Avodas yad shpalt??
Someone recently purchased "Avodas Yad" retzuos, black on both sides. Looking at it closely, it appears to be shpalt leather. Is there such a thing as shpalt avodas yad?? It makes no sense to me. Why would someone go to the trouble of making avodas yad on such low level retzuos? And why would someone buying shpalt want avodas yad? Surely if you see shpalt that is supposedly avodas yad, it reeks of fraud and likely isn't avodas yad. Is this a fair assumption??
The Retzua business is a bit complicated.
ReplyDeleteThere are many levels of avodas yad.
Every rav that gives a hechsher decides what has to be done by hand lishma.
The first soaking
Putting it into lime bath
Mixing the barrel that the chemicals shall not settle
Rotating the barrel.
Removing the hairs
Splitting the leather
Primer
First paint
Second and third coat
Final shining coat.
You may see a difference inprice ranging from 3$ a meter to 20$ a meter.
Pricing is also affected by whether they're made in Israel or elsewhere and by the quality of the hashgacha.
ReplyDeleteThere's also retzuos mechona that are all black so now there's no assumption that all black retzuos are avodas yad.
Why do they make them and certainly, why do they make avodas yad shpalt, I can only assume it's b/c enough dealers are looking for the cheapest possible retzuos that they can claim are avodas yad (few know that there's a wide difference among the available retzuos)/all black so they can offer for less than competitors and it also allows them to slightly trim their pricing on sets of tefillin while still enabling them to claim the maalah of retzuos avodas yad/all black.