[Avodah] Halachic guidlines for kashrut

[Lisa Liel]

When I lived in Northern California, where getting kosher food was a 
challenge (it was an hour and a quarter each way to Molly Stone's in 
Palo Alto, where we could get kosher cheese), we were told that we could 
rely on Triangle-K.  When we moved to Chicago, where you trip over 
kosher marts, we were told that Triangle-K isn't up to community standards.

There are basic standards of kashrut, which are community based, and 
there are kulot and chumrot.  Ultimately, we are not Karaites, and we 
aren't Talmudites or Rambamites or ShulchanAruchites.  Torah she'b'al 
peh means that the Torah comes to us through rabbis who have the 
authority to make rulings.  It does not come to use via books where we 
can always look things up ourselves.  That would reduce the Torah to a 
non-living Torah, subject to the interpretation of every Tom, Dick and 
Shlomo who can read.

That's frustrating for a lot of people, particularly people in the 
modern world, where personal empowerment is such a high value.  (I can't 
say that I feel all that comfortable with the idea of community 
standards standing in the way of my eating Fritos, particularly when 
many would say that I'm not up to community standards myself.)

But that's the way it is.  If you (general you; not R' Martin in 
particular) disagree with the way in which the halakha is being 
determined in your community, you can leave that community, or you can 
learn to the point where you are involved in the decision making.  What 
you *can't* do is say that your understanding of this or that sefer 
overrides the decisions of those with the authority to decide the halakha.

Lisa



On 11/28/2011 12:27 PM, martin brody wrote:
> "See the above URL for the rest of these articles.
>  From this articles it should be clear why there
> are differences between kashrus in the US and
> Israel and the rest of the world and why one
> should not extrapolate from the standards of one
> organization in a given country to the situation in other countries.
> YL"
>
> Sorry, but I completely disagree with you.
> A jar of Polish jam that is kosher in Sainsbury's, Golders Green, is 
> just as kosher in Trader Joes in Westwood, California.
> That there are kashrut agences that have standards that are meta 
> halachic,(none of the majors permit batel, for example) and differ 
> amongst themselves in many cases, is irrelevant to the kashrut of a 
> product, including that lovely vegetable, Brussel sprouts that started 
> this whole thing off. Don't want to rely on those guidlines? Then 
> don't, but please do not suggest that the products are not kosher.
> Kind regards,
>
> Martin Brody
> 310 474 1856
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Avodah mailing list
> Avodah at lists.aishdas.org
> http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org
>    
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20111128/80082a98/attachment-0002.htm>