Like many others, I came across this blog as I was googling the meat story. I see that many people are avidly following this who are not adherents of our traditions, and thus are misunderstanding many issues. I also see that many of them are not so polite in their disagreements, and for this I must express my admiration to "Rabbi Sol" for the amazing amount of patience that he shows in putting up with this! In order to help set the record straight, I would like to clarify several issues, hoping that many of you may gain some insight into what "makes us tick".

First of all, let me clarify a few points that did not seem to be expressed so clearly:
The dishes are not forbidden to derive benefit from, however they should not be kept in the house, to avoid inadvertantly using them. They may be sold, but on ebay you have no way of making sure that they are not bought by a Jew. Selling or giving treife dishes to a Jew, no matter how unaffiliated or non-observant, is just as serious as what the butcher did, albeit on a much smaller scale.

The laws of Judaism we bellive to be Divine in origin, from both the written (Five Books of Moses) and the oral (Talmud & Code of Jewish Law) Torah. They are, therefore, not subject to change. Circumstances may change, and therefore, the application of the laws may be different, but the laws themselves do not change. Since the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, and we may not offer sacrifices anywhere else, we no longer offer sacrifices. This has nothing to do with "adapting" to society, but with the stark reality of our situation. Rabbenu Gershom (known as "The Light of the Exile") in the 11th century, forbade polygamy for Ashkenazic (Eastern European) Jewry as a preventative measure, when he saw the detrimental effect it was having on people. (It is a fundamental principle of the Torah that the Rabbinical leaders of the time have the right to make decrees upon the Jewish people when necessary to strengthen the community or to prevent communal problems, such as what we just experienced.) The kosher laws do not change, but are applied to the circumstances involved. This has caused great confusion with some aspects of today's food service technology, and very often even the most learned Rabbis will not agree on things.

The issue of the entire Jewish Community "repenting" for this incident seems to have struck many people in an odd way. It seems to me that this has not been explained in a very clear way, maybe I can shed some light on it for you.

To begin, belief in G-d is a fundamental cornerstone in Judaism, and is, historically, perhaps Judaism's main contribution to society, even though we do not place so much emphasis on "dogma" as we do on our laws. Over 3800 years ago, our Patriarch Abraham appeared on the scene of the world, where every civilization worshipped its own assortment of various gods, idols, spirits, powers, etc. Abraham's thesis, that there was but one Almighty G-d who created and maintains the world was what distinguished him from the nations, and was carried on by his descendants for millenia afterwards. Now, debating this is not the purpose of this thread, therefore I will not elaborate further; however, for purposes of understanding this concept, it is crucial that we make this clear. I understand that many of the people who have posted here may take issue with this concept, but that is irrelevant; it is our community that you are trying to understand, so step one has to be to accept that in our collective minds, this is a given.

That being said, our concept of G-d is clearly spelled out by the Torah and Talmud: we cannot possibly understand Him or fathom His ways. However, the Torah has given us certain information about G-d which applies to our interactions with Him in this world. Among them are the thirteen Attributes of Mercy, which in the coming weeks of the High Holiday season, we will repeat over and over in our prayers. Yes, we believe that G-d is All-Merciful to those who repent of their misdeeds. Another core belief of Orthodox Judaism is that G-d is constantly sustaining and maintaining control of our world, even though he has given us freedom of choice in our actions. This does not affect his control; quite the contrary: His goals will be accomplished regardless of how much we try to change them. This is quite a complicated concept, one that even our great sage Maimonides had a tough time explaining, and should perhaps be saved for another post. However, this is necessary to understand the concept of All-Mercifulness that we are dealing with: the great Kabbalist, Rabbi Moshe Cordevero, explains in his work "Tomer Devorah" that since we believe that G-d is constantly keeping us alive and sustaining us, this holds true even while we are sinning!!! G-d not only does not send lightning bolts to fry us when we sin, but he continues to keep our bodies and organs working, even as we defy him! The Jewish concept of Divine reward and punishment is clear that this world is not the time or place for either; any occurences which occur are not necessarily reward or punishment, but rather part of the Divine plan, which our limited human faculties cannot possibly fathom. There is also a concept of Divine Intervention, where G-d circumvents the free will which he has given us, such as the hardening of Pharoh's heart as described in the events leading up to the Exodus, or where G-d causes an unfortunate accident to occur despite our precautions. These may be due to any number of reasons, of which we can only guess. Sometimes, as I saw mentioned in a previous post, it may be to atone for one's sins in this world, so that upon leaving this world one may enter immediately into the reward of the world to come. Sometimes, it may be because we have failed to merit divine protection in a certain area. And sometimes it may be a blessing in disguise, to save us from or alert us to a calamity. I will not go into any hypothesis about the Holocaust, 9/11, or any other such things, as this is not the subject of this thread. I will rather share with you a story which relates to a similar predicament:

The story is told of a Chassidic sage of yesteryear, who used to go to great lengths in his observance of the Passover Holiday and all the regulations thereof. He took the utmost precautions that no particle of leaven should be present in his home, and the foods were all prepared in house, by his family. Everything was meticulously cleaned and checked, the kitchen kashered, and the Matzos were baked under his scrupulous supervision with every conceivable stringency. As darkness fell on Passover eve, he sat at the Seder table with his family, and they conducted the Seder service in a mood of sublime ecstacy; this was the culmination of all their hard work. After they recited the Haggadah and ate the Matza and Marror (bitter herbs) the meal was served. When his wife brought him a bowl of soup, his exalted mood suddenly turned to darkness and confusion. After all their toil and effort, a kernel of wheat was swimming in his bowl, a seemingly impossible occurance. This put quite a damper on his enthusiasm, besides leaving him without a soup pot or bowls fit for Passover use. He spent the rest of the Seder in total confusion, perplexed at this situation.

At the first opportunity to do so, he made a "dream query", a special Kabbalistic formula for a Heavenly answer to deep spiritual questions. First of all, why had this happened? Was it to atone for his sins in this world, or was it a wake-up call to some spiritual calamity that he was in? And second of all, how on Earth had it happened, despite all of his precautions?

Over the night, his answer came: the mishap had occurred to teach him a fundamental error that he had made. True, he had made admirable preparations for the holiday, thoroughly and flawlessly. Yes, he had done it in joy, with a pure heart, and without any ulterior motive save to serve G-d thereby. But he had left out one ingredient, the most crucial ingredient: he had neglected to pray for Divine assistance in accomplishing his task. Despite all the precautions, we must acknowledge that we are at G-d's mercy, and nothing can be accomplished without His help and guidance. With all our safety measures, we must pray for his protection. As far as the second question, how did it happen? The answer was surprisingly simple: a bird flying over the chimney with a kernel of wheat in his mouth opened his mouth as he passed over (excuse the pun) and the kernel fell down the chimney, and into the pot of soup cooking over the fire.
What this means to us, is that we must engage in some serious soul-searching to determine where we are lacking, what is it that caused us to lose our Divine protection. In today's society, as always, we still need G-d's help to succeed in following His teachings. This applies to our marriages, raising our children, our jobs, our day-to-day interactions. No matter how much we work on our relationships, we still need G-d to show us to our spouses in a favorable light. As much work as we put into raising our children and finding the right school to send them to, one "rotten apple" in the class can give them the push down the slope into depravity and delinquincy. And after answering the want ads and going on interviews with our well-padded resumes, we still need him to push the boss' decision in our direction. After completing a project for the CFO at two in the morning following a day of hard work, blood, sweat, and tears, if the exec reads it before he's had his coffee, or after a harsh toung-lashing from his wife for whatever he did wrong at home, he'll berate us and write up negative comments in our file, nixing that raise or promotion we needed so desperately. In all these cases, and countless others, what matters to us is to show our total dependance and reliance on G-d, even though we go through all the motions.

And here in Monsey, or Boro Park, or wherever, what we have to ask ourselves is, how much effort are we really expending in keeping the kosher laws? Are we taking shortcuts for convenience? Who are we relying on? Are we really making the effort, and are we really besseching G-d for his help in keeping our mouths and bodies free from the spiritual malice of trefa food? When Kashrus is mass-produced, the standards suffer. Does it really need to be so? If less people eat at a wedding, and more people come just for dancing, will that make the Kashrus supervision more manageable (besides making our budget more manageable, and lessening the social pressure for people to make such large and extravagant wedding dinners)? If we roll up our sleeves and work to prepare Passover at home, won't that be a much better standard of Kashrus than the rushed kashering of a hotel with all the loopholes in the laws that are utilized to do such a massive job in such a short time? (Never mind if the other, non-kosher kitchens in the hotel are still functioning simultaneously!) For that matter, do we really belong in a hotel on Passover? Do we really need such wide varieties of candy, nosh, junk food, and every product under the sun? Our parents and grandparents didn't have such a wide variety of candies to choose from. In fact, we didn't even have such a large selection of Jewish Junk Food as our kids do. Is it really necessary? I could go on and on lambasting the state of Kashrus in America today, but that is not the point. This should be a massive wake-up call to us to tighten up our standards, and exercise a bit of restraint. And, as many Rabbis have pointed out, we need to apply the same Glatt-Kosher standards to what comes out of our mouths as we do for what goes in. There are numerous laws of speech in the Torah. How careful are we? The mouth is a holy tool, but it can also be a deadly weapon.

There is also a need for those who inadvertantly ate from this meat to undergo a sort of spiritual detox process. The Sages teach us that non-kosher food dulls a Jew's spiritual capabilities, and damages the soul. Think of it this way: if someone accidentally ingested something that brings on an allergic reaction, despite labels and numerous assurances that this food did not contain the allergen, he still has a reaction from it, and needs medical treatment. So too, those who ate trefa, even unsuspectingly, need to treat the resulting spiritual calamity. Our form of spiritual detox includes charity, increasing our Torah learning, doing more deeds of kindness, and deep introspection, as well as "putting up a fence" around our own behaviour, each person according to their spiritual level. Fasting seems appropriate, as that is the opposite of eating, although among Chassidim we tend to look askance at any fasting other than the days mandated by Jewish Law. At any rate, this Sunday, the first day of the annual week of "Selichos" (penitential) prayers prior to the High Holidays, was customarily in many Jewish communities a day of fasting; the main objective of the day, however has to be the introspection: what we need to improve upon, to make ourselves "whole" again, and what we are going to learn from this whole mess.

I hope that I have been helpful in shedding some light on this concept, given you an insight into the "repentance" aspect of this crisis. If anything here is truly a tragedy, it is that our capability to trust has died; this individual seemed to be the perfect model of the trustwothy, upright "Ehrlicher Yid" that we look up to and aspire to become, and yet we see what was lurking beneath the surface. We cannot help but to look with a critical eye at everyone, even the most rightuos of our people. I cannot even begin to understand how he justified himself, or how he can live with himself, or how he will go about rectifying this terrible breach in the spiritual armor of the Jewish people, or the shame that his family must be going through. Maimonides, in his "Laws of Repentance" mentions causing the public to sin as one of the things that bars the way of repentance; until the culprit has rectified the wrong and the damage done to the community, he simply has nothing to talk about in the way of repentance. May Hashem (G-d) show his mercy on us all, especially on those who were affected by this, and help them recover from this horrible violation of their trust, spirituality, and their humanity.

Wishing all a "K'siva VaChasima Tova", and may we recapture the holiness and purity of eating at this time of year when we will be doing so much of it. May all the traditional symbolic foods that we eat be truly kosher and imbue us with a desire for Torah and Mitzvos and closeness to Hashem, and usher in for us all a good, sweet year.