Blowtorches, romaine lettuce, cookie factories, and halachah—what could they possibly have in common? I found out over four eye-opening days in July at the Orthodox Union’s (OU) Women’s Kashrus Experience. I would like to share some highlights from our week and the important lessons we learned about kashrus.
When I first began my job as recipe editor for Whisk, my job consisted mainly of editing recipes for spelling and grammar while also making sure that the ingredients and instructions were clear and concise.
What I discovered early on was that the job involved much more than editing for spelling and grammar. Sometimes the recipes contained ingredients that raised potential halachic questions, such as produce that is difficult to check properly or certain alcoholic beverages without kosher certification. Though rare, when issues like these came up, I would consult my editor, who would let me know whether the questionable ingredient should be modified or omitted.
So when I saw the OU program advertised, I thought it would be a great opportunity to deepen my understanding of kashrus, especially as it relates to modern ingredients and cooking methods. I hadn’t expected how comprehensive and insightful the experience would be!
A group of 50 women of all ages, from all walks of life, attended the program. There were a few prominent rebbetzins from Brooklyn, young women from Lakewood and Monsey, women from Florida, Chicago, Silver Spring, West Hempstead, Queens, Boro Park, Flatbush, Williamsburg, and the Lower East Side—and one woman who came all the way from London just to attend the program.
Of the 50 women, many were teachers who were taking advantage of their summer break to focus on personal growth. The group also included psychologists, accountants, principals, military officers, engineers, nurses, and computer programmers. We used the breaks between classes to get to know one another, aided by the conspicuous name tags hanging from our necks.
In true Jewish fashion, we quickly uncovered shared connections through a round of Jewish geography. We shared our reasons for enrolling in the program, and overwhelmingly, it came down to one thing: Kashrus is complex. Gaining a clearer understanding of hilchos kashrus would benefit not only ourselves, but also our kitchens, our families, and anyone who eats at our tables.
More than 20 OU rabbinic coordinators, each a leading expert in his particular field of kashrus, shared their deep knowledge spanning the full spectrum of kosher laws for different types of foods, from meat and dairy to wine, fish, baked goods, baby formula, commercial ingredients, and even technology as it pertains to kitchen appliances. The program was run by Rabbi Eli Eleff, managing director, community relations and rabbinical coordinator for the OU.
Rav Hershel Schachter, one of the poskim for OU Kosher, spoke to us about kashrus in general and how the food business has changed dramatically over the years. The process of certifying products that were made in factories decades ago was much less complicated than it is now. For example, factories that made orange juice only produced orange juice; factories that made nonkosher soups only produced nonkosher soups, and the two factories would not have been connected to each other in any way.
Currently, because of sophisticated, technologically advanced, multipurpose equipment, one factory may produce orange juice and nonkosher soup, as well as many other items, some kosher and some definitely not kosher. The economic benefit of using a single facility for many products is huge. The challenge for the mashgiach is twofold—knowing if the equipment can be kashered between production of nonkosher and kosher products, and knowing how to kasher the equipment.
Rabbi Avraham Stone, senior rabbinic field representative, taught us that a mashgiach examines both the visible and unseen aspects of food production that often escape the average consumer’s eye. As current issues arise in the food industry, the certifying agencies must constantly learn about the companies for which they are responsible.
Rabbi Stone mentioned the new trend to eliminate seed oils from our diets and to lean toward more natural animal fats. After the class, he was traveling to another state to research a facility in regard to just this situation. Obviously, for the kosher world, this trend will impact our lives in a serious way as products that were previously pareve would become fleishig.
Leaf by Leaf
The first day of classes began with a hum of anticipation. After enjoying coffee and pastries, we gathered in a sleek high-tech classroom with glass walls and glowing screens, a multipurpose space that is also used for davening Minchah.
Rabbi Daniel Sharratt, rabbinical coordinator and an expert in tola’im (insects), taught us about the minimum size an insect must reach to be considered unacceptable. We watched a video demonstrating how leafy vegetables are washed and checked on a large scale in a commercial facility—essentially the same method that would be used in a home kitchen.
Rabbi Sharratt was asked about hydroponically grown lettuce, and he clarified that just because it’s grown in water instead of soil doesn’t mean it’s free of bugs. These greens often have a soil plug at the root end and might be grown in greenhouses that aren’t completely sealed, so there is still a risk of infestation, and these lettuces still need to be checked thoroughly, just like conventional varieties.
He also cautioned that supermarket lettuce labeled “triple-washed” can still be just as infested as any other lettuce and therefore should never be relied upon as clean but must be checked properly.
Later on in the week, we had a hands-on session at the Boutique Event Space in the Brook Haven Mall, usually reserved for vorts and bar mitzvahs, and it really brought this topic to life. Seated at long tables set up with electronic light pads and thrip cloths, we learned how to check romaine lettuce under Rabbi Sharratt’s guidance.
After the lettuce is soaked in a soapy solution, rinsed thoroughly under a strong stream of water, then soaked again in a basin of clean water, it is removed from the water, and the rinse water is poured over a tightly woven white nylon thrip cloth that is held securely between two colanders. The cloth is then placed on the brightly illuminated tablet to check for any lingering insects, dead or alive—specifically, thrips or aphids that might have been washed off the leaves but were still in the water. This process may have to be repeated a few times until the lettuce is absolutely insect-free.
Beyond the Classroom
I hadn’t been on a coach bus since summer camp decades earlier, but as we boarded the bus early Tuesday morning, we were ready for a day that promised to be productive and enjoyable. We made our way to the elegant Rockleigh Country Club in Northern New Jersey, about an hour away, for an inside look at how a nonkosher commercial kitchen is transformed into a fully kosher one. The presenter was Rabbi Moshe Perlmutter, rabbinic field representative and kosherization expert.
The Rockleigh is a well-known venue for Jewish weddings and other celebrations, and when kosher caterers arrive on the day of the event, they expect that the kitchen will already be fully kashered so that they can begin food preparations immediately.
After enjoying a light pastry-and-coffee breakfast, Rabbi Perlmutter demonstrated some of the techniques he uses in kashering. His previous plumbing experience had given him valuable insight into the complexities of commercial appliances, enabling him to carry out the kashering process expertly. He brought commercial blowtorches, heatproof vessels featuring long pouring spouts, and heavy-duty, full-length rubber gloves for safely removing kashered items from large vats of boiling water. Additionally, he carried various tools for disassembling ovens, dishwashers, pot spigots, and any equipment that needed to be opened for thorough cleaning from the inside out.
Rabbi Perlmutter explained the different kashering processes, including hagalah (dunking nonkosher items into a pot of boiling water on a fire), iruy (pouring boiling water over a nonkosher surface), libun kal (light burning—heating a cleaned and dried utensil that hasn’t been used for 24 hours to a dry temperature of 550°F for a minimum of one hour), and libun chamur (heating a surface until sparks fly or it turns red-hot). Each method is used for kashering different nonkosher items based on how they were used originally, and in some cases, several strategies must be used to kasher a single item.
Another option in the case of items that are too difficult to kasher is simply not to do so at all! These nonkosher items will then be sealed up and not used. For example, in the case of ovens at nonkosher catering spaces, wire oven racks and sheet trays are almost impossible to kasher properly, and therefore, they are not used and are sealed away. Kosher racks and trays are purchased exclusively for that venue and remain on site. After each kosher event, they are locked in secure storage and sealed with multiple layers of distinctive security tape from the kashrus agency, ensuring that the equipment remains untouched until the next certified event.
As we entered the commercial kitchen, I’m sure many of us were dreaming of cooking in a space with multiple ovens, walk-in refrigerators and freezers, and counters that seemed to stretch out forever. While showing us the many commercial French-door ovens in the Rockleigh’s kitchen—there were at least eight—Rabbi Perlmutter explained that they had a built-in safety feature. When the chef opens the doors to check on the food, the flame automatically shuts off, and it reignites once the doors are closed again.
When the chefs who are cooking for a kosher event are not Jewish, the closing of the oven doors actually constitutes bishul akum—cooking by a non-Jew—because it causes the flame to reignite. Rabbi Perlmutter’s expertise with these ovens enables him to dismantle them and temporarily disable the sensor that controls the flame. This way, a non-Jewish chef can open and close the oven doors without causing the flame to reignite.
As long as a frum Jew initially turned on the ovens, the flame would stay on the entire time, and the food would thereby remain bishul Yisrael throughout the cooking process. Without Rabbi Perlmutter’s skill in working around the heat sensors, several mashgichim would have to remain stationed near the ovens throughout food prep, constantly closing the doors and reigniting the flame each time. I doubt the chefs would appreciate having people hovering in their workspace like that.
The experience was incredibly enlightening and helped us appreciate how much time, hard physical labor, and deep understanding of halachah go into making facilities kosher and ready for us to celebrate our simchos.
After we left the Rockleigh, we traveled for a half-hour to one of David’s Cookies’ huge commercial baking facilities, encompassing over 60,000 square feet in Fairfield, New Jersey. From the moment we entered the front door, our senses were assailed by the delicious aroma of cookies and cakes baking. We were divided into two groups and were joined by the frum director of operations, Mo Brecher, who had one group don hair bonnets and smocks to prepare for a walking tour of the facility.
We were guided to the room where the baking supplies were kept on ceiling-high shelving units, noting the kosher symbols on the industrial-sized packages. We were shown the box of tevel matzah (matzah that had not yet had challah separated) kept on a high shelf near the mixers.
We made our way around the employees, both men and women, who were mixing the dough, filling cake pans, baking and then blast-chilling the cakes, frosting and decorating them, and finally slicing and packaging them. We experienced the full process of making chocolate cakes, red velvet mini-cakes, cookies, and blueberry muffins.
We moved across the factory floor following the journey of the red velvet cake batter, which was carefully blended in massive industrial mixers and baked in giant sheet pans, seeing firsthand how skilled employees and precise machinery work together to turn batter and dough into finished treats. We watched how the red velvet cakes were made much as you would at home, but on an industrial scale.
One employee carefully cut small three-inch circles from giant sheet pans of baked cake, and the leftover pieces around the circles were dropped into large bins. When we asked what would become of the scraps, the staff invited us to follow the process at the next few stations.
The cake rounds were placed by hand into ring molds, where they fit perfectly, and sent to the next station, where an overhead machine deposited dollops of vanilla cream onto each circle; the cream was then smoothed, one at a time. This layering process was repeated three times, creating a tall, multilayered dessert.
Meanwhile, another employee crumbled the leftover cake pieces finely and sprinkled them over the final layer of cream, giving each mini-cake an elegant textured finish, fit for a dessert buffet at a simchah. After assembly, the mini-cakes were removed from their molds, packed in sturdy cases, and taken to the walk-in freezers, ensuring that every layer and crumb would stay intact during shipping.
The second group of women stayed back in a conference room, where they sat around a large table laden with fresh chocolate chip cookies and rich brownies. Except for one sealed room on the factory floor that is used exclusively for non-dairy and nut-free baking and is sealed to prevent cross-contamination of allergens, David’s Cookies produces non-chalav Yisrael dairy cookies and cakes, all certified by the OU. The samples they generously provided for us were made in a special production run in that sealed room, and were pareve and pas Yisrael so that we could all enjoy them—and they were delicious!
While one group took the factory tour, the other group learned about the Torah requirement to use yashan (older grains) for baked goods from Rabbi David Gorelik, rabbinic coordinator for yashan, cereals and jams. We learned that all foods produced in Eretz Yisrael that are under a reliable hashgachah are yashan. Outside of Eretz Yisrael, where yashan is a debated area of halachah, there is no set rule among the hashgachos, and one should speak to their own rav for guidance on this matter.
Our experts explained that “winter” wheat is always yashan, whereas “spring” wheat can be problematic because of the timing of its growth. That’s why we rely on our hashgachos to keep us informed about when yashan season begins each year for each type of grain. Because all ingredients these days are tracked by computers from the time they are planted to the time they enter the production facility, you can know the exact moment when your favorite cereal becomes non-yashan, or chadash (new grain).
On Wednesday morning, after attending sessions on the mesorah of kosher birds, halachos regarding six-hour cheeses, and a discussion about modern technology in home appliances, we boarded the bus again and headed to Aisle 1, a fully kosher supermarket located in the Brook Haven Mall in Passaic.
We were guided by Rabbi Binyamin Kreitman, administrator for the Vaad of Passaic-Clifton Kashrus and an OU mashgiach, who took us behind the scenes for a tour of the meat, chicken, and fish departments. We saw the rooms where the livers are kashered, as well as the produce and bakery departments.
We learned that challah is separated from fully baked cakes when the quantity is large enough to require it, because cakes are made from a belilah rakah (liquid batter), unlike thick, dough-based items such as challah or babka, where separation is made from the raw dough. I had never heard about doing hafrashas challah from batter-based cakes. According to Rabbi Eli Eleff (managing director of community relations and head of the Women’s Kashrus Experience), it is highly unlikely that we would ever have to do this at home because the volume of flour needed for a liquid batter to require hafrashah is much, much larger than we can possibly mix at one time—more than about six to nine 9 x 13-inch pans using one batch of cake batter.
We saw firsthand that each department has built-in safeguards to protect the facility’s kosher integrity, including on-site mashgichim who oversee the meat, bakery, fish and deli departments to ensure proper preparation, separation, and certification of ingredients.
In the candy repacking room, where bulk sweets are apportioned into smaller containers, the original labeled packaging is carefully retained so that the mashgiach can perform spot checks and verify the kosher certification of any item at any time.
At the dairy restaurant in the Brook Haven Mall, we were shown the kitchen where the mashgiach is present at all times since he must close the oven doors—thereby relighting the flame—every single time!
Halachos of Wine
Rabbi Nachum Rabinowitz, senior rabbinic coordinator for Europe and wines, informed us that at OU-certified events featuring wine tastings, the wines must all be mevushal to avoid the prohibitions of yayin nesech and stam yeinam.
Louis Pasteur, an 18th-century chemist and microbiologist, invented the technique of heating wine to prevent bacterial contamination when the wine needed to be transported. The original mevushal wines were considered inferior by wine connoisseurs.
Over the years, mevushal wines have improved greatly in taste, making them viable options for business events or catered Shabbos sheva brachos where the serving staff might be non-Jewish.
The supervision of kosher wine actually starts long before it reaches your Shabbos table. As soon as the grapes arrive at the winery, often already leaking juice, they’re “dumped” (yes, that’s the technical term) into the facility. From that moment on, mashgichim are hands-on, shoveling loads of grapes from the delivery trucks into vats to begin the winemaking process. Because grape juice already exists, supervision is required immediately, and no one else is allowed to come close. This supervision continues straight through bottling and sealing the wines.
Kashrus at Home
In most homes, it’s the women who are in charge of the kitchen, overseeing shopping, storage of food and cooking. Rabbi Binyumin Arye Glick, rabbinic coordinator for special projects, told us that keeping the home kosher is the responsibility of the women and that the ne’emanus (trustworthiness) is on our shoulders.
He gave us guidelines for medications and supplements that might include nonkosher ingredients. He urged us to follow our doctors’ guidance and consult rabbanim when necessary. Eating nonkosher food, even by accident, is metamteim halev, which means that it makes the heart impure and should be avoided at all costs unless it is medically necessary.
As Rabbi Glick said, “Women are the ‘boots on the ground’ mashgichos in their own homes.” If there’s one takeaway I’d want to leave you with, it’s that kashrus doesn’t have to feel overwhelming. Yes, it’s complex and ever-evolving, but with rabbinic guidance and a willingness to learn, it becomes a meaningful part of daily life. From checking lettuce to scanning labels, these acts connect us to something higher. They infuse our homes with kedushah, strengthen our identity, and remind us that every bite matters.
With clarity, confidence, and siyata dishmaya, may we all continue to grow, and may we merit to see the coming of Moshiach, bimheirah b’yameinu. ●
Note to our readers:
This article is meant to share what I learned and experienced, but it is not a substitute for halachic guidance. Please consult your own rav for any personal or practical questions. Any inaccuracies or errors in this article are entirely my own.
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