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Are there degrees of treif?

The Rav Name: Rabbi Yitzchak Arad

Shalom,
A questions about Treyf, are there degrees of treyf? Is one worse then another? And where is it answered?
Thanks in advance.




Are there degrees of treif?

Shalom and thank you for your question! You raise a very important point, and firstly we have to address the definition of treif. In truth, the term ‘treif’ is NOT a general term for non-kosher food, at least not technically. It has come to be used for that. The term treif comes from the Hebrew root ‘teref’ which means prey – as in the food that a predator such as a fox or a lion killed for himself to eat, as it states in Deuteronomu 14:21, “Do not eat carrion.” When a predator has mangled another animal or a bird, Jews are forbidden to use that animal or bird for food. In fact, only kosher animals such as sheep and cows, and kosher fowl such as chicken, ducks, geese and turkeys, which have been slaughtered ritually according to Jewish law, are allowed to be eaten by Jews. There are many detailed laws as to how this process should take place. The animal or bird that is to be slaughtered must be healthy and not have sustained certain types of injury or disease. The slaughter must be carried out with an especially sharp knife that is checked regularly to make sure there are no knicks in it so that no unnecessary pain is caused to the animal. In different Jewish communities there may be some minor differences in customs regarding exactly which blemishes are considered not suitable, and this can be one of many reasons for differing standards of kosher consumption. Hence the expression ‘glatt kosher’. ‘Glatt’ means smooth in Yiddish, and if the animal’s lungs are smooth – meaning free of certain kinds of lesions, it is called ‘glatt kosher’. This term also has been borrowed to indicate a generally high standard of kosher.


You ask if one standard is ‘worse’ than another, and I propose that one standard may be higher or better than another. You see, Judaism leaves room for individuality. We see this very clearly in the laws of sacrifices that were performed in the holy Temples. A person who could afford to bring a cow or a sheep as a sacrifice, was expected to do so, but another person may have only been able to afford a handful of fine flour – so that is what he or she was expected to bring. The value of the cow or the sheep in those times might have been like contributing the value of a Cadillac or Mercedez Benz to charity in our times. I’m not sure, maybe a lesser model… but the idea is, that a person must do the best they can with the resources they have to fulfill G-d’s commandments to the best of his or her abilities.  So, it is not necessarily that a person who sacrifices a cow is serving G-d in a better manner than the person bringing the fowl or the handful of fine flour, it is a matter of how much effort is being expended. My grandmother, who I never merited to meet, used some of the little money she had in the ghetto in W.W.2 to pay a person for milk which he said was supervised by a Jew at the time of milking, so that she would have kosher milk to give to her children. Many Jews try to use only milk which has been supervised by a Jew at the time of milking, because sometimes cow’s milk is enriched with milk of other animals such as pigs or camels, because they contain enzymes which help keep the milk fresh. We are talking about a very small percentage of additive. Nevertheless it is praiseworthy and desirable to make an effort to obtain supervised milk products that are free of non-kosher additives.


There are many many details in the kashrut laws that can make it very complicated to achieve a kosher product when manufacturing. In today’s food technology, there are endless things that could go wrong in the process. Factory A produces a food product that has three or four ingredients listed on the label, but the law does not require the label to state ingredients under a certain percentage. Thus there could be many more ingredients that are NOT listed. Those ingredients may be brought to the factory from factory B in the same country, or from factory C in a different country, and so on and so forth. Organizations that give kashrut certification have representatives, mashgichim, who travel all over the world to supervise the manufacturing processes. My son was doing some voluntary outreach work to Jewish business people and tourists in the Phillipines before he was married when he was a Rabbinical student, and indeed at one point his services were needed to help with kashrut supervision there. The supervision must cover issues such as how the food is stored between the different stages in the manufacturing process. Insect infestation is definitely not kosher, and you could have a kosher food that was not stored properly and became infested before being combined with other foods in a factory.


Today, for all the above reasons, kashrut is not a black and white topic. There are many organizations that give kashrut certification, but some are more reliable than others, because they ‘go the extra mile’ to try to make sure that all the issues that come up are dealt with. Others rely on more lenient opinions in Jewish law, because there ARE some more lenient opinions, because the Torah does allow for situations where there may be great difficulty. One example could be with milk products. As I mentioned above, it is definitely preferable to use milk products that have kosher supervision, but many years ago, in Israel, there was no dairy baby formula available containing milk powder from supervised milk. Many orthodox Jews used the baby formula which was available. However many orthodox people were concerned about this, because even though some Halachic opinions allowed for leniency in this case, it is known that ‘you are what you eat’ applies to kashrut. Even a baby who does not yet understand, is affected by the food he or she consumes. When the demand increased, baby formulas based on supervised milk products were manufactured. Another example is that of bread. Jewish law allows one to use bread manufactured by a non-Jew if there are only kosher ingredients, in a place where nothing else is available. With today’s food technology where there can be a hundred or so ingredients, most of which are not listed on the package, it is best to try to buy kosher bread from a different city and freeze it, or make your own. However the best thing to do in the case of kashrut, and in general with regards to living a Jewish life in accordance with Torah law, is to get yourself acquainted with an orthodox Rabbi or Chabad representative in your area, who you can consult with. Attending regular Torah classes can introduce you to others who are also seeking to live a more aware Jewish lifestyle, and increase your knowledge and Jewish social setting.


Wishing you a happy Jewish New Year!



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