Kav Halacha’s Rabbi Shimon Sofer: “Klal Yisrael wants to know, and they’re picking up the phone to find out more”

Photos: Elchanan Kotler

What began as a way for English-speakers in Yerushalayim to ask a sh’eilah is now a part of the global rabbinic architecture, says Kav Halacha’s Rabbi Shimon Sofer. “Klal Yisrael wants to know, and they’re picking up the phone to find out more”

IFyou get into a halachic tangle when chopping an onion, you might get a psak more quickly than you can slice another one.

Should you get into a muddle in the middle of Shemoneh Esreh, you don’t need to root around in the back of your siddur for a solution.

If a Choshen Mishpat question comes up in your board meeting and you’re only an expert in the other three sections of Shulchan Aruch, help is literally at hand — thanks to a tech marvel.

Not ChatGPT, but the dumbest of dumb phones.

All it now takes is a call to Kav Halacha, a revolutionary 24-hour, global halachah network. Over the last few years, the phone line — staffed by poskim on five continents who answer 100,000 sh’eilos annually — has emerged as the first halachic responder for anyone who has an urgent sh’eilah, or the many Jews who have no rabbi.

The best things about Kav Halacha? It’s free. It’s superfast (average response time under three minutes). And above all, it’s authentic.

In a world of AI and internet searches, old-fashioned telephone (combined with a computer system) has suddenly opened the way for something unprecedented: near-instant access to flesh-and-blood rabbanim.

“Whether you have an urgent kashrus question and you can’t reach your rav, a halachic issue that you’d prefer anonymity to discuss, or you’re on vacation and there’s an issue with the eiruv,” says Rabbi Shimon Sofer, the organization’s Executive Director, “a clear psak is no more than a phone call away.”

Founded a decade ago for English speakers in Israel by a group of young avreichim, the phone-based service is now global, with 50 percent of calls from across the United States alone.

But although there are experienced poskim on standby from Lakewood to London, and Chicago to Yerushalayim, in the modern world location no longer matters — somewhere a rav is ready to take the call.