Clifford S. Fishman
This week’s Torah portion is Re’eh: Deuteronomy 11:26 – 16:17
Chapter 14 of this week’s parashah contains 19 verses about kashrut.
We who keep kosher probably devote more time, more thought, more effort to “keeping kosher” than any other single “ritual” aspect of Judaism. And how each Jew defines “keeping kosher” requires making so many choices. Where we shop, what we buy, which hechshers we accept or don’t, whether we have one sink or two, one set of dishwasher racks or two and so on. And those who maintain a kosher home take a variety of approaches to eating out. Some patronize only kosher restaurants. Some will eat elsewhere, but in a non-kosher restaurant avoid all meat, poultry and inherently treyf seafood. Others are less strict, avoiding only food that is inherently treyf. And so on.
The sages give us many explanations for the dietary laws. For example, they recommended avoiding certain foods because they make us drowsy and indolent. (But if that’s true, why haven’t they banned turkey, particularly on Thanksgiving?) They discouraged other foods which supposedly incite lustful urges and carnal behavior. And there are hygienic and health theories as well.
But the main reason to keep kosher is to add holiness to our daily lives. We eat several times each day. Each time, we must choose what to eat, and where. Making those choices can serve to remind us of our obligation to observe other mitzvot as well.
And keeping kosher also serves another purpose: to make us conspicuous. Leviticus 20 also provides rules of what we can and cannot eat, and at the end, 20:26 tells us why: “You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy, and have set you apart from other peoples to be Mine.” Kashrut is one way we are “set apart from other peoples.”
In fact, if you don’t wear tzitzit or a kippah or head scarf all the time, keeping kosher is likely to be the most conspicuously “Jewish” thing you do when you’re with people who aren’t Jewish. A friend invites you to her home for dinner? You have to cross-examine her about what’s on the menu. You’re with a group that’s going out to lunch? Kashrut can dictate which restaurant to go to. Someone recommends shrimp scampi or beef stew? You have to explain to him why you can’t eat it. And sometimes you have to ask the waiter how items on the menu are prepared.
Sometimes I get asked: “what are the reasons for these rules?”
I do my best to explain; and it sometimes seems that after this conversation, some people at the table regard me differently thereafter; it seems — if I’m not imagining it — that now they have higher expectations of me: “If Cliff is that ‘religious’ when he eats, he must be truly ethical and kind in the way he lives his life in general.”
Of course, the fact that a person keeps kosher is not a guarantee that they are honest or treat others properly. Still, it seems to me that these table conversations about kashrut sometimes change people’s expectations about me; and as a result, I try to live up to those expectations. I don’t always succeed; but at least it prompts me to try.
Once or twice, Jews who didn’t keep kosher took offense: “So you won’t eat shrimp or pork chops. Do you think that makes you a better, ‘holier’ person than the rest of us?”
I answered: “No, I don’t think that at all. But I think it does help me to try to be a better person than I would be otherwise.”
Clifford S. Fishman is Emeritus Professor of Law at the Catholic University of America and a longtime member of Tikvat Israel Congregation in Rockville, Maryland.
