The Meeting at the Joint: An Enlightening Article on Kosher Certification

One day, an alert customer entered a store that sells prepared Shabbat food. He wanted to enhance his Shabbat with some well-cooked chicken legs. To his astonishment, some of the legs were cut lengthwise, like a "lantern," while others were completely intact, without any cuts. Our knowledgeable friend approached the business owner anxiously and leveled a serious accusation: "How can you advertise that all your meats are mehadrin when clearly there are Rabbanut chickens here..." But the business owner didn't lose his composure for a moment... "Everything is fine," he answered confidently. What's going on, the man insisted, look at how many uncut legs are here and you're telling me everything is mehadrin... An uncut leg is a sign that the gid junction wasn't checked, it seems you've mixed in non-chalak poultry with the rest so that there are chickens with cuts and some without.... Let me explain, look, what you see as uncut is because the gid junction is checked in every chicken, but not both legs are cut. They open one side, see everything is in order, and that's enough – they don't continue to check the other leg. That's why some legs are cut, probably the right side, and some are whole without cuts, probably the left side. Ah... our friend breathed a sigh of relief... if that's the case, everything is fine... thank you, and I'm sorry.... and immediately gathered a full basket for his home, including uncut legs.

Before we continue, it's important to emphasize, to avoid misunderstanding, there's no situation where in a proper gid junction inspection both legs aren't opened. The man was simply misled, deliberately.

The gid junction is like a system of springs connecting and supporting the leg bone from beginning to end. There is, however, a fundamental difference between the gid junction of poultry versus that of cattle. While cattle have only three thick, strong tendons that only render the animal non-kosher if most of them are severed (but if only one is severed, the animal remains kosher), poultry has sixteen delicate tendons. If even one of these becomes severed, rotten, or even develops an abscess, even if only affecting most of the tendon, it's enough to render the entire chicken non-kosher. This is because we assume that if one tendon is damaged, it's likely that all the other tendons will fail in the near future, and the chicken will certainly become treif.

However, during Talmudic times and even until a generation or two ago, it wasn't mandatory to check every chicken's tendon health, just as we aren't obligated to check for all seventy types of injuries that can affect cattle. This is because "most animals and birds are presumed kosher," and the obligation to check only applied to those types of diseases and injuries that posed a reasonable concern. Since gid junction problems were very rare – the vast majority of chickens had no issues with their tendons – there was a presumption of health. This was particularly true because poultry farming was then slower, more free-range, and healthier. Birds weren't confined to one place without the ability to move; they could walk around and heal their legs, and even rest for a while to give their legs a break.

The problems began when poultry farming became commercialized, with dizzying quantities produced in very short, unnatural growth periods. From birth, the chickens are enclosed and crowded in coops, with all their weight resting on their weak legs, without the ability to move significantly. As a result, chickens developed excessive weakness in their legs, which directly impacts the health of their tendons. It's now quite common for tendons to tear and then reconnect and adhere in a way that renders the chicken treif. One of the signs of this is when the natural fluid between the tendons forms a kind of hard, white crust that doesn't come off easily with a fingernail and is noticeable from the outside as a hard bump, sometimes protruding slightly, sometimes more. Moreover, sometimes the appearance of the tendon changes to the extent that even from the outside, a reddish, bluish, or greenish appearance is visible, and it's quite possible that one of the tendons has broken completely (this is common in the thick tendon under the skin, or even in the smaller tendons between the thick tendon and the bone). Remember, it's enough for the appearance and substance of the tendon to deteriorate, or for there to be any wound or blood clot in the gid junction area, to indicate that "lakuta" (disease) has taken hold, rendering the chicken non-kosher due to doubt. This is because a chicken that has received a blow to the gid junction needs to be examined, and the rule states "we are not proficient in examining the gid junction" – and this lack of proficiency requires us to declare the chicken non-kosher.

Indeed, the person who brought this issue to awareness was Rabbi Meir Brandsdorfer, who was a Torah authority in the Edah HaChareidit. About forty years ago, he conducted comprehensive research on all poultry and presented his findings to the head of the Edah HaChareidit, Rabbi Yitzchak Yaakov Weiss, author of Minchat Yitzchak. He demonstrated that although most chickens don't have gid junction problems, there is a very reasonable concern with each chicken, called a "common minority," that it might have a gid junction issue. This requires, according to halacha, checking each and every chicken to remove the doubt that it might be treif, just as there is an obligation to check cattle lungs for adhesions. Anyone who dares to be lenient in checking the lungs of cattle is called one who feeds non-kosher food to Israel... and the Shulchan Aruch already wrote, "Anyone who breaks this fence to eat without checking the lungs will be bitten by a snake..."

However, there is a fundamental difference between the method used in the "kosher" and even "mehadrin" certification levels, and the method used by the better Badatzim. In particular, there is a fundamental difference in how to conduct the inspection – whether hanging or lying down... and especially, there is a fundamental difference in the location of the inspection between the method used by the Badatz Beit Yosef, as instructed by Maran Yabia Omer based on the clear ruling of Maran Shulchan Aruch, and the method used by Ashkenazi Badatzim, according to their rabbis' opinions. We will need to elaborate and explain this next time, Hashem willing...