[Avodah] Tzarich Iyun: Glatt Kosher

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 09:10:02PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote:
: https://www.ou.org/torah/machshava/tzarich-iyun/tzarich_iyun_glatt_kosher/

RAZZ writes:
> In colloquial discourse treif refers to anything that is not kosher. The
> technical definition of treifa is based on Exodus 22:30 ... and refers
> to an animal with any of a specific group of physical defects that are
> detailed in the Talmud ...

I think that just as the Judeo-English word "treif" doesn't mean the
same thing as the original "tereifah", it is equally fair for the
Judeo-English "glatt" not to mean the same thing as the Yiddish "glatt"
nor the Hebrew "chalaq".

One could even provide a folk etymology via "pashut", which is also
from a root meaning "smooth" and is used to mean "simple", or "without
question".

The history RAZZ doesn't discuss is the era in which the Mafia took over
the kosher meat business. The Ridbaz (R Yaakov Dovid Wilovsky, 1845-1919)
spent Friday night one week locked in the meat freezer, and when he got
out he and his whole family fled Chicago - that night! The Ridbaz decided it
was piquach nefesh and hopped on a train on Shabbos.

RJJ also fought this battle. He invented the plumba and managed to take
over qualification standards for shochtim and required the presence of
separate mashgichim. But alll through his time there the battle over
shachthoisen earned him enemies and he was routinely slandered in hostile
Yiddish papers.

In Boston, it drove my greatgrandfather (R' Yisrael Avraham Abba [Meir
Simchah] Krieger, 1872-1931) to an early grave. And when RYBS took over
a year later, there was a mess for him to clean up.

This was a major stain on the mental image of Agudas haRabanim rabbis.
There was even a backlash in YU against RYBS -- including a scathing
editorial in the student newspaper against the idea of making him
president -- because RYBS was a AhR member.

When the Hungarian and Chassidim for nearby regions immigrated / fled
to the US, they needed glatt shlachthoisen, as it is their minhag to
only eat glatt. More meiqil than Bet Yosef's glatt, because it's "only"
a minhag, but what was already in place wouldn't meat their demand. And
because they started from a clean slate, they didn't have these problems
that the existing slaughterhouses did.

During this era, it really was true that the glatt slaughterhouses were
much more likely to be reliable WRT basic kashrus as well. Even many of
those who were noheig to ohold like the Rama would look for glatt for
this reason. And so, the word shifted in meaning.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             None of us will leave this place alive.
micha at aishdas.org        All that is left to us is
http://www.aishdas.org   to be as human as possible while we are here.
Fax: (270) 514-1507            - Anonymous MD, while a Nazi prisoner