47 Responses

1. To all those who can’t read the letters clearly:

   Click on the image to enlarge it. Then (after it’s enlarged) right click and save it somewhere. Then go read the saved file & you will be able to zoom in and read it clearly.

2. But the letter from Rav Neuwirth doesn’t say clearly that he never saw or approved the letter. At least I’m not sure taht it does. On the other hand, he says that he doesn’t know what teshuvah to suggest.

3. I can’t read the very last word in the letter from Rav Neuwirth, because your stamp lies right over it. Could you please tell us what that word is? Thank you.

4. The letter from R. Neuwirth is clearly in disagreement with the first letter. In the first letter the (absurd, in my opinion) claim is made that since he caused a loss of money to so many people, therefore he can’t pay back and he will make a keren tzidokah instead. In the second letter R. Newuirth implies that he can’t get off that easy.

   Also, can someone explain to me the line in the first letter where he says ול�? .נתכוונתי להכשיל �?תכ�?

5. I believe he is sincere and with regards hilchos t’shuva, isnt someone who does tshuva because he got himself so farhacked in tzoros, also somewhat of a baal tshuva?
   anyway, if he does follow a real tshuva program endorsed by rabanim, we have got to accept him back with full ahavas yisroel.

6. LkwdGuy, it would seem that he means to say that he sold the traife meat not with the intention for others to transgress a chait but rather just because he was greedy. So he is saying that technically he wasn’t “M’achtei es ha rabim” contrary to a case where one wants a rabim to, lets say, serve avodah zora.

7. LkwdGuy,
   He meant it was a psik raisha d’lo nicha leih, he was just giving in to his yetzer harah.

   He had no intentions of being machshil people….

8. I am very troubled by several aspects of the progress of this story.
   1. Neither the rabbonim, not the perpetrator, nor people incidentally involved (mashgichim, former employees both Jewish and gentile, suppliers both kosher and treif) have deigned to provide any more information. How long was going on? What percentage was really treif? Was he once a partner of a renowned Brooklyn butcher? Are there real reasons to believe that other evildoers are perpetrating the same outrage? In the last six weeks, despite the promises of big investigations by the state and a rabbinic detective, nothing has been reported.
   2. The perpetrator is still acting like a Tzaddik, the heiliger maachil neveilos following in the derech of Gedolei Oilam, “Pravet Golus!” Writing letters in rabbinic Hebrew as if he is still one of our camp, what will it take to make him understand that this is serious? He is still playing “the prominent and respected ASkan and magid Shiur Reb Moshe”
   3. Will it take a lawyer to mount a large scale lawsuit in the secular courts in order to get the whole truth?
   4. Does the perpetrator understand that until he gives full information and pays back all of Monsey for the thousands of new crockpots, hundreds of thousands of hours which people had hoped to spend preparing for Yom Tov and being engaged in Torah and teshuvah in preparation for Yamim Noraim which were instead spent in line for kashering (10,000 families @ average 10 hours at Schar Betailah of $7 an hour=$700,000) and the costs for caterers and commercial establishments paying overtime to do their kashering… he isn’t even up to giving any Tzedaka!
   5. And does he think that anyone trusts him not to embezzle from his own tzedakah fund, talk about putting the fox in charge of the henhouse!
   6. If we, the community who care about kashrus don’t make noise the story will be repeated by same other fraudulent pseudo-orthodox Yeshiva oisvorf next year.
   7. It is in every one’s interest to share the information in a polite and thorough manner, otherwise the reporters from vanity Fair, New York magazine will have the honor of investigating and they will enjoy it as has happened to previous scandals within our community bringing shame to all of us and a Chilul Hashem.

9. To MR.MOTCHA-the last word in the letter is “Lekach” he is saying “i don’t know what kind of teshuva 2 direct him with”.My personal opinion is that after losing everything he had in life-he definitely has much remorse-and therefore if he does follow the ways of teshuvah the gedolim tell him to,you know he is sincere and he should be welcomed back with open hands.like it says” HAPOSAIACH YAD LEKABEL POSHIM VE’CHATAIM”.amen.

10. I feel bad for the guy, but he still has to pay. He has to go to jail and suffer, for his actions. A guy can’t just do what he did and then do Tishuvah and be off the hook.
    Psik Raisha Dilo Nicha Leih, Psik Raish Dinicha leih… he has to pay!

11. An aveirah like this cannot be paid back with money. Eating treif is not as simple as just kashering one’s dishes and going on with one’s life. A person’s neshomo is tainted by treife meat. This man cannot pay back all those he harmed with money. I also think the amount of damage he did monetarily is a very very huge sum, and Tzeddaka alone will not atone for this. Who knows how far reaching his treife meat went? To have mechila everyone who he harmed has to be moichel and how is that going to be accomplished by his giving Tzeddakah?

12. I think it should be left up to the gedolim what his teshuvah would entail and what his status should be for the future.By the way,think about this for a second,imagine if god looked @us with the same scrutiny and said”i dont think so and so should ever be forgiven for what he did no matter what kind of teshuvah you do”how would you feel about that?That IS the essential difference between god- and flesh and blood.
    I don’t know if you know the gemara which tells the story of someone by the name of eliezer i beleive his name was-which had relations with every ZONAH in the world and when he heard about one very far away-he went to her.When she saw him she told him that god will never forgive him for all the aveirus he did.He got so shaken up that he cried his heart out until he died.After he died a bas kol came out and said(don’t know the exact words)That he was zocha to olam haba-and he was knoah olamo”besha achas”.So lets leave these judgements up to the one who took care of them till now and who always will and lets just learn from every situation.

13. Who cares whether or not it was authentic? If you had doubts, you could have published it and noted that you have doubts. It’s legitimate news on a hot topic.

14. Or were you perhaps waiting for permission from the investigators you were so excited about a few weeks ago?

15. i think the letter is as authentic as his “kosher” meat was

16. Please call it what it is not Shevach, but Shivach meats.

17. Susshow, don’t you mean Schvache Meats? 😉

    In any case, the letter looked very suspicious and it is a shvach (in loshon kodesh, not Yiddish) that it was not posted here until further research was done.

18. How strange that he asks forgiveness from the community, while simultaneously lessening his blame by saying that the treife meat was only a small portion of the meat, and that he did not sell the meat to other establishments. These are excuses. The damage was still enormous! He shouldn’t be trying to defend himself in a public letter.This attempt at damage control shows that he still doesn’t get it. Teshuvah means asking forgiveness without any “ifs” or “buts”. Finally, his statement “I did not mean to cause you to stumble,” is disingenuous. It is like the concept of “psik raysha v’lo yamut?” A person wants to cut off a chicken’s head on Shabbos to play with; not that it should die. However, all know that death will automatically follow. Thus, it is forbidden. Similarly, the butcher knew his greed would cause innocent Yidden to stumble. Dovid HaMelech when confronted by Nasan HaNavi, said”Chatosi”, “I sinned!” without any excuses. This butcher should do the same.

19. YW Editor: If this letter is legitimate, why are the blogs not picking up on it? Do they know something about the letter(s) and don’t want involvement?

20. itzik.
    either way, it is not shevach

21. It’s a Shevach on anyone that is even considering forgiving him.

    BUT they will never forget (that is, unless he makes a $big bundle$- in that case, everyone will line up to be meshadech with him and he’ll be honored by all the Mosdos)!

22. The thing I am not hearing people say is that when he sold a treife chicken, the money he received for it is stolen money. The customer thought he or she was getting a kosher chicken, but they were not. As my seventh-grade Rebbi taught my class, when someone ACCIDENTALLY sells treif, he has to give back the money for each and every non-kosher food item he sold, and he has to give it back to each person who ever bought such from him. Now, I believe that my seventh-grade Rebbi was a talmid chochom, but I don’t know if he was a posek. But if what he said was correct, then he has to pay back every customer who ever bought a treifer chicken from him. So he owes that money, in ADDITION to the costs mentioned here: buying new dishes, time lost, etc. And if people are not moichel that money, he can’t expiate that choiv by giving money to tzedakah! He has to give it back to his customers!

23. To anonymous 8:55

    Gut Gezugt!

24. LkwdGuy, it would seem that he means to say that he sold the traife meat not with the intention for others to transgress a chait but rather just because he was greedy. So he is saying that technically he wasn’t “M’achtei es ha rabim�? contrary to a case where one wants a rabim to, lets say, serve avodah zora.

    That’s absurd. So if I give in to my tayvos because I’m very hungry, and I eat a ham sandwich, can I legitimitly claim to not have had any intention to eat traief?

    I’m also uncomfortable with the implication that the yetzer horah is some kind of outside force that I am not fully responsible for. If my YH caused me to do something, that means that I allowed myself to go ahead and do it. I can’t understand why anyone would advise him at this point to try in any way to excuse or minimize what he did.

25. If he wants forgiveness, he should repay the community in the area he sinned. He should do supervised menial labor for a Kashrus organization for free, or some other Chesed organization that can use a pair of hands. He shouldn’t be free to invest all his time to rebuild his life after he wasted so much of the Oilem’s time and money. Does the Oilem agree?

26. I think what’s really bothering me is that the excuses (i.e., my Yetzer Horah was too strong, It was “only” a little bit of my total sales, etc.) should be saved for the bais din shel maa’ala. Here on earth the only thing he should be saying is “I was a chotai u’machti es harabim, and I will work for the rest of my life to pay back every single penny of hezek that I caused”. Everything else is just window dressing. How can people know if anything he says is true? It is not for us to determine if he is really sorry or if his nisayon was much stronger than that of any one else in business, so why bother with the excuses.

27. We as Jews are rachmanim b’nei rachmanim, and must forgive those who hurt us if they sincerely apologize. Don’t get me wrong. I believe the butcher is sincere in reaching out to the community. I only feel that he should think again before re-writing his letter of apology, which I believe he should do.

28. I agree with LkwdGuy. But the issues reagrding whether or not all his meats were treif and whether the meats he distributed were kosher or not should be brought before Rabbanim because of the potential halachic ramifications.

29. But doesn’t he have to pay back to his customers the price of every treif chicken he sold? It was genaivah when he sold it to them, since the custoemrs thought it was kosher. As long as that is not done, and no one has been moichel that money, how can he spend that money on tzedakah?

30. Motcha, you are 100% right!!!

31. It is what I learned from my Rebbi in seventh grade. He told the story of a baker who, probably in the fifties, discovered that the stuff he had been shmearing on his pans for years contained a treife ingredient. He was devastated. My Rebbi said that he had to pay back each and every customer for each and every product he had ever sold him that had been baked with that treif stuff.

32. all the stories of r. eleizer ben durdayo were between them and *Hashem*. Beis Din though views his actions if they are consonant to “yilbash scholrim” and if he attempts to give back all that he has to the people he robbed from.

33. An limp and lukewarm apology that doesn’t properly acknowledge the wrongdoing, is simply no apology. What was written was politically correct frum speak without any real substance. It has the outer trappings of an apology, but under careful review, is lacking in substance.

    For example, the apology only acknowledges the relative minimal cost of having to kasher pots but is silent about the greater cost of consumer fraud of charging for kosher when it was really treif. This is not a proper admission of guilt.

    The apology doesn’t use Mr. F’s full name – why not?

    The apology lectures us on how we should forgive him. Why? He’s in no position to lecture, and quite frankly, he might not be a candidate for forgiveness. His crimes are too great.

    How he is not even offering to refund the money that he stole from his consumers? He makes no effort at restitution, rather, he throws up his arms in the air saying that he cannot do it. And then, he adds insult to injury by pledging to give money to the poor in Israel (I guess he has money for restitution), who were not even his victims. Why isn’t he offering monetary restitution? Let him invite everyone who he wronged to submit a claim to the best of his ability and he will work hard at paying it down?

    Then the letter states that it was written under the advice and direction of a rav. Pardon the pun, but it’s as if his letter was “kashered�? by a Rav Hamachshir – the very failing of this whole debacle. He didn’t show any respect for his Mashgiachs and Rabbonim when he perpetuated massive fraud on everyone, but now that he’s been caught red-handed lying to everyone, now he has a Rav Hamachshir. This boggles my mind.

34. CRIMINALS ALWAYS HAVE REMORSE!!!

    AFTER THEY ARE CAUGHT,

35. without going into the question how sibcere this brio’s tshuvo is- i am surprised that this is the first time a public acknowledgement was made -by himself-that tarfus was sold for a few years- not a few months as earlier reported. the details are important because many more people surely were nicshol ra”l, and they would have to look into their dishes etc.
    i wish the rabonim come out with clear details

36. I’m upset that anyone even mentioned his name. I was not interested in knowing it at all (and is it loshon hora?). Now I got an e-mail with a copy of the letter and the envelope (which for some reason has a stamp but no postmark…hmmm – seems fishy). The envelope says his full name – and some of the comments here mentioned it as well.

37. how is potato kugel posting a comment at 4:40 on the 21st?

38. Israel, England…..

39. ok meyushav – thanks – kugel always seemed like he was from brooklyn

40. Why are the Heimishe blogs- who love to come out with this kind of news, staying away from discussion of the letter? Anybody has any idea?

41. If the letter was eally not looked over by Rav Neuwirth, who is to say that the whole letter is not forged, and therefore not written by Mr. F?

42. 1) after reading this Blog it frightens me; when it says “how we judge others is how we get judged!”

    2)I guess this is a microcosim of what it means that only a jury of our Dor will judge us not a previous Dor. And seeing peoples comments we better be prepared with a very good apology or excuse in the next world.

    3)In the letter from Rabbi Newworth He is only saying that the first thing that the butcher/distributor has to do is publicize what he did to the olam before he can even begin his teshuva process. For that he needs to speak to the rabanim in America.

    4) See Rambam Hilchos Teshuva & also Chovas halivavos shar hateshuva which says regarding the issue of is everyone able to do teshuva, that Yes everyone is able to do to teshuva however for somone like this it is the one the most difficult levels of doing teshuva. a)because it is nearly impossible to pay everyone back b)getting mechila from everyone is nearly impossible since many people dont know they need to forgive you or could have moved or could have died.

43. Several points:

    1) Is he doing teshuva or is he upset that the was caught?
    2) What is he trying to gain by this letter?
    3) Who are we to judge if he is sincere or not? (Look like i am contradicting #1? There is teshuva bei odom lamokom, then there is also bein odom lachaveiro. Think about it)

    Just thinking out loud!

44. yw editor, where did you get this letter from originally? is there a way to trace it back to see if it is authentic?

45. why tumel about it if it’s not authentic?

46. Dasyosher: I know you mean well, and you have a great heart, but Chazal have clearly said that there ARE some people who are not given the opportunity to do true teshuvah (ain maspikin biyado laasos teshuvah), and even some whose teshuvah is not accepted (though that’s extremely rare). But one thing is certain, in avairos shebain odom lachavairo, until the people are moichel he can’t even ASK for mechilah from the Ribono Shel Olam, and until he returns money he has stolen or it is all forgiven he has not done teshuvah.

    Now, I would be willing to be moichel had he done it by accident. But I don’t know that I’m that great a person that I can forgive him if he caused me to eat treif. But the fact remains that whether or not I forgive him, machti es harabbim is one of those sins for which ain maspikin biyado laasos teshuvah. Which means perhaps he can do teshuvah, but he may have a lot of work to do first. That letter is not a step closer to doing that work. It makes me feel no better whatsoever.

    Maybe he has many zechusim, and that might help him, if they don’t speak against him. But that’s Hashem’s concern, not mine.

47. (1st we refer to G-d in caps and not written out.)

    2ndly what his teshuva is, is up to him and gedolim not us. and it’s ridiculous to talk about him paying e.o back b/c that’s just not possible. besides, what bothers me is that everyone is more worried about the loss of money than the fact that they ate treif. I find it rather disturbing. y is it that you eat kosher to begin with? do you ever think of that? and then when you find that you ate trief that doesn’t bother you as much as the money you lost over it??

    So sad how pple lost their sense of priorities these days.

    3rdly It’s best to copy Hashem’s middah of rachamim. We could all use Hashem’s rachamim and we can only expect that if we act the same. He’ll have to give his own cheshbon. that isn’t exactly our problem. and anyone that ate trief should worry about doing his own teshuva.