Eating (and drinking) is a basic human survival requirement, next to air and shelter. If you were to add up all the time that you spent eating in one week, you would wind up with at least eight hours. That’s a lot of time—wouldn’t you agree? Yet we eat throughout the day, every day, without even thinking about it (unless we’re on a diet!).
Shouldn’t eating be done with intelligence?

Enter Kosher.

Contrary to public misconception, keeping kosher has nothing to with nutrition or hygiene, though many kosher products are more nutritious and/or hygienic than their non-kosher equivalents—keeping kosher is the means of finding G-d in your food.

With Shabbat, we can spiritualize time. With the shul, we can spiritualize place… with kosher, we can spiritualize food… With Shabbat, we can spiritualize time.
With the Shul, we can spiritualize place.

With Tefillin, we can spiritualize leather.

And with kosher, we can spiritualize breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks.

In his classic book Think Jewish, Rabbi Zalman Posner eloquently elaborates the above point: most secular, Westernized Jews think in secular, Westernized terms. This results in the notion that spirituality is restricted to certain times, or certain places, or certain rituals, and that “real life” exists separately, outside spirituality.

But according to Judaism, spirituality is all times, and all places. Even when you eat.

Here’s a quote from another question answered on AskMoses: “…Judaism is not a religion—it’s a way of life. There is no fact of life that Judaism does not have an opinion on. Because eating is a fact of life, Judaism says, “Oh, you’re hungry? Well, here’s how to relate to G-d through the part of you that gets hungry—eat kosher.”

And so, keeping kosher is sophisticated, not slavish. By keeping kosher, we let G-d into that most basic necessity of life, bringing spiritual awareness into ordinary routine.

Now, that’s eating with your brain.
http://www.askmoses.com/articl.....&o=157

Nathaniel that’s true but let me ask you something who is more disingenuous and hypocritical- a person who has - and honestly lives by - a 3,500 year old belief system which is not necessarily “inclusive” as you’d use the term or someone who runs around yelling “diversity, the rainbow, des colores, multiculturalism” but includes everyone in their spectrum other than those they may not agree with (like religious Jews) - remember, hypocrisy cuts two ways!

“We have to be careful about adopting asymmetrical notions of acceptance – i.e., where it’s the ‘purer’ who do the accepting and the impure who need acceptance.”

As some of the other writers point out, not everything in life can be neatly packaged in sound bites or theoretical mathematical constructs and paradigms. There’s a world of difference between A not eating in B’s home b/c of B’s standards of kashrus (or lack thereof) and B not eating in A’s home because of the foregoing. One is trying to be internally consistent with his or her life, (“azlinan l’shitasan” as we say in da hood) the other is simply being retaliatory. I see no parity there whatsoever.

“Can we learn a deep lesson from Chazal about how community is created, while not accepting the limitations they placed on that community?”

Talk about disingenuous! That’s not profound – that’s lip service.

“That’s of course _not_ Phyllis’s point: her value (which I agree with) is the value of having one’s friends eat at one’s table.”

Nigel is correct in his analysis of Phyllis’ underlying dilemma. As my friend Esther says when someone claims that they “love fish”, what they’re really saying is that they love themselves and that eating fish is a means towards that end. If Phyllis truly loved her friends, she’d want to do everything to make THEM feel comfortable at her table (include not even being at the table if necessary).

I must admit that I was startled when I first experienced “retaliatory relativism” I was introduced to a reform Rabbi whose daughter had become a Chabadnik (perhaps he should have checked his mezuzah). I extended my hand to take his and he refused. I kiddingly asked him “Are you shomer negiah?” and he told me he didn’t shake hands with any man who wouldn’t shake hands with a woman. (halacha mandates that out of respect for my exclusivity with my wife, I have no physical contact with any other woman) Instead of feeling victimized as he had hoped, I only felt pity for this poor man with a point to prove and an axe to grind.

That being said, there is value to broad community but with limits. It’s certainly challenging to me to participate in the Hazon events but there are values which can be explored together and problems which can be solved together despite our differences. In my experience, much of the “I can’t eat in your house thing” whether from a child to a parent or interfriendial (a new word – don’t look it up) really masks deeper, more insidious differences. Many things which are perceived as “holier than thou” are really just bad manners. But by the same token, much of the counter-movement towards this mythical and unattainable symmetry is motivated by organic intolerance which when exhibited by folks waving the banner of multiculturalism is simply as Nathaniel rightly claims “disingenuous and hypocritical”.

So you’re certainly welcome to join us for a Shabbos dinner with Rivkie’s freshly-baked maple wholewheat challahs (yes, a taste of the World to Come) and whatever veggies we harvest that erev Shabbos, but if your primary reason for not joining us is because we might not be able to reciprocate, then ask yourself who really loses.

avi

Indeed. When Elie Kaunfer and I were co-chair of Shabbat at the first Limmud NY, one of the decisions that we were involved in shepherding was to have a movie on the Friday night - the one key difference with Limmud in the UK. We do something similar at the Shabbat Retreat at Hazon’s New York Jewish Environmental Bike Ride: the food is glatt kosher, there’s an eruv, and there are services of multiple flavors, including an orthodox one; but there is also “drinks by the pool” with a CD player playing music. It’s a way of engaging the issue of asymmetry - of not defining “inclusive” to mean “most religious common factor.”

But - and here’s the key but - it’s extremely hard to do anything parallel in the sphere of kashrut. We could conceivably, at Limmud NY, have had a section in the dining room that specifically served treif food. (It’s unclear whether the mashgiach would ever have approved this, but let’s put that to one side, for now.) But the key issue is that eating treif is not a positive Jewish value. It may well be the case that people _enjoy_ eating treif food, but I don’t think that they’d argue that it’s an active and positive value. That’s of course _not_ Phyllis’s point: her value (which I agree with) is the value of having one’s friends eat at one’s table.

To me the closer analogy is having over a friend who’s struggled with alcholism, and who has now given up alchohol - but finds it incredibly hard being around it. No-one who knows me would be under any misapprehension that I don’t enjoy wine with a meal and,indeed, good wine. But if the price of having my friends over to eat with me was not to serve wine or alcohol, in order to make it easier for her to eat with me - or perhaps to feel able to come, at all - then, for that meal, it’s a price that I think I’d pay. It would be a real price - a fine meal without wine is unusual - but in that circumstance I don’t think I’d struggle too much with it.

But I’d still miss my glass of wine…

:-)

Nigel, I agree that the heart of this conversation is about being willing to accept people on their own terms. When someone does not eat my home-baked challah because it was cooked in my oven, I do not feel accepted. When Hazon tells me that, “to be safe,” they cannot use my separate set of milchig pans that I stored apart for my strictly kosher guests, I do not feel accepted.

I entertain a lot, and I am very accustomed to dietary restrictions. I have no problem accomodating vegans, vegetarians, gluten intolerants, people who only eat kosher meat, and people who won’t mix meat and milk. That’s easy. What I cannot do is, as Richard put it, break bread with people who will not eat on my plates, or from my pans and ovens. In that sense, I disagree with SteveK in Minnesota, because very strict kashrut observance outside one’s own home does not feel like any other dietary preferance. Our friends Steve and Steve cannot come over to my home for dinner, unless it is kosher take-out on paper and plastic. That does not feel like acceptance to me, Nige.

I could try to profoundly alter who I am, and attempt to keep a kosher kitchen, or a partially kosher kithen with separate silverware, pans, etc., but what fraction of people will that accomodate? And where is the holiness in that action, if I cannot find it within myself? Believe me, I question that too, and figure perhaps this is just how I’m less of a Jew, or even worse it’s because I’m too self-centered.

Ironically, I think I am in a similar situation as Judy’s. Rather quickly we end up not eating at other people’s homes if they cannot eat in ours. Otherwise it
feels too unbalanced. As a result, several potential friendships have never taken root.

It’s very interesting, this issue of breaking bread with others, and in whose homes we allow ourselves to eat.

I spent a long time cleaning the Fire Island kitchen this weekend, throwing out old pans and silverware (you inherit practically everything when you buy a house on Fire Island due to lack of cars. When you don’t want something anymore, you simply leave it in front of your house, and people walk by and pick from the stuff all weekend. It’s a throwback to earlier recycling methods).

I couldn’t shake the feeling that my non-kosher kitchen will be perceived as unfit. Unclean. Even the word treyf packs quite a punch. So I left the fridge as clean and organized as possible, ditto the countertops. As much as I have anguished, I have been deeply grateful to Hazon for this experience. My newly organized kitchen is the present you gave me.

Meanwhile, I am grateful to be able to contribute to inclusiveness. I hope you have beautiful walks on the spectacular barrier island beach, perhaps even catching the sunrise over the Atlantic. Sunrises are something we can all share.

Hi, this is Nige.
Thanks for posting this… it’s intense. I think I didn’t really have a sense that you guys might have been there this weekend, that the thought that we’d be stricly kosher might, even subliminally, cause you to think you’d be more comfortable not being there. Sometimes I get a little frustrated too; as you know, I’m someone who keeps a fairly strictly kosher kitchen at home, so that any of my friends can eat there, but in general I love food, and I certainly eat in non-kosher restaurants, and in friends’ houses - both Jewish and non-Jewish - that are not kosher.

But at the same time, inclusive community is a high value, both for Hazon and for me personally. I’m willing to go the extra mile to make sure that something like this is accessible for everyone there. If we really wanted to, we _could_ kasher the grill, and have the pleasure of barbecuing on it. But the aesthetic pleasure of doing so is not one that I find impossible to forego.

I think that the heart of this conversation is about being willing to accept people on their own terms. In my experience, friends who _are_ strictly kosher are still, nevertheless, completely accepting and respectful of those who are not; I had lunch with Steve and Steve yesterday, and in their European vacation this summer they’re going via Basel, simply in order to be able to get kosher food - yet, as you know, they’re immensely accepting of friends who are not kosher. And I think that the willingness to accept people on their own terms - and do one’s best, and think creatively, to make occasions work for everyone - I think that’s what I aspire to.

And if we do this again in FI, I hope we’ll be able to persuade you guys to be there….

:-)

N x

We ended up with a kitchen fit for Moshiach- and several pieces of cookware that had been transformed into modern art by a blowtorch (and I didn’t even get to be the one to do it!!). And oh, yeah- we also got a little visit from the fire chief and several volunteers when the steam blast from dropping white-hot cast iron into a pot of boiling water set off our kitchen smoke sensors. They’re probably still talking about us.

Ultimately, we learned that no matter how kosher (as if there really are “degrees” of kosher that make one kitchen better then another… if you follow the rules, it’s kosher, and the wife’s not wearing of a sheitel (a wig) cannot change this fact), no matter how meticulous you are, some people will not eat at your house. Some people will not eat at anybody else’s house. Not their parents’, not friends… Crazy. As if that was actually the point of the exercise. So we have a policy: we will not eat at the homes of people who will not eat at ours. And then we enjoy eating together with our friends who interpret the law similarly.

Now we no longer feel pressured to have two sinks, two ovens, two dishwashers, separate counters (we eat meat- rarely and from sources we’ve researched thoroughly). Our vegetarian friends have relatively little to be concerned with- cheese is the biggest issue.