Rabbis Debate Role of Mashgiach Temidi

(New York) Rabbi Zev is a mashgiach temidi at a local kosher restaurant. The rabbi has the key to the freezer where the meat is stored, he turns on the oven when he arrives just before 10 in the morning and he checks shipments of meat and other ingredients when they arrive. If Rabbi Don Yoel Levy, who heads the Brooklyn-based OK Kosher Certification agency had his way, Rabbi Zev would be doing a lot more. “I believe that the mashgiach temidi must have a full record of what comes in and what goes out,” he noted. In meetings following the Monsey scandal (where non-kosher poultry was sold by a “respected” kosher butcher) last month, one of the main proposals to prevent a reoccurrence was to require a mashgiach temidi (full-time kosher supervisor) in establishments where kosher food was repackaged. Rabbi Levy said that the “mashgiach must be fully engaged, totally involved with other staff persons, and be accountable to a senior rabbinic supervisor.” Some rabbis complained that many supervisors like Rabbi Zev spend most of their day reading a newspaper or actually studying the Talmud. According to Rabbi Moshe Elefant, the COO of the Orthodox Union (OU), the passive rabbi was common many years ago “when rabbis were severely underpaid and not given much authority. Today the OU encourages their mashgichim to be involved in other aspects of the plants they supervise without ever loosing sight of their main mission.” To assure that rabbis are fully engaged, the OU dispatches senior supervisors to check on their mashgichim. Like the OK, the Orthodox Union requires that mashgichim have the keys to the kosher products and in some cases, to the establishment itself. Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum, the Nierbarter Rav, recently informed consumers that mashgichim in a Brooklyn kosher butcherie falsely rumored to be involved with the Monsey butcher actually had “the keys to the butcher store.”

Most of the rabbis who spoke to KosherToday agreed that a mashgiach temidi should be fully involved in the operations they supervise. Rabbi Levy even suggested that they maintain a relationship with staff members if only for the reason that “the workers are the best source of information.” One rabbi said that the “rabbi must be kept busy so that he is alert to any possible violation of kosher food laws.”

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