Jewish Business Ethics in the Parsha

By Dr. Meir Tamari, Director, Center for Business Ethics and Social Responsibility, Jerusalem College of Technology, Machon Lev

Parshat Shlach

It is difficult to understand why the twelve spies did not want to enter into Eretz Yisrael. After all, they were all hand-picked princes and leaders of Israel - people who could not be accused of faint heartedness or physical weakness. However, it appears that they feared a major challenge to their Judaism. In the desert, G-d provided all their physical needs: Food, manna from heaven, water from the miraculous well of Miriam, clouds of glory to shelter them and their clothing miraculously protected.

They knew that they could both believe and be religious in such an environment since such methods of wealth creation did not create a moral or spiritual challenge. However, when they crossed the Jordan, all their wealth and economic needs would have to be earned and created through natural means. The twelve spies did not believe that they were capable of earning an honest livelihood within such a "natural" religious environment.

KOSHER KOLUMN

This column is prepared for Torah Tidbits from material contained in the email answers to Kashrut questions posed to the OU's Webbe Rebbe, and by information supplied by OU Kashrut Israel Ltd. - the OU's kashrut operation in Israel, headquartered in the Israel Center, 10 Struas Street, Jerusalem. Questions for this column'sconsideration should be sent by email to tt@ou.org or phoned in to (02) 500-3333.

Dairy Bread

There is a Rabbinic ban on baking and eating dairy bread, because of the great likelyhood of a mix-up resulting in eating the bread with meat. In other words, a bread that has milk or butter as an ingredient, even though it might be kosher, it isn't kosher.

There is one major exception to this rule. If the dairy bread is distinct in shape and/or color, and does not look like "regular" bread, then the ban doesn't apply.

For this reason, the OU certifies the kashrut of Thomas' English Muffins, which are dairy, but they don't look like other rolls, bread, bagels...

One should generally be extra careful about dairy versions of specific foods that are usually parve. Pretzels, pop corn, cookies, etc. are not subject to the abovementioned ban, but one should be careful and avoid making assumptions. "Oh, our chocolate chip cookies are always parve, so I thought..."

On another note, we'd like to thank the following people - Mrs. Zelda Brody, Tuli Bernstein, Rabbi Zvi Liker, Rabbi Hecht, Ronda Goldstein (and others) - for bringing various confusing labeling situations to our attention. The OU Kashrus N.Y. office in conjunction with OU Kashrus Israel will be monitoring the situationand making the necessary corrections and notifications. Please keep letting us know about label confusion you find in the stores.