Kosher Style

Interesting article in the Dining section of the NY Times Wednesday on how the kitchen inside the White House was koshered in advance of the Obama administration’s annual Hanukkah party for some 550 guests (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/dining/making-the-white-house-kitchen-kosher-for-a-party.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=kurpradit&st=cse).

Now, I won’t go into how arcane and puzzling some of these preparations must appear to non-Jews, and even to many Jews. After all, to non-believers most religions have practices that seem outlandish, if not downright pagan. It’s hard getting around built-in biases that our own beliefs are sane while others are zany.

One of the main tenets of strictly kosher food is that meat and dairy products must not be co-mingled, neither in their preparation nor consumption. There are a mind-boggling set of rules, codified in the Shulchan Aruch, a mid-16th century compilation by Joseph Caro, that serves as a roadmap for observant Jews to follow in all aspects of their lives. (FYI, the literal translation of the term Shulchan Aruch is “set table.”)

The rules and precepts about kosher food, by the way, are mostly not from the Bible. They were formulated by rabbis and sages who lived before and after the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70 and the resulting Diaspora. They chose, for example, to interpret the Torah’s admonishment not to cook a baby goat (a kid) in its mother’s milk as a blanket prohibition on mixing and eating dairy and meat products at the same time. They also opted to place fowl into the meat category while keeping fish parve (a Jewish term signifying a food is neutral and can be eaten with either milk or meat).

Today’s observant Jewish family generally has several sets of dishes, flatware and cookware, as only glass utensils may be interchanged for meat and dairy use after proper washing. Crockery, china, even stainless steel, are thought to retain traces of food, so observant Jews have separate meat and dairy utensils. But two millennia ago, even less than 600 years ago when Caro compiled his seminal work, it was hardly common for households to be wealthy enough to afford multiple sets of dishes and cookware. Back then, it was sufficient to simply clean utensils after any use. With rising economic status, household possessions and customs changed, but Caro’s text did not.

Which brings me to a tale I heard several years ago from a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary that puts in context the shifting laws about kashrut. As the story was told, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik (1903-1993), a renowned Orthodox scholar considered to be a leading arbiter of religious issues, was left to his own devices by his wife for about a week as she visited family in a different city. When she returned she was appalled to find her kosher kitchen compromised, with dishes, pots and pans used for both dairy and meat meals. How could the learned rabbi been so careless?, she demanded to know. Rabbi Soloveitchik replied he had consulted the Shulchan Aruch, which in 1565 made no mention of separate dishes, requiring only that utensils be cleaned after each meal.

So much for relying on centuries-old texts. And for being a typical male (at least of his generation), who paid no attention to what went on in the kitchen.

Making the Cut, Religiously Speaking

Making the Cut: I’m still here, and if you’re reading this so are you, which means neither of us made the cut, the select group of 140,000 souls who were to be saved Saturday evening before the world began its inexorable descent to destruction.

No one I know was transported to heaven while the rest of us, according to the prophesy, endure earthquakes, plagues, war, famine and general torment for five months, until October, when everything comes to an end. Of course, we already have earthquakes, plagues, war, famine and general torment, so it’s hard to say what’s different. Indeed, yesterday a volcano erupted on Iceland, an earthquake rocked New Zealand, and we’re still at war in many places.

I’m not here to make fun of Harold Camping, the 89-year-old Christian radio entrepreneur who predicted universal demise. Lord knows there are many more talented wits who have and will continue to do so. Besides, they get paid to be funny. Nor am I here to make fun of those sorry souls who believed in Camping’s image of the future. They are troubled, perhaps desperate people.

Nary an organized religion has eluded the pull of a return to a time when belief trumped current conditions, when reverence for god and his respective messengers was more appealing than the drudgery of everyday life or, worse, intense hardship and oppression.

The Lubavitcher sect of Jews had a schism over the disputed claim that Rabbi Menachem Schneerson was the messiah. He’ll be dead 17 years on June 12, with no outward sign that the world to come has arrived. In the mid-1600s, many Jews abandoned their homes to follow Shabtai Tzvi, a self-proclaimed messiah. He ultimately converted to Islam.

Jihadists clamor for a resurrection of the caliphate blessed by Mohammed. Camping is just the latest Christian to bedevil the faithful. At least those who believed in him didn’t wind up dead, like the 82 unlucky Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, who followed David Koresh, or the 909 who drank Jim Jones’s Kool-aid in Guyana in 1978. But many who trusted Camping did leave their jobs, sell their possessions and confound their friends and relatives.

I don’t think you have to be totally content with your life, but if you reach the stage where your only alternative is to believe the end of the world is nigh and you will be among those who achieve eternal salvation, it’s time to check into the clinic and stay there, perhaps until all the earthquakes, plagues, wars, famines and general torments end.


Cut It Off, Not Out: Sufficient San Francisco voters have signed a petition to place on the November ballot a vote to ban circumcision for male children under 18. No exception for religious practices of Jews or Muslims. Violators would be charged with a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 or up to one year in jail.

All it took was 7,700 signatures to get the initiative on the ballot (7,168 were needed). Supporters of the ban (now also being considered in Santa Monica) claim circumcisions mutilate the penis and inflict pain and lifelong suffering. They deny any medical benefits from circumcision, such as reduced transmission of AIDS by heterosexual men.

This latest attack on religious practice can be compared to the challenge some states have posed to the ritual slaughter of animals according to kosher and halal guidelines. It’s argued animals suffer more when ritualistically slaughtered.

However well-intentioned proponents of these restrictions are, their efforts should be dismissed as incorrect, impolitic and ignorant. And unconstitutional, as they infringe on religious observance. Let’s hope San Francisco voters, and any others who face such a choice, leave religious practice intact, allowing animals to be killed according to humane religious custom and permitting parents to cut at will the foreskin of their male progeny.