Teacher told my daughter OUD is OK to eat. Is it?

elf123

Thu, Mar 29 2012, 12:27 am

seeker wrote:

I'd love to hear from someone who witnessed the R' Moshe vomiting story. Sounds like a real stretch. I know grandchildren of R' Moshe eat OUD without hesitation. The vending machine in his yeshiva sold OUD snacks.

However, questionable quotations aside, there is validity to both practices of eating OUD and eating only CY. I am pretty disturbed that a teacher would make blanket statements at all about hechsherim. I am a teacher and I am careful never to pasken halachos for my students. If it were something like an incident in which a student brought something to school and someone else said "that's treif!" the farthest I would go is to say something like "It has a hechsher on it; each child is to eat only the hechsherim that their parents permit." Not "it's good" or "it's bad."

My DH just told me that Rabbi Menachem Genack has said that the story about R. Moshe zt'l vomiting is absolutely not true, and that he used to give out Hershey's Kisses to children. And we also know his children and grandchildren, many years ago when my son had a playdate with one of them at our house, I asked the mother about it and she said "We're not makpid on chalav Yisroel."

someoneoutthere

Thu, Mar 29 2012, 12:38 am

amother wrote:

groisamomma wrote:

morah wrote:

groisamomma wrote:

morah wrote:

OUD is fine. It is not CY, so if you keep CY, then you can't have it. But that's not really the issue here. First of all, even people who keep CY agree that non-CY is not treif- why is your husband acting like it is? The other issue is that there's only so much you can make an older child do (I'm assuming your daughter is a teen. It sure sounds like it). Anyway, remind your husband that CY is NOT treif, and if he doesn't want to see your daughter start eating real treif, he'd better let this slide.

In other words a child should be allowed to set her own kashrus guidelines lest she go completely off the derech?

If she's old enough to be eating stuff out of the house, yes. I edited mine to say that she can't bring it home. But is it worth being "livid" over a chumrah? Absolutely not.

Sounds to me like she's still living under their roof, so she should abide by their kashrus standards. FYI to some people it is not a chumrah, their rabbis hold that it's halacha.

Interesting point (bec. I know people will quote R' Moshe Feinstien about OUD): It is said that although R' Moshe was mattir OUD for people, he himself would never eat it. Once, when he found out that his daughter had served him something that was OUD he went to the bathroom and vomited it up. So for some people it's halacha, not chumra.

OP here: my husband says it is halacha. So he is right? My husband would do something that drastic. How do you reconcile that my husband says holacha and her school is just teaching her it is better.

You can tell your daughter as follows: Your husband is correct. The halacha is that a Jew needs to supervise from the milking till it gets to your table (or is sealed under hashgacha). So it says in the shulchan aruch. There is a widespread, accepted heter to eat what R' Moshe calls in his teshuvos Chalav HaCompanies- milk under the supervision of the USDA. It's a leniency in the law that has become widespread. But CY is NOT a chumrah. For sure not according the rabbonim I'm presuming your husband is following.

Now, teachers are not always 100% understood. Her teacher probably said "OUD is kosher, not treif (ie. one can eat it relying on the heter of R' Moshe and isn't eating treif) but being careful about CY is a higher/better standard" And that teacher is correct. Whatever goes into our mouths has a spiritual effect on us as well. Her step-father's strictness about the level of kashrus in the house is out of a belief that we should feed our souls the highest standard of kashrus. She doesn't have to like that. We don't like lots of things.

chanchy123

Thu, Mar 29 2012, 3:57 am

Annie wrote:

or, an altogether different interpretation of what the teacher said is that some OUD items are really dairy equipment and not actually milchig, and so may be eaten even by someone who holds CY. Think oreos. This would've been my interpretation of what the teacher might have been saying.

OR
she may have said that it's ok for people to eat OUD meaning, that people who do are not eating treif, not meaning that everyone should now stop keeping whatever chumra they hold and start eating OUD, just saying that's it's ok for those who do.
There cam be a million explanations, I would call up the teacher and ask what she really said, if she told your daughter she can eat something that you don't eat in your home, you should clarify that is unacceptable.

I rely on Rav Moshe's psak, and eat oud without any hesitation, but I understand how upsetting it would be if a teacher told my child she could do something our family holds is wrong, or not as good as we do.

It seems though that you have a specific issue with CY and CS and you should bring it up with DH, understand where he is coming from, and decide if you want to follow it. I know women who decided not to follow their DH's chumras in various areas and they still keep whatever they did in their home growing up (gebruchts, CY, etc.).

and just a side note, eating OUD or keeping only CY does not define you as a person or even as an observant Jew, there are so many aspect to Judaism.

chocolate chips

Thu, Mar 29 2012, 6:43 am

Cholov Stam IS ok but not everyone eats it.
Same thing with hechsherim, OU is fine but not everyone eats it.

A simpler way of saying it is DKNY perfume smells good but its just not good on everyone!

If you are now keeping CY in your house and so are your younger kids, then your daughter should definitely be keeping it. Tell her you understand why she doesn't want to but right now she is living in your house so you would like her to keep it. When she gets older and makes her own decisions she can decide what she feels is right for her to do.

I hope this helps.

shalhevet

Thu, Mar 29 2012, 7:39 am

marina wrote:

Quote:

It's a leniency in the law that has become widespread. But CY is NOT a chumrah.

So just to clarify: if a chumra is widespread, it becomes halacha ( e.g. glatt kosher, skirts from 3, socks, pas yisrael, etc, etc, etc.) but if a kula is widespread, it's still a kula, right?

These are not chumras/ kulas. The halacha is different according to different rabbonim/ sources. So, for example, the MB paskened that a girl must be dressed tzniusly from age 3, but the Chazon Ish paskened from an older age. Each person needs to go by their own rav. If their rav says age 6 or 9 is enough, they are being machmir to start at 3, but if their rav says to go by the MB it is not a chumra, but rather the halacha for them.

Pas Yisrael is the halacha. There are circumstances when Pas Akum is allowed according to halacha.

groisamomma

Thu, Mar 29 2012, 7:53 am

elf123 wrote:

seeker wrote:

I repeated the story I heard about R' Moshe but I won't vouch for its validity so you all may be right. What

I just find it hard to believe he would encourage the kula by giving out OUD candy to children. But again, you may or may not be right.

shalhevet

Thu, Mar 29 2012, 8:59 am

Rodent wrote:

Considering that the prohibition has been done once something is swallowed there is absolutely no benefit in vomiting up something you may have eaten that is not kasher.

On that basis alone I don't believe the Moshe Feinstein story (that's not to say that there aren't rabbis out there that don't seem to know that halacha which is pretty scary). And someone else who may think that it is an honourable action to do is mistaken also for the record.

I have no idea if the story is true or not. And you are right about an issur.

But for kashrus there is another consideration - that what we eat becomes part of us and affects our neshama. That's why we are careful that little children don't eat anything of questionable kashrus, even below the age of chinuch and even when they are so little that they don't understand and there is no halachic problem of, for example, letting them continue to play with an electronic toy which they took themselves.

chani8

Thu, Mar 29 2012, 9:19 am

The prohibition is to we are not allowed to drink milk from a non-kosher animal. Sometimes farmers or those transporting milk, will add pigs milk to keep the cow milk from spoiling. And bittel b'shishi doesn't count, and can only be used on basar/chalav. Therefore the milk would be treif if it were to have pigs milk in it.

By drinking CY you can be certain (we hope) that no one is adding non-kosher milk to your cows milk. But with OUD, you have to rely on the govt laws that prohibit this, and hope the farmer is law abiding. With refridgeration abilities today, a farmer, or truck driver, has very little reason to worry that the milk will spoil before delivery. But has everything to loose should he get caught tampering with the milk.

elf123

Thu, Mar 29 2012, 9:27 am

shalhevet wrote:

Rodent wrote:

Are you saying OU-D products are "of questionable kashrus?"

shalhevet

Thu, Mar 29 2012, 9:32 am

elf123 wrote:

shalhevet wrote:

Rodent wrote:

Are you saying OU-D products are "of questionable kashrus?"

That wasn't what I was trying to imply at all, and I don't understand why you asked the question.

I was explaining why someone might want to vomit something they have already eaten - because food has an effect on their neshama, not just a halachic status. OUD is chalav stam (as far as I understand - correct me if I'm wrong and I am not so familiar with American kashrus hashgachas), so anyone who doesn't want to eat CS wouldn't want to eat it.

red sea

Thu, Mar 29 2012, 9:50 am

It could be that the teacher was defending that not to look down on OU-d that there is nothing at all unkosher about it, jews who eat it are not less.... and your daughter took it how she took it, could be she (dd) thought there was something unkosher or less kosher about it.

From what I understand cy is halacha, r' moshe paskened dairy with the laws in the USA is still kosher though not cy, which is preferable but ou-d is not being over anything at all.

I would just explain to your daughter that the actual halacha is cy, if you go to random countries world wide you don't know if you can rely on the laws of that country to eat non cy, it would have to be investigated, even those who eat ou-d would not do so anywhere without knowing the facts as it can be treif, have pigs milk or camels milk... mixed in just a bit, if she was in a third world country she would have to make sure her milk was coming out of a kosher animal with her own eyes and that the container it was milked into was clean of other animal milks.

Nothing wrong saying we are careful to eat cy in our family since there is no reason not to, we can afford it and its readily available and offer to find cy copycats if she zero's in on one snack, because I doubt she cares which brand of milk or mozzerella you buy. I would also look away at if she was still looking to eat non cy out of the house, because if she pushes it, by ignoring it - it will probably pass faster than going into a full battle with her.

(I don't eat only cy, so take my opinoin for what its worth)

amother

Thu, Mar 29 2012, 10:11 am

amother wrote:

OP here: My daughter is ten. She does eat out of the house sometime. I forgot to mention her father died and was OUD. My husband is a very good man. He is very sincere in his beliefs. She looks to him completely as a father. I am not arguing with the decision to raise the kids CY. I would not budge him. I can't explain this to my daughter because I just don't understand yet.

I understand the history.

Would someone be able to explain it to me so I can explain it to a child?

Okay, that's the piece of info that was missing. You didnt mention that your husband is not her father. Let me tell you my story. My father also died when I was young, and my mother remarried a much frummer guy. Of course he wanted to run the house on HIS terms, in terms of being much more strict about kashrus. Let me tell you we werent very happy about that. Sure, I was little when they got married, but I did remember being able to ask for, and get, an ice cream from any ice cream truck. Or m&m's from a vending machine. If your husband is going to be stubborn about forcing your daughter to keep his minhagim, even outside the house, then I wish you luck. You're going to need it, especially once she starts resenting him for 'denying' her the food she's used to. As teenagers, my siblings and I (the ones from the first marriage) used to go out and eat whatever we pleased. And once it came to that, and we saw how mad my mothers husband used to get over a stupid package of cookies, it didnt stop there. Call it babyish, but it gives me satisfaction now to keep an OUD house and know that he wont eat a thing of my food for fear of what I put in there.
Bottom line, it led to ALOT of resentment and fights over the years, and it all peaked when we all stopped speaking to my mother and her husband. Is it worth it to you to lose your daughter over a different brand of milk or chocolate that you wouldnt eat??

My opinion is this - if her father held that ou-d was fine, there's no way someone else should force her to do differently. Even if you did marry him. In the house, I would expect her to keep whatever chumros is set down, but I dont think there's much you can do about stopping her from eating it out of the house.