Baltimore, MD - Mar. 14, 2024  - A learning session on the mitzvah of shatnez was the impetus for Yeshivas Toras Simcha’s program director, Rabbi Shai Scherer, and second grade rebbe, Rabbi Eliyahu Mandel, to accompany his class to STAR-K Kosher Certification’s shatnez lab, last week. Rabbi Emanuel Golfeiz, who tests for shatnez on the premises, let the boys peek through his microscope so they could see exactly what wool and linen look like.

“Rabbi Mandel felt that seeing is believing; a hands-on experience is much more meaningful and brings a lesson to life, literally,” explains Rabbi Scherer. “Rabbi Golfeiz was unbelievable, not just keeping them on their toes and joking with them, but really teaching them about shatnez -- which is so complicated to teach such young boys. He did it phenomenally; it was a great experience.”

Second grader, Nosson Lebovits, mentions, “I liked it because it was fun and because everyone there was nice.” His classmate, Shimmy Saidowitz, shares, “My favorite parts were looking into the microscope and seeing the polyester in the suit.  Also, seeing the ladder in the microscope.”

Rabbi Golfeiz explained to the boys that if you see the shape of a ladder in the material of the garment being tested under the microscope, it contains linen.

Refoel Gabay’s favorite things about the trip were, “looking through the microscope and hearing Rabbi Golfeiz’s jokes.”

Rabbi Golfeiz was equally amazed by his young visitors. “The boys were full of a ruach chayim. They were very polite, very well behaved, and I was very impressed with them. Their rebbe did a very good job teaching them so much about shatnez before their visit. The only thing that was left was to show them, under the microscope, how each different fiber is constructed. How HaKadosh Baruch Hu made each fiber to look different, the same way He made each person’s fingerprint to look different. That’s Niflaos HaBora – the wonders of G-d. The same way my fingerprint and yours are different, each fiber looks different when you look at it under the microscope.”