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    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.