community kashrut
Question
Rabbi Abadi and Sons, While I truly do appreciate the service that you bring to the Jewish community through this site, I am uncertain of the manner in which I can take advantage of your levelheaded views on Kashrut. The wider orthodox community operates of a system of majority rules, in essence, and holds that one can only follow his or her rav who, in turn, defers to the major kashrut organizations. That is, we are told that we can you can poskin kashrut questions for us, if Rabbi Abadi is our personal rav. How are we, in a halakhically permissible fashion, to follow the eminently reasonable kashrut outlook of this site, when it conflicts with that of the rabbis of our own communities? If I were to buy a juice product certified with a triangle-K hashgacha, let alone bought (allowably) without a symbol, I would not be considered "kosher enough" for my community. How can this cycle be broken? Please advise. Zeev
Answer
Answered by Chaim Yisrael AbadiThis is a problem for all of us. The only way to deal with it is to not think about it. The fact remains that a person is supposed to follow one Rov. If people in your community can't deal with that, then that is their problem. A person should not follow one Rov for money matters, another Rov for Niddah questions, another Rov for kashrut issue, etc. The trick is to pick one Rov and follow through by a kullah and a chumrah. It happens to be that if you corner most Rabbanim on the side, they will admit that my father is right. It is just hard to follow for logistical, political or technical reasons. For example, what happened suddenly that those hashgachot that were trusted by so many people, suddenly saw the light on the bugs issue. My father has been saying that for over twenty years. The original tumult about bugs started in my father's kollel in Lakewood. The problem is, the American disease of "political correctness" has creeped into our system (rachmana L'tzlan). Ask any Rabbi, that is worth his semicha, whether one can follow Rabbi Abadi. The answer will be, as long as you follow him for everything. Both lenient and non-lenient. If you are an avid sports fan or a like Broadway shows, it can get hairy. :-) The bottom line is, when you go up after 120 and you are asked why did you do.... The answer will be ask my Rabbi. I followed him to the letter of his answers to me. CYA