מותר בפיך - פרק 6: ניהול מלונות כשרים בחו"ל | עם ר' ברוך פדר

Permitted to be Eaten. A professional and practical halachic look at the challenges of kashrut in our day. Presented by Rabbi Yisrael Avramovsky. Welcome to the kashrut podcast, Permitted to be Eaten. The Book of Daniel opens in the Babylonian exile. Nebuchadnezzar takes select young men of Judah from Jerusalem and brings them to the king’s palace. The goal is clear: to teach them the culture of Babylon, the language, the wisdom, and to train them to stand before the king. Among those youths are four. Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. The king provides for all their needs. And the king assigned them a daily portion of the king's food and of the wine that he drank. The king’s food, high-quality food, the best nourishment possible. And precisely here, the test arrives. But Daniel set it in his heart that he would not defile himself with the king's food or with his wine. Pay attention to the phrasing of the verse. Daniel doesn’t just decide what to eat; "Daniel set it in his heart." Even before he arrives at the table, he knows what his boundaries are. He is in a foreign land, far from Jerusalem, far from home, but he does not leave his identity behind. Perhaps this is exactly the question that accompanies every Jew who goes abroad today. At home, we know what we are eating and whom we rely on. But when we set out on the road, the questions begin. Where can we find kosher food? Which kashrut certification is right for us? What do we do when nothing is available? So today, we are not just asking these questions, but we are going to meet the people who have to provide the answers in the field. With us is Rabbi Rochv, a tourism company manager who has been running luxury vacations abroad for years. To hear from him what the reality behind the scenes is really like and how we apply what we learned in the Book of Daniel to the field, to kitchens with local staff, when there are huge pressures and zero room for mistakes. Hello and greetings. Hello and greetings. As a businessman who lives off margins, pricing, and logistics, perhaps we should start with a feeling: Has the world of kashrut abroad become, from a religious-halachic interest, some sort of bureaucratic barrier? Perhaps I will add another perspective. Do hotel owners abroad recognize this as some kind of economic-business leverage that is worth playing with? Let’s start with the fact that most hotels we know as kosher hotels are hotels that are not owned by Jews, and they are rented out for the duration of Pesach, summer, or winter—each in the season they operate in. They are rented to an entrepreneur who is a Torah-observant Jew, and that is usually the notable characteristic, aside from a few individual hotels that are kosher all year round. And if to mention names, there is the Belvedere in Davos, there is the Brenner, the King David, and there is the Avi-Zar in Knaysi; maybe I missed one or two, but that’s the scale. Everything else is not an initiative of the non-Jewish hotel owner, but an initiative of an entrepreneur who wants to do a summer project, a Pesach project, or a winter project, and that is how it becomes a kosher hotel, and the entrepreneur is actually the business owner. And from your perspective, has the entire kashrut system effectively become some kind of obstacle on the way ? I hope not. I hope not, because ultimately, when you come to host Jews who observe Torah and commandments, you must keep in mind that you are giving them a vacation that suits their lifestyle and what they expect to receive—no less than what they get at home, or at least close to what they receive at home. And that is how the model should be. The first consideration must be: Is the hotel capable of providing them with a high level of kashrut, a proper level of Shabbat observance, and everything else needed to give them a kosher hotel? God save us if the situation is the opposite and they are thinking about money, and kashrut is just a trigger. God save us. So, we are starting off well. Okay, with the help of Heaven. Now, try to really dive into this world a bit and understand, as a businessman —at least for now, not as a Rabbi who deals with kashrut, but as one who deals with hospitality. What is the first thing you see or notice when you arrive at a hotel to check if it is suitable to be turned into a kosher hotel? So, there are the business aspects you check: the business side, the price you got, the size of the hotel, the size of the dining room, the suitability of the rooms, how many people you can host, how far it is from the airport, and so on. And these are purely business aspects, in terms of kashrut. Then comes the kashrut issue, which is an essential trigger within the aspects that can come only after all those things, and then you check, in the first look, the kitchen: is the kitchen capable of operating three kitchens simultaneously—a dairy kitchen, a meat kitchen, and a pastry shop that is by definition parve, because you bake for both of these two things? If the kitchen cannot accommodate these three things, even with all the adjustments you make—taking a room next door, turning it into a pastry shop, all the procedures—you see that there is no such possibility, then the hotel is not suitable, and that is the basis before everything. So what, perhaps in the eyes of a person who doesn't understand enough, when you see a gap between a hotel that is defined as kosher and a hotel where one can provide kashrut? A hotel that is kosher is a hotel where kashrut is already provided. No, no, I am asking: when we actually come and want to provide kashrut to a hotel, we say, "Okay, let's turn this hotel kosher," you, in your eyes, would probably say, "It's impossible to turn this hotel kosher"? Certainly not. I, again, I will tell a fact about an entrepreneur who, thank God, is not in the market today. But I arrived at a hotel; I arrived with the help of Heaven or by chance (it doesn't matter to me right now how I phrase it) . I arrived at a hotel that he operates , and the hotel—the one who invited me was the non-Jewish hotel owner. And the owner, the non-Jewish hotel owner, tells me: "The standard he works with —that's not your standard." He says to me in English, like: "It doesn't, it doesn't work with your standard." I asked him: "What does that mean?" He says: "For him, half the kitchen is kosher, half the kitchen is not kosher. " Now, I know the kitchen—it's small, it's small. It is impossible to divide it in two. There is the same stove in the middle, three kosher burners and three non-kosher burners. There is no reality in the world where people are eating kosher there. It is chilling. And apparently there are those who think they will manage to get a handle on this. Yes. To watch out that dairy isn't transferred from meat to dairy. You must have a full separation where everything is clearly marked and clear even to a non-Jew who doesn't speak a word of Hebrew. So let's really dive into the subject of kashrut. But as an opening, I assume you have encountered agreements you signed with the hotel regarding kashrut , and in the end, you arrive for the holiday with the staff and everything, and there are gaps in terms of what you were promised—that you'd be able to make this place kosher. I'm not talking about ingredients, I'm talking about, as you say, the structure of the kitchen, the ability to provide kashrut . The structure. Are they all precise names? No, no, none of them are precise. You, by and large, the gap you are exposed to above all else is the level of cleanliness in the kitchen. They promise you, A, the cleanliness of a kitchen for the sake of the koshering, and you arrive, and you find out the truth. If you planned to work one day on cleaning, you need two and a half days to clean, because we are talking about grease from 10 to 15 years that no one ever removed, and things like that happen. Now, usually when I take on a new hotel, I take into account that the level of cleanliness won't be as promised. By the way, in the second year it improves; they simply learned. Yes, they learn and it improves. Why, why do I dwell on this? Because I say, ultimately, um...After that, you have to struggle with what you were promised, and if you aren't strong enough or don't understand the value of the kashrut requirements enough, then maybe there are those who sometimes... That’s what I’m saying, may God protect us, it’s like, it’s scary and chilling. Thank God, that today when I arrive at a kitchen—not just today, for years already, I’ve been in this industry for 25 years. When I arrive at the kitchen, I arrive with all my own equipment. I avoid taking any equipment from the hotel that isn't fixed equipment. Meaning, I will take ovens, I will take burners, I will take an electric skillet, I will take equipment that is fixed. Any equipment that isn't fixed, I bring my own, whether it’s gastro-pans or pots, everything, everything, everything. I have materials, two shipping containers of equipment. One for Passover and one for the rest of the year, and I don't use the hotel's equipment for almost anything, only very basic things, and that way you avoid the fight in advance. As little as possible, actually, um... I also ask them to clear the kitchen of everything for me. But don't leave anything, because anything you leave, you won't get back after, so he’s afraid, so he’s afraid. Beautiful, what insight do you have after 25 years regarding kashrut, from what you knew at the beginning to what you encounter today after so many years ? Not for us, we go back to the starting line. Meaning, you, the challenges continue day by day. Not day by day, maybe I’m exaggerating, but year by year, the challenges continue. It's on the level of ingredient changes, where suddenly you can't use something or you're not approved to use it, and you must stay updated. On that level, every season anew, and to look. I'll take a product we used in Austria until a year ago: it was a local orange juice, from some company, the juice, the oranges. This, the juice, these oranges were discontinued from the range. Another juice came in its place, it wasn't possible, so you have to use another equivalent product, to find substitutes . Yes, to find the substitute. There are substitutes, but you need to know how to locate them. And this challenge continues, it's all the time, it doesn't end. It's a challenge that stays with you. And always, again, the level of demands from the crowd regarding the hospitality level rises, and then you need to find substitutes for products you haven't asked for until now. Hard cheeses of various types. Caciocavallo. Until a year ago, no one knew what Caciocavallo was. Again this year, there is Caciocavallo. There is a demand, and it is needed. The customer doesn't know what it is. But you put one more cheese for him on the bar, wow, it does something for him . Yes, well, so now let's get into the world of Kashrut. You already mentioned it, the first thing, perhaps the most basic: the separation between meat-dairy kitchens, pareve, and. We understand that we need to separate, and we understand that we need to control this. Is it really so complex in hotels abroad that we need a truly absolute separation? And is it impossible to try and find solutions? What kind of solutions won't you find? A knife you used for dairy, you won't use for meat—that is certain. I'll ask regarding the separation of the structure, the kitchen you said must be separated—it must, because otherwise, again, the most non-kosher thing in the kitchen is a pareve knife. Moving between the two kitchens, you don't know what it has done in its life . But any object or tool that can move between the two kitchens—that isn't a cart for transporting goods but a tool used close to the food—it must be separate, otherwise you end up with mixtures; you don't know what was done with the tool and how it was done. Therefore, this separation is very important. Again, we are careful that there also won't be passage. For example, for the sake of the matter, there is a dairy kitchen and a meat kitchen. The passage of dairy food into the dining room will not be done through the meat kitchen. Even if it requires a very large detour, we are strict about this, and these are the instructions of the Kashrut system we work with to reach this level. But you must have separation. Again, let's take a dishwasher, heaven help us. If you wash dishes in the same dishwasher for both meat and dairy, you have to kosher the... We don't use all sorts of leniencies we encounter in certain kosher certifications for washing between... I don’t want to get into halachic rulings, meaning the instructions of the kashrut system I work with, even though I understand the logic—I don't understand the logic of the lenient opinions, but I am not a decisor and don't want to interfere, but yes, we use one separate dishwasher for meat and another for dairy. The surface we place the dirty dishes on is the same surface, but when we put dairy on it, there is an additional cover on the surface so that it doesn't touch the surface directly at all. And it happened that the meat dishwasher had a malfunction that disabled it on a Shabbat morning, a holy day, and you can’t call a technician to fix it. And on one hand, on the other hand, the non-Jew tells you, "I'll just do it in the dairy dishwasher." No, you have to insist that they absolutely do not use it, and that Shabbat, all the dishes were done— By hand washing. Yes. They put them in a basin with soap and did everything necessary, but the washing was manual. Actually, this issue of meat and milk —I asked that to reach the next question, which is essentially: to what extent can we really educate and train non-Jewish workers who, in the end, even if they really, really want to, are disconnected? They don't know it. It’s different than taking a Jew and teaching him the laws, and he understands. Uh, the idea, even if he doesn't go into the depth of things, is it actually possible to succeed in controlling this situation when the workers are so removed? Let's start before "removed"—they don't even speak the same language. Yes. I mean, this year I worked in a kitchen that operated in five languages: Hebrew , English, German, Hungarian, and Romanian. Are the workers able to talk to each other? So, there’s always that, usually in groups; the cook works in this language and that one in that language, and there is one in every department who speaks the language, for example, English, which we use to communicate. But yes, you basically have to give the instructions in several languages. So you take the list of instructions you receive from the kashrut system, which, thank God, are very organized—and it’s not like that everywhere, organized instructions—you extract what’s relevant for the workers, translate it; again, today, with the tools we have, it’s very easy to translate it into four languages, and you post it. And you sit with them once , you explain it to them, and you try to keep it simple without complicating matters. And in the end, when the workers see that it’s important to you, they stick to it. You supervise it —no, I, the supervisor, oversee it and check it. There are slip-ups, and when there are slip-ups, he also throws food into the trash. And when food is thrown in the trash, the worker understands very well from that moment on, because he worked hard on it. He cares; it’s not his money, but he cares. He worked hard to prepare the eggplant the right way, and suddenly you tell him: "No, you fried it in the fish fryer; it shouldn't be together with meat." Even if he doesn't lose money from it, he doesn't lose out of his own pocket, he still cares because he spent an hour working on it. And suddenly, eggplants that were supposed to be the filling for moussaka —because he fried them in a fish fryer, and they can't be used with meat —it won't happen. So he understands that next time he needs to ask why they fry things that way and avoid doing it, and from that moment on, as they say, he understands, he doesn't... How much manpower is actually required in terms of the kashrut system? Not what they demand from you, but what you think is truly required to really control everything happening, because we see all sorts of phenomena. I will start by saying that until a few years ago, I believed that I wanted only one mashgiach and I didn't want two. And the reason is that when you have two, you don't even have one mashgiach. It is, how shall I say, " gadra d'bishuta," as the Gemara calls it. But in practice—and the kashrut system explained this to me very well —the kitchen opens at 5:30 in the morning to bake rolls and bread for breakfast, and it closes at 1:00 AM after the dinner dishes are finished being washed. Now, the kitchen takes a break between 1:00 PM and 4:00 PM, it goes on a break. But even if we take all the breaks into account, it’s inhumane for a person to be there for that long, to function, and also, as they say, to be focused on his work, especially when you also add checking leafy vegetables, which requires concentration in itself and is a separate subject. Today, thank God, we work with one mashgiach, because I insisted on that; I wasn't willing to give that up, but he has a kashrut trustee who works closely with him. A kashrut trustee works just like a mashgiach in every way, but he is under the command of the mashgiach, and the responsibility ultimately lies with one person. How he divides the working hours with the trustee is a division they made between themselves. And you really do need a mashgiach to be in the kitchen at all times to control what is happening. Unequivocally, you cannot leave a kitchen. Again, there are things that come and go, but the alertness of the mashgiach still must be at a very high level, because, as they say, there isn't a day where he doesn't find things that need attention. How do you really deal with the whole issue of worms abroad, in a hotel like this, which I believe is a hotel full of people, and you have to manage all the washing of the leaves and do all the additional work? You are touching on one of the most painful points, and I...I am very puzzled when I look at certain hotels, where you open a picture of a buffet and you see an amount of leafy greens that there is no way a human being can check in one day, and you see another day... Apparently, they didn't keep it from the day... And you see that the next day he brings up the same amount, so it's not like it's drying out. You have to do it, there’s no human way a person can actually check it, which means the inspection wasn’t done. If it was done, it wasn’t done properly; because a proper inspection of lettuce requires checking every leaf. Curly lettuce, checking every leaf, you have to open it up, it’s time-consuming work. For every leaf you have to dedicate 20 or 30 seconds—do the math , there just aren’t enough hours in the day to do that. This I find very, very frustrating. The solution is to provide what is necessary and not what looks good, meaning to differentiate between the paperwork—the starting point is that we don’t have Hasalat vegetables in Europe. Yes, we don’t have them. I mean, in London there is still a way to get things that have been checked and washed. In Israel, there is. In Europe, as of today, there is almost nothing. I can't say there isn't something small in Belgium you can get, but it's not really a supply you can work with. But you basically have to do everything yourself, at your place, at your hotel. There is no way to check so many leafy vegetables to satisfy the whims of all the chefs for their food presentations. I mean, if the chef wants to give lettuce leaves next to every single fish dish, if he has 200 fish dishes, he needs 200 leaves of lettuce—do the math on how long it takes a supervisor to do that, if it's practical, and basically, it’s not practical. So sure, you need lettuce in salads, you need lettuce, even a guest can make themselves a salad, you need leafy vegetables, whether it’s parsley or cilantro, there is a way to wash it, to check it, all fine, but within reason, so that the supervisor doesn't lose focus, and just one more sentence on that. People think you can sit a supervisor down for eight hours to check leaves. After two hours, the bugs turn green and you don't see them. A supervisor who has worked for many years checking leaves for reasonable hours told me once that after a few years he quit the job because he had stopped seeing them. Insects change their color after two hours, yes. So that means if I take a tour with you through various eateries, you could tell me by how the place looks if I can eat there from a kashrut perspective. If I can eat there; there are places I enter and I won't eat, correct. Even before seeing the certificate, just by the look of it, right, right, right. Another issue that is very critical in Israel but probably even more so abroad is the whole topic of wine, certainly in a place that relies on many non-Jews —wine that reaches the tables, wine that reaches the dining room, inside the kitchen—the supervisor still controls that. By and large, the rule must be very, very fundamental: not a single bottle of non-mevushal wine enters the building; you bring in only mevushal wine. Is that how it really operates? And that is how it operates. There is no non-mevushal wine. I have a client I already know, he comes back year after year; he won't make Kiddush on anything but non-mevushal wine, he insists on that. He brings a bottle of wine with him, and I don't—again, I don't let it be put on the table, not at all, because the concern...I only provide cooked wine. You see, there are guests who want to bring Golan wine or some other wine that isn't Mevushal, or whatever, and they buy these non-cooked wines at duty-free in Israel. I really cannot keep track of these things. But where is the concern? The person drank a glass of wine and left a quarter of the glass; he didn't finish it. That glass goes into the kitchen, goes into the dishwasher. The dishwasher is at very high temperatures . Cooking at a level of boiling. What is the Halachic implication of this? Whether it is nullified or not. Why should I get into these questions? So when such a person comes, I tell him , "I don't mind that you have wine," and I walk between the tables, and people look at me like, "Are you okay?" That’s what you do. I am not a kashrut supervisor, but I care about it . Because, in the end, it’s kosher— it’s the kashrut of my hotel. I tell anyone who has non-cooked wine: "With your permission, when you finish drinking, finish the glass, fill it with a little water, rinse it with water before it goes into the kitchen." I don't want non-cooked wine entering the kitchen, so that you can also eat kosher tomorrow morning. Nice. Maybe a story about some kashrut challenge that caught you by surprise? Sometimes there are challenges you face with clients who asked for something, and suddenly kashrut requires a change as a result of a mishap. Challenges like that happen all the time. One of the things we emphasize a lot is that many people come for a week's vacation, and after a week, they continue for another week to Italy or places that don't have a kosher hotel, so they bring basic food with them to continue from there to another hotel. So if And they don't eat, they basically don't eat it during the week that He doesn't eat it that week, he just needs to put it in the freezer. That's the only thing he needs. Now, nothing should enter my freezer that the kitchen cannot use. So if he brought meat—usually it's meat they bring—if he brought meat that my kashrut allows into the kitchen, then at most I used meat that wasn't mine and I'll pay for it, there shouldn't be a problem. But if he brought meat that my kashrut system doesn't allow into the kitchen, then it cannot enter the freezer. So the rule is the fundamental rule: into the freezer in the dining room, the freezer in the kitchen, or the refrigerator, no item should enter that doesn't belong, and it doesn't matter. It could be the rabbi of such and such a city, it could be the customer himself, a city rabbi or whatever, it doesn't matter. The guideline is very clear, and sometimes it makes the person feel bad, but you have to know your standards. The solution to that: you take a small fridge, a small freezer, put them in the lobby, and it serves the public. Put whatever you want in there, it is not, it is not food that will enter my kitchen. On mom. That’s one challenge, it’s, I mean, on a level that I meet this almost every week. But that’s another external challenge , actually, with the customers. Right, internal challenges. What do you do when something spills in the cholent, and now you have to have Shabbat without cholent? First of all, it didn't happen to me; I mean, again, I work with my father, who started the business many years ago, and my mother accompanies me to this day. It happened to my mother when she was once there for Shabbat and there was no cholent that Shabbat. But there are cases where you say to yourself: no , such a product will not go on the table. One of the stories, which in my eyes is an amazing story, a story from, I estimate, about 30 years ago. We were under the supervision of Rabbi Zoldan from Haifa, and my father ran a hotel in Romania, and the kashrut supervisor went out to milk. Back then, you couldn't get dairy products like today, they still went out to milk, and with that they would produce the cheeses and everything necessary. Except for what they would produce everything. The supervisor went out for the milking and came back with the milk, and my father says to him: "Okay, now go pray," as the milking was at dawn, he returned late, so he says to him: "I already prayed." So my father is in shock: " Where did you pray? In the barn?" So he says to him: "No, I prayed outside." So my father says to him: "Wait a second, that means the milk is not Chalav Yisrael, what am I supposed to do with it?" He called Rabbi Zoldan, Rabbi Zoldan called Rabbi Wosner: ", I already told the gentile to take it, I am not bringing it back into the kitchen." When Rabbi Wosner heard this story, he said about my father: "Now I know that a God-fearing Jew can make such a decision." It's not trivial. It's not simple. You need to know that the issue of kashrut is important to you, and also theoretically—what does "theoretically" mean? Halachically, it is permitted to use the milk. But to break the Rabbi's instruction in front of the gentiles—they won't understand . They won't understand tomorrow why you can't ask him again, because something changed. And this clarity is part of what you give as instructions to the employees, and you say that these are very clear instructions. That is an important point, because many times I really encounter kashrut questions where I tell people: it doesn't matter now what the halachic debate is; if these are kashrut procedures, we must strictly follow them as kashrut procedures because they were written for a specific reason. At most, argue with the kashrut system to change the procedure; that is allowed, permitted. But once it is the procedure. I’ll give you another example, again from the world of insects, something that happened to us this summer: they were making potato kugel, I don’t know, 25 kilos, or a whole sack or even more of potatoes, and the potatoes were peeled and put into the food processor to be ground up, and the mashgiach walks by and sees that a potato is infested, not clean, and then he asks ... Before the processor. A potato before the processor, he sees it's clean; after the processor, you don't see anything anymore—it's already ground up, it's already finished. So he says: "Just a second, stop this, I want to ask a question." So he asks then. He turns to the Rabbi who provides the certification. The answer: Because the Rabbi who provided the certification was on a flight, there was no one on-site. It took about an hour, an hour and a half. In the end, that whole mixture went to the trash; it had just been sitting there for too long. No, there is an option—it could have been used, but it comes back to the same thing—the seriousness of providing kashrut comes back to this point: that the mashgiach must be in the kitchen all the time, to pay attention to these details and to make decisions that aren't always the most pleasant. Again, specifically in that case, you had to—because it was such a large quantity and there weren't enough potatoes, you had to go out into town again, buy potatoes and new supplies. So that actually teaches us that beyond the issue of good kashrut and a good mashgiach, we also need good owners. I think the triangle of the Rabbi who gives the certification, or the kashrut system that gives the certification, and the mashgiach and the owner, that triangle must work together; and at least two of them must be strong for you to know that you can eat at that hotel. If one of them isn't strong enough, then maybe you can let it slide —if the other two are strong enough. But if I'm not 100%sure that two of them know their job properly, including the owner, yes, including him in the picture as well—then I don't know what you can rely on there. It's challenging, because the Rabbi who gives the certification who sits in Bayit VeGan in Jerusalem (I hope there’s no Rabbi who gives certification in Bayit VeGan, so he won't be offended, yes, I just picked a neighborhood where I don't know if there's someone there). But he sits there, and he could be the biggest tzaddik in the world and the most knowledgeable person in the world, and he puts in a mashgiach who is a good person but doesn't have enough knowledge and experience. And not just some yeshiva student looking for a vacation during the Bein HaZmanim break. Exactly like that. The entrepreneur might be Torah-observant, but "fear of Heaven" isn't enough for this purpose. On what basis can we trust that what is happening there is indeed as it should be? Well, we will move on to another chapter, and that is the subject of the changing world. We know how complex it is, already, even before the kashrut or after the kashrut, but you arrive at a hotel and just want, after the kosher food we ate, to go up to the room and we are on Shabbat. How many lights turn on along the way? What happens with the water pumps? What happens with the room key card? An air conditioner that turns on, how do we handle that? I mean, you arrive to inspect a hotel, and even before the issue of kashrut, you have to deal with a huge amount of technical details. I’ll start with the last topic, that of the water pumps. I don’t know how to answer that question; again, this issue hasn't come up before me. Specifically, I now recall that in some hotels where I work, we are talking about regional water pumps, not the hotel's own, but I haven't encountered this question—I wouldn’t know how to answer it. I have indeed encountered the other challenges, and they are challenging: because there are places where you can disable the system from the hotel's control panel, and then, basically, when a person is in the room , they lock the door with a physical deadbolt mounted on the door, and when they are outside, the door remains unlocked; then you ask them before Shabbat to put their valuables into the safe so they aren't just left exposed. There are hotels that don't have a central control, where each door is a standalone unit and not connected to a central control, so you need to place a magnet or... Meaning, you can't neutralize all the rooms; you have to handle each room separately. So you give the client a magnet to place on the doorframe, where the latch is supposed to go, so that the latch doesn't lock the door when they are outside. But you still have to check the physical lock: nowadays, is a lock that operates by pulling down the handle doing an electrical action? Here you must consult with professionals when you encounter this. Now, this isn't related to a kosher hotel; Jews arrive at hotels all over the world, they spend Shabbats in hotels all over the world, and it’s the same question —and it’s even much more complex there. Let's get into the question of " Amira Le'akum"(asking a non-Jew to perform a forbidden task). We are focusing on kosher hotels, but for me, when I am in foreign hotels on Shabbats , that occupies me much more. So that is truly an important point; I mean, as you say, first of all, it's really about awareness—even when you’ve brought food from home and are just in some vacation apartment somewhere, you need to make these preparations beforehand. I could write a book about what has happened to me on Shabbats. You mentioned "Amira Le'akum," let's take that for a second because sometimes it seems to us that if we have a non-Jew, the non-Jew can do everything for us because they are a non-Jew, so it's permitted—and that’s really a complex chapter, what is a hint and what is a direct request, how do you deal with that? First of all, I studied the laws of " Amira Le'akum" three times, because in my opinion, these are almost everyday occurrences at work, and it is very challenging. But at the end of the day, the guidelines are very, very clear: you don't tell him what to do, you tell him what you need to have done. Meaning , you don't say to him, "Open the refrigerator," rather you say to him, " There is something in the refrigerator that needs to be brought out." How he does it, what he opens, what he doesn't open—that is already the fine line. And also, you're talking about employees whose job it is, not some random gentile we happened to meet. Not exactly. Not a random gentile? Yeah . I was once stuck outside a hotel in Lapland for half an hour in temperatures of minus 20, because the door was electronic and I couldn't get close enough to open it, and I couldn't ask a gentile to come and open it for me, until the Holy One, blessed be He, graced me with a solution: to give some gentile something that would make him enter the building without him even understanding why he was doing it at all. So, as I said, half an hour in minus 20 degrees outside. Another topic we encounter on organized vacations is the issue of eruv. There are, I don't know how it is for you, many hotels where on Shabbat morning they hold the Kiddush outside, in the garden, so they bring everything out. But even if you don't want to leave the hotel and go for a walk, in many places these hotels surely never thought about the issue of eruv. There are hotels that are on the beach in very vast areas, and I was once in such a situation where I received questions from a hotel that on Friday afternoon remembered there is such an issue called eiruvin. Now, what do you do? How do you build an eruv? And do you have to use so many leniencies that even I don't know, so that people can really go out from the hotel? You asked about the issue of the eruv and inserted three other topics without realizing it. Here. One is Eruv Chatzerot. Inside the building itself, you need to make an Eruv Chatzerot. Does everyone do that? It's just a simple question. Was an Eruv Chatzerot made, and if so, who made it? Or hotels where the rooms are spread out, you need, that's already Eruv Techumin. I'm talking about Eruv Chatzerot inside the building itself so you can carry from room to room, from the room to the synagogue, to the dining room. That's also a question of —that's one thing. You added two more things without realizing it. And that is the subject of those Kiddushim that they hold in the garden. In the garden, there are many partners you didn't invite to the celebration, and they are part of the celebration: insects, cockroaches, and flies. And when you hold a Kiddush outside, they participate. They participate completely. And whoever makes a Kiddush outside and thinks he didn't put into the food one of the five kinds that the Torah forbids eating—an insect—the Holy One, blessed be He, forgave him, because in my opinion he ate more than one. And in my opinion, the system of kashrut that I work with forbids doing it, and it's really true, because there is no reality where you take out a plate of watermelon—just try taking out a plate of watermelon—how long will it take until the first insect joins the celebration? And that's one thing. The second issue is, unfortunately, the fact that they film these Kiddushim on Shabbat, and I don't know where this permit comes from. Filmed by a gentile? Whatever, where was this permit taken from? I don't know. But no, it's really related to the whole issue of "akum," that when we aren't sufficiently proficient in the details of halacha, we take it public. But those are two additional issues I brought up. But you asked about the Eruv: First of all, questions regarding the Eruv arise when you bring in the Rabbi to examine the hotel. When you first take over a hotel, before you kosher it, the Rabbi who provides the certification comes to tour the kitchen and instructs what to kosher and how, what comes in and what does not, and what you replace. He goes through the rooms, he goes through everything, looks at the swimming pool, at the level of modesty you need to maintain, and all the parameters required for a hotel to conduct itself as a Jewish hotel. At that time, the subject of the Eruv should be raised: Is an Eruv even made outside? Sometimes it is impossible to do; if you do it, how do you do it, what do you do, and according to which methods? Again, we are talking about Eruvin—it is a broad subject. In the hotel I work with in the summer, for instance, I also made an Eruv according to the Chazon Ish method. Why? Because there was one person who wanted that Eruv, and I won't get into the whole discussion of ten apples in a corner and all those things, but I made that Eruv. A dear Jew from Jerusalem arrived and said to me: "Listen, I am strict about the Chazon Ish method; this Eruv is not according to the Chazon Ish." So okay, we did it, we set up the Eruv according to the highest standards. And at my hotel, I truly mark the end of the Eruv boundary very clearly so that people don't tend to go outside. Sometimes, just the fact that they see a sign that it is the end of the Eruv boundary makes them realize there is an Eruv restriction at all, because in Israel they aren't familiar with that. By the way, that is another topic—you arrive at a hotel, you need to pay attention to the Eruv question; sometimes it's just a small note on the exit door: "No Eruv outside." And you didn't see it at all. You didn't see the note. Meaning, we understand that a serious kosher agency providing certification for a hotel does not start and end with kashrut; they must be knowledgeable, or at least establish communication with people who are, in many other topics as we said, electricity, and certainly Eruvin; this is perhaps a note for Managers, organizers, and guests. And also regarding raw materials, because there are many times you use raw materials that by definition do not have a kosher stamp, and you need to check what is permitted or forbidden. What are the questions that arise? There is a variety of things: for instance. For example, in the last tour by the Rabbi who provides our certification, he discovered that we received potatoes produced in Israel. Wow, thank God he discovered it; it didn't even occur to me to check potatoes, which are also exported abroad. But that also happens; at least in Europe, we know everything is labeled with the country of origin. Yes, well, sometimes—maybe we'll move to behind the scenes—there is some clash of interests. Of course, we are God-fearing and it is very important for us to be strict, but suddenly there is some kosher challenge where all kinds of solutions can be found. And on the other hand, there is a lot, a lot of money that can push back. I don’t know if money is the right factor, because when you have a group of 200 people at a hotel, whether it cost more or less, maybe that’s less of a factor; it’s more important to you that they enjoy your hospitality. But it did happen to me on one of the Passover vacations we hosted, that I woke up on Shabbat morning and I wake up very early. I pray all year at a synagogue, so at the hotel there isn't a synagogue on Shabbat, but at least I wake up at 5:30 and go downstairs. I take a casual tour of the kitchen— I’m not a kashrut supervisor—but I take a casual tour of the kitchen and discover the warming cabinet isn’t working. Now, it’s completely clear to me that if the employee who arrives in an hour to the kitchen sees this, he’ll just plug it back in. He won’t ask me at all, and that’s where I get into questions of what’s permitted or forbidden. I have to take all the actions that need to be taken before that employee wakes up, before he plugs it back in. You could wake up the supervisor and handle it. There are alternatives—to close your eyes and move on. Just close your eyes, move on. I didn’t see, I didn’t see, no need for more than that, I saw. Now, if you give yourself the space, then all kinds of ideas come up about lenient interpretations, and maybe there is...you open a book and suddenly you become a scholar, and you get lost in the study. And I tell myself, on a Shabbat, early in the morning, that if I don’t wake up the supervisor in the next hour, I have an hour of war with my evil inclination. Why do I need that ? I went to his room, knocked, woke him up, told him: first of all, here’s the story, go back to sleep, you’ll get your answers later. Now, it’s all in my hands. But yes, you feel that internal war, when you realize that in some situation that warming cabinet there has the kugel, the cholent, all the hot things for Shabbat lunch. It’s easy to close your eyes, even for a God-fearing Jew, this is... What you’re essentially saying is the concept called "being personally involved," which often happens—maybe it’s less relevant to you, but here in Israel we encounter all kinds of restaurants or cholent spots and things like that where we say, we know him from the synagogue and so on. And when people say you also need a kashrut supervisor there, because ultimately the business owner is personally involved, that’s a complicated situation. Yes, I once had a time where I received four pallets of meat, meat and poultry all together, and among them were a few boxes of liver, and one of the liver boxes didn't meet the standards that were supposed to enter the kitchen. Now , the supervisor noticed it. Now, in that moment, you say to yourself: either I throw this out right now, meaning I take action now to get it out of the way, or I look for a way to permit it. And you realize that you won’t get another box of liver now, meaning you realize it’s going to interfere with the menu and you can’t just go to the store to buy more. Yes, there’s no way, it is...it is completely off the menu. I mean, you also can't leave it in your freezer, because someone might open it by mistake tomorrow. You have to bring it from the non-Jew's mouth, and from there, let it find its way back. Yes, you...the one involved in this, it exists. Anyone who thinks they are God-fearing enough to handle it is either a very great person or simply lying to themselves, and I think the latter is more likely. Well, there are differences between countries where it is easier to provide kosher certification and where it is harder. Yes, definitely, definitely. If we are talking about countries we have, for example, right? Working in Austria and Italy. There is a gap between these two countries: in Austria, there is a kosher list from Rabbi Schwartz, considered one of the best kosher lists in Europe, which gives you something to rely on. So the foundation—you have something to rely on, even if the kosher authority doesn't approve everything there, it approves enough of what is there. It is easier in Italy. A list to work with. In Italy, there is no list to work with , meaning: there is no serious kosher body that has released a list of permitted products in Italy, and we won't go into the reasons right now ( there are reasons why they didn't release it). So between the two countries, it is clear that Austria is easier, but there are countries where the gap is much larger. For example, I worked, uh, again, a few years ago I worked in Georgia. In Georgia, there are no vegetables with pesticides; everything is completely organic, and organic usually comes with insects. There isn't a fruit or vegetable that enters the kitchen that you could be sure didn't have—didn't have, uh, living partners living on the fruit with you: greens, bananas, cucumbers, grapes, peaches, apples, everything. And I see there are hotels in Georgia, and really, again, I—there are kosher systems that know the job and do the work there—in my eyes, a million question marks: how is it possible? Because it is challenging at a very high level. Meaning that kosher systems providing certification in more difficult places will require much, much more effort, much more manpower, much more—yes, it is a real, real investment. I'm not even talking about the fact that there isn't a supply chain for dairy products—we aren't in Europe— there isn't a supply chain for other products. It is logistically challenging, but I assume your question wasn't about the logistical challenge, but about the kosher challenge. Yes. Let's take, for example, the differences between Northern Europe, Central Europe, and Southern Europe regarding leafy vegetables. It is not the same if I receive leafy vegetables produced in Spain; again, I buy in Italy nearby or buy lettuce in Italy. Now, the mashgiach has to check the lettuce when I receive lettuce from southern Italy, from southern Spain; again, you know, in Europe everything moves from place to place, so I have to treat it differently than what I receive from central Italy—simply hotter regions, hotter and more insects , in the simplest sense. What are the three things—I say three things—that a person who wants to go on vacation now and really wants to get to a good hotel with good kashrut, what are the things they need to ask or check to, uh, eventually have peace of mind? First of all, ask, I... A good start. The first thing to ask, because unfortunately, there are those who arrive at a hotel and, like, on Shabbat eve, ask you, "Wait, is it kosher here?" Meaning, if not, I’ll pack my bags now and leave. I, I am happy to receive calls from people who are interested in the level of kashrut at my hotel and challenge me ; so challenge, very good, but at the level of basic questions. That is the first thing: make a phone call, ask, and listen. If the answers you get behind the scenes are answers that satisfy you at the most basic level possible, that is the first thing. The second thing: in my eyes—I don’t know where you’ll get it—but ask for the bar’s features. If you have too many greens, leaves, in the bar, rest assured that the mashgiach isn't checking them properly, because there is no such creation in the world unless there are four mashgichim there. And the third thing: yes, catch the mashgiach, nothing will happen. You will discover along the way, with the most basic questions you ask, you will discover along the way if the mashgiach is to your liking; does he care, is the subject of Shabbat something that speaks to him, is the subject of halacha something that burns in him, or is he, as you say, wanting to go on vacation, so he got a gig? Yes, what is important in your opinion for the public to know about something that happens behind the scenes regarding kashrut, so they attribute more importance to it? Maybe listen to this podcast. But if there is, let me tell you a story that lit me up (and I don't know how much time we have left) but. It’s a story about a Hasidic group that was in Ukraine, again, before the war in Ukraine. On Shabbat, that same Shabbat, there was one of the caterers in Ukraine who were there, quite a few, did a Shabbat hospitality, everything was mehadrin of the mehadrin , in the best possible way, and juices were served on the table: apple juice, orange juice, of local, approved production. On the way back, my son— when he returned, my son was also in this group—he returned and says to me : "Dad, tell me, those juices, are all the juices kosher?" I told him: "No, only apple and orange.""Why are you asking?" He says: "Because at the airport, I saw guys buying that grape juice too." I told him: "Okay, so what’s the problem?"(Because I wanted to challenge him). So he says to me: " Come on, possible." If it is natural grape juice, it is a question of "yayin nesekh." And if it isn't, then who knows what is inside? So. So sometimes you just have to be observant. And then , actually, that lit me up, and I live in Haifa in the Vizhnitz neighborhood, and I asked both in the yeshiva ketana, the yeshiva gedola, and in the kollel that is there, I asked to give a one-hour class on how to relate to kashrut abroad, so that people understand what they are dealing with. Because people who go abroad don't always understand that the challenge is different. Not everything with a round or square stamp, or labeled "kosher" or whatever the wording, should you put in your mouth, especially something that looks like what we ate yesterday. Yes, that reminds me, to wrap up: what would you say to someone afraid to travel abroad because of kashrut? Happy is he and his household if he stays home. They want him to travel. Ah, okay, fine. No, someone who is afraid—how do you say it? Kashrut at home is probably better than any hotel abroad, and I say this...... as a hotelier. And I try to ensure it’s the highest level of kashrut, but beyond that, ask —ask your own rabbi that you trust back in Israel. You have a synagogue rabbi? Ask him, and have him check for you. If you don't know how to check, he will find the way to check. But just ask. Alright, Rabbi Feder, thank you very much. And God willing, we’ll be able to eat kosher and also vacation with good kashrut even on regular days of the year. Let them eat grapes and be satisfied. A vacation is part of the soul's rest, so you can't harm the soul when you go to recharge. Very beautiful, thank you very much. May you be strengthened and merit to do more. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Mishpacha podcast. I’m Israel Abramovsky. Thanks to content editor Tehila Siton, production manager Ayala Goldstein, and audio and video editors Avraham Weisel, Daniel Wein, and Hila Wilhelm. All series and episodes are waiting for you on the Mishpacha website, on all podcast apps, and on the phone line at 077-220......200, extension 71. See you in the next episodes.