So What The Heck Is "Kosher Style" Anyways?
Last months poll question asked the question ” Do You Keep Kosher” and as you can see from the results below, the majority of respondents answered that they kept “Kosher Style”. Now I’m wondering what exactly did the respondents mean by “I keep Kosher Style?” It’s kind of a vague label that can be interpreted in (at least) a few different ways.
I would be curious to find out a little bit more about what people actually meant when by “I Keep Kosher Style“. If you selected this answer in last months poll, how about telling us a little bit more about what you meant.
For example: how does it Work in and out of the home?
Thanks!
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I keep “kosher style” when I cook for myself (when I go home), because even though all of the ingredients and utensils are kosher, the food is bishul akum because I cooked it and I’m not Jewish yet.
Well, you did not offer the option of “to some degree,” which would have been the answer I would have chosen. “To some degree” is typically the answer that those, like me, give when referring to the fact that they — do not eat shellfish, do not eat pork, do not mix meat or dairy (in my case, just beef/cow dairy), no swordfish, etc. The basic start for kashruth, you know. So, that’s how I roll
I don’t like calling it Kosher Style, and, in fact, I never do. But it was the only option that remotely fit me — vague!
Marli
Thanks the the feeback. I hove some thoughts on what you have written above, but would like to think about what you wrote a little longer. I will try to share my thoughts after Shabbat!
ChaviJo
I think what you describe falls in to the Kosher Style category but you’re point is taken. Maybe I should have included something like, “Biblical Kosher” which (might have) better described, you’re own style/approach to this Observance. What do you think?
I keep kosher at home and vegetarian out (but only at restaurants that do not serve meat and milk). However, I am of the school that mixing fake meat and cheese is fully kosher. I also love me some Morningstar Farms sausage and bacon
We love Morningstar Farms too (having eaten real sausage and bacon back in the day). When we took the kids to the U.S. last summer and they stuffed their faces with Morningstar from morning till night, we were pleased. We only got a little concerned when our 6 year old said, “I’m going to tell my friends back in Israel we ate bacon in America!” Fortunately, she forgot by the time we got back here…
My husband’s nonreligious brother once asked us how we could eat that stuff. He was not swayed when we pointed to the hechsher on the box. “But it still tastes like bacon,” he insisted. As my husband says, It’s the content, not the taste that matters. Another friend says, It’s not the presence of kosher that matters; it’s the absence of nonkosher. Morningstar fits all these things. And tastes great, too!
How can everybody co-opt a term that originated in the Torah and give it their own meaning?
Not sure what you’re talking about Menachem…. I mean, which comment is yours in response too? I don’t think anyone here was redefining “kosher” - although I may have missed something, and it certainly wouldn’t be the first time - but I’d be interested to hear more about what you’re talking about.
Yair
Yair,
I’m just guessing here but I think Menachem is implying that there is only one way to keep “Kosher” and that’s the way established in the Torah. And by Torah, he means Rabbinic Judaism as it is practiced by Orthodoxy. Anything short of that is just as he put it “to co-opt the term kosher and give it another meaning.”
Again thats just a guess.
I think what Menachem says makes sense, really.
As for your query, Avi, I don’t think that Biblical Kosher would fit the token either. I’m not sure that anything beyond “Kosher to some degree” really makes sense for someone like me, especially because in truth there’s kosher as it is known halakicly, and then there are modern constructs of what kosher is. I like to think that I’m on a path to kashruth, but right now, it’s just to a degree.
If that makes sense
I get your point and understand why you might self identify as keeping “Kosher to some degree.” However, in all fairness that’s a pretty broad term in of itself because many, many Jews from pretty much any denomination, keep “somewhat kosher,” including those who self identify as keeping “Kosher Style”. Of course having said that, everyone is free to identify their observance in a way that makes sense to them. I’m just not sure that using “Kosher to some degree” in place of “Kosher Style” would help clarify much in terms of the poll.
Anyhow thanks for clarifying.