For over half a century, Rav Moshe Heinemann has been setting the bar high on kashrus, as head of the STAR-K and as a foremost authority in the ever-more-complex field of kosher certification
Photos: Eli Greengart
When the time came to build a mikveh in Lakewood shortly after Rav Aharon Kotler’s petirah in 1962, that all-important mission was entrusted to a talmid for whom the Lakewood rosh yeshivah had forseen a shining future as a moreh hora’ah for Klal Yisrael: Rav Moshe Heinemann, then a Beth Medrash Govoha yungerman in his mid-twenties.
As we sit together in the conference room of the STAR-K, the Baltimore-based kashrus certification agency Rav Moshe Heinemann has led for half a century, he recalls his visit to the venerable Rebbe Yoel of Satmar to discuss the mikveh project. “I asked the Rebbe, ‘What’s the best way to make a mikveh?’ and he replied with customary wit: ‘The best way is not to make it based on the Shulchan Aruch.’ After a pause, he continued, ‘If you need to look in Shulchan Aruch, it’s already a problem.’ ”