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    12 Nov KASHRUS QUESTIONS OF THE WEEK WITH RABBI MOSHE ELEFANT

    Posted at 18:12h in by
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    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.
    However glatt actually now
    has a wider connotation. It also has a connotation of a concept in
    Halacha called “Basar Shehora Bachacham,” which means Meat on
    which there was a Shaila, and a Chacham Paskened. Glatt now means,
    there was no shaila from the animal. There was no need for a loophole
    to say this animal was Kosher. That’s what Glatt has come to mean,
    and that’s why you’ll see Glatt sometimes even on non-meat products
    or chicken. We don’t check the lungs of a chicken so how do you have
    Glatt chicken? The answer is we’re not checking the lungs, but we’re
    making sure that the meat has no Shailos and is completely Kosher.
    And that’s why Glatt has greater, wider connotations nowadays in the
    world of Kashruth than it ever did.