Omer 2025 Day 38

Day 37 | Day 39

Day 38: Kosher Nation: Why More and More of America's Food Answers to a Higher Authority by Sue Fishkoff
Tiferet in Yesod, Balance in Connection

"Kashrut is a force that both unifies and separates. It identifies its practitioners as part of the Jewish community and ties them to thousands of years of Jewish history, while at the same time setting them apart from those who do not keep kosher."

I first read this book in 2014, after I had been keeping kosher for a couple of years. A colleague recently described this book as, "the book that makes people stop keeping kosher," and she's not entirely wrong. I did keep kosher for another decade after reading this book, but gave it up last year, and part of that decision was because of this book.

When we started keeping kosher, it was part of a larger move toward observance in our lives. We started gradually - keeping "kosher style" (not mixing dairy and meat, but not necessarily buying kosher food), then progressing to "ingredient kosher" (checking the ingredients on the products we bought to make sure there wasn't anything unkosher in them, like pork gelatin in marshmallows), and finally investing in two sets of plates and only buying hechshered (certified kosher) products. It was a lot, but it felt deeply meaningful and not overwhelming, even when we lived in areas with fewer kosher options. Keeping kosher made Judaism an active part of our lives at least three times a day. It required a certain level of understanding of Jewish law and Jewish life. Hosting or accepting an invitation for Shabbat dinner necessitates a conversation about the personal level of kashrut for each individual. Everyone seems to have developed different rules for themselves about what they will or won't eat outside of their own home. Of course, some only eat kosher certified foods anywhere, meaning limiting themselves to kosher restaurants and kosher homes. But most non-Orthodox American Jews have developed their own systems - eating pescatarian out, only eating "cold contact" foods in restaurants, eating kosher chicken in an unkosher home. Despite the many complications of keeping kosher, there is something simple in the order and structure it provides. But I love how we each make kashrut our own.

Of course, I know Jews who require a hechsher on everything. I know Jews who eat bacon, but no other pork products. I know Jews from Maryland who make an exception for crab, the state food. I know Jews who will eat chicken parm, but not a cheeseburger. And while we might internally bat an eye at those people, each of those tweaks represents deep personal thought that the person has put into their diet because of their Judaism. Each choice elevates the act of eating from simple sustenance to a reflection on Jewish text. Kosher Nation examines how we have adapted kashrut to the modern food supply chain - really, how we have taken this ancient communal standard of eating and globalized it to certify everyday products and send mashgichim (kashrut inspectors) to factories in China and all over the world. And whether or not you keep kosher, that's a fascinating story.

Taglit Mayanot Day 2: Shabbat

I just got back from Israel and I am transcribing the journal from my trip day by day. To start at the beginning, click here!

December 29, 2012
Word of the day: Shavua Tov (שבוע טוב) = Have a good week

We had an early night yesterday and a late start today, which was excellent. Breakfast went from 8-10 AM and my husband and I got there at 9:30 AM so that we could eat before trying to get a group together for services. Eating salad for breakfast seems to be a thing here. Anyway, we were supposed to try to get a minyan starting at 10:00 AM for morning services, but we didn't even come close. It wound up just being me and my husband, our tour guide Ariel, and two other guys in our group. Our rabbi and the other group's rabbi didn't even show up, although even if they had, we still would have needed four more men for a minyan.

Sidenote: This is a chabad trip, so I don't count for a minyan. It is very discouraging to not count. We were separated by gender for the Maariv service last night, but they didn't use a mechitza. It almost seemed like they might as well use one if we weren't going to interact and we didn't count anyway. A few of us stuck around after for an extended service - five men and four women. It was belittling to hear the rabbis talk about needing five more for a minyan. What is the point of going if you don't contribute to the community's numbers? Despite all this, I showed up this morning anyway knowing that I wouldn't count.

After praying silently to ourselves, since we didn't have a minyan, we had lunch with the group, followed by free time. My husband and I walked down the path along the Galilee, which ends at a cemetery. It was a gorgeous cemetery on a hill with beautiful tombstones and music. At the top of the hill was a mountain of stones commemorating Herzl, the first Zionist. We asked Ariel about it and he said that there is a pile of stones further north that is harder to get to where people leave stones every year. The one we saw is made up of some of the stones from that site, which they have turned into a memorial now.

The moon on the Sea of Galilee

We walked back, took a nap, ate dinner, and had some group bonding activities. Tomorrow, eight soldiers will join our group for five days, so we talked about the army and mandatory service. Rabbi Berel led Havdalah services and we went out of a night in Tiberias. Marc and I had a nice dinner and drinks on the boardwalk. There was this awesome light show on the water - the spray water up in the air and then project onto it like a screen.

Side note: they don't have limes in Israel.

After dinner, we hooked back up with the group at the loudest bar in existence. It was like a frat party, which wasn't my thing, even when I was in college, but the night was fun anyway. It was amazing to see the mix of people walking around. The patriotism here is beyond anything I've experienced. To hear Ariel and others talk about the land, you can tell they really love it. Ariel was born in America and made Aliyah with his parents about 12 years ago, when he was 18. The more time we spend here, the more I can see us living here. The land is beautiful, the weather is great, the people are brave and eclectic, and it's nice to have such easy access to so much kosher food. Sababa!

Hear about my soldiers here!

My Conversion, Part 4: Conversion

This post is part of a series. Please start with Part 1.

My tentative interest in converting began sometime in late 2009 or early 2010. I bought a number of books on Judaism and converting to Judaism and thought really seriously about how converting would affect my life. I would go from the Protestant majority to an historically persecuted minority. I would have to tackle a new language, new culture, new foods. I would be giving up many of the childhood traditions I knew and loved. It would be a serious refurbishing of my identity on many levels. If I was going to put all that effort into a religion, I expected to get everything I wanted out of it - and I was quite demanding.

My new religion had to make sense to me theologically and if I had a question, I wanted a real, thought-out answer. Its values had to align with mine. Most importantly, I wanted a religion that could make me feel closer to God. For a long time, Judaism fulfilled everything for me except the God connection. I continued to go to services and learn more about Judaism because I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't seek to actively start the conversion process without that final piece.

I participated regularly in Jewish services, holidays, and study for over a year before it finally all clicked for me. Looking back on it, it makes sense that I would only feel a connection to God through Judaism after becoming comfortable with it in all the other aspects I was exploring, but at the time it seemed like I suddenly felt closer to God out of nowhere. So I went to my rabbi in Nashville to start the conversion process.

There are no set regulations for conversion (different movements have some loose guidelines), so each rabbi may do it differently. After talking to me about why I wanted to convert, my rabbi handed me a list of requirements for her conversion candidates. I had fulfilled most of them before I even talked to her about conversion, despite only moving to Nashville a couple months before. The requirements were:

A Conversion Class, which met monthly and included readings about theology, holidays and practice, Israel, and Jewish culture.

Living Jewishly through Shabbat observance and testing out other halachot (keeping kosher, holiday observance, picking up Hebrew, etc). I had been slowly incorporating these things into my daily life since my first encounter with Judaism the year before.

Tikkun Olam/Volunteering, at least part of which had to be within the Jewish community. I had already signed up to co-teach the synagogue's pre-k Sunday school class, which was a complete blast. The kids were great and I got to learn basic Hebrew phrases, like b'vakasha (please) and todah (thank you).

Keep a Personal Journal for reflection on my religious choices. I didn't have to share this with the rabbi or anyone else, but it helps to write that kind of thing out and I continue to use it.

Finally, Membership in the synagogue was required. We had already joined shortly after moving to the city, so this wasn't an issue.

How long the process takes depends almost entirely on the conversion candidate. It's up to you to tell your rabbi when you feel ready. If the rabbi disagrees, he or she will talk to you about it. Traditionally, the rabbi is supposed to turn away a conversion candidate three times, just to be sure they're really committed to converting. I set a date for my conversion ceremony about 6 months into my official conversion process, but most things I've read and heard say that it typically takes someone a year. Again, it varies depending on the person. I converted on a Friday afternoon. I took a half day at work and met my bet din (a court of three overseeing Jewish leaders, in my case the synagogue's two rabbis and the Sunday School director) at the Orthodox synagogue in town, because that is where the mikveh (ritual bath) is located. The bet din seems like it will be scary, but then it's not really. There's not really a good way to prepare for the bet din. There is a section about it in Choosing a Jewish Life by Anita Diamant that runs through the basics of how it works, but it's going to be different for everyone. Your rabbi really shouldn't let you get to that stage if he or she doesn't think you're ready. During my bet din, I basically reiterated why I was converting and explained how I chose my Hebrew name. They asked me some follow-up questions and reminded/warned me that Judaism can be hard. After that, I went to the mikveh.

The mikveh is hard to describe. In a literal sense, it is a ritual pool (for more on the mikveh, see Chabad's explanation). For a convert, immersion in the mikveh represents rebirth into the Jewish people. I walked into the water down seven steps, while my rabbi explained that they represented the seven days of creation. The water was warmer than I expected and it almost came up to my shoulders. I fully submerged three times, reciting a blessing each time. Something about this process is said to ignite the Jewish soul in a convert, so when I came out, I was Jewish. It almost felt anticlimactic to do regular things, like get dressed and brush my hair. Afterwards, in the hall, one of my rabbis declared "Congratulations, you look Jewish!" and I went home to prepare for Shabbat.

My parents and my then-fiance-now-husband's parents came down for the weekend and came to Friday night services with us that night. In the middle of the service, I gave a short speech about why I converted, chanted Hatzi Kaddish, and was presented with my conversion certificate, which is now proudly framed in my apartment. My life since then has been an attempt to figure out my new identity, learn Hebrew, and come up with new blog posts.

I Scream, You Scream: Keeping Kosher

There is ice cream in my freezer that I could not eat yesterday. That is probably the worst part about keeping kosher.

I started keeping kosher-style around the beginning of April. My fiance and I started out just eating kosher Shabbat dinners and worked our way up from there. No more turkey and cheddar sandwiches for lunch, no more chicken parmesan. I rarely ate pork (except bacon) or shellfish to begin with, so I haven't missed it much, but I never realized how often we mix meat and dairy in the same meal before last month. Go to Chili's or someplace with similarly-limited vegetarian options (even the salads all have chicken) and try to find a meat entree that doesn't have cheese on it. It is difficult.

But that is manageable. At home, we have all-meat or all-dairy meals that don't seem limited at all by the absence of the other. The difficulty is in the definition of "in the same meal."

If I have mac and cheese for dinner, I can wait 30 minutes to an hour, and then eat meat. If I have a steak salad for dinner at 6:00 PM, like I did last night, I have to wait 6 hours to eat that ice cream in my freezer. As I sat there at 8:30 wanting nothing but a small bowl of ice cream, I thought, "How ridiculous, this is clearly not the same meal anymore." As a Reform Jew, I could very easily have chucked kashrut out the window and had my ice cream anyway. The Reform Movement encourages individuals to make informed choices about which laws they follow and find relevant, because that leads to innovation instead of stagnation. While I agree that personal choice and informed decision-making are important, I think this view will always have the potential to become "prove to me why I should do this." But I don't think that's the point. That is an easy way to say, "Keeping kosher doesn't make sense today, so I won't do it" and many Reform Jews do not keep kosher. I tend to view the laws through the question, "Why shouldn't I do it?" If there's no good reason not to, then I say why not give it a try? So I keep kosher, even when the six hour waiting period doesn't make sense to me and deprives me of ice cream.

In the end, I settled for a bowl of pineapple last night instead.

Shabbat Shalom!

Click these links for more information about the waiting period between meals and other kosher laws.