24 Oct KASHRUTH QUESTIONS: WITH RABBI MOSHE ELEFANT FROM THE OU

Do you ever have it
where two people can
be eating the same
food, but need to make
different brachos?

There are many examples.
I’ll give you an example
in hilchos brachos. Let’s
say you have two fruits
on the table, an apple and
an orange. They’re not
one of the sheva minim
and they’re both borei pri
ha’etz.
Which do you make a
bracha on? You’re going
to eat both and have
them both on the table,
so which do you make
the bracha on? The halacha is you make the bracha
on the one you like better. So let’s say you and I
are sitting at the same table. You and I

are both going to eat an apple and an orange, but
you like apples better and I like oranges better. So
the halacha is, the one who likes the apple makes
the bracha on the apple and the one who likes the
orange makes the bracha on the orange.
There certainly is a level of objectivity in
hilchos brachos.

Does one need to cover
their head when making a
bracha?
You can’t make a bracha without wearing
a yarmulke. If you don’t have a yarmulke
available, you can take your sleeve and
put it on top of your head. You can’t use
your hand because one body part can’t
cover another.
Eating bread without
washing. Can you hold the
bread in paper?
Eating bread with just covering your hands is

only permissible when water is not available. But
wherever water is available, let’s say on a plane, you
can’t just say well I want to eat the roll. It isn’t easy
to get to the water on the plane, but that doesn’t give
you permission to just cover your hand and eat the
bread. Only if water is not available, do you have the
right to cover your hands and not wash. If you’re on
the highway and there’s really nowhere to pull over
and get water within twenty minutes of where you
are, then you can eat the bread. Your hands have to
be covered with a bag or with gloves..