In
other words, every agency, organization, and individual out there giving
hashgacha should be doing a proper job. Unfortunately, many are not, even to
the point that one cannot eat at establishments that they certify or eat the
products that they certify unless the kashrus system is independently verified.
Ubiquitous underperformance, even in bastions of holiness, does not make it
more acceptable to do a sub-standard job, but it allows us to be more kind in
considering that a deficient agency, organization, or individual is not a
standout, but one of many.
The
reasons vary: lack of expertise in kashrus systems, lack of management skills,
lack of budget, lack of the community’s willingness to properly fund a
top-notch, or even Halachically acceptable, kashrus program, misplaced
compassion towards unqualified staff, turf wars, negligence, and sometimes even
avarice and lack of yir’as Shamayim. But the consequences are the same: a
community unknowingly eats that which is Halachically prohibited, and the
knowing of the community are left with no good options and are frowned upon by
the unknowing.
May
Hashem protect all His children and grant us all to eat properly kosher food.
Kol
Tov,
GH: You
seem to always equate chassidsheh hecshseirim with the term “gold standard”.
Maybe to you they are, but not to everyone else. I do not trust a product or
establishment anymore because it has both the OU and a chasidesheh hechsher. If
it only had the OU I would still trust it.
I have both a national and
heimish hechsher on my place. The national one comes every month- the hemish
one hasn’t come in well over a year and he has no idea what is even in my
products. So, there are no rules but they definitely both have pros and cons.
