USCJ Review - Fall 2050
Kosher Enough - A New Look at Kashrut
Perhaps you've heard of the CHOF K, the Texas K, the Heart K, the Circle K, or some of what Kashrus Magazine claims are the 731 different hashgachot, or kosher supervisory agencies, around the world. But have you ever heard of the KE?
In a Jewish world where every month seems to bring newer ? and harder ? ways to keep kosher, sometimes it's a good idea to remember that following the basic laws of kashrut is being KE ?kosher enough.
I have served my congregation, Temple Beth Am in Margate, Fla., for more than 22 years. One of the achievements of which I'm most proud is the large number of families who have made their kitchens kosher.
It isn't easy to decide to take that step, and it is rare for all family members to be equally motivated about doing it. In my experience, almost every time a family does decide to make their kitchen kosher, it's been the mother who has made the decision, believing it to be important both for her and for her family.
But what leads people to make such a change in their lives?
For some, making their kitchen kosher was the next step in an evolving and growing commitment to a Jewish lifestyle. Whatever their individual stories, there was a point at which they began seriously to reconnect with their Judaism. Perhaps it was the upcoming bar or bat mitzvah of their first child. Maybe it was an introductory course to Judaism. It could have been a parent's death and the return to synagogue to say Kaddish.
For a number of people, the decision stemmed from a commitment to study for an adult bar/bat mitzvah. Almost always, a significant factor in sealing the deal was a family trip to Israel. For some, making the commitment to eating kosher food was a way of feeling connected to God and to the Jewish people. It was a change in their lives that mattered.
At every meal in their homes, there was a Jewish decision to be made. The question of which fork to use, and which drawer to take it from, took on great significance.
Eating in a kosher home demands action, not just lip service. It is a restriction, a limitation on choice. Keeping kosher changed the act of eating into something more than just a mundane biological necessity. The decision transformed eating into an act of kedushah - of holiness.
In most cases, the families who chose to start keeping kosher were not yet ready to make further behavioral changes. They were not ready to become shomer Shabbat - strict Sabbath observers - but they emphatically wanted a change that would indicate to them, and to their friends, that they were becoming actively committed Conservative Jews. Jews who keep mitzvot (commandments).
Recently, a congregant called me in response to a sermon I had delivered and said she wanted to discuss the possibility of keeping kosher. She said that for a variety of reasons she had just removed her child from a local community Jewish day school, and she worried about how her child could maintain a proud Jewish identity without the school's reinforcement. She was exploring whether maintaining a kosher home might help restore the balance in her child's life. I congratulated her on her thought process. She clearly understood the power of Jewish identity formation, within the context of her family, by living the mitzvot.
Some members of my congregation have looked for ways to increase the spiritual meaning in their lives and have seen in kashrut a way to appreciate the sanctity of life. Some, who contemplated vegetarianism but could not quite get there, see kashrut as a Divine compromise. They still eat meat, but they know that the animal didn't suffer unnecessarily as it was slaughtered. Further, separating milk, the symbol of life-giving nutrition, and flesh, which here represents death, from being crudely and insensitively consumed together sensitized them to life.
Which brings me to the KE.
I was at a friend's dinner party, along with a number of people who had begun to keep kosher over the years, when the host announced the creation of a new kosher symbol, the KE. "It stands for kosher enough," he said.
At first I thought he was mocking me, but as it turned out there was more than a nugget of truth behind his humor.
My friend had noticed that people make individual decisions about kashrut. Some keep kosher in their homes but are less strict about what they eat in restaurants. Some eat hot dairy meals outside their homes and others eat only cold dairy food, and some eat only in kosher restaurants. Some drink only kosher-supervised wines, and others drink all wines and reserve supervised wines for sacramental purposes. Some eat unsupervised cheese and others do not. Some eat swordfish and some do not. Some read the list of ingredients on a package and eat any product that contains nothing forbidden, while others eat only products with a hechsher, a seal of approval, from a reliable kashrut agency.
There were families who would eat only products certified glatt kosher. Strictly speaking, only meat can be glatt kosher and it must come from an animal that did not have any adhesions on its lungs. The term, however, is often used to mean "very kosher" and is often applied to any food, whether or not it ever had lungs.
Other families had heard of the terms cholov yisrael - any diary product that has been under constant Jewish supervision - pas yisrael - any baked good from an oven turned on by a supervisor, and yoshon - grain that had been planted before the most recent Passover. The families did not necessarily understand those concepts, though, and they certainly did not follow them.
And so my friend concluded that everyone decides what is KE - kosher enough - for themselves.
As is often the case in such observations, he is partially correct. There is a spectrum of legitimate observance, practice, and custom when it comes to kashrut. Indeed, there are some legitimate differences of opinion among Conservative rabbis and between Conservative and Orthodox Judaism. Still, there is a generally accepted baseline defining what is kosher.
This having been said, we can identify a trend in North American kashrut that requires a person tobe more kosher then necessary. It seems that there are new stringencies imposed on the kosher-consuming public every day. These additional limitations rapidly move from fringe to mainstream to mandatory.
The result of this trend has been to limit the availability of certain products, especially meat, to Jewish population centers in big cities. Even there, products often are available only in stores found in the heart of the most observant neighborhoods. Many Jews in the rest of the country have to scrounge for kosher food.
Until recently, Hebrew National, which is widely distributed, wasn't "kosher enough." Its supervision was unacceptable to many Jews who keep kosher - including the Conservative movement. What could have been a great help to many Jews who keep kosher and travel, as well as to Jews who live in remote areas, was out of bounds to them. That was the situation until last year, when I received a phone call from the CEO of Hebrew National, Martin Silver, who is a member of a Conservative synagogue. He wanted to prove to me that the company had made changes in its supervision, and that those changes would satisfy the Conservative movement.
Hebrew National's CEO was saying that his company was kosher enough for everyone who is comfortable eating a product that fulfills the basic requirements of kashrut. Hebrew National's market is not Jews who insist on many extra stringencies. Instead, the company aims to satisfy those Jews who seek authentic supervision that assures them that the company follows the basic laws of kashrut.
Kashrut is an expected norm in the Conservative movement, so we have tried to make kosher food as widely available - and as affordable - as possible. This helps our members keep kosher. So Hebrew National's strategy seemed like a match made in KE heaven. But were its claims true?
For three days in May 2004, two colleagues from the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly, the Orthodox supervising rabbi of the Triangle K, and I went to Green Bay, Wisc., Timma, Iowa, and Indianapolis to observe the ritual slaughter, fabrication, soaking and salting, and cooking and packing of the entire Hebrew National line. We were given complete access to the plants and reserved the right to conduct subsequent unannounced inspections.
We could not have been more impressed with what we saw. Great thought and expense had been used to systemize a process that both produced a mass-market product at an affordable price and also took all base-line halakhic considerations - and more - into consideration. Hebrew National also had adopted measures to ensure that there would be no unnecessary pain, trauma, stress, or suffering as the animals were slaughtered. Their process truly was kosher enough.
We reported back to the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, which adopted our recommendation that the Conservative movement accept Hebrew National products.
I was able to fulfill a dream I had long nurtured. I was able to enjoy a kosher Hebrew National hot dog on the Fourth of July.
The kashrut subcommittee that I head is now actively investigating other hashgachot as they come to our attention via the requests submitted by Conservative rabbis. Our investigations will lead to recommendations on whether the Conservative movement can accept these supervisions. The information will be disseminated throughout the movement, so in the end our members will know which of these supervisions are "kosher enough."
The author is rabbi of Temple Beth Am in Margate, Fla., a member of the Rabbinic Assembly's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, and chair of its kashrut committee. He's also the author of "The Lord is My Shepherd - Why Do I Still Want?"
