"The Cutting Board" -- by David Bardo
David Bardo, a 3rd year student at UCLA majoring in Economics, is the Jewish Learning Initiative (JLI) student representative at Hillel and our in-house mashgiach.
He recently spent half a year in Israel studying Brisker Talmudic analysis, Halakhic exegesis, and desert survival skills (the latter episode is no doubt a future blog!). Among David’s potential plans post-UCLA are politics, medical research, and satellite entrepreneurship.
The exciting new sensation sweeping Westwood – The SHACK at Hillel – has brought up new questions for a lot of (newly) loyal patrons. What is kosher? Why is kosher? What's that little heart-K doing there where the "™" should be? And most importantly, so what?
My name is David Bardo, and although I am a 3rd year economics student at UCLA, I am also a certified mashgiach – the Hebrew term for a Kashrut supervisor.
When people talk about "kosher" in the context of food, they are referring to a code of dietary laws initially instituted by the Torah, the Jewish book of law, and subsequently defined and expanded by the Sages. Jews have observed these laws for thousands of years all over the world.
Most folk think "kosher" mostly boils down to “no pig, no shrimp, no meat with milk,” and that's about it. In truth, while those things are true, there's more; kashrut is more sophisticated and involved. Some considerations include types of meat that may be consumed, slaughtering procedure and method of preparation. The process spans from the pasture to the plate – and to reduce effort on your part, kashrut agencies are in charge of most of that process, resulting in cryptic little markings (like OU or Heart-K) on the grand majority of kosher American food products. But we'll talk about kashrut agencies later.
But before that, there are a number of misconceptions surrounding kashrut and I wish to dispel two of them. Firstly, the means of preparing food to be kosher are extensive, but having a rabbi “bless the food” is definitely not one of them. Secondly, laws of kashrut were not invented for health reasons. While it is certainly true that many laws are conducive to health (for example, kosher slaughterhouses are kept so sanitary by Jewish law that they are exempt from many USDA regulations), most laws have no known direct connection to health.
The actual reason for keeping kosher is more obscure as the Torah never explains it, although many of us have tried to offer explanations. Keeping kosher elevates any act of eating into a religious experience, turning the table into an altar. Also, eating kosher is a call to holiness, an exercise in discerning between right and wrong, pure and defiled, scared and profane, "kosher" and not. Ultimately, the most basic, most crucial reason is because the Torah said to, and the rest may just be commentary.
As for the Heart-K symbol, it's a sign that Kehilla (Igud HaKashrus of Los Angeles, a hasgacha agency) is supervising the food production at Hillel for BBC Café. Just like you might not take a class unless your friend has told you it's good, or you wouldn't take a prescription pill unless your doctor told you to, you wouldn't eat at an establishment unless your mashgiach told you it's okay. Just like your friend or your doctor, your hasgacha agency is only as good as its past advice, and Kehilla happens to be one of the best.
And as for the question that is burning in your chest: David, you're so cool, how did you become a mashgiach? It required a background in the theoretical laws of kashrut and extensive on-site training in a working industrial kitchen. Of course, in sticky situations, mashgiachs defer to their supervisors who are more thoroughly trained, and even supervisors defer to the Rav Hamachshir or Kashrut Administrator, upon whose name and expertise the organization relies.
I hope to have answered some questions, but I welcome more – so please feel free to ask away. You can usually find me around the SHACK or somewhere in the Hillel. Have fun and enjoy your food!
daba@ucla.edu
(310) 592-2493
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