To Be or Not To Be: Kosher is the Question

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To Be or Not To Be: Kosher is the Question

by Mia-Rut · August 21st, 2008

Family & Kids, Food Writing, Kosher, Personal Story

Most people adopt the religious practices of their parents. I certainly did. I went to church practically every Sunday until I left for college, and then told my parents I needed to find what was right for me. Nearly a decade later, the practice that ended up being right was going to shul (or an independent egalitarian minyan) practically every Shabbat.

But becoming Jewish isn’t an easy task – especially without having the natural guide of Jewish family traditions to rely on. There are some really tough choices in daily practice that one must make. My toughest to date has been the practice of kashrut.Just ask my rabbi, I’m really good at making very plausible excuses of why I’m not yet keeping kosher. My roommate would never respect a kosher kitchen, I would never go to my parents’ house and tell them I was unable to eat off their dishes (the same dishes I’d been eating off of since I was a kid)…I have been trying to learn more about kashrut – all of the intricacies and nuances (like cheese, I hadn’t known cheese could be kosher, or not). I look for hekhshers on items I buy, and I generally try to stick to pure, unprocessed foods that would be de facto kosher like (most) fresh fish and vegetables anyway. So I’m happy to cook kosher-style even if my kitchen has at one time or another produced meals that would not receive rabbinical approval.

But to be perfectly honest, I really like some treif foods – a hard saucisson sec on a cheese plate, or the fresh brininess of raw oysters, or dim sum in Chinatown – these things really have no substitute. And I even fantasize about what it would be like to have a meal with Anthony Bordain.

So what’s a girl to do? I was raised eating ham and cheese sandwiches, but now must I shun the lobster because I have chosen to convert to Judaism? And how do I wean myself off the enjoyable occasional shellfish and pork habit? And what do I tell my parents? They might be okay with not cooking up bacon when I visit, but I don’t think I would ever feel comfortable trying to impose any other kitchen and dining restrictions on them.

At the moment I have resigned myself to accepting my life as it is. I have Christian parents whom I love for who they are and the way they raised me. I don’t have a kosher kitchen, but that could always change – after all, I am in the market for a new roommate.

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9 Responses to “To Be or Not To Be: Kosher is the Question”

Miriam Says:
August 21st, 2008 at 8:24 pm
I was also raised eating ham and cheese sandwiches and can honestly say that I don’t miss 99% of it. I do find myself missing certain things (like my mom’s beef stroganoff with sour cream which never turns out right when kosher-fied).

As for what to do when visiting your parents, I bring along a rice cooker and indoor grill and cook up fish and rice or grains. It takes more planning, but works out fine. My parents even make special trips to a not-so-local kosher market to get things for us.
JewishGal Says:
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:42 am
I grew up not keeping kosher but my parents are Jewish so they understood when I decided to keep kosher. I started by having a kosher kitchen but eating non-kosher out. It was a fairly natural transition for me from that, because after even a few weeks of keeping kosher at home I felt weird eating non-kosher meat out. I still eat non-kosher dairy (hot or cold), and I don’t think that practice is going to end any time soon – unless I move to Israel, I guess.

However, for the sake of Shalom Bayit, I eat off of my parents plates whatever they serve me, as long as it’s dairy/vegetarian or if they make a separate kosher meat thing (which they do a lot of the time, like wrap it in foil in the oven or on the grill, and to me that’s fine). I wouldn’t do the same at a non-family members’s house and I wouldn’t do the same in a restaurant claiming to have kosher meat – ie: the “kosher style” deli nearby might have deli meat that used to be kosher, but serving it with cheese or in the same kitchen with pork products makes it not kosher for me.
Ketzirah Carly Says:
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:59 am
Seems like this is an issue many of us struggle with. But that’s being Yisrael, right? We wrestle with things.

I just did a blog post myself on this same subject! Must be something in the air.
Alix Says:
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:45 am
Mia,
I’m sure you know that lots of Jews don’t keep kosher. I too grew up eating ham and cheese sandwiches, but in a very Jewish household, nonetheless. I think I’ve written before on this blog that my mom was a hidden child during the Holocaust, and in wartime Poland, the only meat you could get was pork. She lived on it for those years, and later on, she simply loved it too much to give up. (And given that she was raised Catholic from ages 2-6, she never felt fully Jewish enough later to take that on.) Even as I became more observant in adulthood, I never even considered becoming kosher. Why? I guess because it was never in my family, I too didn’t want to reject my Jewish parents, and am mostly vegetarian and hate most seafood anyhow. I haven’t eaten pork in 20 years, the same length of time I haven’t eaten meat, and I don’t like most seafood, with the exception of shrimp. I had one great-aunt in my family who kept kosher in the home for her more religious guests, but when we’d go out, she’d always be the one ordering the moo shoo pork. That was the only example of kashrut I ever saw as a kid.
And now, with meat being the way it is, I insist on only buying organic, grass-fed meat for my carnivorous husband, but given that such meat and kosher at the same time and local do not exist, that standard is more important to me.
My advice: don’t be too hard on yourself. I imagine when one converts, one feels an internal pressure to follow more rules than those of us who were born into it; it seems unfair to me. If you truly think you should be keeping kosher, I would suggest following my aunt’s example; which makes the most sense to me. Keep a kosher home as a starting point and then, when you go out, or are at your parent’s house, eat those oysters. You will be no different than most of the rest of us. You can always give those up later if you feel the need to.
Mia Rut Says:
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:09 pm
You are absolutely correct. I do sometimes feel like I have to overcompensate because I am converting. But I’m trying to figure it out.

One thing that I have enjoyed doing is introducing my family to new “Jewish” foods. Sometimes when I am visiting I will make them a shabbat dinner when they are at church. Eating together as a family (on Sundays after church) was always very important. But it has been a great way to share what I am learning – I’ve even taught my mom to braid challah!
WoolSilkCotton Says:
August 23rd, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Mia,
To enjoy being Jewish, which is the only reason to be Jewish, don’t make yourself crazy with ‘shoulds and musts’. If you take too much upon yourself with trying to keep all kosher all the time, you will find yourself alienating family and friends, and you will be unhappy and turned off to the whole Jewish undertaking.
It’s ok to cobble together your own brand of observance, and that can be dynamic; keep adjusting, more or less observance, whenever your heart desires.
The detailed and more stringent kosher rules exist, in part, to keep Jews isolated from nonJews. Don’t let that happen to you.
No matter what you do, there is some religious holier-than-thou type out there who will be critical. However, there will also be lots of Jews who understand that nobody can, or does, really do it all.
So eat, enjoy!
Karen Says:
August 24th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I too have been giving this same question much thought. I have a new blog that I also have been looking at all it means to “do Kosher”

http://dunkingrachael.blogspot.com/

I am a Jew by Choice and am married to a borm Jew. I find this aspect of practice to be the most difficult. It is like forever doing translations….I know my version…how can I translate it in to “kosher”…then there are the ethical considerations…I am so glad I found this site!

Karen
Eric Says:
December 5th, 2008 at 9:33 am
I grew up in a Reform household and we certainly did not keep Kosher. Even my Rabbi was borderline Kosher (he ate out at non-Glatt restaurants with my folks and others). I’ve eaten bacon and mixed milk and meat my whole life.

I tried keeping Kosher in college – it lasted one week, and I was basically just a vegetarian.

However, now at the ripe (old?) age of 29, I have decided to actually become a vegetarian. I am not really doing it for moral reasons, and it’s certainly not for religious reasons, but becoming a vegetarian seems to take care of both arguments if I were to ever be asked. I mostly did it because I was inspired by my ex – who constantly craves meat, but has the will power to resist (and the news that PETA is petitioning healthcare companies to raise the premiums of meat eaters due to increased health risks). I am now a full month into it and I’ve only cheated once (okay, maybe twice – I had some mushroom soup that contained chicken stock – shonda, I know!).

I’d have to say, if you want to remove the whole question of whether or not to keep Kosher, just remove the one big fat problem…meat. I think it’s safe to say that most fruits, vegetables, and blocks of tofu are Kosher (although maybe organic produce without the protection of pesticides might contain some non-Kosher organisms? I don’t get that stuff, personally).

So yeah, I guess I’m using this opportunity to promote a vegetarian lifestyle. Even my parents have embraced it. My grandparents think there’s something wrong with me, and my best friend is threatening to disown me, but I’m going to stick to my guns as long as possible…that is, until someone waves a perfectly seared NY strip steak in front of my face.
J. Says:
March 23rd, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Mia, I think you’re thinking about this issue in reverse order. You’re worrying about eating off your parents’ dishes, but you’re still eating pork and lobster??? Talk about getting ahead of yourself!

Take things one step at a time. Cut out the treif meat. That’s by far the most important issue. Don’t even look for another heksher on a package until you’ve stopped eating that pork dim sum! Learn how to make your own Chinese and Thai food, without the pork or shrimp paste. Learn how to satisfy those cravings with other foods.

Worrying about dishes? You’re not there yet. Far, far down the road, you can start thinking about things like kashering your own kitchen. Far, far, far down the road, you can learn tactics for maintaining your observance while coexisting peacefully with your parents. But don’t use your parents as an excuse for not taking the first step!

Mia, I’m being frank with you as one Member of the Tribe to another. You took this on yourself. You made a choice. Kashrut is part of the committment. No one is asking for perfection, but you do need to start somewhere. “It is not your duty to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from it.”