular symbol on it and that'll be enough for people to buy it and they'll know that it's non-dairy because there also will say dairy then that's why they opt out of that indication on yeah it's about brown EPS in a supermarket at some time that's outside get the shell and sometimes right so eggs so eggs those are brown spots which the rabbi's felt are not considered the same as Blatz Blatz Blatz the rabbi speak about it and I said because eggs now are so cheap if you do see a blood spot an egg you should throw it out and not use it but that was only concern years ago when they used to you know fertilize the eggs and nowadays it's not the case the egg is not good that you see in his market is not going to end up being a chick so that's why they felt that those blood spots in the eggs it's preferable in any case just to throw those out right so those are brown spots those are fine but as far as regular blood spots and eggs those to the rabbi's felt when you do buy the eggs in supermarkets yes two questions one is about you cook like if we if you have somebody who you wanted to cook say chicken on Friday afternoon when you know Chavez died Charlie would be okay her life for me to put the oven on and say in the morning when she comes all cooking a potato in the of it later on could you just increase the temperature so that's a good question it happens to be I wrote extensively on this lock them we didn't have time to discuss every detail of it but basically lock them as long as the Jewish person is involved in the cooking somewhat so if the Jewish person is a non-jewish person for example puts the product on the fire right and then the Jewish person is actually stirring it somewhat as long as he has some sort of handle in the cooking process so if you wanted to put the oven off for them for example oh yes that's considered the Jewish person had a hand in it's not like the cooking was done by the non-jews you know from beginning to end the Jewish person put the oven on the coop product was cooking more than a third of the product already and therefore that's fine you can do that options but what what if you want to take a supplement that has a gel of gelatin capsule yes there are OSHA certified ones but what if the one you want that has medical ingredients on is the one that is a capsule can you I mean there are rabbis that would permit that kind of capsule but again you are in a situation where you're taking it as a food supplement so where I've done in the past when that was you know maybe a few years ago when I had to have that was I just took a thin tissue and wrapped in it and swallowed it as it as that therefore at least you're at least yeah you swallow your swallowing it the thin tissue with the actual pole this way this way even though you're not eating it you're not eating the product but still you had an added measure of not eating something which is from animals yes okay just to clarify so you were allowed to have non flavored coffee at a Dunkin Donuts so the Dunkin Donuts would be permitted Starbucks there are some rabbis that are you know on the fence with it because of the fact that they do use the coffee products in the same dishwasher as the ham and the sandwiches but depends on the u.s. there are some that are lenient with regular just regular coffee even at a Starbucks once you get more complicated with the kinds of drinks and the different mixes and the and the whipped creams and things like that then things get a little more complicated just yeah that'll have the same thing as the coffee yes so even though something is gluten-free doesn't mean it's kosher for Passover because the gluten in the product is taken out but there could be other components in there that might not meet the Passover requirement so even though if you have a manufacturer that's completely gluten-free that would not make it kosher for Passover yes right you ever do have this printout usually of once kosher normally it's also kosher for Passover without needing any other clarification we don't necessarily have that kind of list but again if the manufacturer depending on what they produce sometimes the way they produce it is just kosher for all year round Passover not Passover so that's why they do come over with the list but we generally tell people to look for the kosher for Passover symbol on products but the other agencies that do come up with those lists you know they go the extra mile with trying to you know make sure that whatever they're producing throughout the year it does have the kosher Passover status throughout the year yes so there's different levels of milk there's there's sometimes you'll find people that don't eat regular theory because they want the holidays well level of dairy which means the rabbi is on the farm making sure that that cow milk is going into the container and nothing else but then there's obviously the probably the masses of people that do not have their extra requirement and don't have this regular dairy now if you're having regular dairy that's assuming that there's a kosher symbol obviously on the cookie on the muffin because you have to have a kosher symbol on those items now if you're going into a area where you want to go to get a milk at a local Target whoever it is and it doesn't have a symbol on the milk even though there are vitamins in there the rabbi's do feel that you can just buy milk because milk is one of those things which are generically kosher certified if you're not having that higher level of kosher no ice cream can have enzymes and most of fires and things in there that couldn't it's not just milk you know it's other ingredients in the ice cream so just regular ice cream would have to be kosher certified this it would take a little longer to explain that maybe after the lecture is done there are many people who do eat the ocean throughout the year and that it's something which has to do with the grain and when it's planted and when it takes root and when they take it out I did write extensively on that as well I could refer you to that article yes when I when I got that gives there I've got a given place I got say a restaurant so there's different ways that like whether or not they allow ya to work in the store correct yes you're not so generally when you're dealing with hash khakha in restaurants is the way it works is that the rabbi in Kiev that works there is called a working mascara because of the fact that the mosquito may have to wash the vegetables and be very active throughout the day there's not much to do there unless they're working mosquito so a lot of times we call working my scutum is there washing the vegetables doing everything for cashiers but also you know dealing with whatever manage rules things that the you know the owner the manager quest of them and this way it affords them the price to pay for Makia to be able to do his kosher work as well so I wanted to thank everybody for listening and again the safer an honesty is outside for purchase for $20 and everyone have a wonderful you [Music] [Applause]