07 Feb KASHRUS QUESTIONS OF THE WEEK WITH RABBI MOSHE ELEFANT

Please explain the word “GLATT”-is it still
shayach today?
Very, very much! Not only is it relevant today, but
it probably has more applications today than it
originally did. Glatt is a Yiddish word for “smooth”
which means that whenever you slaughter an animal in a Kosher
way, part of the process is that the lungs are examined to determine
that they’re healthy. Certainly, if the lungs have a perforation or a
hole, then it isn’t kosher. Sometimes when the lung is examined,
there is not necessarily a hole, but it’ll have lesions attached to the
lung. So it’s not clear what those lesions represent.
Do they have a hole under them or not? Is it healthy? Glatt requires
that the lung be completely smooth, without any lesions. And that’s
why, typically in beef that’s slaughtered in the United States, the
percentage of Glatt meat is so low. The reason it’s so low is because
the animal is checked, and by the time we finish all this checking,
they’re going to get a very low percentage of Glatt animals. A very
interesting piece of information is that Glatt for Ashkenazi Jews is a

custom. As far as Halacha is concerned, Ashkenazim don’t require
meat that is Glatt; it’s more of a custom that we keep nowadays. For
Sephardim, it’s not a question of custom, it’s a question of law.
That’s why very often you’ll see Bet Yoseph. It requires that the lung
be very smooth, without any lesions. So that’s what Glatt means
and that’s why Glatt is as relevant today as it ever was.