Kosher Fish Issues - Rabbi Shlomo Cohen

[Music] welcome to a short series of shearing that they're going to be doing on the subject of casuals in these shearing we're going to talk about some very simple problems and we're going to go on to talk about to much more complicated problems of cash word that can arrive in every home in every kitchen some of the things are going to be saying and you talk about it going to be it's very simple to some of you and some of them may not be so if you find that what I'm talking about today in this first shoe which I'm going to talk about fish are things that you know then you can just skip on to the second year and you've made find something there that is more interesting for you but first I want to talk about very very simple questions of cash words what about fish can you buy fish anywhere other were the problems that can come up with buying fish we know that the signs of a kosher fish that has Al gave us are the Torah gives us are that they have two signs they have fins and they have scales anything that has fins and scales is a kosher fish now it actually comes out that while there are fish that have fins but don't have scales there is nothing that has scales but doesn't have fins so if you're going to go into a shop even a non kosher shop that is selling fresh fish and you can see the scales on the fish the meat of the Fisher still has scales on it then you can know that that is a kosher fish and you'd be able to buy that fish if you're going to be taking the fresh fish home and cutting it up at home in your own kosher kitchen then there's certainly no problem with buying the fish maybe you need to give it a rinse before you cut it up at home because it might have been lying next to non kosher fish in the shop but generally there shouldn't be any problem if you're buying a fresh fish you see the scales you can take it home and cut it up and eat it as you like the problem comes when you're gonna either you want the shop keeper to chop it up for you to fillet the fish for you to take out the bones or you're buying processed fish which has already been cut up in a factory if you can't see the scales on the fish then without a reliable heck sure you certainly can't buy it because there are so many types of fish so many types of things in the sea that are not kosher and if you can't see the scales you can't rely on the fact that it the shop owner is telling you that yo yes it was a kosher fish it had scales on it before so you need to see the scales but the problem is as I said where the ship fish has already been cut up so we're going to have a problem of the knife that was used to cut the fish up what's the problem with the knife while we can presume that the knife that the fishmonger is using was not used to cut out meat with because he's a fishmonger so each professional uses his knife for his own profession he wouldn't be using his knife to go and cut up meat that we can presume and even if he did bring a meat sandwich to eat in his fish shop we would presume that he wouldn't use his professional cutting knife to cut up the meat cut up his meat with it but what about the non kosher fish that he's been cutting up in his shop the shellfish the all sorts of strange sea creatures that people eat nowadays what what about all those things so we have a rule in cash root metal absorbs the metal absorbs where there's heat where you heat something up where a metal knife was used to cut hot meat for example then it certainly absorbs inside the metal the taste of that meat but here in the fish shop everything that's been cut up is cut cold so as far as taste of shellfish and non kosher fish absorbed inside the metal of the knife that's not a problem and not only that also the fish that is going to be cutting up for you is a fish that is cold so as far as a taste of non kosher fish being absorbed inside the metal blade of the knife there's probably no problem but there's another problem with knives there are two problems with knives one is the first problem of what's absorbed inside and that's only where it was used hot but there's another problem even where the knife is used cold because of the pressure when you cut with a knife so the the fact of whatever it is you're cutting get stick get stabbed there's a very very fine even microscopic layer of fat from whatever it is you can't that sticks to the blade of the knife that does not come off unless you scrub with steel wool with cleaning with cleaning materials right just to wash that blade under the water is not going to get off the fat of the non-kosher fish that is that is stuck to it the only way to get it off is to scrub it to scrub it with a little bit of washing lap washing up liquid and steel wool or some other one of the other scotch things that you use there using the kitchen to clean the to clean the utensils that's the only way to get it off in fact has I'll tell us that the way to get off this fat that's stuck to a knife is by sticking it in hard ground ten times each time in a different place that pressure that pressure that scrubbing pressure on the blade of the knife that can get off this fat that's going to be stuck to the knife now so what if the fat is stuck to the knife so let's just clean off the place where I can't that's not going to be good enough either because they'll tell us that when when you now use that knife which has fat from something non kosher that to it when the pressure of you cutting the fit that whatever it is you're cutting in our case it's going to be the fish the pressure of that is going to cause that the fat is going to come off not just on the outside of where you cutted the fish but it's going to even be absorbed a little bit inside to the fish or whatever it is you're cutting like the same would apply if you're using a milk and knife that you just cut cheese with and you're going to use it and you use it to cut meat with even if everything is cold you're going to have exactly the same problem as I was explaining now right you can't did that the sky in the fish shop used this knife to cut non kosher fish there's a layer of thin layer of fat of these fish which is stuck to a knife now he uses that same knife to cut and fillet your kosher fish the pressure of the night is going to cause that fat to be absorbed inside the meat of the fish how much is it absorbed has now tell us it's absorbed what's called the width of Appeal could a clipper the width of Appeal that would mean the width that you could cut off and it would stay whole and not crumble up well you're talking about less than a centimeter maybe half a centimeter the amount that you can cut off and it will stay home so if I just cut here my fish into to a piece of position to to you'll have to take off a sliver of the fish on each side with a kosher knife when you get home right if you were to buy that fish in a non kosher fish shop and the fishmonger were to use his knife to cut the fish into slices for you so when you get home you're going to have to cut off a sliver enough that's appeal the width that will stay whole from everywhere where he cut because when he cut the pressure of the knife the pressure he used caused that fat that was stuck to the knife to be absorbed inside the meat of the fish now if you just had your fish sliced out so maybe you can do that but if you had in fillet your fish from one side to the other if you try and cut off from that a sliver all the way along the whole thing you're not going to be left with much fish that's the problem of buying fresh fish in a non kosher fish shop and having the the owner of the shop the worker in the shop cut up the fish for you there's another problem apart from the knife that the other problem part from the night is the cutting board the cutting board that he's using to cut on that also of course is going to have all sorts of pieces of leftovers and fat of the non kosher fish on it and so that it felt that's also going to be a problem it was interesting I heard from a student that he was told that when he go when you go to buy fish he should take along with him his own cutting board and his own knife and give that to the owner of the shop but ask him if he can cut up his fish fillet his fish on his own on this on that chopping board and with with with the guy's knife that's a perfect solution that'll definitely solve the problem but if you can't do that or if you've got a disagreeable fishmonger who won't do that for you if he if you know that he's going to clean the knife properly you make sure you watch that he cleans the knife and scrubs it and he's using a fresh cutting board then there's no problem but if not then there is certainly going to be a problem with buying even a fresh fish from a remote from a shop one other problem that we can have with fish is fish eggs fish eggs can be very very tasty right there caviar one of the tastiest foods in the world but the problem is that there are many types of fish eggs that come from non kosher fish so in order to be able to end and of course when you look at a fish egg you can't tell whether it comes from a kosher fish or from a non kosher fish so unless you know you saw or you know that those eggs come from a kosher fish you wouldn't be able to eat them unless you have a good texture on them that's almost all you need to know about fish thank you