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Emotions Running Hot and Cold (EdibleTorah)

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Here’s a list of Fun phrases heard (frequently) in my home since becoming kosher observant:

“That’s a milk dish” (not a dish to HOLD milk, mind you)

“No, use a pareve spoon”

“Switch the sink over so we can wash the meat stuff”

Meat and milk. Fleishig and Milcheg. And the red-headed stepchild of kashrut, pareve. If you have considered keeping kosher, or even discussed it in the course of study or conversation, you know that the concept of separating meat and milk is central to the whole game. Derived from the commandment “do not boil a kid in its mother’s milk” (which appears 3 separate times in Torah), the original statement was expanded, elaborated and in many ways made relevant.

But what *is* it that makes something “become” a milk-thing or a meat-thing?

Rabbi Spicerock was quick to explain to Pandora and I that everything starts out neutral (pareve). Fresh from the store, that grill you can’t wait to use is NOT fleishig (notwithstanding your intent to make a pleasing odor to God with that steak). What changes the status of an object, the Rabbi explained, is the combination of coming into contact with either meat or milk, and heat.

If you take a (clean) dairy fork and stick it into a cold piece of brisket, NOTHING HAPPENS (from a kashrut perspective). Or, to use the example from this page, “you could use the same knife to slice cold cuts and cheese, as long as you clean it in between”.

Contact and heat.

This is a huge sticking point between Pandora and I. It has led to (forgive me) heated discussions in (and about) the kitchen.

I will admit that I have a tendency to play fast and loose with rules (any rules. I definitely agree with this cartoon – I live at either end and try to get through the boring high-point of the bell curve as quickly as possible). And I also admit that Pandora’s careful approach to things leads to fewer mistakes and more calm. With 4 children in the house, I appreciate any ounce of calm and order she is able to wrestle away from the chaos that is our daily life.

But there comes a point (like when we have 3 nearly complete sets of everything) that I have to push back a little.

So I did. Rabbi Spicerock came over for a quick touch-base, to see how we were doing and answer some questions. Mine among them.

If he paused in his response, if he showed even the slightest hesitation in his answer it was imperceptible.

“Oh no,” he said, “She’s absolutely right. That’s the better way to go.”

Which effectively stuck a fork (milcheg or fleishig – I still say it wouldn’t matter) into the discussion.

This post comes from EdibleTorah @ NewKosher. Originally posted here. Photo credit to http://www.limkokwing.net/

Is Timing Everything? (EdibleTorah)

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I know this is bothering me way more than it should. But it still is.

In our pre-Kosher days (or perhaps it’s more accurate to label them our “proto-kosher” days) we just focused on separating meat meals and milk meals. We didn’t change the dishes, we didn’t worry about utensils or containers. We simply avoided eating cheeseburgers, muenster-and-baloney sandwiches, or cheesey-beefy noodles.

Oh, and we steered clear of bacon-wrapped shrimp, of course.

Sounds simple, right?

Like most Jewish ideas, a seemingly simple idea can be totally bolloxed up by thinking about it too much.

It starts innocently: does “together” mean “on the same plate” or “on the same table”? If you go from one room with a cheese board to another room in the same house with lunchmeats, is that OK?

No, of course not. Because someone could be still savoring the flavor of a great piece of brie when they pop a delicate slice of brisket in your mouth and BOOM, you’ve mixed meat and milk. In your mouth.

(Side note: I used to do this all the time, but with chocolate milk. First you take a good long pull from the milk jug, leaving just a little room left over. Then you stick the end of the chocolate syrup bottle into your mouth and squeeze. Finally, shake your head vigorously until your vision blurs or you hear your neck snap. Then swallow. Everyone did that when they were kids, right?)

Ahem. Back to our discussion.

The Rabbis of Antiquity thought of that, of course (the cheese and meat thing, not the milk and chocolate syrup thing) and came up with a statement: don’t eat them together, and give your mouth time to clear itself of the previous food item.

For some Rabbis that meant either washing your mouth out or eating something that was neither milk or meat (a piece of bread fits the bill). Thus, they reasoned, you are pretty assured that bits of gouda aren’t still sticking around in your mouth when you start a bite of brisket.

Later on, Rashi was asked about time – like if you had a meat meal and didn’t eat bread, how long before you could start on a dairy dish? “Between meals” was the answer.

The problem was that “between meals” at that time was about 6 hours!

Skipping ahead, today we have the Dutch, who wait 1 hour, some folks from Germany who wait 3 hours, and everyone else, who waits 6. Except for the people who don’t.

Simple, huh?

So my family and I come onto the scene and try to answer the very earnest (and hungry) sounding K, asking if he can have mac-and-cheese for dinner even though he had a bologna sandwich for lunch.

A wrong answer looks like this: “Well, bud, let me look online, then get a book from the library, and then I’ll call the Rabbi and see what he says. I should know sometime next week.”

Originally, what we did was wait 1 hour either way (meat to milk or milk to meat). As we learned more, we waited NO time between milk and meat, but we still waffled about the time between meat and milk.

See, without a family history of waiting 3 hours, we’re TECHNICALLY obligated to wait 6. But lots of people we know only wait 3 hours.

On the one hand, we don’t want to just pick and choose observances to make it easy on ourselves. On the other hand, we don’t want to pick the hardest possible ruling just to prove how tough we are.

Honestly, we’re still on the fence about this. Like I said at the start of this post, I know this is bothering me way more than it should. But it still is.

This post comes from EdibleTorah @ NewKosher. Originally posted here.

Starting To Stop (EdibleTorah)

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When you are driving along and come to a red light, when do you start to apply the brakes? In other words, when do you start to stop.

We all know that going through a red light is not only illegal, it’s dangerous.But you can’t just zoom up to a red light at full speed and then slam the brakes. There are other variables to consider: whether there are cars ahead of you or people in the cross walk; how fast you are going; whether the road is dry or icy; etc. All of that (and more) will affect when you begin to apply the brakes.

I’m finding that observing mitzvot (commandments) is very similar.

Of course, people argue that the mitzvot are arbitrary, optional aspects of our life. That they are something we do for our own personal satisfaction. They may very well be right.

But even in that case, nothing changes about this discussion. If you aren’t going to stop at the red light, then don’t. Barrel right on through. There are even cases where people who would normally stop at a light will argue it’s not necessary:  At 2am in a one-horse town, when you know there is nobody else around, you may decide that the red light is nothing but a social expectation and that sitting there waiting for an electronic timer to click is a foolish and sycophantic adherence to the letter of the law without recognition of the spirit and intent.

BUT… regardless of your view of obligatory nature of the commandments, IF you are going to observe them, you still must consider how you are going to do so. You are going to have to decide when you are going to slow down so that you don’t cross “that line” – the identified demarkation between observing the mitzvah and breaking it.

Some drivers really do race right to the very edge of the curb (or the bumper ahead of them) and then hit the brakes, while others ride the break from a half mile back. Still, everyone’s intention is the same: Don’t run into the cross walk.

The commandments expressed in Torah for keeping kosher state:

  • don’t eat blood
  • eat only certain animals
  • don’t boil a kid (goat) in the milk of its mother

Period. No mention of 2 sets of dishes. No injunction against cheeseburgers. No statement that you have to double-foil-wrap your potato in an unkosher oven.

So why do we do it?

The red light(s) above are very clear. What isn’t clear is what we need to do to avoid crossing that line. Some people are comfortable running right to the edge – no blood, no bacon wrapped shrimp, no goat chops in goat-milk-cream sauce. Everything else is fair game. Other people feel the need for two dishwashers, to carefully check produce for bugs, to learn as much as they can about how and where their food is produced.

Neither approach, in my opinion, is necessarily bad. Like driving, everyone has their style.

Of course, this analogy can only go so far on a single tank of metaphorical gas. Traffic laws are enforced by humans, and ultimately affect others in a very direct way. Kashrut is not “enforced” by anyone – you don’t get a treif ticket if you chow down on a shrimp eggroll. Nor is there any impact on the people around us for our own dietary observances, or lack thereof. Traffic laws are meant to be more logical than not. Kashrut, as I have mentioned before, is understood to be inherently non-logical (which is not to say it’s illogical, only that human logic can’t be brought to bear to understand why we ought to keep kosher. This is one of God’s “do it ’cause I said so” rules).

But in answer to the person who looks at another’s kashrut observance and thinks “why would they need to take it that far?!”, my answer is

“Because that’s where they are comfortable starting to stop.”

This article comes from EdibleTorah @ NewKosher.org and was originally posted here.

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