Rabbi Spiegel on Kashrus, Mesorah, and Raising the Next Generation

David Fried

 

“Pesach isn’t just about what we eat—it’s about who we are and the example we set for the next generation.”

—Rabbi Spiegel

 

 

Heilige roots

“It all started with my grandfather, the Ostrov-Kalushin Rebbe, Reb Pinchas Eliyahu Spiegel,” says Rabbi Baruch Mordche Spiegel, rav of Khal Tiferes Pinchas D’Ostrov-Kalushin.

Ostrov (Ostrów) was once a major city in Poland, known as a place where the Kli Chemdah lived and where Reb Pinchas Eliyahu served as a rebbe before the war. When the pogroms began to intensify, he secured visas for his family and immigrated to America in 1926. He initially settled in the Bronx, where he established a shul and a yeshivah, and later moved to Long Beach.

Those were years when American Yiddishkeit was still in its infancy—long before the postwar rebuilding, long before the arrival of many of Europe’s great leaders, and long before the vibrant Torah world that would later flourish across the country. Yet Reb Pinchas Eliyahu was among the Yidden who helped shape and strengthen Yiddishkeit in the United States. He was meshadech his children with towering figures such as Rav Moshe Bick, Rav Yaakov Kaminetzky, Rav Mendel Zaks, and other gedolei Yisrael, forging connections that would help lay foundations for generations.

Reb Pinchas Eliyahu Spiegel was the son of Reb Naftula Aryeh, who was a son-in-law of Reb Yaakov Yitzchak of Kalushin. Reb Naftula Aryeh was also a ben achar ben of the Ma’aseh Rokeach, and the family name Spiegel was originally Rokeach. Reb Yaakov Yitzchak was the son of Reb Avraham Elchanan of Kalushin, a family line descending from the Dombrover Rebbe. Reb Avraham Elchanan was also a grandchild of the Chozeh of Lublin.

Reb Pinchas Eliyahu originally lived in Kalushin, and even after he later moved to Ostrov, his chassidim continued to refer to him as the Kalushiner Rebbe. After resettling in the United States, he became known as the Ostrov-Kalushin Rebbe.

 

The original Lakewood years

Reb Avraham Elchanan Spiegel—Rabbi Spiegel’s father—was among the earliest figures to help shape Lakewood’s Torah infrastructure in its formative years. After learning in Telz, he came to Lakewood to learn in the yeshivah and became a close talmid of the Rosh Yeshivah, Rav Aharon Kotler.

Lakewood at the time was still undeveloped, and even basic chalav Yisrael products weren’t readily available for young families—there wasn’t even milk or cottage cheese. Reb Avraham Elchanan learned b’chavrusa with Reb Moshe Heinemann of Baltimore (today the leading posek of Star-K), and together they worked to bring the first chalav Yisrael milk to Lakewood.

The first Lakewood mikveh, built on Seventh and Madison, was also one of his major projects. Being a chassidishe Yid who poured himself into the needs of Klal Yisrael—particularly in Lakewood—he brought down Rav Bick and the Voidislover Rav to inspect the mikveh and ensure that every detail met the highest standards.

He was also instrumental in the founding of the Lakewood Cheder. At the time, the only option in Lakewood was the day school, and together with Reb Moshe Rubenstein, he worked tirelessly to establish the first cheder. “My brother was in the first class there, and I also learned in the Cheder growing up,” says Rabbi Spiegel. Today, that brother runs the otzar hasefarim in BMG.

 

 

 

The five shochtim

“Needing a parnassah, my father became a shochet and traveled frequently,” Rabbi Spiegel recalls. “Eventually, that led our family to relocate to Boro Park. He was also the one who would bring chickens to Lakewood for kapparos and shecht them on the spot.”

In 1977, at around 4:00 a.m., Reb Avraham Elchanan Spiegel was on his way to a shechitah facility in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, together with four other shochtim. Their car hit an ice patch, skidded, and collided with an oncoming tractor-trailer. All five shochtim were tragically niftar.

Rabbi Spiegel and his siblings were left yesomim at a very young age.

“Growing up as a yasom is really difficult,” Rabbi Spiegel says. “But we were fortunate to have a chashuve zeide—the Ostrov-Kalushin Rebbe—who took over our lives. We were constantly by him. He brought light into our days, and more than anything, he became a role model for me.”

At the same time, Rabbi Spiegel emphasizes that it was his mother who truly held the family together. With quiet strength, she took the reins into her own hands and raised the children on her own. She was the daughter of Rav Yisroel Rabinowitz, who led a shul in the Bronx and served as a prominent leader of both Agudas Harabbanim and Ezras Torah in America. While their zeide became the father figure they could lean on, it was their mother who built the home.

Yet in a striking way, Rabbi Spiegel says, the family continued to live with their father’s presence as if he were still there.

“People ask me, ‘How do you still remember your father so clearly? It’s been almost 50 years,’” he says. “And I tell them: The only reason most people don’t remember what happened when they were eight years old is because millions of things happened afterward. But if your life would pause at eight years old, you’d remember everything. For me, my life paused at that point—and I remember my father very clearly.”

 

 

Keeping the mesorah

Rabbi Spiegel shares a vort that, in many ways, captures the theme of his life.

In Parshas Vayigash, Yosef reveals himself to his brothers and says, “Ani Yosef. Ha’od avi chai?—I am Yosef. Is my father still alive?”

The mefarshim famously ask, why would Yosef ask that if the brothers had spoken about Yaakov repeatedly?

The Beis Halevi gives a well-known pshat: Yosef was offering them a form of mussar. “All this time you claim to be worried about your father, but when you sold me, where was that worry then?”

Rabbi Spiegel offers a different reading.

“Ha’od avi chai doesn’t mean, ‘Is my father physically alive?’” he explains. “It means: Can you still see my father alive in me? After 22 years in Mitzrayim without a father, did I move even an inch away from the mesorah of Yaakov Avinu? Can you still see avi chai in the way I live, in the way I shecht, in the way I kasher, and in the way I raised my children? Because if you can’t see my father alive in me, then I lost it.”

“That,” he adds, “is exactly the avodah of Pesach—to transmit the mesorah. To lead the Seder and teach our children the way our parents taught us, the way they saw by their parents.”

Every Yid, Rabbi Spiegel says, carries a mesorah. Some don’t eat gebrokts. Some have a minhag about machine matzah. But at the core, it all comes back to the father and what the previous generation held sacred.

“For us, that was our metziyus as yesomim,” he says. “My mother would always say, ‘Tatty didn’t do this,’ or ‘Tatty did that.’ That’s how we lived, and that’s how we stayed connected.”

“For example, my father didn’t eat turkey,” Rabbi Spiegel says. “He had a mesorah from the Shelah Hakadosh not to eat turkey. With kosher birds, every bird needs a mesorah, and the Shelah didn’t have one for turkey. My father, as an einekel of the Shelah, kept that mesorah—and so did we.”

As a bachur, Rabbi Spiegel learned in Brisk in Eretz Yisrael. One Shabbos, he was invited out for a meal. Turkey was served as the main course, and it was also in the salad and even in the cholent.

“I didn’t touch it,” he says simply. “I went home hungry. We wouldn’t move an inch. That’s how we lived—keeping our father’s minhagim and mesorah.”

That same theme, Rabbi Spiegel says, plays out in a broader way as well.

“When it comes to Pesach, people sometimes think, ‘Today there’s no need for schmaltz—there are so many products available,’ or ‘I don’t need to keep this minhag, because the reason doesn’t apply anymore.’ That kind of thinking is a grave mistake,” he says.

“If your kids see that what your father did doesn’t mean much to you, then when it comes to chinuch, the same thinking will apply. ‘Why do I need to be this kind of chassid? I can be the other one. Why don’t I eat this hechsher? I can do what my friends do.’

“But when your children see that your father means everything to you and you don’t move an inch from what he did and taught, even in this generation, your words and actions become far more meaningful to them.”

 

The shul

Having grown up among rabbanim, Rabbi Spiegel understood early on what it meant to be a rav—and what it meant to carry the responsibility of a kehillah.

When he moved to the East Fifth Street area, there was no rav in the neighborhood to answer she’eilos or guide the community. Members of the kehillah approached him and said, “You’re a rebbe’s kind. We need someone to lead us.”

That conversation led to the founding of Beis Medrash Tiferes Pinchas.

The shul quickly became a place for Torah and tefillah to shine. Today, it’s packed—and already in need of expansion. The kehillah prides itself on its achdus, creating a space where every individual feels seen and where each person’s unique kochos are recognized and brought out.

As Rabbi Spiegel puts it: “When a Yid stands wrapped in his tallis and says Nishmas with a geshmak, it doesn’t matter if he’s wearing a shtreimel or a down hat, a bekishe or a short jacket. They’re all tzaddikim.”

“Our goal is for everyone to feel uplifted in the beis medrash,” he adds. “I make it a point not to impose my agenda on people. When there’s achdus and people feel genuine warmth, the impact you can have is far greater.”

 

Building people

The mission of the beis medrash, Rabbi Spiegel says, is not only to give people chizuk—but to build them.

He shares a well-known mashal from the Baal Shem Tov about a simple peasant who lived far from the king’s palace. One day, the peasant spoke disrespectfully about the king. Somehow, word reached the palace.

As punishment, the king had the peasant brought to the palace and kept there for several months. During that time, the peasant saw what malchus truly was—the dignity, the authority, the greatness. Slowly, regret overtook him. He couldn’t believe he’d ever spoken negatively about the king.

One day, he burst into tears before the king. “Adoni Hamelech,” he cried, “I’m so sorry for what I’ve done. Please forgive me.”

The king explained: “There are two ways to punish someone. I could have thrown you into jail—but then you would never have learned to regret what you did. So I brought you here so you could see the gravity of your mistake.”

Rabbi Spiegel connects the mashal to a pasuk: “Keil nekamos Hashem, Keil nekamos hofia.”

“The way the Eibershter takes nekamah,” he explains, “is not by crushing a person, but by hofia—by lifting him up, bringing him closer, and helping him realize what he did and before Whom he sinned.”

That approach—building people by lifting them—isn’t new to Rabbi Spiegel.

For years, he was deeply involved in chinuch, teaching a generation of bachurim in ninth grade at Yeshivas Bais Pinchas.

“When a bachur first comes into yeshivah, it’s naturally a time of uncertainty,” Rabbi Spiegel explains. “A boy might think to himself: ‘Who says I’ll be matzliach? I was never a good student in cheder. I’m probably not going to succeed here.’ Sometimes that leads a bachur to give up before he even starts.”

He developed a policy—one that the students and even the menahel weren’t aware of.

“For the first two weeks of the year,” he says, “I inflated every bachur’s test marks so even the boys who weren’t doing so well would see a higher score.”

Even the first-seder rebbi would wonder. “How do they do so well by you?” he would ask. “By me, they’re not doing nearly as well.”

“The science behind it was simple,” Rabbi Spiegel explains. “If a boy comes into yeshivah and goes home with a nice test score, it tells him: ‘Oh wow—I can really make it here.’ It gives him the confidence to try, and to put in effort.”

As the weeks went on, Rabbi Spiegel gradually began grading more accurately. If a bachur’s scores started dropping, he would call him over.

“Wow,” he would say, “you did so well the first few weeks. Why are you slipping now?”

The usual response, he says, was exactly what he hoped for: “Yes, I slipped this week—but watch me. I’m going to get back on track.”

And that was often followed by renewed effort—and ultimately, success.

“The Gemara a bachur learns in ninth grade won’t always stay with him for the rest of his life,” Rabbi Spiegel says. “But the good word—the chizuk a bachur gets from his rebbi—that stays with him for a lifetime.”

 

Rebbe’im for life

While learning at Yeshiva Bais Hatalmud, Rabbi Spiegel developed a lasting kesher with Reb Shaul Brus—a relationship that deeply influenced his Torah and hashkafah. He also learned with R’ Dovid Ohlevsky, the rosh yeshivah of Ger, and Reb Avraham Yehoshua Soloveitzik of the Brisk Yeshivah, gaining exposure to a variety of approaches to Torah and leadership.

“By Rabbi Brus, I saw what it meant for a Yid to be completely immersed in Torah, yet still give of himself for others,” Rabbi Spiegel recalls. “He cared for every bachur, always looking out for them. I’ll never forget one day in yeshivah when he called me over and said, ‘That bachur over there has a tzirusene bruske—a ripped jacket. We must get him a new one.’

“To me, that was incredible. For someone who never took his head out of his Gemara, how did he even notice? But as much as he excelled in Torah, he also had a huge heart for others.”

Having lost their father at a very young age, Rabbi Spiegel and his brothers developed a strong sense of yearning for connection to Hashem—forged through resilience and determination.

“When we were kids, everyone wrote us off as the next generation of AT&T operators,” he says. “The only way we kept going was by asking ourselves: What can we do to continue our father’s legacy—to grow closer to the Eibershter and do whatever we can to strengthen Yiddishkeit?”

Today, all the Spiegel siblings are active pillars of the kehillah—involved in education, chinuch, kashrus, and countless other chessed initiatives. Whenever tragedy struck, long before large organizations were in place, the Spiegels were the first to organize campaigns and raise funds for those affected. “We knew what it was like to be yesomim, and we wanted to make sure we were there for others in their most trying times.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shechitah in the ways of my father

Even today, despite a demanding schedule, Rabbi Spiegel maintains learning two sedarim daily in BMG and also serves as a rosh chaburah. Eventually, as he progressed through the yeshivah’s masechtos and reached Chullin, he felt a strong pull toward shechitah.

“When learning, I always try to take it halachah l’maisah,” he explains. “Since my father was a shochet, studying Chullin gave me a special connection to the limud, and I decided to follow in his footsteps.”

After receiving semichah and kabbalah from the Rivevos Ephraim, the Tenke Rav, and Reb Chatzkel Roth, Rabbi Spiegel traveled to shecht—from Wilmington, Kansas, to Mexico and many other locations.

For many years, he shechted at a plant in Red Bank once a week. His schedule was rigorous: from 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m., after which he would return to his seat in yeshivah by 11:00 a.m.

Eventually, the OU approached Rabbi Spiegel to take over for Rabbi Miller, who was leaving, in overseeing all OU shechitah plants. Today, Rabbi Spiegel tours shechitah facilities across the United States and Mexico on behalf of the OU—including Solomon’s, Kiryas Joel, Empire, and more.

 

Kashrus and hechsheirim—helping people

Beyond his roles as rav and shochet, Rabbi Spiegel is widely known for his kashrus hechsher for popular eateries and private businesses.

He worked with the KCL for seven years before establishing his own hechsher, recognizing the need for a heimishe, chassidishe hechsher to help local business owners.

“There are many small businesses in Lakewood—today more than ever—that start in basements or garages, selling everything from miniatures to babkas and challos,” Rabbi Spiegel explains. “They struggle at first, until their business takes off. One of the areas our hashgachah excels in is developing relationships with the owners and not charging them until they’re making money.”

His approachable nature and personal attention to quality make him a trusted rav hamachshir among restaurants, caterers, and food producers, where the focus is always on maintaining the highest standards of kashrus.

“When selecting a food product, it’s important to know the rav hamachshir,” he says. “People are sometimes fooled by brand recognition or Hebrew labels, thinking, ‘If my local grocery carries this, it must be kosher.’ But that’s not always the case. While consumers aren’t expected to verify every detail, it is their responsibility to know who stands behind the hechsher.”

“When I started working with the OU, I was impressed by how deeply involved they are in the products they supervise,” he recalls. “I expected a corporate-style office, but when I walked in, it looked like a yeshivah. Every office was full of sefarim, with rabbanim writing teshuvos, learning Maseches Chullin, and open Shulchan Aruchs. The first two hours of my meeting were spent purely talking in learning. These are people on a mission—to improve the kashrus industry and raise standards everywhere.”

 

Pesach and kashrus

When it comes to Pesach, Rabbi Spiegel stresses that every item must be checked individually to ensure that it’s kosher l’Pesach. “Just because something is in the Pesach aisle doesn’t mean it’s kosher,” he says.

He draws a deeper lesson from the Torah: “Vayotzei es amo Yisrael l’cheirus olam.” We were taken out of Mitzrayim for an everlasting freedom. The Sfas Emes asks: How is it cheirus olam if we’re still in galus?

He explains: “In Mitzrayim, the Yidden were in a natural state. When Hakadosh Baruch Hu took us out and gave us the Torah, He gave us a tool to rise above nature—to be different, to be connected to Him at every step.”

Every detail in life—from netilas yadayim, to the food we eat, to distinguishing milchigs from fleishigs—is an opportunity to pause and connect with Hashem. “That,” he says, “is true freedom. As it says: Ein ben chorin ela mi she’ya’asok baTorah—one is only truly free when immersed in Torah.”

That mindset carries into practical choices. “I’m in the grocery,” Rabbi Spiegel continues. “Should I buy this item? Did my father eat it? What’s the hechsher? What’s my mesorah?”

He expresses caution about the growing trend of Yidden spending Pesach in hotels. “I’m not one to criticize Yidden, but before deciding about going to a hotel for Pesach, ask yourself: Do I really need to go? What would my father and grandfather have done? Does the kashrus there follow my mesorah?”

“This is l’cheytus olam—thinking before acting, taking account of what the Ribono Shel Olam wants from me at this moment.”

Rabbi Spiegel adds an important point: “Parents invest tremendous effort in ensuring that their children are in the right schools and with the right crowd. Even if the food at a hotel is technically kosher, many families have unfortunately been negatively affected just by being away at a resort for eight days. You don’t know who will be there, how people will behave, or how they will dress. How can you maintain shemiras einayim with a pool in the center of a resort that sits on the beach?”

He continues passionately: “The entire year, you daven for ehrliche kids, invest in their learning, and protect them from the dangers of the street. And in just a few days at a hotel, all those guardrails—all the work you’ve done—can vanish. Is it really worth it?”

 

Leading by example

“With Pesach coming—a time of emunah, a time when parents can really have a positive impact on their children—it’s so important to lead by example,” Rabbi Spiegel says. “It’s not just about kashrus and mesorah, but about day-to-day chinuch as well.”

“The biggest mistake people make,” he continues, “is thinking they can behave however they want when their children aren’t looking and that their children will turn out fine. The reality is that our children see right through us. We need to be serious about how we act if we want to truly guide and inspire them.”

“Pesach is a time to remember that every Yid has a mission,” Rabbi Spiegel says. “Every action, every choice, is an opportunity to connect to our heritage, to our mesorah, and to Hashem. Even the smallest effort—keeping a minhag, helping another Yid, teaching a child, or standing firm in our values—carries immense power. May we all merit to take these lessons to heart and strengthen ourselves and our families in Torah, mitzvos, and emunah.”