Can Agriprocessors Do T'shuvah?"

Rabbi David Seidenberg

Following on the heels of the recent Forward article(1) about
conditions for Agriprocessors' Brooklyn workers, the Times reports
that Agriprocessors is asking the Supreme Court to deny workers in
their Brooklyn distribution center the right to unionize because they
are "not documented workers and not allowed to work." According to the
Times, Agriprocessors claimed "to have just discovered that…the
workers were illegal immigrants," just a few days after the 2005 union
vote.(2) An image comes immediately to my mind: Captain Renault in
Casablanca declaring, "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is
going on in here!"

There's a level of public lying which is not easily excused. A level
which is so bald-faced that there really can't be any normal or
average t'shuvah process (repentance) for it. I think Agriprocessors
may have reached that level a while ago.

Some sins cannot be repaired by t'shuvah alone. I'm not talking about
whether or not Yom Kippur or issurin (suffering) completes one's
atonement. The question here is a matter of public office. If the
person in charge of the tamchui, the community charity fund or food
bank, is found stealing from it, that person is never allowed to hold
the position again, no matter how complete their t'shuvah. Any
position that depends on a high level of trust from the community has
similarly high standards and constraints. Being a butcher happens to
be one of those positions.
According to Sanhedrin 25a, Rambam (Maimonides) in Mishneh Torah
(Hilkhot Isurei Akhilah 8:9), and the Shulchan Arukh (SA below, Y"D
119:15), a butcher who was trusted by the community and who was then
found to be selling tref not only has to return the money that he was
paid, he is also banned and removed from the business. He is not
permitted to resume his profession, in the Talmud's words, until he
"moves to another place where no one recognizes him, and returns some
lost valuable or doesn't make use of a tref animal he has butchered
for himself, even though he loses a lot of money." The reason why,
according to Rambam, is because only then can we be sure that "his
t'shuvah is without false pretense or deception ha'armah." (See the
text below.)

We can debate about whether mistreating workers is like selling
tref—some might say that it's worse, and that "someone suspect of
robbing is not believed in a [kashrut] matter" (SA 119:19). In any
case, according to many halakhic opinions, Agriprocessors was already
found to be selling tref when it was using non-Jews to tear the
trachea out of walking animals.(3) The fact that they had rabbis from
the OU approving this practice is no excuse, because a butcher "is not
relieved of responsibility by saying, 'I [sold it] without knowing
shogeg hayiti' " (SA 119:17). On the contrary, a butcher is required
to be expert in the halakhah, and should be able to recognize that the
mashgiach (rabbinic supervisor) is no longer to be trusted.

What is clear from the halakhah is that a slaughterer has to live up
to a higher standard, and that one who fails can no longer perform
kosher slaughter, even if they do t'shuvah, without going to
extraordinary lengths. Complaints that Agriprocessors hasn't been
found guilty yet are really no longer relevant, for two reasons.
First, the brief of their lawyers to the Supreme Court makes clear
their position against worker's rights (which is contrary to
halakhah). Second, Jewish law applies penalties to a butcher who is
even suspected (chashud) of dealing deceptively. Given Agriprocessors
continued petition to the Supreme Court and inability to clean up its
act in Brooklyn, despite the scrutiny in Postville, along with its
campaign against Hekhsher Tzedek, it's pretty clear that there isn't
any sincere t'shuvah here, b'lo ha'armah.

There's room to debate any interpretation of Jewish law, but there's
no question that kosher butchers have to meet a standard that goes
well beyond secular norms. I think it's fair to say at this point that
Uri L'Tzedek's decision to call off its boycott of Agriprocessors(4)
was not only ill-advised, but also contrary to the halakhah. At the
very least, the level of t'shuvah required before Agri can be
considered ne'eman, trustworthy people, should require us to keep in
place a long-term boycott.

Notes:

1) Forward article:
http://jcarrot.org/agriprocessors-shady-practices-in-brooklyn/

2) Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/nyregion/01union.html?_r=4&th=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&emc=th&adxnnlx=1220385612-1eHDmqqh2xO/5822bgO/gQ&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
See excerpt at the end of this column where it appears on the web:
http://jcarrot.org/agro-about-agriprocessors/

3) The halakhic argument for allowing this practice was that the
animals' throats were already cut, so that the animal was counted as
dead, and therefore this practice didn't make the animal tref. The
whole problem with Agriprocessors shechting is that the animals were
turned upside down when they were being killed, which meant that the
blood did not immediately rush from the head. The machine used to turn
them over is called the "Weinberg Pen," and it operates like a
rotating barrel. The consequence of using the Weinberg Pen is that
sometimes the animal is still walking (and potentially sensitive to
pain) when it's turned out. (This is what you see when you watch the
PETA video.) The Weinberg Pen was "banned" in a halakhic t'shuvah of
the Conservative movement. (Its use, btw, is based on a
misunderstanding of a Tosafot.)

4) See http://jcarrot.org/did-the-agriprocessors-boycott-end-too-soon-an-interview-with-ari-hart/