how does one become a certified sewer mashgiach? is there an official training course? does one work privately in this field or is there a kashrut agency one works through? so many questions!

The Eida HaChareidis has put out a notice regarding the chumra or hakpada that has become trendy over the past several years of abstaining after Pesach from consuming chametz that was sold over pesach. People who follow this custom insist on seeing on the packaging of the food item a notice that it is made from flour ground after Pesach.

I was in the supermarket the other and spotted this sticker on some items. I had never before seen such a sticker that I can remember...



It says the item was purchased from a goy after Pesach 5778.

We've gotten used to stickers saying it is made from flour ground after Pesach. This is an interesting new sticker. Things generally would be covered by the hechsher or by the ishur that the store sold its chametz, but who is to say that after Pesach they did not buy chametz, even unknowingly, from a Jew that did not sell his chametz for Pesach? This sticker assures the consumer that the item was bought after Pesach from a goy. It could also mean that they sold it for Pesach to a goy and after Pesach bought it from the goy. So this does not really tell us much, but I guess it makes people feel like they are being machmir on something

people think I am not machmir enough and rely too much on kulas. The truth is that personally I have many chumras I hold of, but I choose not to share them publicly, not to push them on other people and not to insist on them at the expense of other people. However, in the spirit of the holiday and to be magnanimous with all of you, I have decided to share just one chumra that I hold very dear and keep very strictly.

I am very machmir in eating bread made from flour ground after Pesach, before Pesach.

Yes, I am very strict about this. If you invite me in to your home today and offer me a sandwich, I will insist the bread must have been made from flour ground next week.

Just kidding. In recent years a chumra to be makpid after Pesach on eating baked goods made only from fresh flour that had been ground after Pesach. There is always a debate if this is necessary or not, but the chumra has become fairly popular in recent years. In addition, every year there is a discussion how right after Pesach some products are marked as having been made from flour ground after Pesach, but a few weeks later the labels disappear and the older stuff comes out of storage and nobody pays attention at that point. And then there are always the products labeled as such that are discovered to be false. And then there are always a few products found before Pesach being sold with stickers stating it was made from flour ground after pesach.

The following, though, seems the most egregious of all:

This load of bread, being sold 2 days before Pesach, is labeled as being made form flour ground after Pesach 5778.

You cannot get fresher bread than that!

Rav Yisrael Greenberger, rav of the Vizshnitz communities of Petach Tikva and Elad, has paskened that brushing one's teeth on Erev Pesach to remove any chametz is not enough preparation of one's mouth for the holiday but one must brush his/her teeth to remove any bits of chametz stuck there and then fill the mouth, as much as each person is possible, with boiling hot water and then spit it out.

In addition, according to Rav Greenberger, 24 hours prior to the time listed as the final time for eating chametz one is prohibited from eating any hot chametz, the problem being the hot food leavign traces absorbed into your teeth and the difficulty it causes in removing it. You would not be allowed to eat hot soup with bread or croutons, for example, or a hot pastrami sandwich, or hot pasta such as macaroni and cheese. You could eat the chametz cold, separately, and the hot soup separately, but the hot chametz can't be eaten within 24 hours of the final time. If you are eating a hot pastrami on rye, or a hot dog, separate the meat from the break - eat the hot pastrami separately and the rye bread separately, though I am not sure where you would put the mustard in this example. No dunking your donut in your coffee on Thursday.
source: Kikar

I admit, when I first saw this article I thought I must be reading a comedy or humor page or maybe it is a late Purim edition, or that I landed on a spoofed satire site. Interestingly it actually seems real.

it does remind me of the old discussions regarding braces and if they need to be kashered for pesach or not. But Rabbi Greenberger is talking about everybody and anybody's mouth, even with no braces, even with no silver fillings.

His premise that the teeth absorb, need to be kashered, and that it is a problem, seems new to me. Why do we not have this problem daily with milk and meat? If you eat a hot meat meal, you would not be allowed to eat a dairy meal for 24 hours, not the 3 or 5/6 hours we actually wait.

Why does the shulchan aruch not talk about this problem - whether for meat and dairy on a daily basis or for Pesach? It seems it would be be a far more serious problem that the kashrus of pots and spoons of the wrong gender falling into a pot of the other gender soup.

Since when is the mouth, or any body part, considered a vessel that absorbs and has to be kashered?

I hope Rabbi Greenberger plans on taking responsibility for the people who listen to him who get injured with second degree burns, or worse. I hope he was talking pilpul and rejected the suggestion in his conclusion and made it clear to everyone that this should not be done.

If not and if this is this year's crazy chumra, next years will have to be an extension of this - you cannot touch hot chametz within 24 hours of the final time as your hands might absorb the chametz. Everyone must toivel in a boiling hot mikva before pesach to do hagala on their hands and other body parts that might have come into contact with hot chametz. Not just the mouth, but the entire cavity of the body, especially the tongue and the entire path down - the esophagus, the stomach, the intestines and the rectum must all be kashered for Pesach with boiling hot water. And coming soon will be telling everyone to also get a colonoscopy before Pesach.

That is Yonatan Razel. He performed for a group of women, and they were singing and dancing throughout. Black tape over his eyes was his solution to not watching the women dance.

Yonatan Razel is clearly extremely talented to be able to play professionally, and I would assume he did a perfectly fine job as I have not heard otherwise, while blindfolded. Amazing.

Whether it is silly or not, whether it is necessary or not, whether he found a good solution for his own problem or is turning it into something bigger, I'll let you decide all that.

I did hear that he played "I just called to say I love you", by Stevie Wonder...

The continued fight over the kashrut status of the Braekel chicken continues to be very strange. The only part of it that makes any sense to me, and the only part of the debate that I really appreciated, is what was said by Rabbis Meir Mazuz and Moshe Mordechai Karp.

Both of these rabbis are of the opinion that the chicken is perfectly fine and kosher just like the "white" chickens. Rabbi Mazuz spoke about how this was the basic chicken and when they first came to Israel they had to rely on the Ashkenazim for a mesorah on white chickens, as they had never seen them before. Rav Mazuz brings some proofs as to the status of the chickens and added his comment that there is no need to keep adding unnecessary chumros and arguments.

Rav Karp, Rav in Kiryat Sefer, commented on a poster that claimed in the name of many gedolim, including Rav Elyashiv under whom Rav Karp studied, that one should preferably not eat the Braekel chicken but should eat Turkey instead. Rav Karp is disturbed by the claims, as a result of the Braekel debate, that eve regular chicken are problematic and he says that Rav Elyashiv and Rav Kanievsky ate, and still eat, chickens with no concern. Rav Karp says he has no knowledge specifically about the Braekel chicken but then criticizes all the time new halachic decisions are announced that were never discussed by the gedolim and definitely never issued public psak on the matter. He says someone who wants to be machmir for himself and not eat something is fine and good but should not go about announcing it and warning the public. Now they are prohibiting chickens that was always eaten by the gedolim and tomorrow they will prohibit eggs, and it is as if there is no torah and mesorah and there is nobody to protest this.
sources: Kikar, Haredim10

I particularly appreciate the railing against the searching for chumros and prohibitions...

An item about a swimming pool made a splash yesterday in the Haredi media...

Management of the pool "Mehadrin-Men" in the town of Emannuel posted a new set of rules of conduct in the area of the pool.

The rules include what some consider pretty extreme rules of tzniyus. Among them are items such as:
 - no swimming in underwear, even long underwear
 - no loud music and no non-Jewish music
 - no smartphones in the area of the pool
 - no tight swimsuits and no swimsuits that are too short
 - no girls in the mens pool, even babies. Up to age 3 will be allowed but only fully dressed




Residents of Emannuel are complaining about the new rules and are even calling it Hassidic Coercion, similar to the complaints of Secular Coercion and Religious Coercion in other sectors.
source: Kikar

Personally I don't find any of these rules posted as so extreme. Perhaps not allowing smartphones in the area, but that isn't a surprise, considering the public attitude of Haredim to smartphones. Speedos should be banned around the world anyway. As should swimming in underwear.

What I find most interesting, and extreme, is that they have separate pools for men and women instead of just separate hours in the same pool.

While this is an interesting discussion and psak, the more interesting part of this is actually post-psak.

A secular lettuce farmer had decided to grow his crop for Pesach, potentially a significant portion of his yearly parnassa, using some form of hydroponics - growing the lettuce in water instead of in soil. His thought process was that this would allow him to produce lettuce without bugs and without the need to use pesticides that could ruin the quality of the lettuce.

The problem they discovered, after the investment, was that such produce has rabbinic disputes surrounding them as to whether they are to be treated as produce from the ground that could be used as maror on Pesach or if they are blessed with the shehakol blessing because they are not considered vegetables from the ground. It seems that some poskim, including Rabbis ELyashiv and Wosner, determined the bracha to be ha'adama, while others, such as Rav Ovadia Yosef, determined it to be shehakol. The relevant farmers seemed to be heading into a potential disaster, not knowing if anyone would use this produce for maror on Pesach.

Rav Shlomo Ben Ezra, the rav of the Gezer Region Religious Council, decided to figure it all out for this farmer and spent weeks researching the issue and discussing it with rabbonim. Rav Ben Ezra's conclusion is that even according to the opinion that lettuce grown in water is not lie a normal ground-grown vegetable, it is still considered usable for maror, regardless of the psak adhered to regarding the bracha. This decision was signed on to by the Chief Rabbi Rav Yitzchak Yosef.

Rav Yosef added a requirement in his decision that the packaging of this lettuce include a statement that the lettuce was grown in water "so those who want to be machmir will know".

The farmers were very impressed with Rav Ben Ezra's dedication to the project and his assistance throughout the process. They said not being religious they never really had anything before to do with rabbis, but Rav Ben Ezra's involvement changed their attitude towards the rabbis, who are normally not painted well in the media.
source: Srugim

1. a helpful and accommodating approach, rather than a curt response or a brush off, can go a long way toward changing attitudes.

2. Regardless of Rav Ben Ezra's psak, and Rav Yosef's agreement, many people would still say it isn't enough. That's life. But at least he has a serious name behind him.

3. This is Pesach,.. and the mizva of maror. Putting a statement out like that on the packaging - grown in water, for the knowledge of those who want to be machmir - can be the death knell in the religious community for this lettuce. Who, especially on pesach, doesn't want to be machmir? Will people buy it knowing that they are expressly stating by doing so that they are not being machmir regarding the mitzva of maror?

This is from the annual communal pre-Pesach hagalat keilim sponsored by Keren Lev Yisrael in RBS...
The top picture is showing that somebody even brought his kitchen sinks to kasher!
(truth is he isnt kashering them for Pesach, but they are second hand sinks he is putting into a new kitchen and he does not know which was dairy and which was meaty, so he figured it is easy enough to bring for hagala... but it is still a funny sight to see, and might even start a new chumra for people who don't ask, and don't want to be outflanked by somebody who kashered more)

this is an awesome pashkevil. It is an ad, couched in a new made-up chumra for Pesach, designed to look like a pashkevil.



It encourages people to buy new (kosher, of course) cellphones for Pesach because there are so many crevices in cellphones that make it very difficult to be sure and confident that you have gotten all the crumbs out..

I wonder if in a few years this won't become a standard chumra...

I've never heard of this chumrah before...

hattip Gilad Field

the chumrah is that the cows ate during Pesach "sefichin" - produce that is prohibited during shmitta - and therefore drinking milk from regular dairy cows is a problem. The sign offers anyone who wants to obtain milk from cows that have only eaten produce planted before this past Rosh Hashana and was harvested properly, should call...

I don't know why they don't just give the cows yevul nochri...

aren't the cows eating grass and hay anyway? what produce do they eat? I had n idea that cows are being given sefichin to eat, and I have no idea if that is a problem or not, let alone a problem with the milk that cow produces...

Here you go.. the latest invention.

sunglasses that look entirely normal but have a sticker over the lenses that limits visibility to just 3 meters ahead. The cost is 25nis, and is mean to be used when located in places that have problems of immodesty, such as airports. Alternatively, one can buy just the stickers and apply them to his own glasses for 1nis.

They can't be making much money off this, but to be able to see just 3 meters ahead,  I could just take off my glasses. My vision might be even more limited than that.

Mynet is reporting on an interesting case of a woman who tried to immerse in a mikva with dreadlocks (Rastot in Hebrew). The mikva lady saw the dreadlocks and told her she cannot immerse like that, as the dreadlocks are a chatzitza - they must be opened for immersion.

Technically, tight braids are a problem for immersion, and they are considered a chatzitza. Different rabbonim, though, do take different positions on the matter. for example, I did a quick online search of the question about immersing with dreadlocks, and out of 4 "ask the rabbi" sites I found, 2 said it is ok to immerse in the mikva with dreadlocks and 2 said it is a problem. All four sites I found were dati leumi websites/organizations/rabbonim.

According to the Mynet report, the mikva lady would not let her immerse, even though the woman told her that he rabbi had told her she could go to the mikva like that. The mikva lady, and another one that was called in to help, responded that their rabbonim do not allow dreadlocks immersion as they consider it a chatzitza.

A member of the mikva department of the religious council of Jerusalem responded that the mikva ladies are not allowed to get involved in such things and are only there to assist women who need assistance or if a woman asks a halachic question - they are not allowed to initiate on their own, and such instructions are repeatedly sent out to the mikva ladies around town.

This does raise the issue, again, of what the purpose of a mikva lady is, and what she is allowed to do. If she sees a clear chatzitza, is she not supposed to tell the woman immersing? Maybe the woman missed something and would want to know.

Personally I would say that a mikva lady seeing a problem should be able to mention something like that, but once the woman says she already checked it with her rabbi, she should be allowed to continue to immerse without interruption.

Normally though, the purpose of the mikva is really just to make sure the womans hair goes completely under the water when immersing, and to let her know upon egress from the water that her immersion was kosher. Beyond that, her involvement should mostly be limited to situations in which the woman immersing asks for help, or if she spots something that clearly might have been missed.

The issue of being machmir at someone else's expense is extremely difficult. What if this woman, or another woman, went home, having been turned away from the mikva, and tells her husband that she immersed, when she really did not? What if she left with a bad taste, and next time she refuses to go? All because the mikva lady wanted to be machmir. Is that chumra really worth it?

Rabbonim go out of their way to make it very easy for women to go to the mikva, allowing things in very lenient ways, out of concern that otherwise some women might just stop going. An example that comes to mind that i recently learned - the Shulchan Aruch says that it is prohibited to heat the mikva.water. Even during the week.

Can you imagine a woman going to a freezing cold mikva? Really they should be. However, the rabbonim have decided to be lenient and allow it - across the board. There is no such a thing as a cold mikva for women. The reason is because if we made women immerse in a cold mikva, many women would just not bother going. They might tell their husbands they went, but in actuality there is a concern that they might not actually immerse. So they are lenient and find a way around the prohibition to make it easy for women to immerse, and to not give them an excuse to not immerse.

Sure there is place to prohibit dreadlocks. But if a woman comes in and says she already consulted with her rabbi who allows it, it is not the place of the mikva lady to be more stringent on her.

 .

before Pesach I posted about a package of bread crumbs that had been purchased with the label already stating it was baked after pesach 2014. Some people considered that perhaps, instead of deception or a mistaken label, perhaps the label was just being read wrong. They suggested the "baked after" was referring to last Pesach (2013), and the date was the date of expiry of the product.

Did not seem realistic to me, but ok. maybe.

here is an image that just came in to me of a different product with a similar problem. but the labeling on this is much clearer.

you be the judge:


from the sticker on the top right corner it is clear they are claiming it was baked after Pesach 2014. From the sticker on the top left corner one can see that they were selling these on erev pesach at a special price..

once again, a product baked after Pesach that was miraculously being sold before Pesach...

And, another comment, it clearly is not just an Israeli issue. These "chocolate bites" are an American product being sold in the USA...

The Shulchan Aruch says that from Rosh Chodesh Av, the shochtim put away their knives, and one should not shecht animals unless it is for the purpose of a mitzva, such as a bris or a pidyon ha'ben, or for a sick person [who must eat meat].

It seems that until now the various kashrut agencies were believed with the implicit understanding that they at least follow Shulchan Aruch,  in addition to all the non-halachic chumrahs they keep. It seems, from the latest chumrah, that people no longer assume the kashrut agencies follow Shulchan Aruch. Now, it seems, the kashrut agency must state so explicitly...

no question about it's freshness!

The person behind this sign is a brilliant entrepreneur!



the sign is offering a new service - it says - if you have found yourself stuck right before the 9 Days with freshly laundered clothes and no time to put them all on, a God-fearing avreich will prepare your clothes for you according to all the hiddurim!! every garment will be worn for at least an hour, in a place with no air-conditioning and without deodorant!

I am impressed with the ability of some businesses to find unique ways to generate more business.

Mynet reports that a hat store called "Pe'er HaShtreimlach" has come up with a new chumra for Pesach that will likely generate a lot of business for them. While there has always been a hat cleaning service that many people would use before Pesach, and there has been a shtreimel cleaning service, now there is something even better.

Shtreimels present a unique challenge for Pesach, and it seems even a thorough cleaning might not be enough. I don't know how food gets on top of an adults head, unless he is involved in regular food fights, but kernels of wheat or barley, or soup nuts perhaps, can easily find their way into the fur of the shtreimel and get stuck there. A good cleaning might get it out, but it might not, if the soup nut is embedded too deeply in the fur.

So, Pe'er Hashtreimlach has come up with a solution. You can now rent a hat or a shtreimel form them for the duration of Pesach.

There is no longer need to worry about cleaning your hat or being concerned about possibly missing a soup nut. I like it - they made up a chumra to generate more business for themselves. Smart businessmen.

We don't question peoples extreme chumrot for Pesach. Anything, or almost anything, is acceptable. This is a new chumra, but it is not nearly as way out as many others some people do...