On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 18:33:42 +0000 (UTC), cindys
<cstein1@rochester.rr.com> wrote:
>On Mar 15, 7:09 am, "Steve Goldfarb" <s...@panix.com> wrote:
>> In <481b100c-4b2e-4363-a7b5-f076464c8...@c9g2000vby.googlegroups.com> cindys <cste...@rochester.rr.com> writes:
>>
>> >On Mar 14, 6:21=A0pm, VSLA...@weizmann.ac.il (Larry Israel) wrote:
>> >> Years ago in a lecture on Kashrus I heard that the main reason for using
>> >> soap with a hechsher was to enable the mashgiah to earn a living.
>> >----
>> >I'm sure you realize that this remark was made out of malice. Do you
>> >think Proctor and Gamble is in the business of ensuring that a
>> >mashgiach earns a living? Products are certified at the request of the
>> >manufacturer, not at the request of the mashgiach.
>>
>> Why is it malicious?
I agree with you that it's not necessarily malicious,
>>The only reason P&G would bother paying for the
>> additional endorsement is if they thought it made marketing sense to do
>> so.
But not because of anything to do with P&G.
It would depend on who is talking, who he's talking to, including
especially how many people he's talking to, and when it was said,
including what year. Plus other things not so defineable for which I'd
have to be there. Larry didnt' say any of the details. If the
lecture is at a class of up to, say, 5, 10, 20 people in a class room,
it could be a passing remark, cynical probably, but possibly cyncial
for a reason, and not necessarily malicious.
If it's made in front of 100 people, it's probably malicious. With
100 people, it's more likely that no one will ask a question about it,
because there doesn't seem to be time for questions from all 100
people, and the speaker knows that. It's up to the speaker to follow
up and if he doesn't, it's probably malice.
My mother had no malicious thoughts about Orthodox practices or the
practices of the Orthodox, but she still could still be cynical, and
in at least one case I can see why. My grandfather, after being a
yeshiva student up to age 19 or so, then in the US taking any job he
could find, then a junk man, then having a vegetable stall at the city
market, eventually owned his own small grocery store.
Stokely was a very popular brand of canned vegetables in the midwest
at the time (before it was bought by Van Camp). When Passover was
nearing, the salesman from Stokely would come by with a box of labels
that said Kosher for Pesach, and he would stick them on the cans.
Now I suppose they really were kosher for Pesach since they were just
beans, spinach etc. but even as a teen, I think she thought they
should have been labeled at the canning plant, when someone was
actually checking what was done. Maybe she was wrong, in that I think
even today, a company that cans only vegetables might get inspected
only once or twice a year, but otoh, she was right in that no one now
would use stick-on kosher labels. They could be stuck on anything,
klp or not.
She didn't talk about this in lectures to 100 people or even 20, only
to me and probably my brother and my father and maybe a girlfriend and
her husband if something reminded her. Cynical is probably too
strong a word, but it was in that direction. My mother was from a
generation - and there still are a lot of such people but not as many
-- raised in O, and not angry at it or malicious towards it, but still
willing to laugh at what they think is funny or ridiculous, even if
they are laughing out of ignorance sometimes.
OTOH, decades later when I went with my mother one day each year to
the C Rosh Hashono service, we went to the satellite service with the
rabbi who was only there for the high holidays. The first year, in
what was I guess was part of his sermon, he said, "I don't know how
kosher meat can be so expensive." He didnt' even give a reason, like
the guy in Larry's story did, just asked a question, but of course he
had only cynical answers in mind, and he knew he would inspire members
of the congregatiopn to think of cynical reassons. His words, before
300 or 400 people, with no chance for rebuttal, were malicious. And
on Rosh HaShono, with a crowd of people not willing (or able maybe) to
spend the money to go to the main service, probably not as committeed
even as other C Jews, an overflow congration many who go only 3 days a
year, to them he ridicules kosher meat. Shameful.
I wrote him a letter, writing as if I was bewildered, (which I think I
was, never before having seen such a blatant attack on Torah, despite
my 10 years in R and 20 years in C) asking/complaining about this and
about his other comment. His other comment: The end of the Torah
portion on the first day of RH says, "and Abraham dwelt among the
Philistines for many years". This "rabbi" said, word for word, "This
means that God didn't write the Bible or God made a mistake".
Horrible. Conceivable in a class with 20 people for the purposes of
discussion (even though there is really no paradox to discuss***), but
no discussion is possible** in a room with 300 people.
So I wrote about both of these things and he didn't reply. The next
year he left out the part about kosher meat, but for the next two
years that I was there, kept his foolish statement about Abraham and
the Philistines. ***(He based his remark on archaeology, as if that
answers every question, and precisely. Even the archaeologists don't
claim such thimgs.)
Oh yeah, 4 or 5 years after all this a girlfriend was invited to lunch
and she brought me, and there were 5 or 6 people altogether and who
else was there, sitting right next to me but this rabbi. I so much
wanted to raise this subject, but coudln't figure out how to do it
without being rude to my hostess and my girlfriend.
He was pretty old and died a few years ago, and then and a year later
there were articles in the local magazine marketed to Jews about what
a great guy he was, what a wonderful rabbi. I suppose no one
interviewed was in that satellite congregation. If they belonged,
they were proably all old enough menmbers, wealthy enough, important
enough, that they were in the main building. But I suspect he said
similar terrible things at other times, and they didn't notice or
didn't care. I consider him malicious, and think it's a shame that he
gets such honor.
**I learned my lesson those 3 years. The next time I was some place
where a liberal rabbi made a false, libelous statement in front of the
whole congregation, with no discussion possible, I made discsussion
possible, by standing up and standing there while he kept talking,
until finally he called on me, and I contradicted him, pointed out he
was misquoting the person.
I agree with the rest of what Cindy says, especially the last
paragraph.
>Agreed.
>
>>So if the market doesn't respond to the endorsement, P&G won't bother
>> paying for it,
>
>Agreed again.
>
>>and it will indeed put a mashgiach out of business.
>
>When someone makes a remark such as the one the OP heard at the
>lecture, the speaker's remark is generally not intended to be a simple
>statement of fact (that if companies didn't hire mashgichim, the
>mashgichim would be out of work).
>
>There is nothing wrong with offering a product or service to a
>customer who is free to take it or leave it. It's called *marketing,*
>and millions of people around the globe earn a living by marketing
>things every day and by trying to convince potential or current
>customers why the vegetable slicer they're offering is better than the
>next guy's or trying to convince a customer to buy a vegetable slicer
>he really doesn't need. In most situations, this is simply called
>"being a good salesman."
>
>The reason I said the statement was malicious was because a number of
>Jews (and non-Jews, have you ever read about the "kosher tax," a very
>popular topic for antisemites on the unmoderated groups?) seem to
>revel in promoting this old canard that mashgichim are money-hungry
>and slimy.
>
>When I was growing up, there was a local kosher bakery under the
>supervision of a local O rabbi. My parents were always talking about
>how sleazy the rabbi was. Why? Because he wouldn't give the bakery his
>endorsement unless the owners paid him $300, suggesting that the rabbi
>was guilty of extortion, and the money was graft.
>
>It wasn't until I was was much older that I understood that the rabbi
>was very legitimately collecting a fee for services rendered
>(supervising the bakery). I guess he was supposed to provide his
>supervision services for free. After all, I'm sure he didn't have a
>mortgage to pay or a family to clothe and feed.
>
>I am so sick and tired of this ongoing implication that mashgichim
>(generic) are nothing more than a bunch of sleazy extortionists, as if
>they are doing something immoral or illegitimate by charging companies
>to provide kosher supervision. If kosher consumers are foolishly
>insisting on kosher-certified soap, and Proctor and Gamble wants to
>provide it, there is nothing wrong with a rabbi's putting his hechsher
>on it and charging them for the endorsement. This is business. As we
>have stated before, the websites of the large kosher certifying
>agencies (many of whom are providing certification for these soaps),
>state flat out that kosher certification is not required on soap.
>Best regards,
>---Cindy S.
--
Meir
"The baby's name is Shlomo. He's named after his grandfather, Scott."