What is it about kosher salt that makes it kosher? How is the preparation process different from the non-kosher salt? Is kosher salt iodized?
I thought that anything that was kosher had to be blessed by a rabbi in addition to being prepared a certain way. I know that I love Kosher Salt for cooking, grains are much larger and you can really see the amounts you add visualy.
;j
I’ve heard about the blessing part, but how is the actual preparation different?
Well, they address the subject indirectly. They refer
to “kosher” salt (quotes theirs.) Which would seem to agree
with my initial respone-all salt is kosher.
As noted, the grains are larger in a brand sold as “kosher salt”. This is because Leviticus forbids the eating or dinking of blood. If the meat is taken from a kosher animal killed by a kosher butcher (a shochet), it still isn’t kosher yet. All blood must be drained from it.
So
1 Rinse the meat
2 Soak it in cold water
3 After a 1/2 hr, place the meat on a slanted board.
Salt ALL surfaces.
4 Let stand 1 hour.
5 Rinse the meat again, taking care to remove the salt.
Thus salt sold as kosher salt is just easier to see and remove.
There’s no reason for many products (salt and pickles come to mind) to be unKosher, but accidents happen. Suppose one of the employees in the salt-packaging plant gets a papercut, and a little blood gets on the inside of a bin used to store the salt. That bin would then have to be cleaned up, and I’m sure that the plant would use cleaning methods sufficient for health purposes. Those methods might not be what the rules of Kosher prescribe, though. Then, even if a plant does use the appropriate procedures, someone’s got to verify that they use those procedures.
FTR, kosher things don’t have to blessed by anybody, rabbi or not. Somebody with knowlege of the laws has to make sure that they’re being kept while the food is made, and there are various certifying groups that do so. Most of the people involved are rabbis, but there’s no prerequisite.
(A side note - I don’t think that there’s any requirement that a rabbi bless anything ever. A rabbi is simply somebody who has passed certain exams certifying that he has the required (large) body of knowledge. There are certain community roles that they fulfill, such as religious court panels, but they do not grant permission or forbid things - they tell you what the law says.)
Of course, people who keep kosher also say blessings before they eat (kosher) food, but that has nothing to do with rabbinical status.
I believe that “kosher” salt is merely salt that is used for koshering. Dictonary.com supports this:
The larger grains tend to do a better job of drawing out the blood, and, of course, people nowadays like the idea of no additives. But all salt is pareve and thus can be used with any meal (meat or dairy).
Someone mentioned pickles – while pickles are a vegetable, they sometimes have additives, specifically certain polysorbates which are added to the pickle brine as an emulsifier. These are derived from animal fat, and thus fall under the kosher ambit. (See Cecil’s comments here.
I’d also like to second GilaB’s comments regarding rabbis. In the Roman Catholic tradition, a priest has certain powers with respect to blessing that laypeople do not. In the Jewish tradition, there is no analogy with a rabbi. A rabbi has no particular powers to bless; while he or she is often called upon to offer prayers or blessings, the Jewish tradition generally holds that they are no more or less efficacious as prayers or blessings offered by anyone.
However, there are several Jewish mystical movements - the Chassids come to mind. A Chassidic rebbe is thought to have special gifts that ordinary people do not.
However, I could make the argument that a blessing offered without a specific mitzvah calling for it is violative of the Jewish Third Commandment, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain.” I’m a Roman Catholic, and it’s common for us to ask a priest to bless a new house, new car - indeed, the Knights of Columbus neck jewels worn by officers of a council are blessed every year by a priest before the officers are given them. In the Jewish view, however, since there is no mandated blessing for a jewel of office (that I’m aware of, anyway) I would argue that blessing them would be taking the Lord’s name in vain.
Although now that I think about it, I suppose a generic blessing like a shechayanu might be in order: “Blessed art thou, 0 Lord … who has kept us alive and brought us to this moment.” But in general, it’s not in accordance with the tradition and practice of Judaism to offer generic blessings. There are blessings for all kinds of things. They follow a regular formula: “Blessed art thou, 0 Lord, King of the universe, who …” et cetera, et cetera. There are blessings on arising, for preserving safely through the night; on washing, for the commandment to wash; on breaking bread, for bringing bread from the earth. In essence, they are a formalized and required means of giving thanks for various things people receive.
- Rick
Kosher salt is easier to see. God is kind to people with tired old eyes.
;j likes me, I think.
Shalom,
mangeorge
Nitpick-The process of making something kosher is called kashering. Besides meat, sinks, ovens and counters can be kashered. The Whole Jewish Catalog method for kashering ovens involves a small acetylene torch.
This is true. But the important thing is - as per the context here - that the special gift does not arise from his position as Rebbe. Rather, his followers believe that due to his holiness - his righteous deeds, his closeness to god etc. he has these powers - God will pay more attention to his blessings than to another person.
There is no rite in the Jewish religion that requires the participation - or even the presence - of a Rabbi.
Its kind-of been answered already, but I’ll answer it all here and add a little:
Kosher Salt should probably more properly be named Koshing Salt as it is salt used for koshering meat (making meat kosher). To remove the blood from meat and avoid the biblical prohibition of eating blood, meat must be soaked in salt for a certain amount of time. (It can also be broiled in a special maner insteady; This is what it typically done with liver, which cannot be salted).
The salt must have a certain grain size, and Kosher Salt has the required grain size. It should be called Koshering Salt.
Nowadays, just about no one (in the US at least) salts their own meat. All kosher meat that you can buy in a store (that I’ve seen) is already salted by the butcher. Thus, I’m not sure what people buy Kosher Salt for, but its probably not for koshering meat, or for anything particularly Jewish.
Now – on the separate subject of blessing. Its already been mentioned that Kosher has absolutely nothing to do with being blessed by a Rabbi. This is a common misconception. Kosher has to do with the preperation of the food, the ingredients that go into it, and the supervision of that perparation (i.e. I won’t eat it if it might be kosher; I only eat it if someone knowledable supervised and says its kosher). There is no blessing of anything. The supervision must be done by someone who people will trust, so they must be pious and knowledgeable of Kashrus and of moder food science and food preparation in the facility they are supervising. This is often but not always a Rabbi.
Now – what is a Rabbi. Rabbi means “teacher”. Mose was a Rabbi and was called “Moshe Rabbeinu” (Moses our teacher). Before he died, he put his hands on Joshua and gave him Semicha which essentially is a public declaration that Joshua had the requisit knowledge to be a rabbi. This tradition of giving semicha to someone and them being a Rabbi went on with a direct line from Moses until Roman times, when all the “real” Rabbis were killed.
A “real” Rabbi with semicha does have certain special powers (not in blessing anything) but in the power to decide certain very important court cases (capital cases, for example) or in the power to make rulings binding on the entire Jewish people.
Nowadays, at least with traditinal Judaism, being called a Rabbi means that someone else who called himself a Rabbi decided you had enough knowledge to be called a Rabbi. There’s no real base case. Anyone can call himself a Rabbi, but the important thing is “says who”. If you are knowledgable in Halacha (Jewish Law) and a respected Rabbi calls you are a Rabbi, you will be respected as a Rabbi.
They do not have any special powers now as they don’t have semicha.
Koshering meat can’t possibly remove all the blood.
So, you get points for trying?
Serious question in there, somewhere.
Peace,
mangeorge
If you’re wondering what kosher salt is used for anymore - well, I use it for cole slaw. The large, fluffy (I know, that sounds weird, but it’s the only way to describe them) crystals of kosher salt are very effective for extracting water from cabbage (and by extracting water, you also extract some of cabbage’s sulfrous odor and flavor). Similarly, they help for pickling, and for brining things like (non-kosher) chickens and turkeys, whose flavor clarifies and intensifies after a nice, 12-24 hour soak.
Pam Anderson discusses both of the above in her book, *The Perfect Recipe*, which is terrific.
mangeorge:
Why not? We’re talking here about regular meat, BTW. Especially bloody organs, like liver, need to have the blood broiled out of them.
I know we’re straying, now, from the subject of salt… but as I reread this thread it occurs to me we haven’t mentioned the sacerdotal function of the kohane in Judaism.
Inasmuch as my wife and I had a baby boy - our first - yesterday, it’s worth pointing out that in the Pidyon Ha-ben ceremony, traditionally, the firstborn child, if male, is handed to a kohane - not a rabbi, unless he is also a kohane - to be redeemed.
(Side note: a kohane rabbi might have some difficulty in American congregations, by the way: most congregations seem to expect their rabbis to officiate at funerals, an activity forbidden to a kohane.)
Additionally, they are given the first aliyah on the Sabbath, and are required to recite a blessing over the congregation at certain times of the year - mostly holidays that don’t fall on the Sabbath.
In any event, my son was born via C-section, so the Pidyon Ha-ben wouldn’t have been required anyway – and of course, neither of us are Jewish. But it is an example of a function in Judaism that can’t be performed by just anyone.
- Rick
Well. maybe I don’t understand the structure of meat. What with all those capillaries and such. If you drained all blood, wouldn’t the meat be quite pale? If you kosher a steak, then cook it any way but well, blood will flow when you cut it. Even if cooked well the blood is still there, just congealed.
I’m getting a little nervous here. I don’t mean to challenge the wisdom of many centuries of faith, nor do I mean any disrespect. But some of the ‘rules’ of any faith butt heads with my sense of logic.
I’m curious.
BTW; are many jews vegetatian? 
Peace,
mangeorge
I don’t think that the incidence of vegetarian Jews is that much different from that of the population in which they live.
Technically speaking, there’s a tiny tiny bit of blood left. I’ve never eaten a non-kosher steak, and can’t compare to what you’re thinking of, but I’ve never seen blood run from one when cut. If it’s rare, the juice will be pinkish rather than brown, and probably some of that is a small amount of blood. As much of the blood as is humanly possible is removed.
Blood isn’t what makes a steak dark, though. It’s myoglobin, a protein in muscle cells that makes them use oxygen and energy more efficiently. Myoglobin is related to hemoglobin, which makes red blood cells (and thus blood) red, but it’s within the muscle cells, not the bloodstream.
Well, I’ve certainly gotten a lot of great answers. Thanks to everyone for taking the time to respond to my inquiry.
mangeorge:
Well, the blood is drained immediately after slaughtering. The salting gets out what little remains. In organ meats such as liver which have more blood than most meat, it must be sliced in a special way and broiled.
As GilaB mentioned, it is not blood that makes red meat red. (And do you think that white meat of poultry doesn’t have essentially the same structure as red meat of cattle?)
I’ve known one or two, but eating meat is actually a requirement on holidays and festive occasions, so I’d wager that the incidence of vegetarianism amongst observant JEws, at least, is quite low.
Chaim Mattis Keller