[Avodah] Kashrus of a Restaurant Under the Supervision of its Owner

[Zev Sero]

Prof. Levine wrote:

> This kashrus alert was then followed by an editor's note saying, "The
> restaurant is certified by Rabbi [name], a [religious job description],
> who also owns the restaurant. The restaurant is located in the
> [instituion] (that Rabbi name runs)."
>
> Is a person giving supervision on an establishment that he owns a problem
> from a halachic standpoint? Is this indeed a valid hashgacha, given that
> the owner and kashrus supervisor are one and the same?

>From a halachic POV, absolutely not a problem.


> IMO, this is not the same as someone saying that his or her home is
> kosher. In one's home there is presumably no profit motive involved.

It is almost the same.  Eid echad ne'eman does not depend on the lack
of a profit motive.  A person in his home also has a motive to lie,
just as a woman has a motive to lie about her counting, but the Torah
says to believe her anyway, unless there is good reason to suspect that
she's lying.  The only difference between a home and a business is that
in someone's own home one needn't positively know the person to be a
yerei shamayim, one merely must not know that he isn't; in his business
the Rama says the absence of negative information is not enough, one
must have positive information about him.  In this case, one does, so
that's OK.

 
> Years ago someone told me that there is a teshuva of the Chasam Sofer
> that says that such supervision is not valid, but I do not know which
> teshuva this is.

If so, it would have been a chumrah or takanah specific to the
circumstances of his place and time.  The CS surely did not have
the authority to change the basic halacha in the SA and Rama,
for all times and places!


-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher