On Glatt

From an interview with Marc Shapiro, (via Fred, who points out, correctly IMHO, that Shapiro seems to be bucking for a ban)

The Jewish Press: In your opinion, what would Rabbi Weinberg, author of the Seridei Eish and the subject of your first book, think of the Orthodox Jewish community today?

Shapiro:
He’d think what a lot of gedolim would think from that generation. They would be very surprised that things they took for granted are now considered unacceptable – that the yeshiva world today in Israel, for example, sees something wrong with earning a living.

I think the frumkeit would surprise them. For example, the turn to glatt kosher as a standard, as well as the number of chumrot. This would surprise them only because part of traditional Judaism is reliance on the gedolim of the past and it’s very unusual for a tradition that regards itself as following the past to reject what previous standards were.

Adds my new friend Barak:

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 ( http://www.star-k.org/kashrus/kk-beef-glatt.htm).]

Do you know why glatt meat is do expensive? Approximately 70% of all cows shechted al pi halacha are ruled "non-glatt" and sold as treif at a loss (ie: the meat every supermarker sells for 1/3 the price of kosher) Additionaly, Ashkenazim have forgotten Traiboring, so the back half of even a glatt kosher cow mumust be sold as treif. Nonethless, the shochtim and mashgichim still need to be paid, so we consumers end up paying for the non-glatt cows and the back of glatt cows sold for treif.

What does all this mean? It means kosher meat industry has done a wonderful job making us believe that non-glatt is non-kosher. The proof: Does any kosher supermarket sell non-glatt meat? Is there even a reliable hechsher for non-glatt meat? No. And why? Because non glatt meat never has a chance to be sold as kosher!

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?

At the end of the day 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! Anyone who wants to be machmir and buy glatt meat can do so and pay the price, while the rest of us will happily buy non-glatt meat.

I once wrote a post on my blog about the posuk Ki Karov Eilecha. Ki Karov Eilecha means it shouldn’t be a hardship to be frum and keep kosher, but as time goes on, it only gets harder and more expensive.

I think it’s now time to reverse this situation. DovBear, are any of your readers interested defeating the idea that non-glatt = trief? Perhaps the time has come to band together and contact the kashrus organizations and kosher slaughterhouses and let them know there are enough people out there who are tired of paying the price of being frum?

If so, let's hear from you.