SPONSORED BY MR. & MRS. BENJAMIN PERL

The Ultimate Diet

KosherInstructor’s Guidefor Torah Live’s

Version 1.8

“It is rare to see talent of this order used to so high and holy a cause. Rabbi Roth’s inspirational videos are outstanding. Will unlock the doors of learning to many.”

— Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

KOSHER: The Ultimate Diet

Sponsored by

Mr. & Mrs. Benjamin Perl

Instructor’s Guide for Torah Live’s

Kosher: The Ultimate Diet

version 1.8

Please send all questions and corrections to info@torahlive.com

2

3

A note from the Producer.................................................................................................... 4

Thank you ........................................................................................................................... 6

Instructions.......................................................................................................................... 7

Latest Version ................................................................................................................. 7

Screen Resolution ........................................................................................................... 7

Pointer ............................................................................................................................. 7

Lesson Plan ..................................................................................................................... 8

Navigation..................................................................................................................... 10

Settings Page................................................................................................................. 11

On-Screen Teacher Notes ............................................................................................. 12

System Requirements.................................................................................................... 13

Contact Us..................................................................................................................... 13

Speaking Notes ................................................................................................................. 14

Introduction > Reasons ................................................................................................. 14

Introduction > Sensitivity to Animals........................................................................... 28

Introduction > Daniel and the Lions ............................................................................. 32

Meat and Milk............................................................................................................... 38

Vegetables and Insects > Introduction.......................................................................... 39

Vegetables and Insects > Difficulty in Detecting ......................................................... 43

Vegetables and Insects > Severity ................................................................................ 49

Vegetables and Insects > Past and Present ................................................................... 55

Vegetables and Insects > Health Authorities ................................................................ 57

Vegetables and Insects > Laws..................................................................................... 58

Vegetables and Insects > Insect Free Greenhouses ...................................................... 60

Vegetables and Insects > Strawberry Video ................................................................. 65

The Kosher Symbol > Dear Torah Live Video............................................................. 66

The Kosher Symbol > What’s in the Ingredients ......................................................... 67

The Kosher Symbol > Behind the Scenes Video.......................................................... 79

The Kosher Symbol > Putting it All Together.............................................................. 80

4

A note from the Producer You hold in your hands the product of more than one person – as of course has been noted in the list of acknowledgments. But I feel it essential to single out two very special individuals who initiated the entire project: Rabbi Andrew Davis and Mrs. Hayley Simon.

These two outstandingly devoted educators spearheaded the creation of this entertaining yet informative presentation, one easily absorbed by young Jewish souls.

Filled with warmth and concern for their students they generously injected the production with their professional talents and resources, ultimately assuring a final product which meets the needs of the enquiring young mind. This state-of-the-art multimedia presentation on kashrut will surely be utilized by you with great pleasure as you see your students learn with ease and joy. I look forward – as I am sure you do – to the production of many more such presentations for the benefit of our youth.

In introducing the laws of kashrut, the Torah states,

: ַהַחּיָה ֲאֶׁשר ּתֹאְכלּו ִמָּכל ַהְּבֵהָמה ֲאֶׁשר ַעל ָהָאֶרץזֹאתַּדְּברּו ֶאל ְּבנֵי יְִׂשָרֵאל ֵלאמֹר

ב:ויקרא יא

Speak to the Children of Israel, saying: These are the life forms that you may eat from among all the animals that are upon the earth.

Leviticus 11:2.

Commenting on the word “זאת – these,” Rashi writes:

זאת תאכלו וזאת לא תאכלו, מלמד שהיה משה אוחז בחיה ומראה אותה לישראל

Moshe held the creatures up to show Israel, saying, “This you may eat and this you may not eat.” Maharal in Gur Aryeh notes:צריך להראות לתלמידו לחוש העין .

Moshe Rabbeinu – the Jewish teacher par excellence – showed his students what he was talking about to give them clarity. How fitting that Rabbi Davis chose kashrut as the first topic to enhance visually as that’s precisely where we learn from the Torah the need for teachers to use visual aids in teaching.

In researching and writing the kashrut script, I was particularly inspired by the words of Dayan Dr. I. Grunfeld in his work The Jewish Dietary Laws who writes (pages 3-4):

If we want to maintain the loyalty of our youth to Kashrut and to other spheres of practical religious life, we must introduce our thinking young men and women to the underlying ideas of our laws. We must show them that our religious commandments or Mitzvot are not mere “ceremonies” to be discarded at will, but divine rules of life for the people of God, eternal and inviolable; that the commandments of the Torah represent divine thoughts implanted into man through symbolic action. They are religious power-stations for the creation of holiness among the people of Israel, as is so clearly expressed in the verse of the Torah: “That ye may remember and do all My commandments and be holy unto your God” (Numbers 15:40).

5

Mere habit and mechanical performance – מצות אנשים מלומדה – are not enough for the perpetuation of the Jewish way of life. There must be conviction, based on knowledge. … With non-Jewish intellectual and cultural influences ever increasing around them, they cannot be expected to remain loyal to the Jewish way of life without a proper or adequate intellectual and scholarly foundation. Our youth, especially our intelligentsia, must know not only what they are required to observe but why.

And so my dear teacher, you can rise to the challenge. With the help of this guide, you can teach your students not only the technical know-how of keeping kosher, but deliver it with such conviction and passion, such feeling and enthusiasm, that it will remain with them for the rest of their lives. And one day, when they grow up and start their own homes, they will pass on the lessons you taught. Make it real. Make it exciting. Make it stay.

You – who are out in the fields – are the best guides – and can help bring about our mutual goal of educating the next generation to continue our heritage. So please don’t hesitate to e-mail me your feedback and tips for improvement.

I look forward to hearing from you personally.

Rabbi Dan Roth

Founder, Torah Live d.roth@torahlive.com

6

Thank you • Mr. Benjamin Perl MBE, for creating the partnership between Yavneh College and Torah Live. Without Mr. Perl as Honorary President in general, and his extraordinary vision in particular, much of this admirable institution would not be the same, not least of all this project

• Rabbi Dr. Ari Greenspan for hosting the kosher animal videos

• Rabbi Dovid Orlofsky for Professor Krumblykorn voice over

• Rabbi Yaakov Luban, Executive Rabbinic Coordinator of the OU, for permission to use Behind the Scenes Video. www.oukosher.org

• Mrs. Denah Stilerman for proofreading this instructors guide

• Rabbi Yisrael Stilerman for his halachic advice and guidance

• Rabbi Dovid Tugendhaft for sharing his kashrut lectures, as well as his ongoing encouragement and good advice

• Rabbi Moshe Vaye for use of his insect pictures

• Rabbi Jeremy Conway and Rabbi Eli Schoemann of the London Beth Din Kashrut Division for sharing their resources

• Rabbi Chaim Mendelson for his pictures and good advice

• Bennet Kaplan and Dan Neuman for use of their fishing rods in the kosher fish film

• Sigalit Dvir of The Jerusalem Biblical Zoo for permission to film in the zoo

• Meir Roth and Elchanan Finn for starring in the Dear Torah Live video

• Rick Madger for help in licensing the kashrut videos

• Yoav Preiss of Latteccini Restaurant, Jerusalem, www.latteccini.com , for his insights into the world of kashrut

• And, אחרון אחרון חביב, Becky Roth for her ongoing help and support

7

Instructions

Latest Version Torah Live will be updating these speaker notes with corrections and new suggestions. To make sure you have the most recent version visit our website, www.torahlive.com and click on the treasure chest tab, where you will find a section called Presentation Materials. The version you have at the moment is 1.6.

Screen Resolution For best visual effect, the presentation should run in full screen. That way the audience does not see all the ugly files sitting on your desktop! You can turn the full screen mode on at any time by pressing the Escape key on your keyboard. Subsequent presses of the Escape key will toggle between full screen mode on and off.

The graphics have been created to display at 1024 x 768 pixels. Since scaling the window larger and smaller will alter this resolution, the presentation has been set to disallow resizing. Turning on the full screen feature will force the presentation to display at optimum size (1024 x 768) so that you and your audience can enjoy the presentation at its best.

Pointer You can give the presentation without having to touch the keyboard or mouse-pad by using a remote control pointer to forward to the next slide. This gives you the freedom to walk around the room, interacting with students and answering questions, without having to stand right next to the computer. Many remote controls come with built-in lasers, allowing you to point a red dot at the screen to draw attention to words or pictures.

We recommend the HiRO H50064 3-In-1 2.4GHz WiFi Presenter with Laser Pointer and Wireless Mouse available from Amazon here (no we don’t get commission!)

8

Lesson Plan This is not a PowerPoint presentation where you are forced to begin on the first slide and follow a linear path until you reach the end, but rather a flexible program where you can pick and choose sections to teach, depending on the time you have and the audience you are teaching. There is enough information in the presentations that you can spread it over a number of weeks. While the exact way you spread it out is of course up to you – the following 5 week lesson plan might be of some help:

Class 1 - Introduction:

1. Reasons (Physical health / Self discipline / Affect on soul)

2. Sensitivity to Animals

3. Daniel and the Lions

Class 2 - Meat and Milk:

1. Introduction

2. Three prohibitions

3. Pareve

4. Meat and Fish

5. Pots and Pans

6. Tables and Counters

7. Waiting from Meat to Milk

8. Waiting from Milk to Meat

9. Taste Transfer

Class 3 - Signs of Kosher Animals:

1. Mammals

2. Fish

3. Birds

4. Locusts

Class 4 - Vegetables and Insects:

1. Introduction

2. Difficulty in Detecting

3. Severity

4. Past and Present

5. Health Authorities

6. Laws

9

7. Insect Free Greenhouses

8. Strawberry video

Class 5 - The Kosher Symbol:

1. Dear Torah Live Video

2. What’s in the Ingredients

3. Behind the Scenes Video

4. Putting it All Together

10

Navigation • You can navigate around the various parts of the presentation by clicking on the menu headings on the main menu screen, which will open up sub-menus. If you want to return at any point to the previous menu, or main menu, use the “breadcrumbs” on the top left of the screen (circled in red below.)

• To move back and forth within each section, hover the cursor around the right hand part of the screen (cursor should change from arrow to hand) and click. To move back a frame, hover around the left side of the screen and click. You can also use the pointer to do this by going into the settings page and using the define pointer buttons. Remember to choose “save.”

• Another way to move back and forth between frames is with the left and right arrow keys: Right arrow = next frame; Left arrow = previous frame

11

Settings Page You can access the setting page from the left-most icon at the top of the main menu (circled in red below). There you will be able to select how you want the heading items on the main menu to appear: with a swoosh sound or without; with the falling in effect or without. You can also choose which keys, on the pointer or keyboard, will move a slide backward and forward. (Make sure to save your selection before exiting.)

12

On-Screen Teacher Notes

• The settings page also contains a button to turn on and off the “notes mode” (marked in red above). Turning this feature on causes the speaking notes – contained in this PDF – to appear at the bottom of each slide, as demonstrated below (highlighted). Where the notes don’t fit into the box at the bottom, a scroll bar appears on the left use to slide the words up and down.

13

System Requirements • The presentation is designed to run on either PC or Mac (OS 10.4.x or greater)

Contact Us Need technical support? Visit our FAQ page on torahlive.com or write to support@torahlive.com

14

Speaking Notes

Introduction > Reasons

Ask class: what was the first mitzvah?

Most people call out “not to eat from the eitz hadaat” but the real answer is that it was to eat from all the other trees. Speak about how Judaism wants us to enjoy the world – but in the right way. Hence the laws of kashrut….

[For your interest: The phrase in Genesis 2:16 “מכל עץ הגן אכל תאכל” is understood by Rav Saadia Gaon and Ibn Ezra v. 13 to be a permission to eat of the trees. According to them, the translation of the verse is: Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat. However, Meshech Chochma and Radak interpret the phrase to be a command that man must eat of the trees. Accordingly, the translation would be: Of all the tress in the garden you shall surely eat. Meshech Chochmah adds: It was a mitzvah for Adam to nourish his soul from the fruits of the garden. As the Talmud Yerushalmi at the end of Kiddushin states: עתיד

ולא אכל) על כל שראה עיניו(אדם ליתן דין וחשבון - Man will have to give an account for everything he saw and did not partake of. Had Adam conveyed this positive command to his wife Chava, she would have not sinned. Her fulfillment of this command, albeit without knowledge, would have acted as a merit to protect her from transgression.]

15

Class vote: Is it better delve into the reasons behind mitzvot or is it better to just accept them with blind faith, without understanding why?

Show of hands: Who says you should try to understand; who says blind acceptance….?

Both answers are right!

On the one hand, we are not only permitted – but actually encouraged – to understand the reasons behind the mitzvot.

Why? Why do you think its good to offer reasons?

Lead class discussion on this topic. Encourage children to offer their thoughts. Write each child’s answer on the board.

Try to lead them to the correct answer, which is that understanding the mitzvot makes them easier to perform. God doesn’t want us to be robots, serving Him mechanically without feeling. He wants us to be excited about the mitzvot, performing them with enthusiasm. The way to achieve this is by understanding the reason behind them.

On the other hand, it is forbidden to use our understanding of mitzvot to decide whether or not to perform them. A person can’t say, “This command makes no sense to me so I am not going to obey it!” No. We do not keep mitzvot because they make sense to us but because God commands us to do so.

16

Use the metaphor of food to explain this concept: Every food has a taste, but it’s not the taste that provides the nourishment – it’s the nutrients contained in the food. The taste just makes the food more appetizing. After all, people who are unable to digest food normally can be sustained via intravenous infusions, which have no taste. The reasons offered for mitzvot are also just a “taste.” They serve to make the mitzvot more palatable to us, to help us appreciate their value, and to do them with enthusiasm. But like the spice in a food, they are not what provides the nourishment. It is the mitzvah alone – the act of doing God’s will independent of our understanding why – that provides spiritual nourishment to our souls.

[For your interest: The mitzvah of kashrut is called a chok which comes from חקוק, meaning engraved. Rabbeinu Bachya to Bamidbar 19:2 agrees with the other commentators (Rashi, Ramban) that a chok's reason is unknown, but argues with their claim that it’s implied from the aspect of chok that means gezeira. The unknownness is implied in the aspect of chok that means fixed, but not in the sense of closed to understanding; rather it means fixed in the sense of being immobile. It remains in its spiritual form above and is not translated into physical reality, as other mitzvos are, such as mishpatim where we can see the worldly benefit of things that in essence are totally ephemeral. We think we understand the benefit of kibbud av va'eim, but we also know that the malachim who saw the mitzvah on its ephemeral level couldn't understand why Hashem would give it to people, until Moshe answered them that in our world it makes sense to us. A chok, on the other hand, has the same ephemeral essence, but it never becomes translated into our logic. It remains but a hint to the essence of the mitzvah in its pure form.]

17

Having understood that it’s better to understand reasons behind the mitzvot, lets try and see what reasons we can come up with for the laws of kashrut.

Encourage children to offer reasons for the laws of keeping kosher.

Possible answers people may call out:

1. Physical health

True that some of the commentators mention this reason and many people think it…

18

In fact, according to an article in the Sunday Times many non-Jews eat kosher for this reason….

Quote from Sunday Times, March 16, 2010

Is kosher food healthier? - Traditional Jewish foods are selling fast to vegans, allergy sufferers and others convinced of their health benefits

By Peta Bee

On her weekly trip to the supermarket, Jo Ormond heads straight for the kosher food section. There she fills her trolley with what she describes as “yummy delights” from the dried, frozen and chilled products on offer. “I scour kosher shelves and specialist shops,” she says. “There is an amazing butter substitute called Tomor and I love the kosher guacamole and Rakusen’s potato latkes, a sort of fritter that comes in bags.”

Yet Ormond’s enthusiasm for kosher food is not inspired by religion, for she is not Jewish. She is one of a growing band of kosher converts who buy traditional Jewish fare in the belief that it is healthier and purer than other types of food.

Ormond, a 28-year-old vegan, came across kosher food when she was shopping online at Waitrose and a kosher pesto sauce was recommended as the only one free of animal products. She began to explore the kosher principles of food production and found that it met her exacting dietary demands. “I buy it because there are great vegan options but also because it is made extremely safely and cleanly,” she says. “And it tastes good.”

It is not just vegans and vegetarians who are being drawn to kosher food by the manufacturing methods used. People with allergies increasingly buy kosher, and so do those concerned about contamination and food sourcing. A recent Mintel report in America revealed that only about 15 per cent of people who buy kosher now do so for religious reasons — most say that they make the switch because of the quality and healthfulness of the food. Figures are not yet available for the UK, although a report is planned, but there are signs that the kosher food explosion is mirrored here.

19

Rabbi Jeremy Conway, director of the kosher food division at the London Beth Din, which approves most kosher products in the UK, says that there has been “a tremendous rise” in demand for kosher food and in applications from manufacturers to certify their products as kosher. Most major supermarket chains now stock substantial kosher ranges. Among the latest to get the seal of approval are Mars, Galaxy and Snickers bars, which have the go-ahead to add the kosher logo over the next few months. The makers of Walkers crisps, Oreo biscuits and Ryvita crispbreads are among those who have paid to have their production processes assessed by a rabbi to get kosher approval.

“There is a growing perception among the non-Jewish community that kosher food is cleaner and so less likely to cause dietary problems,” says Rabbi Conway.

Many kosher converts are unaware of the complex laws that underpin Jewish dietary traditions. For religious Jews, kosher — meaning “clean” or “fit to eat” — includes only meat from animals with cloven hooves that chew grass, so deer, cows and sheep are in but pigs and horses are forbidden. Fish with fins and scales are fine but not shellfish or shark, and all birds can be eaten except vultures, owls and ostriches. All animals and birds must be handled with care during life and killed by slitting the carotid artery, with the blood rinsed from carcasses with salt and water. Meat and dairy must never be mixed — in many Jewish households, cutlery, crockery, tea towels and work surfaces are colour-coded to avoid mix-ups, and many rabbinical authorities insist on a three-hour gap between eating meat and dairy foods.

For non-Jews, the appeal is that kosher food seems to offer a guarantee of purity and reputable source. “There is no shared use of equipment and the traceability of ingredients and batches of food is guaranteed,” says Rabbi Conway. Vegetarians can rest assured that a “parve” label means that food contains no meat or dairy (though it may contain eggs and honey)

END OF ARTICLE

Quote from OU’s video on: http://www.oukosher.org/index.php/professional/videos

“This trend has prompted Food and Wine magazine and Rolling Stone to tag kosher as one of the decades hot food trends. The NY Times business section asserted that affixing a kosher stamp on the face of a product has become the 90’s equivalent to the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.”

But there are problems with this explanation. Anyone guess what they are?

a. Gentiles eat pork, insects, and other animals that are declared unclean by the Torah yet they are nevertheless strong and healthy.

b. The fact that animals which are poisonous, or any plants that are poisonous are omitted, clearly shows that the concern of the Torah in this legislation is not our physical health.

c. This would reduce the Torah into nothing more than a medical text book.

[Note: Akaydat Yitzchak writes: “On no account is the legislation of forbidden foods to be seen in context of contributing to or detracting from physical well being or bodily health.”]

20

Good. What other reasons can you think of?

21

2. Self discipline

Add research done showing that when we practice self control our brains release endorphins making us happy...

22

Speak about the experiment below that shows that people who can display self-control usually end up achieving more in life….

From Wikipedia: The Stanford marshmallow experiment was a study on deferred gratification. The experiment was conducted in 1972 by psychologist Walter Mischel of Stanford University. The experiment has been repeated many times since, and the original study at Stanford has been “regarded as one of the most successful behavioral experiments.” In the study, a marshmallow was offered to each child. If the child could resist eating the marshmallow, he was promised two instead of one. The scientists analyzed how long each child resisted the temptation to eat the marshmallow, and whether or not doing so had an effect on their future success. The results provided researchers with great insight on the psychology of self control.

Stanford experiment

The purpose of the original study was to understand when the control of deferred gratification, the ability to wait in order to obtain something that one wants, develops in children. The original experiment took place at the Bing Nursery School located at Stanford University, using children around the age of four to six as subjects. The children were led into a room, empty of distractions, where a treat of their choice (Oreo cookie, marshmallow, or pretzel stick) was placed on a table, by a chair. The children could eat the marshmallow, the researchers said, but if they waited for fifteen minutes without giving in to the temptation, they would be rewarded with a second marshmallow. Mischel observed as some would “cover their eyes with their hands or turn around so that they can't see the tray, others start kicking the desk, or tug on their pigtails, or stroke the marshmallow as if it were a tiny stuffed animal,” while a few would simply eat the marshmallow as soon as the researchers left.

Follow-up studies

It was the results of the follow-up study, that would take place many years later, which surprised Mischel. Since Mischel’s daughters knew and grew up with many of the original test subjects, through casual conversation, Mischel discovered there existed an unexpected correlation between the results of the marshmallow test, and the success of the children many years later. The first follow-up study, in 1988, showed that “preschool children who delayed gratification longer in the self-imposed delay paradigm, were described more than 10 years later by their parents as adolescents who were significantly

23

more competent.” A second follow-up study, in 1990, showed that the ability to delay gratification also correlated with higher SAT scores.

From http://sivers.org/time:

70% of the kids ate the marshmallow right away. Only 30% of the kids could wait the full 15 minutes to get the second marshmallow. This experiment has been repeated in other countries (Brazil and Japan) over the years, and the ratio stays the same: two-thirds can't wait, one-third wait. But here's the interesting part: 15 years later, the researchers followed-up and found that those kids who waited for the second marshmallow scored, on average, 250 points higher on the SAT test, and were higher achievers in whatever field they had chosen (academic, athletic, artistic). They were all-around more successful and happier.

So the ability to delay gratification is one of the best indicators of future success.

For more information on this experiment, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_lehrer

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/sweet-temptation-delayed-gratification/6wxc1bk

http://sivers.org/time

24

3. Affect on soul

Parallel between healthy food to the body and spiritually healthy food for the soul. Nowadays scientists are able to tell us how various foods are good for various parts of our body, e.g. the calcium in milk for teeth and bones, carrots for eye sight etc. Our spiritual scientists teach us that it’s exactly the same with character traits. The forbidden foods listed in the Torah have a negative affect on our personality, arousing negative attributes.

25

Speak about how we are made of two parts: spiritual and physical and how our bodies are just the casing for our real self, which is our neshama. Give the metaphor of a space man wearing a space suit. The space suit isn’t him, but just a shell, an outer covering to help him navigate in his surroundings. Similarly, our bodies aren’t our real self but just a shell to help our neshamot get around in this world.

This being the case we have to make sure that the food we eat is not only physically healthful but spiritually healthful.

26

כי אני . אל תשקצו את נפשתיכם בכל השרץ השרץ ולא תטמאו בהם ונטמתם בםולא תטמאו את נפשתיכם , לקיכם והתקדשתם והייתם קדשים כי קדוש אניא' ה

המעלה אתכם מארץ מצרים להיות לכם ' כי אני ה. בכל השרץ הרמש על הארץ לאלקים והייתם קדשים כי קדוש אני

]מה- מג. ויקרא יא[

Do not make yourselves abominable by means of any creepy thing; Do not contaminate yourselves through them lest you become contaminated through them.

Leviticus 11:43

The Torah writes in regards to eating insects [verses on screen] and the Sages explain that the word תם]א[ונטמ is missing the aleph so it can be read ונטמתם, which means, lest you become blocked up.

Talmud Bavli (Babylonian Talmud) Yoma 39a

It was taught by the school of Rabbi Yishmael: Sin blocks up a person’s heart, as it states, “Do not contaminate yourselves through [eating] them (sharatzim), lest you become contaminated through them” (Vayikra 11:43). Do not read it as “contaminated” (nitmeitem), but rather “blocked up” (nitamtem).

ולא תטמאו בהם ונטמתם בם ) מג: ויקרא יא(שנאמר , עבירה מטמטמת לבו של אדם: תנא דבי רבי ישמעאל .אל תקרי ונטמאתם אלא ונטמטם

Rashi ibid. explains:

אוטמת וסותמת מכל חכמה-מטמטמת

“Blocks up” - seals and closes it from any wisdom. It clogs up our soul, like arteries being clogged up with fat. Imagine health authorities issued a warning that a certain food is poison. We wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole. Same with non-kosher food. It’s poison to our souls.

Here is a beautiful quote from Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch in Horeb chapter 68:

If you have eaten them, not only touched them but absorbed them into your system – you may be more nourished and better fed: but the animal instinct will be aroused more strongly within you, and your body becomes more blunted as an instrument of the spirit. Your heart, instead of being holy, instead of striving only for your holiness – namely, your sublimity above everything animal-like, is drawn down to the animal – or becomes the more apathetic and dulled. Your spirit is now faced with a fiercer battle, and is less equipped for the fight. “These foods are טמא unto you.” “Do not make yourselves טמא with them.” “For you will yourselves become ,טמא through them.” Thus does the Torah repeatedly warn you. You become טמאimpure, less capable of your holy mission; and you should really be “anshei kodesh,” “men of sanctity,” members of a great, holy institution; this is the whole purpose of your election, to strive after Me to be holy, for I, Who should alone be your God, Whom alone you should freely allow to govern every manifestation of your life – I am holy!” Thus you should preserve your body so that it be a pure temple of your Divine self. You should not add to it powers which will give the animal part therein a preponderance and pull down spirit and heart with it; for

27

your body also is Mine, God’s. And that which is usually expressed by טומאה, impurity, is also termed שקץ (sheketz), a detestable thing. Everything which you reject as something alien to you, as something not corresponding to your being, is called “sheketz.” Just as your body naturally rejects that which your taste has tested and found to be alien and not suitable to your body, so should you reject these foods, for they are alien, sheketz, to your spiritual being and are not suitable for it; so that your spiritual being shall not itself become sheketz and shall not become alien to and unsuitable for the holy mission which it bears as Israel. So it is also with תועבה, abomination, another expression used by Scripture for forbidden foods; your spiritual self should abominate them, for they, contrary to your spiritual mission, nourish the animal nature only.

לעולם טמא כי התורה הרחיקתהו מפני ן הסימן הגדול בעופות היא הדריסה שכל עוף הדורס ''לשון הרמב' ונותן אכזריות בלב וכו' שדמו מחומם לאכזריות וכו

Eating forbidden foods harms one’s spiritual potential increasing the animalistic side of our being.

The following movie should lead to a great class discussion!

PLAY MOVIE FROM YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT SECTION

28

Introduction > Sensitivity to Animals

Speak about Judaism’s reverence for animal life.

Quote from Dayan Dr. I. Grunfeld’s book, The Jewish Dietary Laws, page 54-55:

The Talmud tells the following story: Once Yehuda Hanassi, the compiler of the Mishnah, sat in front of the Academy of Sepphoris when a calf was led to the slaughter yard. It began to cry as if to say: “Save me.” Thereupon Rabbi Yehuda said “I cannot help you; after all, this is your destiny.” Because of this utterance Rabbi Yehuda was punished in that he suffered physical pain for thirteen years. After that time a small animal passed his daughter who was about to kill it when Rabbi Yehuda said: “Leave it alone: God’s mercy extends over all His creatures.” It was only then that Rabbi Yehuda was relieved from his physical suffering because he had shown mercy on God's creatures.

This Talmudical narrative is typical of Jewish teaching which inculcates the utmost concern for the exercise of kindness to animals.

To quote but a few examples:

1. Animals are allowed to rest on the Sabbath (Ex. 23:12).

2. If a man finds a nest of birds he must not take the mother bird and the young, but first has to send away the mother to spare her feelings (Deut. 22:6).

3. While treading out the corn the ox (or any other animal) must not be muzzled (Deut. 25:4).

4. When an animal is born it is not to be taken away from its mother for at least seven days. An animal and its young must not be killed on the same day lest through thoughtlessness the young is killed before the eyes of the parent (Lev. 22:26-33).

5. The Hebrew phrase Tza’ar Ba’alei Hayim – cruelty to any living creature, which is considered a serious offence - has become a household word in Jewish life and belongs to the best-known slogans in Jewish religious education. Kindness to

29

animals is considered to be evidence of a tender heart and was made the criterion for the selection of a wife for Isaac (Gen. 24:14).

30

6. The rabbis teach that a man must not sit down to a meal before he has fed his animals, and they base this teaching on a passage in Deut. 11:15.

31

7. Ploughing with an ox and an ass harnessed together is forbidden because they are not equal in strength and the weaker would suffer in trying to keep up with the stronger (Deut. 22:10).

The Daat Zekeinim meBa’alay Tosfot provide an interesting reason for this prohibition. A donkey does not chew its cud. An ox, on the other hand, does chew its cud. The donkey and the ox would be walking along, yoked together, and the donkey would see the ox chewing and think that it was eating something. The donkey would become upset: “I missed lunch. When did it happen?” He would become jealous of the ox, because he would think the ox was fed and he was not.

In fact, of course, they both had the same lunch. But the ox chews its cud so it appears to be continuously eating, thus giving the donkey the misimpression that he has been cheated. According to the Daat Zekeinim, the Torah is trying to avoid this psychological pain that the donkey would experience.

Can you believe it? The Torah cares about animals being jealous! אשרי העם שככה לו.

Feel proud of being Jewish and realize that it’s the same Torah – that displays such exceptional sensitivity – that has precise laws about how the animal should be slaughtered. We can be sure, therefore, that the way the Torah expects an animal to be prepared is with the most humane method.

[Teachers wishing to elaborate on the humanity of shechita are recommended to see Dayan Grunfeld’s book ibid.]

32

Introduction > Daniel and the Lions

The text for this section is taken from The Midrash Says on parshat Shmini:

When exiling the Jews of Yerushalayim, the Babylonian emperor Nevuchadnetzar drafted a number of Jewish youths to his court to serve him. Among them were four young men from the Tribe of Yehuda: Daniel, Chananya, Mishael, and Azarya. Nevuchadnetzar ordered that they undergo a three year training period, during which they were to eat a daily portion of the king's food and drink of his wine. Thereafter, they would be ready to serve him.

33

However, the greatest of these young Jews, Daniel, decided that he would not defile himself with non-kosher food nor drink non-Jewish wine. He reasoned, “Surely Hashem subjected us to this difficult situation in order to test us. We must discharge our duty, and then Hashem will do His.” Daniel requested of the man in charge, “Please allow me and my friends to eat only vegetarian food and drink water.” The man in charge was afraid, saying, “You will look worse than the others, and I will endanger my head.”

Daniel, however, begged him to let them try it out for ten days and see the results.

“You are from the noble family of Yehuda and used to fine food,” argued the man in charge. “How will you manage to subsist without bread and wine for ten days?”

Daniel answered, “We are descendants of a great tzaddik, Avraham, who was tested with ten trials and passed them all. We trust that his merit will assist us. “

Hashem gave Daniel grace in the eyes of the superior who thereupon consented to the test. Daniel and his friends lived only on vegetables and water. After ten days, they looked fairer and healthier than all the other youths who dined on royal food. They were therefore given permission to continue their meager diet. These four who refrained from forbidden foods were distinguished by Hashem with special wisdom and insight, and Daniel, who had initiated the mitzvah, merited that ruach hakodesh should rest upon him.

The king appointed all four as his permanent advisors.

34

At a later date, Nevuchadnetzar ordered a tremendous image of gold to be made, which he set up in a valley of Bavel. He dispatched messengers to the governors and officials of all Babylonian provinces ordering them to assemble in honor of its dedication.

When the ceremony began, a royal herald announced, “You are commanded, O peoples, nations, and tongues, that when you hear the sound of the horn and of all kinds of musical instruments, you shall prostrate yourselves and worship the golden image that Nevuchadnetzar the emperor set up. Whoever does not fall down and worship it shall immediately be cast into a fiery furnace.”

Everyone fell down as the emperor had commanded except for three people, Chananya, Mishael, and Azarya. (Daniel was not present.) Although they knew that they would be seized and the death punishment carried out, they ignored the emperor's command. How did these young men muster the courage to sacrifice their lives for Hashem?

The answer is that having refrained from eating non-kosher foods, their souls possessed a great degree of kedusha. Therefore, they were capable of great deeds.

35

Their disobedience to the emperor's order was immediately reported, and Nevuchadnetzar threatened fiercely, “Unless you prostrate yourselves before the image at once, you will be cast alive into the furnace.” They responded, “There is a G-d Whom we worship Who can save us from the furnace and deliver us from your hand. Know, though, that even if He does not save us, we will nevertheless not prostrate ourselves before the image.”

Infuriated at their refusal, Nevuchadnetzar commanded that the heat of the furnace be intensified sevenfold. The three young men were seized and cast into the flames. A miracle happened, and the flames did not even singe them. Nevuchadnetzar then released them and publicly acknowledged the greatness of the Almighty G-d, promoting the three to even higher court positions.

36

The Babylonian reign was replaced by that of Persia. Daniel, who retained his high position under the rule of the Persian King Daryavesh (Darius), was envied by the other courtiers. They vainly sought an accusation to demote him because he was faithful in all his dealings.

Finally, they initiated a royal edict that for the next thirty days, no one should be allowed to make supplication to anyone save the emperor himself. They hoped thereby to set a trap for Daniel for they knew that he regularly prayed to Hashem. Daniel nevertheless continued to pray in the direction of Yerushalyaim as he was wont, three times a day, Shacharit, Mincha, and Maariv. His enemies found him praying in his chamber and demanded of the emperor to execute the punishment to be imposed upon any transgressor, namely, casting him alive into a lion's den. Daryavesh greatly cherished Daniel's services and was reluctant to punish him. However, the courtier prevailed upon him, and he gave orders that the sentence be executed.

37

Greatly distressed at the thought of Daniel’s probable death, Daryavesh passed a sleepless night. The next morning, he hurried to the lion's den and cried out, “Daniel, servant of the Living G-d, was your G-d, Whom you serve continually, able to rescue you from the lions?”

Daniel’s voice answered him from the den. “O King, may you live forever,” called Daniel, “my G-d has sent His angel to shut the lions’ mouths, and they did not hurt me.”

The Zohar explains that the lions did not harm Daniel because of the great kedusha which emanated from him. This kedusha was a result of his having refrained from eating non-kosher foods.

The emperor was relieved. He ordered that Daniel be brought out of the den and that the men who had accused him, together with their wives and children, be cast there instead. Before they reached the bottom of the den, the lions broke their bones and devoured them. (This shows that the lions were famished and demonstrates with even greater clarity the miracle of Daniel’s deliverance.)

The above account manifests the spiritual greatness and kedusha acquired by one who abstains from non-kosher foods. Conversely, one who eats forbidden foods strengthens the evil impulses within him and clogs his mind and soul. His nature assumes characteristics similar to those of the impure food he has ingested.

38

Meat and Milk This section is designed to be taught entirely by Professor Krumblycorn, a digital-teacher with a voiceover by Rabbi Dovid Orlofsky. Each of the nine animations listed below covers another basic aspect of kashrut. At the end of each animation there is a simple interactive quiz to test the student on his knowledge.

To run properly, each student will need their own laptop. Students must each have earphones to be able to learn at their own pace from the digital-teacher without distracting one another.

1. Introduction

2. Three prohibitions

3. Pareve

4. Meat and Fish

5. Pots and Pans

6. Tables and Counters

7. Waiting From Meat to Milk

8. Waiting From Milk to Meat

9. Taste Transfer

At the end of each animation is a short multiple choice quiz. Students should fill in the answers and those who complete will have the opportunity to receive a certification of completion (to be designed by the school). Students who do not manage to complete all the material in class time should be given access to it from home, so they will be able to complete it there.

The animations can be paused by clicking anywhere on the main body of the screen.

39

Vegetables and Insects > Introduction Note: This class should be made memorable by making it experiential. Teachers should bring in lettuce, broccoli, parsley, dill, or strawberries and shake the vegetable on a white paper showing fluffy friends for all to see!

Kids may also enjoy using light tables to find bugs.

40

I’d like to begin with a riddle. Can you guess:

What item in this world is able to keep people alive, yet is only 1 mm big?

What is so powerful that it runs factories and electricity systems, yet is produced with such abundance, you can buy it for less than a cent?

What has transformed the way we travel, … the way we spend our time … the way we interact with another and conduct our business?

Anybody got it?

That’s right: the microchip.

41

This is the castor seed plant, from which castor beans grow. Besides being used to make oil, the castor bean is also the source of the world’s deadliest substance – ricin.

A ricin grain the size of a grain of sand can kill a 160 pound human adult.

That’s 12,000 times more poisonous than a rattlesnake!

[Teachers who want to add drama and think it not too scary can tell the story of Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian dissident who was stabbed in the leg with a poisoned umbrella containing a tiny ricin pellet no more than 1.52 mm. Markov, who defected to Britain from his native country in 1969, felt a stinging pain as he waited at a bus stop on Waterloo Bridge in London in September 1978. He turned to see an unidentified man picking up an umbrella. Within hours, Markov, 49, a strong critic of Bulgaria's communist regime, had developed a high fever. Three days later he died in hospital.

A metal pellet the size of a pinhead and filled with the poison ricin was found in his calf, leading police to believe he had been assassinated by the Bulgarian Secret Service and KGB. Relate at your discretion!]

42

What has all this got to do with today’s lesson?

Because today we are going to learn about the prohibition of eating bugs and many of the bugs are very tiny. A person may think, “What’s the big deal? It’s just a teeny speck, barely visible. How bad can it be?”

The microchip and risin show us that the fact that something is very small has no relationship to its power.

[The pellet that killed Georgi Markov measured 1.52 mm!]

Power has nothing to do with size. You don’t have to be big or strong to be powerful. Powerful things come in small packages.

The microchip and castor plant teach us that even the smallest items have the power to build or destroy worlds.

43

Vegetables and Insects > Difficulty in Detecting

Finding these pests can be tricky for several reasons:

a. Some of them can be really small.

44

Consider this picture. The dots next to the coin look like specs of dust. Its only under a microscope that you can see they are bugs!

[Note to teachers: A bug that is invisible to the eye and can only be seen under a microscope is not forbidden. If it was, we wouldn’t be able to breathe, as the air is filled with millions of such microbes! In this picture, however, the specs can be seen. The authorities rule that where one can see something, and the magnifying glass is just helping one determine what it is – as opposed to making something visible that was previously invisible – then the bug is forbidden. See Rav Vaye’s book for more sources on this topic.]

45

b. They hide in natural folds and crevices.

46

Look how this thrip has burrowed his way between the head of a cauliflower. (Picture 138 of Rav Vaye’s volume 1)

47

c. They are often the same color as the fruit around them. Look at this green bug on lettuce, white in flour, (use pictures 16-23) etc.

48

d. When they die they dry out, shrink, and appear like dirt or dust, making it almost impossible to notice. Eating dead bugs is just as bad as eating live ones.

49

Vegetables and Insects > Severity

The consumption of pork carries only one negative prohibition, whereas consumption of even the smallest insects can total six negative prohibitions. This is true, regardless of whether the insect is dead or alive.

50

The Torah writes… READ VERSES ON SCREEN AND PRESS NEXT SLIDE TO HIGHLGHT IN RED THE SIX PROHIBITIONS

A total of 6 prohibitions!

Why do you think the Torah issues so many warnings to tell us the same thing?

Let the students come up with their own reasons and hopefully one will get the answer of the Pri Chadash who says that its because insects are so commonplace in fruits and vegetables and it is impossible to avoid unless one makes great effort.

51

The number of transgressions depends on the type of bug….

52

Bugs that live in the water contain 4 transgressions….

53

Bugs that live on land invoke 5 transgressions….

54

And bugs that fly contain 6 transgressions.

55

Vegetables and Insects > Past and Present

It used to be each country had its own set of insects and people knew how to check for that particular bug. But nowadays globalization has made the world one community, causing insects to spread from place to place via increased transportation and imports.

56

Consider the spread of the Colorado beetle over Europe over the last 60 years…..

57

Vegetables and Insects > Health Authorities

Many people ask: why do we need to worry about bugs when nowadays we have government bodies setting standards of hygiene and cleanliness and ensuring our food is clean.

The answer is that the government bodies are worried about aesthetics and as long as it looks ok, they don’t care!!

According to the Israel Food Authorities, for example, a kilo of flour is allowed two bugs 46קן הישראלי לקמח מספר ת ) ), a kilo of rice can have 4 bugs; and figs can have 10% infestation.

The standards in America are much the same:

Screen shot is taken from:

http://www.fda.gov/food/guidancecomplianceregulatoryinformation/guidancedocuments/sanitation/ucm056174.htm

Asparagus is allowed to have 40 thrips in every 100 grams!! Broccoli (frozen) is allowed 60 in every 100 grams.

58

Vegetables and Insects > Laws

The following are factors to be aware of:

• Hygiene: Keeping food in clean surroundings minimizes the risk of infestation.

• Cover: Leaving food open allows bugs to enter. Wherever possible, keep food in sealed containers.

• Refrigeration: Warmth helps insects swarm. Keeping products in the fridge or freezer therefore reduces infestation.

• Fresh: Produce kept for long periods of time can become buggy. Take care therefore to keep stock fresh. This is especially relevant in small groceries whose inventory is not replenished as often as larger ones. Be extra careful when shopping in such stores to look out for infestation.

59

There are 3 grades of foods when it comes to checking for bugs:

1. clean (no need to check);

2. mild infestation (must check but if cooked without checking ok);

3. highly infested (must check and if cooked without food may be forbidden to eat.)

The fruit and vegetables listed in the picture are for demonstration purposes only and should not be relied upon for halachic ruling. This is because infestation depends on one’s locale and season and the facts change from year to year. In some years strawberries have been deemed highly infested to the extent that even cleaning wont help. Other years this has not been the case. For practical ruling a person should contact the local kashrut authorities.

60

Vegetables and Insects > Insect Free Greenhouses

This section contains picture of vegetables being grown in an insect-free greenhouse in Israel.

The pictures were taken by Rabbi Dan Roth on a Torah Live field trip. The greenhouses are equipped with double-entry-doors to allow people to enter while keeping the flies out.

61

Pictured here is a mashgiach checking the crop for infestation. This is done by shaking some of the plant, in this case dill, onto a white board and seeing if something comes off.

62

Depending on the size and quantity of the bugs, the mashgiach is able to instruct the farmer whether to add more pesticide.

People must realize, however, that the system is far from foolproof:

1. One of the greenhouses Rabbi Roth visited had the door wide open! It’s meant to have a double-door system, but who is there to check it’s actually closed all the time? One roof was left three quarters open for a couple of months!

2. The kashrut authorities certifying the vegetables bug-free rely on the mashgichim of the private companies to carry out a lot of the work. But these mashgichim are in turn employed by the farmers and farmers don’t take lightly to being told that the crop is infested and should not be sold to the market. Rabbi Roth witnessed one farmer being told his crop was not up to standard who began arguing and hassling the mashgiach! Each crop is worth tens of thousands of dollars. How should the farmer be relied upon?!

There were other serious issues Rabbi Roth noticed on the field trip, such as companies packaging lettuce with old bags that bore a kashrut authorities certification on them – even after the kashrut authority had removed its supervision from the company!

People should be made aware that even vegetables sold as bug-free are often not totally bug free and still require cleaning.

63

Rabbi Roth in the refrigerated room where the crop is kept fresh until taken to the shops.

64

Mashgiach separating trumot and maasrot from the produce. Notice the card in the mashgiach’s hand containing the text to recite.

65

Vegetables and Insects > Strawberry Video This homemade movie was taken by an Israeli living in America. This is the background story as he tells it:

“Around 2008, many rabbis and kashrut organizations warned that strawberries are infested in a manner that makes it virtually impossible to clean them. They told us that thrips – a new bug – hide under the seeds. The thrips are yellow and flexible and can hide under the seeds and even survive the most stringent cleaning and emerge intact. An untrained eye cannot discern this bug, though it is not microscopic in size. Many people have had a hard time accepting that this is a problem, because of the visibility issue. The images in this video prove without a doubt that the beautiful red fruit joins the raspberry and blackberry in the category of fruit that cannot be cleaned because of high infestation.

“We went on a red alert because of a discovery made on Shabbat parshat behaalotecha 6.14.08 at a prestigious local shul catering hall. As per special request by the client, strawberries were to be served at this meal. The strawberries went through a thorough cleaning by a knowledgeable mashgiach. By chance (hashgacha of course), I picked up a strawberry Shabbat morning and walked to the window to take a look. To my great shock I saw a small thrip walking on the strawberry. I could not believe my eyes and called the mashgiach to see if I was dreaming. He was shocked to discover that there were live thrips visible on the strawberries. We called over several waiters and our fears were confirmed – almost all the strawberries were infested with thrips though they had been carefully cleaned and checked before Shabbat. On the week of June 14, 2008 through June 22, 2008 we checked hundreds of strawberries – from the best of the market. The results will be shown in the following video. Judge for yourself.”

66

The Kosher Symbol > Dear Torah Live Video Transcript of video:

Dear Torah Live,

I was wondering: why must the food I eat be marked with a symbol on the package to make sure it is kosher?

Can’t I just read the ingredients?

If it doesn’t say pork or horse or alligator, isn’t that enough?

And how do the “kosher rabbis” decide what to put the symbol on, and what not? I really do want to understand, so thanks for your reply.

Yours truly,

Daniel

PS: Is there anything wrong with eating French fries in a non-kosher restaurant?

This short video raises questions students may wonder about but never articulated. It is meant to introduce the topic of what lies behind the kosher symbol.

After showing, ask the class: Have any of you ever wondered the same thing as Daniel? What is behind the OU, MK, KF and other kosher symbols that we see on packages? What is it telling us that we wouldn’t know just by reading the package? What does the mashgiach, the kosher supervisor rabbi, have to do to make sure the food is 100% kosher?

Today children we are going to be looking at the answer to these questions.

Let’s begin...

67

The Kosher Symbol > What’s in the Ingredients

Once upon a time, in a far far away place, food was different….

Well, truthfully, not so far away and not so long ago!

Until about 100 years ago, people made most of their food at home.

People didn’t buy cake or jam or bread. They made it themselves at home. The ingredients in the food they ate were simply the things they saw on their plate. Chicken was chicken, potato chips were potatoes. A little sugar, oil and salt thrown in, but not much more. There were no kashrut organizations because most foods didn’t need supervision. You knew exactly what you were eating.

68

Today, however, there are over 1000 kashrut agencies!

69

That’s because nowadays we buy ready made food made in large factories and its almost impossible for the individual to know what’s inside the food, not even by looking at the list of ingredients.

For example, factories use something called a defoamer, also known as an anti-foaming agent…

70

This is a chemical additive that reduces the formation of foam in industrial process liquids. Ever noticed small amounts of foam forming in the pot when your mother boils up the pasta?

Well, imagine how much foam would build up in a pot the size of a barrel, such as the ones used in factories? It would be disastrous!

To avoid this problem, factories pour in a “defoamer” to stop the bubbles. Often this chemical is non-kosher but since it doesn’t have to be listed as an ingredient you would have no way of knowing it was included.

71

Another example: if you look at the ingredients of a nice red candy or drink, you may see something called carmine that gives it its red color. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Guess what it is? It’s ground up beetle! Ugh!

72

Some food and drinks contain the additive E904. This is used as glazing agent in chocolate and confectionary to make the food shiny and attractive. Doesn’t sound too bad - until you realize that it’s derived from the Lac insect of India!

Another reason why simply looking at the ingredients is not enough is that by law, any ingredient comprising less than 2% of the total food doesn’t need to be listed. That means that there could be many items put in for flavor that the company is not even required to tell you about. Frightening!

73

On the list of ingredients you’ll often find “flavoring”… Anybody want to guess how many ingredients might be behind that word “flavorings”? Dozens? No! Hundreds? No!! There are thousands of flavors, molecular compounds that are produced in special factories around the world, not to mention the colors and preservatives as well.

The ingredient “flavorings” isn’t one ingredient, but a whole group of ingredients. If manufactures had to list every sub-ingredient that goes into making every ingredient, they wouldn’t be able to fit it onto the label!

74

Simple white bread can contain no less than 300 ingredients!

A few examples of manufactured flavors: (from Wikipedia)

o Isoamyl acetate - Banana

o Ethyl propionate - Fruity

o Methyl anthranilate - Grape

o Limonene - Orange

o Ethyl maltol -Sugar, Cotton candy

We now begin to understand why there’s a need to only buy food which is certified kosher. Without the kosher stamp you have no way of knowing what your eating and what it’s derived from.

75

Luckily, we have the London Beth Din’s Kashrut Department to guide and help us. Their team of researchers check up on factories to find out which products and ingredients are really kosher. Each year they publish their findings in The Really Jewish Food Guide, which is a clear listing of all the products sold in London and whether they are certified kosher. It lists over 7,000 products including:

Foods

Drinks

Wines

Medicines

Dental products

Detergents

Kosher Fish Species

76

If you don’t have the guide, don’t worry – you can still benefit from their knowledge base by just giving them a call. They have a staff of four manning the phones and doing research and are happy to help you in any way they can.

You can also find out whatever you need online by visiting their site:

http://www.theus.org.uk/jewish_living/keeping_kosher/keeping_kosher/kosher_product_search/

or by writing to info@kosher.org.uk

The Guide is also available as an iPhone app!

Teacher: Get a hold of the guide and bring it in so that the kids see it first hand and become as familiar with it as possible. This is your opportunity to teach them the skills they need to keep kosher. Take a few minutes to go through some popular confectionaries and have the class look up if they are kosher…

77

These skittles, for example, are all not kosher. Since many kids eat this product, it is an important one to mention. Obviously make sure to mention other items that are kosher as well so the students don’t feel gypped!

78

Pictures of a kashrut officer (mashgiach) in far off places ensuring food is kosher. They were taken in a fish packing factory in China.

Point out how amazing it is that “the kosher rabbis” actually travel to China to supervise a kosher product!

79

The Kosher Symbol > Behind the Scenes Video We’re now going to take a behind the scene looks into the largest kashrut organization in the world: the OU….

PLAY OU VIDEO

This OU video (reproduced with kind permission of Rabbi Luban of the OU) takes a behind the scene look at the work kosher agencies do.

The full version of the video is found at:

http://www.oukosher.org/index.php/professional/videos

80

The Kosher Symbol > Putting it All Together

Having understood the complexities of individual food products, we now get into restaurants.

Ordering a parve food, like fish or salad in a non-kosher certified restaurant is problematic. From what we already learnt about kashrut, who can think of some of the problems there may be with this? What problems can you fellows think of?

1. Think about the vegetables found in salads or as ingredients in other dishes. Who loves them even more than us? Bugs and insects and worms and spiders! Many vegetables also require checking for bug infestation since insect consumption is strictly forbidden according to Torah law. At a kosher restaurant, a mashgiach (kosher supervisor) will spend many hours checking all the vegetables used. A non-kosher restaurant may serve the vegetables with much of the insect life still present if not actually alive and kicking!

2. Another area that could be a problem even at a vegetarian or kosher style eatery is the pots and pans being used. They may well have had non-kosher food cooked in them at some point. When a pot is used to cook non-kosher, it absorbs some of the particles and taste, and they come back out into the food the next time it is used. The mashgiach ensures that the utensils used to prepare the food are kosher, as well as the ingredients.

3. A few more ingredients that you might easily find in parve food that could cause kosher conundrums are wine, wine vinegar, cheese and cheese derivatives and eggs (need to be checked for bloodspots) - all of which need special care if they are to be kosher.

4. And finally, true kosher cuisine requires bishul Yisrael - some “Jewish input” to the cooking, for example, that all cooking equipment has been switched on by a Jew. This of course will only happen at a supervised kosher restaurant.

81

To conclude, I’d like to tell you about a real life case of food trickery and lies that makes very clear the need for kashrut supervision on today’s products.

If you went into a restaurant and ordered french fries (potato chips), what would you imagine they are made out of? What ingredients would you expect to find in them? ….Right, potatoes, oil and maybe some salt. Well, if that’s the case then what could be wrong with buying fries (chips) in a non-kosher eatery, like Mcdonalds?

Just a minute ago we gave a few answers to this question. But I wonder if you could have guessed how extreme this could be. For decades, McDonald's cooked its french fries in a mixture of about seven percent cottonseed oil and 93 percent beef tallow – gooey melted cow fat! The mixture gave the fries their unique flavor -- and more saturated beef fat per ounce than a McDonald's hamburger. Clearly a kashrut problem, right? And many, many people would never have realized, unless they always made sure that the food they eat is kosher certified.

But it gets worse. In 1990, people realized and got furious at McDonalds because of the terrible effect all this fat has on health, and McDonalds changed their recipe. From then on, the fries are cooked in 100% vegetable oil. Sounds good? Sounds kosher? Even the vegetarians were happy.

Not so fast. People had been wondering, what exactly is included in the “natural flavors.” In 2001 a law suit was filed because people discovered that the flavor was made, in part, from….? Want to guess? Beef extract! So McDonalds confirmed that they’ve been adding beef to the fries, and had to pay $10 million for the cover-up. And a year later it came out that they lied about how much fat is in them – by a third - but that’s not a kashrut issue directly.

End of the story? Nope. In 2006, McDonalds had to pay $8.5 million dollars for misleading customers once again. This time its not about beef – this time they hid the fact that there’s milk in the flavoring, alongside the beef extract.

Today, McDonalds makes a list of ingredients available on its website. 24 pages of small type! But even if you manage to read through it all without passing out, and know what

82

stuff like “sodium acid pyrophosphate” and “Dimethylpolysiloxane” is – and if they are kosher, you still want kosher certification – because, it turns out, in some places the fries are cooked again in the restaurant in duck fat or horse tallow! Yuk!

(Quoting Eric Schlosser): “Without this flavor industry today's fast food would not exist. The names of the leading American fast-food chains and their best-selling menu items have become embedded in our popular culture and famous worldwide. But few people can name the companies that manufacture fast food's taste.

The flavor industry is highly secretive. Its leading companies will not divulge the precise formulas of flavor compounds or the identities of clients. The secrecy is deemed essential for protecting the reputations of beloved brands. The fast-food chains, understandably, would like the public to believe that the flavors of the food they sell somehow originate in their restaurant kitchens, not in distant factories run by other firms. A McDonald's french fry is one of countless foods whose flavor is just a component in a complex manufacturing process. The look and the taste of what we eat now are frequently deceiving -- by design.”