Summer 2014 Kosher Preparations (06/25/2014)

hello and welcome to Stark's monthly webinar we're here in the star main offices in fville Maryland Baltimore Maryland I'm Rabbi Goldberg to my right is Rabbi barer joining us once again for the webinar these webinars are archived and the the archive information was in the email that you got it's at kosher class.org and it's also at our Vimeo Channel and YouTube as well if you want to call in uh let's say you're uh driving it's not convenient to look at your computer screen here's the number 1203 uh R Chapman could you put that down on the chat 1203 and it's passcode 2020 uh in case or if if you have some trouble hearing us over the uh over the internet you can give a call in and uh listen on the phone we'd like to hear from you again 1203 passcode 2020 we'd like to hear from you you can chat at the bottom of your screen a matter of fact going to make that chat uh that chat bigger right now so it will be easier to see okay there we go if you can hear us please uh just a couple of people could just chat with us that you can hear us and that way we know that the sound is getting out and the video is getting out also okay Rafal says that we're good and uh we are good to go okay um just as another uh reminder this is we're going to take off for the summer this is our summer kosher prep Rabbi buer and then we go on vacation but not really we're busy in the summer uh in and and on the on the date that we would have the next webinar we have paid vacation paid vacation sure for two months is this okay um we have we have a we have two weeks of of uh seminars of training seminars in kers from July 21st till the end of the month two separate weeks programs for rabbis and M and so that's really that really keeps us busy at that time and we'll reconvene the last Wednesday of August God willing um so let's talk about what uh what does a person need to do to get ready for summer he needs to have his Slurpees and I see R buer has a that's for you this flavor is actually not Kosher they can treat me right is this flavor kosher this is what looks like Coca-Cola flavor looks like this is actually Coca-Cola Coca-Cola flavor that's that's always an always kosher flavor it is kosher okay amen okay um I think that's the first slurpie I've had in years um so we do have a a kosher Slurpee list uh that's the new one's going to be up online uh should be today and so it's a great time people go to 7-Eleven for their sles in the summer the kids I can't tell you how often my kids are telling me let's stop for for a Slurpee so I notic this one thing about that I was yeah what was it just happened just happened when I went to get this slurpie okay so I went to the local 7-Eleven M you know up the okay down the corner over there anyway so um so I go in there and I was actually looking for a diet slurpie that's the truth and they had a diet Slurpee it was um watermelon uh I forgot already watermelon something okay sugarfree whatever now they also had Coca-Cola and they had some other standard brand I don't know whatever it was spread something like that now that's 7-Eleven which is local here to the community so they have on their you know pasted on there it says kosher kosher kosher did not say kosher on the diet one we don't we don't super we don't certify we don't supervise but they do it for their for the for the customers did not say kosher and I did not have the handy dandy slurpie list okay so I wasn't sure I wasn't going to spend a buck 25 on something that wasn't kosher and then come and drink it and then and and then and then lose out on on that you know excellent prop of drinking it on on the you know on the show so I had to settle for the one that has sugar in it but if I would have had the list I would have found that that it actually is kosher that that diet one that diet one is some of the diet ones are dairy right or used to be some of them are D some of the slurp and well yeah because the sugar substitute the diet Pepsi had a tagos ingi right some still is that still the case uh I think so um I'm not sure okay AB can tell us um if he's listening but um that's just that's a from Rabbi sharp from the CRC who joins us on the webinars but they put together also I don't know exactly how it works they put together slippy list together with you you work together yeah CRC in Chicago and Rie berer put together the uh the it's really it's independent but we kind of uh share notes I noticed here on the on this list that's up there now R it says 7eleven slurpie list flavor syrups it doesn't say slurpie list in other words so you could expl I the new list say slurpie flavors so so okay but what was the original intent with the Slurpee syrups right that we're not actually saying that we're not actually saying that the slurpy star is certifying slur in America right that you get in your cup is actually certified under the K that's not the case what we're saying is that we've reviewed the kosher certif certificates goer certifications for all of the concentrates or syrups that are used by the 7-Eleven around the country to you know in in the slurpie machines and we're saying that those flavors are the syrups as as they are produced manufactured corre now you have to have some way of knowing or trusting or figuring out that what it's to the sign really matches the flavor that is on the list and sometimes the best way to do that is to go around to ask them permission to go around and look right the other side yeah yeah so or or uh or or maybe you don't need to do that I mean that's always been a a little bit of a gray area yeah 7-Eleven most 7-Elevens I don't think would let you do that um but some will there is also the concept that really they don't want to switch it because uh the 7-Eleven uh um Administration doesn't like if they don't use what they're saying that they're using right 7-Eleven management according to the franchise laws requires them to use certain things right similar to when you go to a soda fountain let's say you go to a uh same concept you go to a soda fountain um in uh people go out to a lounge or whatever a hotel or something and they're sitting and they order a certain soda right you know you don't really can't really guarantee that that's what it is but it's probably good enough right I mean we're not certifying it per se that's what I'm trying to say right I mean we did find I mean there have been cases where the 7-Elevens have not used um the as advertised s they unusual well we had a situ I've heard of a situation where um in the Summer where where's where that's where they sell the majority of the Slurpees um they ran out of a particular flavor and they couldn't get get one in quick enough so they did use some off brand and I don't remember exactly what it was or whether it was kosher or not but I think it might have been kosher anyway but the point is that it's not a guarantee but it's a there's a strong likelihood that that it is what they what they say it is Abe says that um it is a fanther product I think he means the watermelon a the watermelon that you're talking about is the watermelon uh diet is indeed kosher and Par yes so um after the show you're going to go back in and you can you can get one um Josh is asking what about non- koser residue which is which is the other issue with the curpes is that when they switch flavors they don't always keep the same right um machine it doesn't always come out of the same uh spout so even though it may say a kosher flavor on it it's possible that prior to that they were using right that kosher and and Josh says is is it btle meaning is it nullified probably so that's probably yeah usually that's one of the things that we say right the slurpie concerns of non kosher are not that first of all great we've said in the past that there's um um there's there isn't much slurpie in the actual slurpee machine okay there's only about four large cups worth of Slurpee okay held in that machine at any one time so there's a big turnover uh during the day so more than likely you're not going to and and the overwhelming majority of slurpie flavors are poer talking about it must be there's more than 100 for sure more than 100 slurpy flavors available um and the ones that are are not Kosher are maybe half a dozen or less so the likelihood of you finding a non- kosher one is is Slim um and there's also two Dairy Flav out there so that could theoretically be a problem also but again since the turnover is great and uh and there is the concept of it being nullified um it would only be maybe in the first cup that's uh that's being served after the after the non kosher flavor so most people that we talk to are comfortable uh using it if a person is not comfortable and wants to go to a higher level that that there is some sense to that you know of of I know of a one one one of my Rabbi friends he only drinks the Coca-Cola because he feels that that's you know not something that's switched around too much and it's always going to be they always have to have Coke so he feels comfortable I told people that that if they don't know then they can stick with the standard you know the Coca-Cola that's usually fine um uh Scott says at night I'm not sure what that means at night mean when there's not a turnover possibly oh because people aren't buying maybe okay okay the bottom line is that the concerns are not that not that uh frightening um here you you wrote originally that twizzle strawberri is not Coos certified until fur the not that's still true I think that's still true yeah there's a what is in the twiz Twizzler strawberry there's something called monster black horata Ole okay I'm probably pronouncing that wrong but there's an orange bang smoothie a monster black which is an energy drink Slurpee energy drink Slurpee okay so you going to again all right talk about non-healthy and the trapic Tropicana grape wild strawberry which at this point is not uh is not Kosher um and there's a couple of the yo cream Jolly Rancher flavors which are which are dairy mhm your is asking is this only for 7-Eleven slurpie of any such Slushy machines well uh we have also some information about Royal Farms right so we have information about you have to look into each each Royal Farms and Real Farms which is a local Maryland franchise uh serves a slurpie like drink that call slushies they don't buy 7-Eleven slurpie flavors right they buy different well 7-Eleven basically buys flavors from Coca-Cola and Fanta so so it's possy also buys the same flavors of Coca-Cola and fanto I see so they're they're pretty much the same the same product um there's another there's another widely uh distributed brand called ices mhm um which is also most of them are certified by the U the flavors for the ices mhm okay um right Adam is saying if there are only four big cups where are the rest they seem to be able to supply more than four cups no they keep they keep I mean at a time in the machine and then as it empties so then they it refills it refills and it it gets gets slushy so fast yeah well that's the science behind the uh the machine that was this the so when the when you go and it's not ready there's a light on the thing something it's not ready solidifying I suppose there's some sort of a chemical and and scientific reaction that happens with the getting it down to a certain temperature that you'll get it at that slushy State not completely Frozen but you know like slush um that's the the the uh we want we wanted to mention a little bit about shaved ice you go you you know you go sometimes to a park or somewhere and you see them selling um shaved ice mhm with flavorings on it so usually these places do not have any certification at all right uh meaning there's no we used to have one star k I think we might still be doing it but a local a local uh just pass actually on the way to 711 one of ours no just okay just someone selling shave D shaved D so um you know we feel that if you check the flavors that are being added um and many of the flavors are going to be koser certified then that would be okay you're basically you're your own Mash right and again the concerns with flavors and anosha are not that great that we should worry about maybe they're pouring you know into this bottle from a different bottle and all sorts of Tricks we're not that concerned with that I wanted to open up just a little can of worms um while we were on the 7-Eleven not not too bad um and um and that is the people call about iced coffee um in the summer um so I I I have checked out in the past we have checked out with 7-Eleven uh who certify if the iced coffee that's being sold at the 7-Eleven stores is kosher and they did Supply us with um kosher certificates uh saying that those flavors actually were kosher certified um by the by the circle U uh for the most part so that's something else that thewhere this iced coffee in 7-Eleven at least is made similar in concept to Slurpee in that it's it's a bag in the box kind of a machine where they get a a bag or a box of concentrate put it in the back of the machine and then it's coffee do we recommend that people check out the box just like or more than required more sure that I think it would be in the same same level as a as far as as a slurpie goes so if you don't check out slur to see anything on the box if you check it I see um I mean I can tell you the names of the well actually maybe I can't tell you that but um okay that might be proprietary R Secrets but 7-Eleven police will be here surely yeah I mean we can double check on that people can call us but as far as I know the 7-Eleven ice coffees uh should be okay don't recommended yes no maybe I'll go out of the limb here and say that you could you could drink them okay there you go um Ron is saying that there's an intermittent freeze up of the video not of the slurpy if anybody else is having some trouble please let us know uh it seems that mostly everybody else is okay Alba Alba is from Spain there she goes she joins us from Spain she says her shot is a liquid squeezed out of tiger nuts which is very which is a very sweet small potato like Tu oh that's which may look like milk but has no Dairy that cha yeah I'm probably hor however I pronounce it okay thank you in in Spain the tradition was to give this liquid to babies who were having milk tolerance problems is that the one you said was Dairy that was one I said it wasn't kosher oh that one's not Kosher okay fine her or okay yeah um you is asking what's the difference if they change from flavors from non- kosher to kosher isn't everything cold so there would be no absorption into the utensils that's true but you have actual residue of the old flavor possibly going new that was the that was the they don't clean it out they the reservoir there's no time to stop and close down the machines you know they told us that they don't even they prefer not to because kids like it um on the west coast there a question here about Circle C I'm not sure what that question is uh we once encountered that the flavor in the machine was not the same as post okay that can happen from time to time it's rare ice coffee may have St issues is the ice coffee I was not discussing you're correct ice coffee could have we always have to point out because we are the star k correct we have this big sign over here that that the star k only certifies I apologize for is uh we do have work with the Young Israel National Council of Israel to certify non under the stard D but yeah yes and the dairy slurp are also all the dairy Slurpees and everything Dairy we discuss so far is not um so if a person is is is worried about that they should uh stay away um Abe says if possible in some of the small gas station type stores once you try to check the actual bag in box to see if is kosher so I assume that's ab's recommendation that the smaller stores are not that they're not that concerned about what you know the uh so the you know what would go wrong if right correct I agree with that and I just want to point out though that I've that I have heard recently from the OU that when we say check it that it's kosher what we're basically saying is make sure that the flavor is the flavor that they're advertising you're not going to necessarily and more likely than not see as koser symbol on the bag or the Box because they just don't put them there okay so you're just looking to see that that's the flavor that they're advertising uhhuh okay Rafal says Circle K is a chain of convenience stores similar to 7even okay I thought this was the certification one track mine R my buber like kous all the time cous isn't that's why we're here aren we okay okay um gotta get out more often um so is it similar to the 7-Eleven we didn't we check out we didn't check out the the Circle K convenience stores no I would imagine that if they're advertising Coca-Cola flavors and fany flavors that it should be I would imagine we uh we would have to check into that yeah um so we did we did the slurp the sh ice what about W smoothies yeah any of these convenience smoothies okay so right so our engineer is asking about Wawa smoothies again smoothie is not a slurpie though is it smooth a smoothie you mean something like a like a fruit smoothie fruit smoothie we're we talk about fruit fruit things also but we can talk about that now I guess fruit smoothies if a Wawa smoothie is fruit smoothie and R Goldberg can I guess comment on this also mean fruit smoothies have other issues um to deal with I don't know anything about Wawa smoothies off about my head depends what else they add really right well depend what's in it if there's juices and in it uh especially grape juice obviously that would be a problem we get the question about people who want to go and have um if they they want to go to a juice bar let's say and they have orange juice oranges that are squeezed into juice is that is that question I I usually tell people of course uh if you're in Israel you it's different you need to take Jas need to tithe it um as a matter of fact I remember once getting off a plane in Tel Aviv and I was looking at one of the the the cafes there for something to to purchase and uh everything was opened and it didn't have the certifications that I was looking for and I said oh you know what I'll just I'll just buy an Apple you know and I said no I can't buy I can't buy an Apple I mean I could buy it but I would have to tithe it after after a whole trip on the plane I wasn't ready to start taking my Meers um so let's say in in the US or elsewhere outside of Israel you go to a juice bar and you want to buy an orange juice I usually tell people that they can be their own Mas they can if they see that that's you know what it is you see it's set up for oranges and he's they usually do it right in front of you they just put the oranges in right and if if you use one of these um you go to these places where they they uh they juice the different things in in the machine right they just like throw out a whole piece of celery and and it comes out you know juice or liquid um I would imagine that would be more of a problem because you would have to worry about maybe there's grapes stuck in the uh Machinery possibly saying if they sometimes do if sometimes do grapes that that that could be an issue I I didn't think about that but the uh the uh sometimes people want to get a juice like a vegetable juice what about right where they're they're using buggy bug issues right there bug issues and strawberries too and strawberries too so um our policy is star itself would not C never certify something like that that didn't check the vegetables and the fruits we would never certifi however for an individual if your intent is not to um nullify the bugs by by uh putting them through the Smoothie then then it's okay to buy in other words you just want a smoothie and this is the process it's in in in in terms it's called your intent is not to not to nullify it but you should know that this bug is going to be in your in your so even at home even at home it could work on yes there are some if anybody wants to know the details about that you can certainly call us we have a statement that we can read to you about exactly how to do it but um again star would never certify such a thing um okay so let's move on to soda RAB buyer I was looking at your soda list I was looking at your soda list and I see that there are some Dairy sodas or dairy right yeah there might be there might be a few um there's certainly not many Phantom non yeah Banana Split blue vanilla P colada I never would have thought even to look for for a dairy uh you know Mark on on it yeah let me ask you a question some of on your list some of the things some of the items State when bearing the certification when bearing OU and some don't can you explain to us what's the difference when do I need to look for the certification and when not so you're you're getting into into slightly murky little bit murky Waters here but um soda Waters corny joke but anyway the um the the OU policy generally is to only put the U symbol on bottles that are bottled under the OU certification um and since the way that the soda industry is set up in this country and in all countries um is that the the companies that do the bottling are farflung right they're not necessarily centered in Jewish areas so some of the bottlers will be actually under certification while some of the bottlers will not necessarily be so so you might have a you know a bottler and some out of the way place which those is not certified but they're but they maybe have a contract with Coca-Cola or Pepsi or whatever the case may be and they are allowed to produce those products so what we're basically saying with the list is if we say it needs a symbol then more than likely you'll find a symbol if we say it doesn't need a symbol then sometimes you won't find it sometimes you will um the question really is can you drink Coca-Cola let's say for example without a symbol um or could you drink pepsicola or Sprite or whatever the case is um that's a that is a good question and that's one that we've posed you're talking about in America yeah right now thought there's no I thought there's no problem so we've always said we've always said Coca-Cola without a symbol right but part of this part of we've always said it's no problem is this something new no oh the OU will will not officially tell you that right but we've always said that because we know the process and we know that there's nothing that goes on at the Bott level right that will be a problem we have assumption that this that the that the um concentrate that they're using is actually Coca-Cola U which I think is a a fairly uh valid assumption okay because they're contracted with Coca-Cola um let's give another example the star k certifies um a brand of soda called Jones Soda which you might as well plug since we're on the staras show um if you're looking for a good unusual soda for Jones and they um they produce at a number of different bottlers independent bottlers around the country um we visit those bottlers on a regular basis but we're not always there so and those bottlers could be bottling for for a dozen different companies in addition to Jones so how do we know that the cola the Jones Cola is really the Jones Cola and it's not this maybe they substituted it for the cola from uh you know instead of Jones they substit from Goldberg's Cola or whatever the case may be buyer Cola and the answer to that is is that it's it's a s it's a thought a logical thought that the company is required by contract with the person asking for them to bottle to use the product that they sent to them Jones make sure that the Jones flavors are sent to this bottler right so so the bottler has it's in the bott's interest to use what the customer wants if Mr Jones opens a bottle of kumquat soda which I think they have um and tries it and it doesn't taste like kumquats are exactly like he wants it then they're in trouble so that's what we basically go on and the same thing with plastic Coca-Cola so even though someone's not necessarily visiting the plant we're assuming that they're using so that is that is still our assumption right we do not require I I I I I noticed that the that the required symbol was on things I think are bottled hot that's what I thought that's another issue right like the I te that's more into iced tea the Iced Teas and the nectar and certain IC teas certain fruit drinks are bottled hot which means they're pasteurized in the process and those definitely need a c definely they need to kosher the equipment before they produce correct correct they need to caser it correct so and there's there's also a little bit of a rule of thumb with that I mean usually if if a if a premium tea is the kind that they usually bottle hot MH U which means that they they want to try and and sell it with um a clean label with a little bit little on the label as possible so as we look at it it'll just say ingredients uh tea water and uh you know sugar or something like that um they don't want to have preservatives on the label so those are usually hot they want to do that hot so that way they can I see it will be no necessity to the preserv is because the heat will kill whatever germs there's no preser no no additional ingredients yeah but the premium tees the Arizona te's the honest te's those kind of teas are usually bottled hot the brisk tees the lipin tees generally generally are um are about cold okay let's take some of the questions here um Jonathan's asking about uh readers that stores that are uncertified starc does certify some of the readers stores the ones that uncertified um best to call here at 41484 4110 speak to RAB kurzfeld he handles those the reita stores um we said the Reas itself yeah the actual Ras the basic Reas ice cream I think we said all along was um the mixes were kosher they are they are made kosher the question is what about in the stores that that use them um Yehuda says in New York City there are many stands that sell cut up fruit can one purchase these cut up fruits the question is what else do they what else do they cut um is it just a fruit if it's just a Fruit Stand um I think you can be comfortable uh buying buying at a Fruit Stand their knives if it's a Fruit Stand they they should have special Europe is one of the few places where you can go a whole store special knives dedicated for fre the problem with the knives comes in when you have in a supermarket where they have a meat section have fruit section and we're not sure exactly which knife they're using uh I would caution you though that uh there are some fruits that have bugs like we've been discussing like strawberries but one of the later uh discoveries is that pineapples also have have mites on them and we had a whole webinar you can find that on our Vimeo Channel um about about we showed you how to cut it properly that that the mites uh don't but there are real there real issues now with pineapples at least currently uh uh Abe is saying that some of the key kiosks the juice kiosks they add some flavored water so you cannot assume it's just plain water coming out of the spout that's interesting the consumer should check as have as as you have mentioned they need to be their own Mas okay that's interesting that the water is already pre-fl flavored uh so I guess you would have to check that out find out whether or not the water is is is uh pre- flavored it's pre-f flavored or not um also we have if you're in New York City you have the cop pod issue that you want to make sure that the cop pods are filtered out the little bugs that are in the New York City water can you address Josh wants to know the purchase of Coca-Cola and Pepsi while traveling outside the US it's $664,000 question we'd rather not address it we know that everybody drinks it but we're not sure why um because the the OU does not officially sanction the Coca-Cola syrups outside of the US Mexico Canada where is it the last time we checked this out Isel Israel last time we checked this uh which was a while ago we were told by the OU people at the OU that um they don't certify out that they obviously they only certifi with as a symbol and I was basically kind of recommended that if it's in a a country where it's where there's a a strong kosher presence then more than likely that local place that local VOD or local agency would be so what this countries we had Canada US Mexico England and Israel I think was that it yeah officially so theoretically if you're on a plane from uh from wherever from Spain to uh wherever and you buy giving your Coca-Cola official the official ow you position is that you wouldn't risk I think I think that's our official position too because we don't want to say more than the I'm not talking for Rabbi harlap who's the certifier for Pepsi but Pepsi has told us in the past um when I spoke to them about it that um that Pepsi all over the world is the same MH I don't think Coca-Cola makes that claim okay so it's uh so the official OU position on Coca-Cola we stated and star k can't say more than that the Pepsi is okay um wherever so I think the more westernized the country the safer you probably are I wonder if because of this webinar Pepsi will see up in their sales worldwide um okay you who do wants to talk about the Coca Cola Freestyle machines where they have 100 flavors oh that's very interesting and we we right where you can mix and match into that yeah all the flavors of kosher yes it's a very interesting thing it's very Hightech um you can I think it's I forgot already how many different combinations you can possibly have but you can you can kind of pick and choose your your combinations of soda uh you can have like you know cherry flavored soda or cherry flavored Sprite or Sprite flavored Cola all these different different weird things but the interesting thing about it is that it's designed in such a way that the the canisters or whatever it is that that go into the back of the machine are are copyrighted and they're only made to fit into that machine by Coca-Cola themselves so it's impossible impossible to get an off brand you can't you can't forge you can't fake it beautiful and the OU stands behind all the flavors that are available in those machines so those are the Coca-Cola Freestyle machines where they have them I have never seen one a lot of stores have it like you'll see it in some Target stores have it like that was also very interesting and it's very Hightech is that the machine itself I guess this has done wirelessly or something but it it notifies the distributor when it's running low of of a certain I see flavor okay um we do have a question about coffees that yood is asking um and I believe that uh that you you emailed this question as well can one purchase flavored coffees if the store has Noh but the flavors themselves right that come in the bottle have H on the bottle um and the answer is the flavors the flavors are added to the to the well that's the question that's the old Starbucks question and so if it's Starbucks we have a separate issue and there how wash if all you're talking about is is the co the coffee is kosher and they're just taking the flavor and adding it you have black coffee black coffee and a flavor then that's not a problem right we do parenthetically we're referencing the Starbucks issue which is that they wash the cffs some of them wash right in in that you can that information you can find on our website but um yud is giving us the the URL for the the Coca-Cola statement um oh really oh really let's see what that is let's open that up let's see what that says there what does it say okay looks like it's taking too long because in this day and age you have bad it's too long we lost this did we lose the picture oh there's a picture back okay um we'll take a look at that afterwards about a little window on your chat and Sh the the is yeah could do that yeah okay now let's we want to move on because there's so many topics that we um that we promis to talk about I think we bid off more than we can Cheo your is asking is there no problem of residue left from the previous bottling if if you have a CO a a a soda bottler the answer is no there is no residue they don't want to mix the flavors they wash it out it's all cold it's that that has never been any any any problem at all if it's cold if the if the soda is prob cold we've never found any cautious problem with that at all um we did have another question about uh we we we invited open Line questions right so we got a question that has to do with traveling that I wanted to share with our listeners um and the question is about transporting a safe for Torah a Torah scroll many camps are transporting Tes by plane train bus and automobile our camp wraps the Torah in the Talis and then in the duffel bag and carries the Torah onto the plane can the Torah be put in the overhead bin um can it be placed as luggage underneath can it be put in the trunk of a car should you buy a separate seat for it uh so the the questions uh that were presented to us so I spoke to one of our one of our uh local Baltimore sofin um I'm not sure if he wants to be quoted so I'll leave it I'll leave his name out but he said what he does the the best thing to do when he's transporting a turist scroll scroll on a plane he said he's done this many times is that he takes off the The Wooden po that hold the toret he he unravels it he removes the scroll from that that he puts underneath the plane he boxes it nice and he puts it underneath the plane the scroll nowadays he says it's pretty small and he puts it in a carryon and and he wraps it nicely and he puts it overhead and there's no no problem at all um well that's good if you're a Sofer and you you know how to reattach exactly that's what I said to him I said Rabbi that's good for you you're a s when you get to where you're going it's easy for you to reattach you have to take the the senu and you exact you have to tie it together think the artart director in Camp is going to know how to do that the average person is not uh is not gonna do that I as him I as today right about putting it underneath um underneath in your luggage and he he felt um he didn't like that idea he said it make a damage he didn't he felt it make a damage felt it wasn't honorable for sa Tor to get you know thrown around now it it's you know if you see those pictures of the of of the baggage handlers yes obviously so you know they may drop it probably hold it they may they may drop it if you put it underneath he felt we're not discussing whether or not it's permitted or forbidden from a technical perspective but whether or not it's a good idea he felt it was not um um and he said if it doesn't fit you know if I I'm interrupt but if you if you you're sheling with yourin right many times okay um so is there anything wrong with putting your Fain in your suitcase and check is not sa Torah uh it's a holy item right but sear is much much Holier and also it also is um is much bigger and more likely to get uh to get damage um so yeah for that reason he suggested that if you if if you can't if it's too big to put in the bin because if it has the the wooden poles attached it may ver well be too big I'm just trying to picture this you know nowadays there's a little bin space usually on flights you come in with your is there room for me here your sa for Tor that's going to think right going to be an interesting flight right exactly well um you know if you have let's say two people traveling together and you're entitled to a certain amount of space so maybe it could fit lot of friends that way you'd have to know that it would fit so then you could buy another seed for it and uh you could hold it theoretically couldn't you hold I don't think that they would let you hold it oh cuz your seat belt issues they'll be afraid if fly off and hit someone in the head right I think so you can buy another seed for it that's an option um Buckle in your buckle buckle right um and so that was his approach to it of course others may have uh different approaches um I I did not have an opportunity to ask her behind him to see what he would say but that was his uh his his idea I asked him about putting it under a bus when he put it under the bus let's say you're traveling on a bus and you want to just put it underneath and he thought that that also is not a good idea because you want to have it in your under your in your um watching it you want to be watching it you want to be on top of it you don't want to have to worry what's happening underneath and is someone banging it around is someone going to walk off with it is some what's going to happen with it you should keep it that probably would fit in the bin above above the the bus seat and that's uh that what he he recommend again he's not saying that is forbidden to put it underneath but just he he would like to have it under in his sight um at all times uh can it be put in the trunk of car and the answer to that is yes there's no problem putting the Safar in the trunk of a car as long as you don't you know leave leave it them putting in the in the uh with the bus in a car you're in control of it I mean you're you're because your a car and plus you're not on top right it's not going to get banged around you put it where you want and it will stay there okay so there's no problem at all with with the trunk um okay um let's take some more of these traveled question question is quickly I want to point out that if you go to our homepage stark. org and you we have some uh travel information there you can there's there's a button there that says traveling kosher and you can click that you can see our articles and our our webinars we had some really good ones um we had one with uh Steve SEL last year about about tips Trel tips about traveling not so much uh you know what's the kind of discussion but how does a Jewish person wants to keep shabis and wants to keep kosher and what did it he travels he travels you know like travs extensively more than 100,000 miles a year he knows the Minon he knows all the all the ins and outs of how to travel and that was a very good one I would recommend that there's the DAT line issue RAB dat line issues RAB Heber we have the airline articles RAB Rosen um Hotel articles from R Goldberg yeah too all these um Okay so uh thank youu articles Star Tech uh Stark Tech put up the link for that Josh says he's in and he's running off uh please mention the return of our kidna boys we're all daving and and hoping and and praying that the boys will be returned safely very very soon um the uh let's talk just I made a couple of notes about Airline meals I was on a flight recently from Washington and uh I ordered DC Washington DC you the president of the United States from from Dallas airport oh you weren't coming to Baltimore no I was going from Dallas like to I go over they they fly you from Washington to I think only Obama gets that kind of treatment you know I flew I flew overseas so that was I was I was uh I ordered the Koshi meal of course um which I called uh to reconfirm firm when they told me that my meal what can you say what united united I called and I called them I called him when I made my ticket to to order a kosher meal and then I called them uh to reconfirm but when I called them that time it was within 24 hours and they said sorry we don't have your uh your kosher meal listed and it's too late to order it so I he said we have it on the return but not on the outbound I said to him well I got to eat both ways I said I probably when I ordered meals I probably ordered them both ways he said maybe but there's nothing he can do really that's he said it was within 24 hours nothing you can do so I brought food along with me your status obviously is not right not up there I brought I brought the I brought food along with me she is and uh and then I got on the plane and they did have my meal after all that after all that they had my meal however it was a a will I think uh what was it called will wilmart Walmart no Wilson no I'll tell you in a second I'll tell you what what brand it was okay I don't remember two people said wilon it was it was not Wilton no milmar it was milmar it was a milmar me milmar mil not milart mil not milart that's that's uh m l m a r can you spell it m m r that's that was off BR and um it was Dairy actually it was Dairy Meal which was fine I didn't care okay and U it had all the you know it had the the symbols on it and um I had never come across a non meal that was the point of the story and I'm looking at it I'm looking for the for the for the symbol and I just figured it's must be here somewhere and they have a little ticket that goes along on with it that tells you about the meal and it says specifically there if it's not marked it's not it's so um so I didn't I didn't eat it and um so the steart just came by and she saw um I put that to the side and I was eating my peanut butter and jelly she was insulted no she said can I ask you what's wrong with this says you don't like the fies Ser here what's your problem I said I said it's kosher but it's not the kind of kosher that I eat he said what what's that I said well I need the Israel milk how else am I going to say it I I need the Israel milk she said okay I'm going to tell them that they should order the Israel milk now that really has nothing to do with the order milk from Israel now that's what's G to happen it has nothing to do with the with if you go from New York you always get is you go from any of the New York airports they they would not the reason that they buy this Nel is that it is I imagine it's cheaper it's cheaper so it's not and nobody you you could complain all you want to the certifying agency or to the to the company that makes the product it it's just a matter of dollars and cents United wants to save a few dollars and so they order n and I suppose that they figure from Washington there aren't that many people who want Isel and so they don't they don't uh they don't order it from there this the first time they came across such a thing usually if you'll get a dairy meal it'll be usually if you get Dairy from New York or from you know you get the moral of that story is not sure well don't assume that your Dairy meal is is you know it's always a good idea to bring your own food because either they may not they may not have it and if they have it it may not be the certification that you recognize or approved um it's not a good idea to rely that you're going to get food on on the airplane uh because there are a lot of a lot of errors that can occur um SF says milmar and Wilton are the same company it is not okay okay so Wilton he's saying that wilon milmar is the brand for not is okay I I I mean I now I now I realize that which I hadn't before um people call us to ask us what about the L story when they travel L what about it uh is it all kosher there seems to be some level of kosher how does that work so uh rabie Rosen in his article details it very well that is certified by the uh the agency that is in the country where they are leaving from so they don't transport meals from Israel to the United States nobody does so in Israel certifi I think that's the case with all the AR right well um I was in um we'll finish up the L I was in I was in I was in uh Switzerland and I got a meal from Vienna so in Europe you could it could uh switch yor not coming from New York right so so in Israel it's certified by the rabet of of benorian airport in in in Toronto if it Le in Toronto I believe it's certified by the kitchen is Co in America it's oou and now so every place where they go they certified by a different uh agency and the utensils circulate between all the different uh commissaries yeah that's right so um it is a little bit of a of a of a um a great area this the L me so we actually recommend when you go just order the the uh the glot meals sometimes they call them regal regal meals from America maybe called Regal or glot meals the ones with the most plastic wrapping all around them all the plastic W so that you have a mountain of it after you finish getting to your little tiny omelet exactly right um so so you order those that's what we recommend to order those the sealed uh glad meals let's see if there are any questions here that we can deal with um before we end the there's so much more to talk about Rabbi buer let me tell you let's see what we say over here uh okay do F sodas have the same status as Slurpees meaning that if you see what what does that mean that if you if it's uh if they're advertising Coca-Cola I think generally accept generally people do do accept it uh we bought Alba says we bought two saf turs from the USA two really nice golf bag travel cases it would wrapped in bubble wrap the cases were huge and built for an atomic bomb the airline treated them like gold no rough housing at at all okay that could be an option you know that's inter just that is an option to to wrap it to wrap it very well and put it uh underneath as a matter of fact one of the rabbis I spoke to says that that's what he does with his C he wraps a golf case no not necessarily golf case but he wraps it really well with bubble wrap and and he writes fragile all over it and you know careful handling and I mean with a portable you knowum you know right technically the fact that it may stack things on top of it uh would not be would not actually be since it's wrapped in its own case would not be forbidden um again I was just telling you before what this sulur says he's not comfortable with that he would rather have it M on the I mean how does how how are transported normally from from I'm saying people carrying themselves but saying when people buy or sh orders one right is it is it does it is it shipped or do people travel with it that's a good question that's that's a good question we could look into that more we should have a special webinar about about traveling with with uh things holy objects like SE we could have the Sofer come by and explain to us all these details yeah how you travel with you f in you know make sure not to leave it filling in the car when it's hot um I was in Israel once and um we were at a park and we had we were staying overnight so we had a filling with us and it was like it was about 100 degrees to start off with I knew if I leave it in the car you know I'm going to come back and everything's going to be melted it could get to be 120 130 140 degrees in the car be very very hot so I took them to the uh to the um the station and I asked at the ranger station yeah the ranger station and I asked them to to hold on to M filling so she promptly took it and put it on the floor because she had no unfortunately she had even though she was Israeli she had no idea what it was I said would you mind picking up putting in one of the boxes um and you have to be very careful there are stories I know stories of people who left it filling in the car and you know on the front dashboard or even not and they come back and the whole thing is just melted off the all the letters are melted off you have to be very careful with that uh one one idea might be to wrap it in in the same bag as an ice pack not a melting ice pack but a keep it in your cooler like a cooler yeah keep it in the cooler with ice and but still you have to know you can't leave it there you know right for for for such a long time um can you give us the link for the updated kosher soy list okay that's going to be available later um I have pushed Airlines Ron says when they lose lose my kosher meal request most will come up with one from the local freezer Supply even within hours of fly time but don't depend on it okay I guess it depends how hard you push them depends on what your mile status it could also depend what your mile status is I was once on a plane uh again going to Israel and um um and the person next to me he was on again un united and he was what they call it was better than Premier something Premier plus plus World K status like top top of the line yeah anyway the the the steward came to him and said I'm sorry we haven't got your meal he says it's not it's not in your you know wasn't in your reservation he says how can that be it's in my permanent it's in my it's in my Perman record that that it's always supposed to be ordered for me the steart said I'm just sorry there isn't anything there so um so this fellow he takes out his phone he turns to me he says just one second he ttes out his phone he calls his personal concierge that he had has that United and he says you know in a very nice way he says I'm sitting here on such and such a flight does does my profile have kosher meals in it and the lady says yes it does he says well you're telling me that I don't have a Kosh meal and you know I don't I don't know what to do so uh she apparently assured him within like 10 minutes somebody came onto the plane and said we have don't worry we got it on the plane and that guy that guy the St was left on on the T so you know so that is right it depends on on how much you push and but again it's not something you can you can rely on um uh why does a points out Borstein is the major airline C caterer in New York New Jersey area they are under the OU and notl why does double wrapping on airline meals helps if there's moisture between the layers okay that's a good question there is not supposed to be moisture between the layers uh uh or any significant accumulation uh the the the idea of double wrapping and putting in an oven is that even if the oven is non- kosher and actually from microwave yeah they don't put it actually in microwave they put in the oven oh okay I thought someone was asking okay he's asking an airline meal that's double wrapped so the idea is that since it's double wrapped any residue that might might let's say they put it on some non- kosher residue uh that can't trans transfer from one wrapping to the other that's only true if it's not uh moist if it's moist it can transfer uh that's an issue that should be brought up with the agency that's certifying if that if that's happening so can can I bring up a quick issue while we're talking about wrapping things double wrapping things which I think people sometimes come across when you're staying in hotels and many of the hotels nowadays have these little microwaves mhm so can we use those microwaves to heat up our kosher food if you double wrap it if you double wrap it yeah you should clean it and then still double rapid right that's yeah that's like at work we have we have articles about that as well I don't double wrap my stuff here at work at the star maybe I should one more thing most people don't work at a kosher certifying agency as far as I know yeah most people they're not so lucky so fortunate famously he brings you to famous Lieutenant bound story of L pilot who heard it with a sa Torah on board and took it into the Pilot's cabin so it should have the front seat very nice okay um if if I'm traveling one more one more and I go to a park and they have these um or rest stop I've seen this also and they have these grills set up okay the grills in in in the Parks um you could caser them it's possible to caser a grill with a liun Gummer which would mean um uh using charcoal to totally burn the uh the grap and clean have to clean out the interior not and then you'd have to burn the uh the gray till it comes to a glow that's not it's not practical at all sometimes when people want to use non- koser grills we tell them clean it out and uh get get a new uh great I was just going to say if you take out the grate that they have there they can't take it out they don't make it that you can take it out you take it out they're attached you take them out put on the floor okay if you clean out the whatever's down there I said put in your own thing theoretically you can put in your own thing then you'd have to uh fire it up to to to bring it to what say 500 degrees but it would be possible to do if if if if there's no residue there you clean it so it's clean and then you'd have to fire what to be fire up the put charcoals in so that it becomes you mean oven area the oven area you have to kosher the oven area you never you're not going to know if guess the it's outdoors so it's going to be very difficult it would be it is difficult use I don't I don't think it's that bring your grill Al that's it better to bring your own I AB says it's impossible to properly clean the entire Grill and I agree with that I'm just saying it's possible to do if you spend enough time if you're there for like two days you know you know maybe you're staying overnight um and and the grills the grills that they have in New York apparently cost about $5 in Maryland you can get them for $99 so well you can get those portable the disposable grills now you that's what he's talking about disposable Grill it might as well just buy buy a a grill and and and and bring that along I want to thank everyone for joining I don't think we got to all the issues that we were intending but we got to very fair amount of of different uh topics always good to talk to your ra buyer and um you can finish that up uh thank you you know it's such a ripoff it's there's like nothing left now I I was wondering if we can give out cup of liquid to encourage more listeners we can we can give out like coupons maybe we can coupons for Slurpees or something like that let's see over here where we have people joining us from um we can there's a way here of me figuring out there's some way of figuring out where people are joining us from and I want to do that let's see um okay let's see where we have again we have Spain uh Mo mostly East Coast we have erell we have West Coast um and uh that's great so really really worldwide okay thank you all thank you all for joining us this webinar will be archived um in in in the coming uh days at kosher class.org or on our Vio Channel or on our YouTube channel where you can find all of our previous webinars uh we must have 50 60 webinars there for you to to to look at if the back set one day maybe right uh if you have any questions uh for us or for anyone at the Stark you can email us at info stark. org uh you can call us at 4110 we have have uh two full-time um receptionists who answer questions based on well trained based on the information that we give them uh and we they look it up if they don't know they ask and we welcome you to uh use that service our website again is stark. org I want to thank our wonderful technicians Rabbi Chapman and Miss Debbie Rosenstein for recording and uh thanks again for joining remember next month in July there is no not a webinar uh due to some other activities that are going on at the star k but we will look forward to seeing you the last Wednesday of August at 1200 noon thanks very much bye