3,955
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
As I've mentioned in my previous post, there are special organizations whose job is to certify foodstuffs, restaurants, hotels, etc., as kosher. They employ rabbis who carefully inspect the scales on fish, check the lungs of ritually slaughtered cows for any lesions, verify that a food-processing plant sells all of its "leaven" before Passover or that a restaurant uses separate vessels and utensils for dairy and meat. If everything checks out, then they issue an appropriate kosher certificate.
Sometimes you may find a kosher certification symbol even on those products whose kosherness would seem obvious. Gentiles may find it funny or even suspect some kind of rip-off when they see, let's say, a bottle of kosher mineral water. Is there unkosher water? Some folks imagine a rabbi makes making kosher water like a Catholic priest makes holy water: taking regular water, saying a short prayer over it, getting his paycheck and there, you've got kosher water! In fact, a rabbi doesn't make water kosher, but only certifies that it already is kosher. To this end he ascertains, for example, that on the way to the bottle the water wasn't pumped through the same pipes that had previously carried something treif.
When all is said and done, whether something is kosher depends a lot on one's interpretation of the rules. Most of what I wrote above may be easily challenged by someone who will say they rabbi has a different view on this detail or another. There's more than one kosher certifying agency and their criteria aren't exactly the same. There's even more discrepancy among ordinary Jews, both in theory (defining what is or isn't kosher) and in practice (deciding to what extent one is willing to actually follow the rules).
