I have a daughter who lives in Monsey. So, when the story
broke about the problem of Kashrus of the chickens, I checked
to see if her kitchen was affected. Knowing the high standard
of Kashrus in her house I was I was pretty sure that it was
not and I was indeed reassured that as far as her household
was concerned, everything was just fine.
Now, when I say "high standard of Kashrus", you have to
understand that this is an understatement. This is a woman
who will not allow a dry slice of cold bread on a dry,
perfectly clean fleishig counter, to then be used for
a cheese sandwich. Ordinary halacha is not the
language she speaks. We tease her mercilessly for her going
way beyond the norm. Her siblings have little patience for
what we, as a family, deem to be exaggerations bordering on
the eccentric.
Over the years, she has been the butt of many jokes on the
subject. They have never eaten in my house on Pesach. When
her sons who come to learn in Israel spend Shabbos with us,
we have to refrain from eating anything related to a cow,
because the hechsher that my husband considers the
very best is not one that they will eat. To say that they
drive us crazy with their chumros is not an
exaggeration. However, being of a compliant and respectful
nature, I have always gone along with any requests.
Against this background, the story continues:
Although, the kitchen in her house is not involved in the
scandal, every caterer in the area did deal with this
supplier, so what about the simchas? Indeed, our
grandson (whose name is Simcha) had a Bar Mitzva celebration
about a year and a half ago. The hall was arranged for a
particular night in Adar.
When the family arrived at the simchah (Simcha's
simcha), the hall was dark and several out of town
guests were milling around. These early arrivals were
puzzled. Had they come on the wrong night? Had they really
shlepped on a two-and-a-half-hour bus ride for nothing? Had
the event been cancelled? Had it been moved to another
location and they hadn't been informed? To all of their
questions, the answer was no; this was the right night and
the right place.
For the first hour, the family and the guests banged on the
door, made phone calls and finally reached the manager. He
had pencilled in the event on the wrong night; he didn't
understand how it could have happened. Such a thing had never
occurred before in his establishment and they would set about
rectifying the situation immediately.
When I first heard about this fiasco, my reaction was, sorry
to admit, very accusing. "You probably contracted over the
phone and didn't finalize."
"No, Mommy, we went down there and saw that it was written
down."
"You probably didn't give him any money down, so he thought
you weren't serious."
"No, Mommy, we paid him what he asked for and I have the
receipt."
"But these things don't happen to anyone else, so it must be
that you didn't do something right."
"Mommy, I was really quite alright, and even so, it did
happen."
On the evening in question, the family and their guests
helped the hastily assembled staff move out the tables and
chairs, set them up nicely, if rather quickly, and in
between, welcome more and more guests as they arrived,
offering thanks for the Mazal Tovs and continuing to set up
at the same time.
The caterer checked his refrigerator and put together some
sort of pareve first course. He sent a worker to the
bakery to provide rolls for the tables. For the main course,
he had no choice but to pay the extra for food imported from
the most reliable take-out place in Brooklyn. It was too
late to cook up local chickens.
And so it came about that no one at that simchah ate
anything with a sofek of treifus.
It is written that Hashem watches over the food of those who
are meticulous in Kashrus…
We are privileged to see after a year and half, just why the
caterer's notebook was in error and why the family was
subjected to embarrassment. It just couldn't be that someone
so "eccentric" could serve her guests anything improper.
And we all owe you an apology for making fun of you, dear
daughter. Please forgive us and go on giving us much nachas
as always.
