Riddle me this, Kosher me that.
(Note: For those who’ve read this in the past half-hour, that is, between 9:30 and 10:30 p.m. (CST), I added to the end!)
I stood in the copy room at work, where the mail and occasional, delicious goodies end up. Today was one of those days. That is, there were goodies.
I popped in to warm up my Lean Cuisine and spotted some Turano bread company bread freshly sliced — raisin and oat. Two of the other office gals were hanging out, chatting about the abundance of job candidate letters we were sending out. I couldn’t help myself, so I sliced off a piece of the oat bread. While noshing casually on it, one of the gals mentioned that the bread came from one of the professors. She followed up the explanation with “I love raisins … I don’t know why I torture myself! I know I can’t eat it!”
She’s Jewish. So am I! But, as in, she leaves work at noon on Fridays and keeps strictly Kosher. Whenever food comes in, she lets it go. When we had a champagne toast to a big deal prize winning professor, she merely showed up, watching as we downed the sparkly goodness.
I felt awkward in the work room. I often forget that she’s more observant than I am, and when we’re in the same room I think “a member of the tribe!” but then there’s that moment when something happens or is said to remind me that we’re not exactly the same. When we’re alone in the same room, we never really talk, either. Shouldn’t we — as Jews — have something to say to each other? There’s the occasional question about, “Oh, do you celebrate Sukkot?” or the like. There was the time when the boss asked everyone (when we were drinking the champagne, actually) where they wanted to have the Christmas party this year. She looked at me, I looked at her, and we both grinned. There was a connection and for a split second we were the same — both Jews, a Jew is a Jew is a Jew.
But then, when I’m eating the bread brought in from G-d knows who made who knows where … we’re different. I’m left looking at my Lean Cuisine box for a circled U or a K or something to symbolize I’m eating something marked for the tribe. But there was nothing. So I ate my vegetable egg roll and rice and thought about my kosher observance.
I don’t eat pork, I don’t eat shellfish or other forbidden fishes (like catfish or swordfish), and I definitely don’t mix milk with beef. Now, that last little bit there might raise some eyebrows. Some look at my way of kosher observance as the “Kosher lite” style. But my interpretation of the “milk and dairy” rule is that it only applies to cooking beef in cow milk or cooking goat meat in goat milk and the like.
But I’ve always wanted more. When I was in college I found it difficult to consider having THREE sets of dishes! I mean, come on. I could barely afford one set of dishes. People often say that finding kosher food is hard, but now that I’m living in Chicago I know it’s easy. Living in Nebraska was another story, especially since I lived in the city with the smaller (we’re talking very small) Jewish community; not to mention I didn’t have a car to drive up to Omaha. However, saying it wasn’t easy to do isn’t an excuse. There are people living in the middle of nowhere in the world who make it happen. It’s doable, and I know that.
I think that someday, when I’m settled in one place and not a nomad like I am now, I’ll spring for the dishes, the kosher kitchen, the whole nine yards. Why? Not because it’s what good Jews are supposed to do, but because, to me, it’s a mitzvah, a commandment that is part of who I am as a Jew in the 21st century. It’s part of a tradition that spans so many years of Jewish life. Additionally, keeping kosher allows one to be sensitive to food — where it comes from, how it got onto your plate, how you are connected to the things you eat. Rabbi Shraga Simmons suggests that “If a person can be disciplined in what and when he eats, it follows that he can be disciplined in other areas of life as well. Kashrut requires that one must wait after eating meat before eating milk products and we may not eat certain animals or combinations of foods. (Even when you’re hungry!) All of this instills self-discipline.” I think he’s hit on an important point there as well.
I’ll admit it. (And really, don’t be afraid to admit it either. What makes us different makes us stronger!) When it comes to my hang-ups with “how kosher” other people are, I think the biggest thing that irks me is the “I only eat a bacon cheeseburger once a month” folks or the people who don’t mind chowing down on a sushi roll with imitation crab meat or the fake bacon that permeates the grocery store shelves. The thing is, there’s no self sacrifice or discipline when you know that you can get the flavor without breaking the rules. In Joseph Telushkin’s “The Book of Jewish Values,” he recalls an interesting story about a woman who loved shrimp, but gave it up when she married a religiously observant Jew.
Several years later she commented to her husband that she felt irreligious because she still craved shrimp. “On the contrary,” he told her, “the fact that you want to eat shrimp, but refrain from doing so because it’s prohibited, is proof of your religiosity. The Rabbis teach that one should not say, ‘I loathe eating pig,’ but rather, ‘I do desire it, yet what can I do, since my Father in heaven has forbidden it?’ ” (Sifre, Numbers 20:26).
The significance of this story is two-fold, and it definitely has something to say about me. First a little more. Telushkin notes that Rabbi Abraham Twerski, a psychiatrist, observed that this dictum no longer applies to Jews raised in observant households. Says Telushkin, “The prohibition against eating forbidden foods has become so internalized among observant Jews that refraining from such foods no longer requires any self-sacrifice.”
What does this say about me? I often think that I lucked out — I never liked pork. Bacon makes me ill and pork chops were never something I craved. It was easy to give up pork. Giving up shellfish was another story. I loved, LOVED shrimp. Luckily, say some, I never had tried lobster prior to my giving up the goods (otherwise, I’d *really* be suffering). But that makes me wonder whether I’m really missing the point with the pork.
So I guess there are many types of Jews. Those raised with it so ingrained the thought doesn’t even cross their mind, but do they get meaning out of it? Those not raised Jewish who give these things up to commit to the commandments and forge forth with their Jewish journey. Those raised Jewish, but in a manner that convinced them that once-a-month bacon cheeseburgers is okay (G-d will forgive you, right?).
In the past three years, I encountered pork once. It was entirely on accident and the moment it happened I had a few words with G-d. Then there was the nice Italian dinner my boyfriend treated me to that resulted in chicken parmigiana with meat sauce — how awkward. It was expensive, romantic, and I didn’t want to ruin the night or bother the waitress. I picked away the cheese, picked away the meat, picked at the food the whole time. I, once again, had a chat.
So how kosher are you? Why are you kosher? How do you feel about people like me and my kosher rules? Talk to me, friends.
I’m hoping to write...
1) http://www .jewber...
Great post!
I love learning about how others struggle/work with this observance, because kosher is near and dear to my heart and is probably my favorite expression of Jewish living and commitment.
Having said that there is one thing I disagree with and that would be your comment regarding veggie bacon and other similar foods. First and foremost it’s important to remember that “Kashrut” is a behavioral system and therefore actions take precedent. So bearing this in mind “treif-style” is indeed kosher. Now if a person’s own sense of spirituality or commitment to observance makes them uncomfortable eating veggie bacon to the point of choosing to avoid it, that’s perfectly understandable. However (at least in my opinion) such action is not required to fulfill the halachick requirement of Kashrut. The bottom line is that veggie bacon is made of soy and is therefore plant based and clearly permitted for consumption. Bacon is of course derived from pork which is a forbidden animal and is not permissible. Veggie beacon IS NOT beacon and should not be treated as such.
I for one eat veggie bacon regularly and it has nothing to do with a craving for ” bacon” because to be honest I never really enjoyed bacon back when I regularly ate meat and before I kept kosher. I enjoy the taste but I don’t think of bacon when I’m eating it. It’s basically on par with the tofu burger for me which reminds me more of an egg sandwich than a hamburger. A person who seriously keeps kosher but eats treif-style foods, is (again in my opinion) way ahead of anyone who only keeps kosher style (or biblical kosher) in terms of observance. But hey thats just me.
As for how kosher am I? I would confidently say that Tamara and myself are significantly more observant of Kashrut than the majority of non-Orthodox Jews in North America. We have a kosher dairy kitchen it was properly Kashered by an Orthodox rabbi and (I’m pretty sure that) all of our dishes and pots and utensils were mikva’d. As for eating out, I refuse to eat in nonkosher restaurants that prepare both meat and dairy in the same kitchen. This generally leaves two options (or three depending how you look at it) the first being kosher restaurants either meet or dairy are perfectly fine, as well as vegan restaurants. Theoretically I suppose that I would eat at a vegetarian (as in serves dairy) restaurant but I haven’t done it as of yet and to be honest I’m a little on comfortable with the idea. There is one third option which I sometimes take but I feel it’s stretching the parameters a little and that’s eating at PF Chang’s. It’s restaurant that does serve both meat and dairy however they run two kitchens. All of the vegetarian dishes are cooked in a separate area, using specially designated veggie walks and cooking utensils. The meat dishes are cooked in a separate kitchen area which has nothing to do with the veggie kitchen. Now there’s no (at least I don’t believe they do these things) way that their utensils, dishes and serving platters are kept separate with one set for dairy in the other for meat. However, having said that I believe that things are cleaned at an extremely high temperature which almost has a kashering effect. It’s not ideal and I’ve only eaten there once but it seems to be a reasonable compromise in my opinion when it comes to being part of a nonobservant extended family.
Also when visiting family I’m willing to eat kosher meat that’s been prepared in a nonkosher kitchen or barbecue because I figure if they’re willing to go the extra step I can loosen up a little bit. Otherwise I just stick to eating vegetarian when visiting family. It seems somewhat rude and incompatible with Klal Yisrael not to eat off of families plates or use there utensils. Does that make it okay? No not really but it’s the best compromise we have worked out to date. Neither of us really want to cross that rude line of insisting on being served with plastic utensils and paper plates with family. Know what I mean?
Anyhow, like I said great post and I am looking to forward to reading what others have to say on subject.
Our first great disagreement! Although it’s nothing to fight about, to each his or his own, it seems to me that “bending the rules” takes away the special nature of keeping kosher. Of course I have no room to talk as I’m not strictly kosher, and it seems this guy’s rabbi has some interesting ideas about vegan bacon and the like: http://www.kosherspirit.com/Article.asp?Issue=5&Article=64.
But I disagree.
It seems to me that if you never even enjoyed the taste of bacon (that it isn’t about the taste and missing it), then why even go there? Why not just NOT eat anything that even resembles pork products? If they figured out how to genetically engineer certain fish and cows and other animals to BE kosher, would you consider eating them then? To me, a pig is a pig, bacon is bacon, catfish is catfish. There are few things in life that I can be black and white about, but this seems to be one of them.
It just seems like this easy way out of a mitzvoth that we’re bound to. Why keep any of the commandments if you can find a way to sneak around it anyway?
ChavyJo
you said:
It seems to me that if you never even enjoyed the taste of bacon (that it isn’t about the taste and missing it), then why even go there? Why not just NOT eat anything that even resembles pork products?
First and foremost because it is a permitted food, in that such products are not in fact pork nor are they treif, they are usually (and certainly when Kosher certified) acceptable for consumption by Jews. It’s not bacon and no halachick infractions are committed in the manufacturing and or consumption of such foods.
You also said:
If they figured out how to genetically engineer certain fish and cows and other animals to BE kosher, would you consider eating them then?
No offense intended but I think you’re missing something that seems so obvious to me. The veggie bacon and most other vegetarian meat substitutes are kosher because they are derived from kosher ingredients. Again kosher bacon is soy, real bacon is pork. Soy products are kosher and plant based. Pork comes from pigs and is therefore Treif. These products (veggie beacon vs real beacon) are the same only in name and marketing, not in ingredients. I doubt they even measure up all that well in terms of taste, when compared to one another side by side.
Something that is somehow similar to treif does not automatically equal being treif.
This example of yours is like comparing apples and oranges. You’re talking about taking something that is clearly treif and somehow genetically or magically transmuting it into something kosher. Veggie bacon is made from soy and is therefore not a trief food turned kosher. It always was kosher.
As for whether I would eat such an animal if such a thing was ever invented, I have no idea. However, I suppose that if it had a kosher label on it, I could eat it if I wanted to.
This really isn’t about personal opinion rather it’s about halacha as it pertains to Kashrut observance. This is not about kavanah or intention. It’s about finding ways to live within a halachick legal system/framework. This is far from something that is at odds with traditional observance. For example it’s not uncommon to see people use nondairy or soy creamer in coffee after a lovely Shabbos (Meat) meal. Soy bacon is no different.
Then you said:
It just seems like this easy way out of a mitzvoth that we’re bound to. Why keep any of the commandments if you can find a way to sneak around it anyway?
Although your reasoning is relevant from the point of view of personal Kavanah and choice within ones own approach to observance, it simply has no halachick merit.
When it comes to what is or is not keeping kosher, it isn’t about “informed choice” or personal autonomy, it’s about whether one’s actions are inside the boundaries of a halacha or not. Kashrut does not imply that one has to eat veggie bacon so if one doesn’t want to, let’s say for the reasons you’ve cited that’s perfectly legitimate. However, eating it is also perfectly acceptable because the prohibitions are not related to any taste the bacon (or any other treif) might have. The prohibition is against eating the actual animal whether it be crab, shrimp, pork or any other prohibited food.
So like I said it’s fine to avoid veggie bacon, if one chooses to do so but it’s also perfectly acceptable from a halachick point of view to eat it.
PS thanks for that link to the article I enjoyed reading it.
“It just seems like this easy way out of a mitzvoth that we’re bound to. Why keep any of the commandments if you can find a way to sneak around it anyway?”
ChavyJo:
I applaud your zeal and uncompromising commitment to the letter and spirit of the law. I applaud your not taking easy shortcuts; I applaud the way you happily take up the burden of the law. But not sneaking around the law? Sneaking around the law is a tradition that our greatest sages have practiced for millennia.
The Torah says that a father can marry off his minor daughter to anyone he likes. The Torah says that a father can have a “wicked” son stoned to death by the entire community just on his says so. The Torah gives many different reasons for the inflicting of capital punishment. But as early as the First Temple period the sages manipulated the law to make all of these nearly impossible to carry out.
In the Second Temple period Hillel himself manipulated the laws of Shmittah so that lenders would not have to forego repayment of their loans every seven years as the Torah commands. He did it because his society had changed. It was no longer the agrarian economy of the Torah, but a mercantile economy involved in international trade. And as mercantile economies thrive on the easy availability of credit and a regular credit system, sneaking around this law was absolutely necessary to avoid economic chaos. And he wasn’t known as Hillel the Great for nothing.
Even today, the most Orthodox among us routinely sneak around the law to make life a little easier. Take Plag HaMinchah. This is a Rabbinical law that states that if you daven minchah before a certain hour in the afternoon you can then daven maariv before sundown. This was done so that during the summer months families wouldn’t have to wait until 8 or 9 in the evening to begin their Sabbath meal, which would be a hardship on the very old and very young and diminish the joy of the Sabbath. Then there is the prohibition about carrying on the Sabbath. What do you do about your house keys if you live in a city and you’re walking to shul? The Orthodox get around this by making their house keys into links on a belt (called a gartel, available at all fine Judaica stores), and wear them around their waists. Technically they aren’t carrying their keys, they’re wearing their keys and thus not breaking the letter of the law. The spirit of the law? Smashed. But the letter is maintained and, for the Orthodox at least, that’s good enough.
And why all these shortcuts over all these thousands of years? Because Judaism is hard. It demands a great deal from its adherents, and great sacrifices in terms of personal movement, choice, and comfort. And yet we are to worship God and fulfill his mitzvoth with joy. So if eating a little soy bacon adds to that joy and no law is broken, in my humble opinion, no harm is done and it’s all for the good.
Well Chavi,
Perhaps you will send me a bomb
Because, MAN DO I LOVE ME SOME SOY BACON, SAUSAGE, and PEPPERONI on my homemade Kosher pizza 
I do understand the argument of not mixing the meat(like) products and milk. But, soy is soy. As a vegetarian, soy for me is an important source of protein. Since we have no meat in our home, and no fish since Avi has an allergy to it, we do use beans and soy for our protein. The veggie bacon is strictly kosher and if the OU is willing to heksher fake meats, even fake pork(like) meats…I’m in
I found a site from the OU Students site that even suggests fake pork stuff. So…well…I have no guilt doing it.
http://students.ou.edu/W/Brook.R.Weber-1/protein.htm
I’ll be bold and admit I’m lost on the logic on the majority of ChavyJo’s posts, and normally I just skip them, but this argument that eating vegan “bacon” is somehow on par with completely ignoring mitzvot really compels me to respond. Perhaps ChavyJo’s youth and inexperience factor into her zealousness–I don’t know. I find most of the posts she writes to be initially compelling, but become self-important arguments veiled as testaments to her own perceived “superior” interpretation of Judaism. As a Conservative Jew, I think there are plenty of other issues to discuss (the Mitzvah Initiative, and a more hopeful discussion of Annapolis, as examples). Quabbling over a completely kosher food and comparing it to abandoning mitzvot is just quatsch.
Hey Samuel I’m not sure it’s fair to suggest that “most” of
Chaviva’s posts lack logic. Ok you didn’t exactly say that but that’s more or less how it reads, at least to me. Sure she is in the first half of her twenties but she works with (leans into) her Judaism a lot more than many of the “older” Conservative and Reform Jews I know, so please don’t try to dismiss her like that. She deserves better than your comment gives her credit for, considering the effort she puts into bloging her Judaism.
If you disagree with her fine but tackle the issue instead of the person. As for this topic being unimportant and just about facon, I disagree. She does, talk about other things in this post, including, how kosher for her at work is both a point of connection with another Jew as well as a mismatch that (IMO based what i know of ChavyJo but could be wrong on this one) sometimes challenges her own sense of Jewishness. People have (including ChavyJo) have I guess chosen to lock in on to this one point with our comments.
On this issue I disagree with her take but I don’t believe her thinking lacks logic it’s just not a halachick line of reasoning imo. If this had been a post about eruv’s and how they kill the spirit of the law, she and I would be on the same page. And we’d both be missing the halachick point. LOL.
But ok you say there are better things to discuss on the blog, fair enough. How about you put your money where your mouth is? Why don’t you do a guest post in the next few days, on say the “mitzvah initiative” you mentioned? If your willing to crossover from commenting about what you don’t like, to posting about “what’s important” just fly me an email via the contact page and we can get things rolling. I’m sure that your contribution would be of interest and well received.
Be well and I hope to hear from you soon!
I think the only thing to be said about the Great Fake Bacon Debate is that things like Bacos and other soy stuff made to taste like bacon, sausage, etc… is that they are vegetable-based foods, and the vast majority have heksherim on them. The prohibitions are against eating treif animals, but as Avi pointed out, eating bacon-flavored plant matter is not eating swine flesh. Therefore there is absolutely no problem. This conversation quickly moves to the nature of halakha, for obvious reasons, and those of us who live a halakhic Judaism acknowledge rabbinical authority in determining what is kosher and what isn’t. If the USCJ’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards decides to issue a teshuvah calling such foods trief, I will gladly accept it, but until then, I’ll leave such choices to the poskim I trust.
kol tuv, and good post for starting a discussion!
Yair
Maybe making that edit and adding in the stuff about bacon was a bad choice. It wasn’t in the original post, but Tamara mentioned something and I decided to express my opinions about it. It seems to me that if Judaism is this hard, then something like not eating fake bacon should be easy. It’s my personal opinion, and it probably arises from also not eating the Morningstar fake burgers … I buy the black bean burgers, because I love black bean burgers. But I don’t eat anything that is fake because I choose not to eat the real version. In my mind, it just doesn’t make sense.
But it would appear that the cheese stands alone on this one.
And on just about everything. All the time. Always. Man this place is rough.
Thanks, all for your comments.
You know what, where there is pain, there is gain!
Don’t you DARE think of not posting anymore. I’ll personally bring my facon eating ass to Chicago and I’ll forcefully stuff some down your throat. Then….oh boy…then you will know rough.
P.S. I like your insights.
All–I didn’t mean to attack the poster. I probably should have edited myself and not have let my emotions control my writing. But Avi, I will take you up on the challenge and post something about the mitzvah initiative in the next couple of days. It’s something I really believe in and I hope it will be of interest to all.
Thanks for the acknowledgement. And really, we’ve all commented on our emotions…it happens.
ChavyJo, what Tamra said x2!
Sam, thanks for the acknowledgment and I’m glad you are going to take me up on my offer! Please email me (from the contact page) so we can work out the details regarding your post. Like I said just fly me an email ASAP and we can set it up.
Interesting comments. My husband and I eat kosher style (I know, I know). The closest kosher butcher/deli/anything is three hours away. We know that if we just went vegetarian, we’d be closer to the letter of the law, but we think more about our food when we have to wait between meat and milk. (we’ve also discovered how dessert-oriented we are). We eat a lot less meat than we ever did, but we do eat out in places that are not kosher. We’ll order salads, but we might also order fish that we “know” has been cooked on a grill with meat. We know it isn’t correct, but it is better than just saying “forget it” and ordering the bacon cheeseburger. Before we started our mode/level/path of observance in kashrut, I was a huge fan of shellfish–I adore shellfish. Now, I don’t eat it. We love the soy products, but we don’t get imitation crabmeat because many of them have shrimp in them. We watch closely for the hechser, but we attempt to not humiliate others if they make items at parties or gatherings we cannot eat (we just don’t eat them and quietly go on our way). We have, however, become pretty vocal in the synagogue. Sometimes we have potlucks, and the invites do not specify whether to bring meat or milk items (we are the only people in the congregation who eat kosher style other than a vegetarian couple). We get into the organizational team and at least put the meat and milk items on different tables (and eat from the milk dishes). ………we don’t want others to feel bad for not following the mitzvah in some way, especially since we know our way of following wouldn’t be considered doing anything in some circles, but when we are in the synagogue, we want at least a nod to observance. (don’t get me started on when our president brought a cheeseburger to a kosher wine tasting my husband and I were hosting at the synagogue……he had no idea why we thought that was gauche…)