Glatt Meat and Chalav Yisrael: Chumras and the Kosher Tax
Having done a bit of research about the halachas of glatt meat, here is the conlusion I've learned: Glatt is not a halacha for Ashkenazic Jews. It is a minhag widely held by Sephardim. In Europe, Ashkenazic Jews ate both Glatt and non-glatt meat. A full article can be found at the Star K's site. Having spoken to many people who have worked in the kosher meat market, I've found out the reason glatt meat is so expensive: Approximately 70% of all cows shechted al pi halacha are considered to be non-glatt for various reasons and are thrown into the Traif pile to be sold at a loss as traif meat (you know, the kind you find at any supermarket and costs about 1/3 or 1/4 the price of kosher meat). Add to this that since Ashkenazim do not have a Mesora of Traiboring, we also lose the entire back half of the cow to traif. All this is at a loss, since the meat considered not glatt and the back half of the cow has to meet the price the non kosher vendors are willing to pay for meat they buy elsewhere for less. However, the shochtim and mashgichim still need to be paid, so for each cow lost to it being non glatt and for each back end of the cow, we, as the end use consumers, pay for through the nose. And this only applies to meat. Poultry is a whole other reason I've yet to discover as to why we pay at least triple the price of non kosher poultry since there is no such thing as glatt where poultry is concerned.
What does all this mean? It means that the rabbanim and the kosher slaughterhouses have done a wonderful job of marketing over the last 30 or so years in saying it's not really kosher if it is not glatt. The proof: Can anyone out there find non-glatt meat that has a reliable hechsher on it sold in the same quantities as glatt meat? The answer: No. Because the glatt meat never has a chance to be sold as kosher! Instead of throwing all those non glatt but perfectly kosher cows into the non-glatt but perfectly kosher pile, a pile from which many perfectly orthodox Jews, including myself and my rav, are very happy to buy, cook, and eat in their houses.
Essentially, glatt meat is a Chumra that caught on to the extent that the rest of us who don't want to keep this chumra are forced to keep this chumra because there is no non-glatt meat available! Now, if someone wants to keep glatt kosher, I'm not one to say don't do it. But why do I have to pay the kosher tax for someone else to hold by a chumra?
Now, the same thing didn't happen with Chalav Yisrael. This Chumra, while widespread, especially amongst Chasidim and, more recently, the Yeshivish (which is interesting, considering I remember the days when the Yeshivish used to deride Chalav Yisrael as a silly Chumra that Reb Moshe Feinstein said need not be kept any longer). The reason Chalav Yisrael never really took over as the kosher dairy standard the way glatt did as the kosher meat standard is that there are far too many dairy products out there that people weren't willing to give up and were already kosher and cheaper than Chalav Yisrael and didn't spoil as quickly as Chalav Yisrael products. Besides, given the choice between Leiber's sandwich cookies and Oreo cookies, which would you take?
So, because frum organizations did not have a monopoly over non-Jewish-yet-kosher dairy products, Chalav Yisrael never caught on, while the meat, which only came from frum companies that held a monopoly over kosher meat, were able to force glatt meat to become the only standard available to orthodox Jews since there is no non-Jewish company that produces kosher meat. Thus, these frum companies were able to force any price they want for kosher meat.
At the end of the day, with the excellent marketing these meat companies have done, we are all forced to pay way too much money for meat. One realistic solution is for these companies to take the non-glatt meat they shecht and put it on the market as non-glatt, but perfectly kosher meat! Thus, anyone who wants to be machmir and buy glatt meat can do so and pay the price, while the rest of us, who are sick of paying so much money for glatt meat, will happily buy non-glatt meat, and if you don't want to eat in my house because I don't keep the glatt Chumra, then don't eat in my house. People who keep Chalav Yisrael have chosen not to eat dairy from my house, including my parents and my sister. Does this make me any less frum in their eyes? No.
19 comments:
Your point is very good and non-glatt meat should be readily available for those who do nto want to be machmir.
However, from what I remember, it is not just a chumrah. While the Rama does allow non-glatt meat, he strongly recommends not relying on that and prefers glatt. He does nto say there are those who are machmir and suddenly it became everybody doing it. he strongly recommends not relying on the kula...
but it should still be available for those who want it. in Israel it is available. Every rabbanut non-mehadrin hechsher is basically relying on that Rama to sell non-glatt meat
Rafi,
If you follow the link to the Star K's site, you'll see it says there that European Jews ate glatt and non-glatt alike: "Generally speaking, it was the custom of the Ashkenazi Jews, Jews of European descent, to eat glatt and non-glatt meats, and accept both as kosher." Now there is one statement R' Heineman makes that is a bit ambiguous. He mentions that poultry MUST be glatt to be kosher, but both my wife and I think he means there is no other choice. As far as I know, we do not check the lungs on poultry, and all poultry shechted l'halacha is "glatt." Makes you wonder why kosher poulty is also so much more expensive than traif poultry.
It seems to me that the kosher slaughterhouses would be much better off if they could sell the meat as non-Glatt, perhaps at a smaller profit, instead of selling it as non-kosher at a definite loss. The notion that the slaughterhouses would intentionally try to eliminate non-glatt from the market if there were a sufficiently large market for it seems a bit far fetched.
But that's what happens. It's not far-fetched at all. I've spoken to people who are involved in this business and this is exactly what happens. It's really a shame, because there would probably be a huge market for non-glatt kosher meat.
" Ashkenazim do not have a Mesora of Traiboring"
Incorrect.
It is still done in some places.
I think it's somewhat difficult to do though.
Glatt was pushed by Hungarians and Chassidim.
They are strong in the meat business.
There was opposition to the imposition of glatt by choshuve Rabbonim in the past.
Rav Pinchos Teitz zt"l gave a hashgocho on regular kosher meat. Rav Breuer zt"l also had reservations about making it a universal requirement. He famously exclaimed 'Glatt Kosher ? Glatt Yosher !' (we should be glatt yosher-straight - more important than a chumra of glatt kosher).
Of course this is assuming that regular kosher is reliably and adequately supervised.
If it were supervised in the same plants as the glatt, there would be no problem, would there? Or is it that if the non-glatt touched the glatt, that would render the glatt non-glatt?
A significant percentage of shochtim and others involved in the meat industry are Chassidim and/or Hungarians and I suspect that they are not crazy about the idea of giving out regular kosher products for sale.
I wonder how many more Jews and non-Jews would buy kosher meat if there was a less expensive, non-glatt option?
It shouldn't matter who the shochtim are. If the Chassidim and Hungarians want to buy glatt, they will. Meanwhile, it doesn't give an excuse for the price gouging that goes on because they refuse to make non-glatt meat available. As Sephardilady mentioned, probably a significant percentage of consumers, Jewish and non-Jewish, would be happy to buy kosher meat because, regardless of whether the assumption is correct (and there is debat about it), consumers believe kosher meat to be cleaner and thus healthier. Also, with a non-glatt, less expensive but perfectly kosher meat on the market, probably lots of Conservative and Reform Jews would buy the non-glatt kosher meat rather than buying the traif alternative. And there, in one fell swoop, hundreds of thousands of Jews who eat traif meat because they don't want to pay the price for glatt meat would be eating non-glatt but perfectly kosher meat. I keep using the phrase non-glatt but perfectly kosher because I think people need to get over the stigma that non-glatt meat is not kosher. The glatt meat industry over the past thirty/forty years has created that stigma, thus nearly completely destroying what would probably be a very lucrative market.
Sephardilady, give us a call sometime. We haven't heard from you in a while.
We will call sometime soon. It has been a very busy few weeks (and will stay that way for about 4 more weeks :).
You picked up on what I alluded to in my question. If you can get ahold of a book of sheilot and teshuvot from former Sephardi Chief Rabbi BenZion Uziel, his viewpoints might intrigue you. I don't know that he addresses the kosher meat issue per se, but he (and Sephardi Rabbonim in general) have a worldview that does not shut a significant portion of people out of the observant world by raising the bar too high (whatever that might be).
In many ways raising the bar high has been positive, but I think it also shuts out a significant number of people and Kashrut is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this phenomenon. Dress standards are another area. At our Sephardi minyan there are a number of nominally observant people who, as my husband likes to point out, would not be accepted so warmly into one of the "mainstream" places. Would it be nice if they wore more formal clothing to the Beit Knesset. Absolutely. But they aren't there and we are just glad they have a place where they are welcome.
BTW-I added you.
And I think that's the problem. At a shul we've both attended a while back, the attitude used to be anyone is welcome, doesn't matter what "hashkafa" (I hate that word - will talk about it on a post soon) they were or what they wore on their heads or bodies. Over time, as with many "chareidi" shuls, it's become very exclusionary, to the point where when I confronted the rav of that shul about it, especially about the sea of Black Hats it had become, his answer was that that was the way one identified oneself with the shul. Pretty sad.
at least in Israel lungs on fowl are checked because the hashgachot consider the lung problems to be a miut hamatzui. whether it really is or not I do not know, but that is the policy, at least of all the mehadrin hechsherim. I am not sure what a plain rabbanut hechsher does about lungs on fowl.
We talked to a shochet here, and he said that the "glatt" that is sold today is not really glatt and that many sephardim can't eat the "glatt" ashkenazi meat, which is why they buy beit yosef.
He said even if we eat non-glatt, we shouldn't buy the non-glatt in America. It is very questionable.
And yet, it's still marketed as glatt, which means all these people who keep this chumra really aren't keeping this chumra, and 70% of the animals shechted are still thrown into the traif pile. So, in reality, we're paying a very high price for no real reason.
By the way, Moshe Kagan, who used to own Western Kosher on Fairfax, which is now owned by his son Dovid, has told my dad and I the same thing several time. It's pretty sad that people still buy into this myth, thus causing the rest of us, because of a chumra that's not really kept anyway, to pay way too much for meat.
sad truth is that there was more "kosher " meat sold in los angeles 50 years ago that there is today. true not glatt meat ,but jews would go to the "kosher " butcher .
Cholov Yisrael is not a chumrah. It is halachah. It is mentioned several times in the gemara. Rav Moshe Finstien was linient because he felt that if the government inspectors were good enough, then you can rely on them to make sure that the milk is from kosher animals. (Actually the reason is more complicated then that).
Go to www.teachittome.com and listen tot he shiur by Rabbi Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer on Cholov Yisroel for a very good overview of the issues.
Ok. Let's say you're right and Cholov Yisrael is a halacha, not a chumra. By saying that, it just proves my point that halacha can be changed depending on circumstances, as Reb Moshe did. Why not change it when it comes to other things? Kitniyos, for example, or even second day Yom Tov? If you want to say that Cholov Yisrael is a halacha that everyone was supposed to follow before Reb Moshe's psak, why don't we today because of a reason like Minhag Avoseinu? The "Halacha" of Cholov Yisrael was instituted because the goyim used to mix in non kosher milk with the kosher, if I have my facts right. Just because they stopped and by law MILK on the box or in ingredients means cow's milk, does that mean the halacha should have been changed? If the answer is yes, as Reb Moshe implies, then why not second day Yom Tov? Once the safek of when Yom Tov was taken away, what do we need it for? And to date, no matter how many people I've asked, I've never been given a good reason second day Yom Tov. Excuses, apologetics, yes. Never a reason.
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