Shabbat Story

My 91 year old grandmother called yesterday and told me she had a huge thing to ask of me but first there was a story.....

Her brother (my Uncle Arthur) made a recent discovery while going through some papers. You should know that Arthur has been "going through his papers" for as long as I can remember so how he could possibly find anything new is beyond me but apparently he recently did.

What he found was a sealed letter from my great grandmother Ida which wasn't to be opened until her death. Ida was a lovely woman. She was short and plump, with beautiful silver hair that she wore in 2 braids pinned on top of her head until her very last years. She wore clunky shoes and plaid wool shirts and mostly smelled like sugar because she was always in the kitchen, baking. She moved from NYC to Portland when I was a baby, into a small apartment right behind my high school. I was lucky to know her until she died in 1982 when I was 16.

I am not sure how her letter got overlooked in my uncle's extensive file system but it had a number of requests relating to her death and afterward. As it turns out, most of her requests had been carried out anyway but for one. My grandmother started crying when she told me that her mother had asked that a yartzeit candle be lit for her each year.

Given my family history it's nothing short of miraculous that I am a practicing Jew today. My father isn't Jewish. My mother came from Orthodox Jews on her father's side and adamantly secular Jews on her mother's side. Part of my grandparents' decision to leave New York and come to Portland in the 1950's was about getting away from Judaism--all that Old World superstition and tradition. My grandfather's experience with Judaism as a child was oppressive and without joy so he wanted no part of Jewish life as an adult. My grandmother's family were the classic politically active, intellectual, lefty types of folks who had no use for religion.

When my grandparents came to Portland, they didn't join a synagogue. There was no religious education for my mother and aunt. When I was growing up, we gathered for some holidays but I was in college before I realized, for example, that most Jews say a blessing while lighting the candles at Chanukah. I had to figure out what being Jewish meant on my
own as an adult.

I don't talk about that much with my family. Jewish observance is an awkward
subject with both my Jewish and non-Jewish relatives--which is why this conversation with my grandmother felt so very significant.

Both my great uncle and my grandmother are feeling awful that this one simple request had been ignored all these years. Both feel like, now that they know, they still can't commit as they're both over 90 and don't know how much longer they'll be with us. So my grandmother asked me today if I would accept this responsibility.

So, of course I will be lighting the yartzeit candle in my great grandmother's memory. I'd always wanted to but it was such a touchy subject I didn't know how to approach it. I already feel a little bit guilty when I light the candle for my grandfather every autumn. I think he'd surely disapprove but when I finally confessed to my grandmother today, she assured me he would be honored.

My house is full of my great grandmother's beautiful old furniture. Each morning I take my clothes out of her old dresser. Our Chanukah menorahs are lit on the same old oak buffet where she lit hers. And every week, I braid my challah on the same wooden bread board that she used for her delicious baking. So I don't know that I need to light a candle to remember her, but it does feel like both an honor and a very strong connection to those who came before me.

It's funny how things work out, isn't it?

One Good Hour

The last two days have been crazy busy with the previously mentioned childcare supervision duties. I will say that when I was asked to take this on I was told that there would be plenty of volunteers to sit at the registration table. This turned out not to be the case so I was on call for 3 solid hours today.

I still haven't heard the shofar this year but I did slip away briefly today and managed to squeeze a 2-day holiday into one hour. The services at this time of year have their own special melodies and songs which seem to bring out intense emotions in me and yes, even public tears, much to my children's horror. Luckily I was solo and, despite the harried morning, was surprised to find myself briefly transported and while my prayer experience was far from ideal, I am grateful for some quiet, contemplative time which, as it turns out, was just enough.

Kosher

My goodness, it's been a while since I've written. I'm very much in the summer groove. Not much has really seemed all that bloggable. But today I came across something I wanted to share.

Many of you know that immigration issues are very dear to my heart. I've been following the stories about the recent ICE raid in Postville, Iowa at the country's largest kosher meat processor. I used to buy exclusively kosher meat because making that extra effort and paying that extra price reminded me that I'm Jewish and that eating meat was nothing to take lightly.

I've stopped buying kosher meat due to the horrific stories I'd been hearing about the Rubaskin operation which supplies what little kosher meat is available in Portland. According to Rabbi Amy Eilberg's recent sermon addressing the Rubashkin raid, workers consistently tell stories of abuse and fraud, sexual intimidation, unsafe working conditions, and more.

What I can't understand is how my fellow Jews can continue buying Rubashkin meat. I stopped buying it well before the recent raid when I realized I didn't want to support large scale factory farming and the wasteful shipping of meat across the continent. My meat purchases are rare anyway so I doubt anyone noticed. But the kosher meat industry is large and growing. Surely we can demand higher standards from our food. Kosher food is identified by a hechsher, a symbol that some authority has deemed it fit for Jews to eat. I'd like to see that certification be considerably more stringent and include the wellbeing of both workers and animals. Apparently I'm not alone as there are now folks working on establishing a hechsher tzedek to be given to foods that are produced without worker exploitation.

I fully support the hechsher tzedek and look forward to seeing it on my food. There's kosher and then there's kosher.

Mosaic Monday--The Bar Mitzvah Edition

So we had a bar mitzvah. What can I say? It was delightful. After a little tiny mini freakout as the guests started arriving, MonkeyBoy (or should I switch to MonkeyMan?) collected himself and did an absolutely fabulous job. With the best ever bar mitzvah tutor at his side, he helped lead prayers and songs, read his 12 verse Torah portion flawlessly, and delivered a drash (an interpretation of his Torah reading) that was clear and well-received. Best of all, he had a wonderful time and enjoyed being king for the day.

My Torah reading went so smoothly that I might just step up to read a bit more often. That was mostly due to MonkeyBoy's help which shows just how much he's learned. I gave up on the DPS. I knew I wouldn't be able to say what I needed to say without crying, so what was the point? What MonkeyBoy knows is that he is loved, not only by his family, but by a whole community of friends and family who came to support him on a very special day.

None of this could have come together as smoothly as it did without all the hard work of many, many friends and family members who helped with food, flowers, photos, set-up, delivery, and a hundred different things that needed to be done. Our guests were generous in their support of MonkeyBoy's mitzvah project and the kids at Kateri Park will now be well supplied with pencils, notebooks, and other school supplies for the foreseeable future. Anything I asked for I got from so many people I hardly know how to start thanking everyone. An event like this makes me realize how very lucky I am to be part of a warm, caring Jewish community and an even wider community of friends who came from near and far to be with us.

Threads

The tallit is coming along nicely with special thanks to the expert sewing skills of my awesome stepmother . Her stint sewing costumes for drag queens left her absolutely fearless when it comes to sewing shiny, slippery, silky fabrics. What took me hours and caused tears of frustration she handled with utter aplomb.

All that remains now is a bit more handwork. I've put in quite a few hours already, much of it in front of the TV which is about the only way I can sit still long enough to get anything accomplished. Without that anchor I tend to flit from one thing to another getting exactly nothing done. My child comes by his ADD tendencies quite honestly.

Anyway....here's the thing that I wanted to write about because it was just a brief moment, but it was huge. I was watching a fascinating PBS documentary the other night. The Jewish Americans documents the history of the Jews in the US in classic PBS style with interviews, old photos, music and so on. The episode I was watching covered World War II and the post-war period. I thought a lot about my great uncle, a WWII veteran, when the narrator mentioned WWII being the first experience many American Jews had living among non-Jews.

At one point a veteran began to speak about his experience as a Jewish solider liberating the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1945. My great uncle was also a US soldier present at the liberation of Mauthausen and I've never forgotten his haunting stories. With horrifying images floating across the screen I looked down at the work in my hands, the tallit for my son's bar mitzvah, and I became simply overwhelmed.

I'm occasionally struck by the twist of fate that sent my relatives across an ocean while others stayed behind. Many of my Jewish relatives left Europe well before the madness started but I've always wondered about those who remained in Russia, Hungary, and Romania; distant relatives forgotten by the American immigrants. How easily I and my children might have simply never lived or worse, died a horrible death simply because we are Jewish. I don't spend a lot of time entertaining such thoughts but sometimes there they are.

And suddenly it seemed almost miraculous that here we are in 2008, about to celebrate another bar mitzvah in our family. I've gotten caught up in details like invitations and recipes and who's wearing what but there's a whole other facet to this. I don't think I'm putting this into words at all eloquently but the fact that there are still Jewish children coming of age in this world is a huge and wonderful thing.

In Progress

Thanks to the kindness of a friend with both skills and the patience to fiddle around with Hebrew fonts, I was able to transfer the tallit blessing onto a piece of silk using inkjet transfer paper. How cool is that?

The embroidered text is the Hebrew blessing one says when putting on the tallit. It's kind of silly in a way, because everyone who needs to know it usually gets it down pretty quickly. Like most Hebrew blessings it follows a standard format with a few words tossed in at the end for the particular occasion. Still, it's pretty standard to include the text on the atarah, which is the piece that helps the wearer figure out how to put the tallit on.

I'm not so great with embroidery though it's one of many skills I'd like to improve and use more often in my projects. But I'm really enjoying this part. It's not terribly challenging (other than I really need those bifocals now) but each letter is different and requires an assessment of how to fill the space. It's a little bit meditative and not hard to re-do when I screw up. Oh, and it looks smashing, if I do say so myself.

Silver Linings

One of the exciting things about becoming a bar mitzvah is that it is the first time a young person gets to wear a tallit in public. Most families we know make a big deal out of the tallit. Either one is specially made after much consideration, or perhaps handed down from a relative. With a weaver in the family (my mother), we expected nothing less than handwoven for The Dark Lord's bar mitzvah. MonkeyBoy, on the other hand, was offered weaving lessons from a good friend and the opportunity to make his own which seemed like a very generous and exciting offer at the time though even then I suspected it would be too much given this friend's often poor health.

The weaving lessons began well over a year ago and MonkeyBoy and his teacher have had great times together. To date I've seen exactly one completed project and became understandably worried giving the rapidly approaching event. I was reassured numerous times that all was well and on track. Then, quite suddenly, with exactly 4 weeks to go, I was informed last night that it would be impossible to complete the project on time. Now I find that with approximately 275 things I need to complete before June 14, I have the added obligation of finding Mr Picky a tallit that would satisfy him. This is the boy who hand colored 80+ invitations so it's safe to say he has his aesthetic standards and takes them seriously. Also, Portland is not New York City or even Los Angeles. We don't have nice Judaica shops where we could browse and compare and we've had no interest in risking mail order.So what's a crafty mama to do? I still have most of the bolt of silk I used to make my tallit years ago and MonkeyBoy found that acceptable. We spent quite some time gathering trims and supplies today and I have to say that I was surprised by the colors that drew him. This is a kid who normally goes for crazy bright colors. The yarmulkes we ordered for the bar mitzvah are purple velvet with silver rickrack, of all things. But what really caught him today was some lovely but rather sedate ribbon with a ginkgo design in slightly off greens. We used that as a starting point and chose accent fabrics and trims accordingly.

There aren't a lot of rules about this particular garment's construction except that it must be 4-cornered, with tzitzit at each corner. The tzitzit are sets of strings tied in a precise formula, kind of a Jewish macrame if you will. These four sets of threads on four corners are the only clearly proscribed element and I've seen lovely variations on this basic idea including elegant vintage lace and exuberant Guatemalan ikat.

While I expect to be doing most of the work on this myself, I realized there was no reason why MonkeyBoy couldn't learn to run the sewing machine and make the corner squares through which the tzitzit will be threaded. Tonight we retired to the cool of our basement for sewing lessons and he did well though I did mention that there was little point in my drawing seam lines on the fabric since he seemed to be ignoring them anyway.While I really wish time wasn't a factor, I am delighted that I get to do this for (and with) my son.

Chappy Chanukah!

I meant to write something in celebration of the first night of our Festival of Light. But I was up all night with a Very Sick Princess. When I wasn't soothing I was cleaning up and doing laundry and wondering when the next round was starting so I am extremely tired today and not at all able to focus on any sort of thoughtful writing. Instead I will send you elsewhere for your holiday inspiration.

Chanukah is admittedly more fun when it falls during my three week Winter Break, allowing us many evenings of socializing and oily treats. Unfortunately Chanukah will be over before my break begins this year so it just has to be fit in around my evening class schedule. Some would say Chanukah is early this year but of course Jewish holidays are never "early" or "late" except in relation to other calendars. For a good explanation of just why this is, take a look at this post at the wonderful Ragamuffin Studies blog.

Is there an intersection between Judaism and knitting? You know I'd find it if there were, right? Well, go see what Tikkun Knits has to say, be inspired, and maybe even knit your own Chanukah menorah.

And then there's the question of how this tiny minority of Jews fits our little winter celebration into the larger hoo-ha of The Big Winter Holiday. Some of us get a little grumpy after the seventy-fifth round of Jingle Bells (and it's only the first week of December for crying out loud). Those of you who tend to just hunker down at home for the month will surely enjoy the sentiment expressed here by my dear friend Beth.

Chag Sameach!

One Last Holiday

Three weeks ago we celebrated the beginning of a new year. Ten days after that came Yom Kippur, the day of atonement followed a few days later by Sukkot which has seen rain every single day this week making our outdoor festival less joyous this year than usual --the weather is supposed to be dry for the next week, wouldn't you know?

Our holiday season concludes with Simchat Torah. Jews throughout the world read the from the Torah in shul on Shabbat morning and each week every congregation will read from the same section in sequence throughout the year. Simchat Torah celebrates the end of the old cycle and the beginning of the new one, so we read from the very end of Deuteronomy and the beginning of Genesis in the same evening.

We remove the Torah scrolls from their regular resting place and while music plays, everyone dances and the Torahs are passed from one person to the next so that everyone has a chance to dance with a Torah. I never fail to be moved by this, sometimes to tears. That after all these years and all that's happed, there are still Jews to dance with the Torah. No small thing, that.

Our rabbi, who has been on sabbatical since July, returned to lead tonight's service. There was a very moving moment when a young man just returned from army service in Iraq was called to say a blessing over the Torah reading. I was stunned when he signed up and, quite honestly, never expected him to return. It was lovely to be part of welcoming him back home.

After the rabbi reads the final section, the entire scroll is unrolled which is quite a sight. This is many, many yards of handwritten parchment held up by members of the congregation. The rabbi does a quick reverse tour of the year, ending up back at the beginning, Bereshit. I've been to many of these services over the years and I always love it. It's a very special service, but also relaxed, noisy, slightly chaotic and very enjoyable.

Now it's back to regularly scheduled programming until Chanukah arrives in December. I love the rhythms and cycles of Judaism--there are times for busyness and times for quiet, times for serious introspection, and times for silliness and fun. There are weekly, monthly, and yearly cycles giving us a regular rhythm and an ongoing chance to revisit our texts and reexamine our lives.

After spending so much time in the last month really focused on our holy days, one thing that's struck me is all the happy children in our community: children dancing, children in laps, children learning, children snuggled in under a parent's tallit. I am so happy that my kids are growing up in this community. MonkeyBoy will happily go to anything relating to our synagogue because he knows he'll see his best friend there. The rabbi takes the time to see how The Dark Lord is doing in school. The Princess has no end of adult admirers. On a BBC radio program yesterday I heard a man claim that raising children with religion is child abuse. There's no doubt in my mind that religion can be presented to kids in an abusive and horrible way. But a religion that encourages questions and encourages both gratitude and joy? We're blessed to have it in our lives.

Rain and more rain...

We've built a sukkah nearly every year for the past 10 years and have always invited guests on the Sunday that falls during the holiday. Typically mornings are brisk, afternoons warm and lovely, and as the sun sets everyone suddenly feels a chill and remembers that it is, after all, autumn. September and early October in Portland is usually gorgeous and how lucky we are that we have this lovely outdoor holiday during our golden season.

Last year we dropped the ball. The old sukkah had become unusable and, due to The Dark Lord's impending bar mitzvah, we had neither the time nor the money to come up with a new sukkah. We missed having our own, and my dear sweet husband worked that much harder to make sure we would have a beauty of a sukkah this year. I don't really believe that G-d pays all that much attention to me, but I'm kind of thinking maybe we're being punished for slacking off last year. We had one glorious day in the sukkah and it's been nothing but nonstop rain since.

To answer Molly's question about how the sukkah holds up--it's still standing but it isn't pretty. All our beautiful lanterns and paper chains? Hammered by pounding rain. Half of the sukkah's roof has blown away. I run out and shake my bedraggled lulav during a break in the rain and it's like standing next to a wet dog after a good full body shake. Somehow I don't envision this being the way it was back in the day and I'm thinking the desert is looking pretty good right now.

Shabbat dinner in the sukkah? Rained out. Breakfast in the sukkah? Rained out. And our customary drop in Sunday afternoon open sukkah gathering? Rained out as well. People came and I took them out to look at the sukkah from the comfort of our covered carport. Nice, but not really dwelling in the sukkah, is it? There were brief, wistful viewings and then we scampered back in to the house for warm drinks and snacks.

Sukkot allows us to live simply in a spare, rickety shelter symbolizing the bare necessities of life. But it is also a harvest festival and I couldn't help but think of our good fortune and abundance: a warm house full of good friends and tasty food. It wasn't the day I'd been hoping for, but it turned out to be a very good day indeed.

Sukkot

As if we haven't been busy enough, another Jewish holiday is here. But in contrast to the grandeur of Rosh Hashana or the solemnity of Yom Kippur, Sukkot is known as The Time of Rejoicing.

Sukkot lasts for eight days, during which we are commanded to dwell in the sukkah, a temporary outdoor home. The sukkah is rickety and flimsy and provides only the slightest bit of shelter against the elements, with its roof of branches laid on sparsely enough that we can still see the stars shining through.

This has always been one of our family's favorite holidays. After long hours in shul, it's nice to hang out at home, sharing meals with family and friends in the sukkah. Apart from cooking and building the sukkah itself, there's not much to do other than the daily waving of the lulav and etrog. The lulav is a set of branches made of willow, myrtle, and palm and the etrog is a citrus fruit rather like a warty lemon, all shipped fmo Israel. I have mixed feelings about these as the expense and the environmental impact of air shipping from overseas doesn't make a lot of ecological or financial sense. One of my friends talks of using local greens and fruits and I think this is a fine idea, but I'm a sucker for tradition so we continue to make the purchase.

This year we have a lovely new sukkah. Our old 8x8' lattice covered cube had begun to disintegrate after years of outdoor storage. Yes, it's supposed to be a humble dwelling but it's not supposed to come crashing down on those dwelling inside and we had reached a point of danger. After studying numerous plans online, The Spouse designed his own and after only three trips to Home Depot and two to the hardware store down the street our beautiful new "double wide" 8x16' sukkah came to be. It's spacious and cozy, with an open corner so guest don't feel cramped. We spent much of today decorating and embellishing and it now makes a lovely termporary home. The kids made paper lanterns and hung fruit. We made an 18' paper chain entirely out of the colored sheets of paper making up the synagogue's high holiday mailing which I think must earn some points against shipping from Israel.

The big question, of course, is why? What is this dwelling in the sukkah all about anyway? As ever, there are so many interpretations. We are commanded to dwell in sukkot to remember the years of wandering in the desert without a home. Today I think that translates beautifully into awareness of the fragility of life and the transitory nature of physical possessions. Spending a week in a space that is sufficient--maybe chilly, maybe damp, but in the end enough is an important reminder of those who go without and our own desires for excess.

Except that it really isn't deprivation. It's a lovely festival and we enjoy visiting with friends and sharing tasty meals in our temporary home. Chag Sameach!

Yom Kippur

I keep trying to write about Yom Kippur and the emotional ups and downs of the day, but nothing I write really captures what it was like, especially this year. Rather than try to compose something coherent, I'll just give you the following loose thoughts and I'll abandon hope of deftly stringing them together .

Moments before we sat down to our pre-fast meal, I received an email holiday greeting from someone who hasn't responded to me for the last nine months. I took it as a good sign.

Kol Nidrei was hot, crowded, and an emotional kick in the gut as expected. Another Jewish homeschooling mama does a far better job than I could explaining this beautiful service here. The past year has been hard in so many ways and I had plenty for which to feel regret.

My moral shortcomings, upon which I'd meditated all evening, were abruptly forgotten upon leaving the building as we walked to our car with a number of young women who were The Dark Lord's classmates for years. Their laughter was indescribably soothing. I couldn't help thinking how silly and somber we grownups must seem on Yom Kippur when you're fourteen and all your big mistakes lie in the future, unimagined.

A first: all my children got up and got dressed in suitable clothing without a fuss, allowing us plenty of time to arrive at morning services promptly. I was already deep into my fasting headache, so not having to struggle was a blessing.

I spent most of the morning not in prayer, but in the child care room fulfilling a promise I'd made to help out. There are both good and bad sides to a highly participatory congregation and I missed far less than many of my fellow congregants. My only complaint? I missed MonkeyBoy leading the Ashrei prayer (Psalm 145 if you're counting). It's something of an honor to asked to lead this, and I had worried about his panicking in front of the hundreds of folks who show up on Yom Kippur. Due to my obligations elsewhere in the building, I missed it, but I heard he was a star and I couldn't help but kvell just slightly when people came up to him throughout the day and praised him.

Yom Kippur is an all day deal, but there's a 2 hour break mid afternoon. I was feeling quite light headed by this point (no food will do that) and we went home for a quick nap. Sometimes I stick around as I find it easier to focus when I stay in the building, but the nap was just what I needed and I returned for the last few hours able to concentrate on the work at hand.

The last part of Yom Kippur services always feel just slightly hysterical to me: there's all the imagery of the closing of the gates, the last minute hopes for another year. Everyone is hungry, tired, hungry, hot, hungry and yes, even a bit hungry. But there's also an incredible sense of joy at the end of the day. On a personal level, I felt like I did the work I needed to do and getting through the fast always makes me feel strong. Being with a couple of hundred people who've been through the same thing is slightly euphoric. In the years when I haven't fasted (due to pregnancy, nursing, or health issues) I haven't had the same feeling. Maybe it's just a weird tribal thing, but I like it--it's deeply satisfying.

But The Holidays, of course, are not yet over. Today was spent planning, shopping for parts, and starting to build a new sukkah. After all the pomp and formality of the last couple of weeks, it's time for Sukkot, one of the best holidays ever. Stay tuned.

L'Shanah Tovah

As the sun goes down tonight, Jews around the world will celebrate Rosh Hashana, the birthday of the world. What better time than September to celebrate new beginnings? Maybe it's because I've never really left the academic world, but this time of year feels ripe with change in a way that I've never felt at midwinter. I'm not one for new year's resolutions made in the dark of December, but the sunny days of late summer and early autumn have always seemed the perfect time to reflect on the previous year and reexamine where I want to concentrate my focus.

Since last Rosh Hashsana, I've gone through a lot. There's been strife and loss and really difficult choices. I've tried to act honorably and had my generosity returned with cold silence and that still hurts. Dear friends have left and more will be gone in the first weeks of the new year. They're not gone for good, but they leave empty spaces in our lives. I've been run ragged trying to meet all the commitments that marriage, family, work, parenting, and volunteering encompass. I've struggled with an illness that came out of nowhere and really messed me up for a time. And I've run up against the reality of my limitations in ways I'd never imagined possible. I've always known that sometimes the right choices are the hardest but I've never felt it like I have this year.

Despite all the challenges of the last year, I've also had the tremendous pleasure of watching my firstborn read from the Torah at his bar mitzvah. I still get teary when I think of the love and pride that overwhelmed me that day. Watching him take himself out into the wider world as he begins high school fills me with pride at his courage and sure sense of himself. I've watched as my younger son has learned to control his tempestuous emotions and worked to manage his peculiar challenges. Through this process he has matured and grown stronger in ways that warm my heart. My youngest has fairly exploded with curiosity and learning in the last year and I am repeatedly stunned by her ability to make connections and explore the world.

We use a lot of imagery this time of year that talks about missing the mark and I love that because it assumes, first of all, that we have a target and that, I suppose, is the first step in making sense of how we will spend our days. I tend to make the same promises to myself year after year about seeing my kids for who they are today and not getting too wound up about who they'll be later, about cultivating patience, about listening. I always miss the mark, guaranteed. Or, to be honest, I just forget about it altogether.

So how lovely it is that we get an opportunity each year for a fresh start, like hitting a reset button. I find these holidays to be challenging, but also very rewarding. Writing this post has taken many attempts as there's just so much whirling through my brain right now. What I know, deep down and with perfect clarity, is that I crave that promise of renewal his year like no other.

So let it be that all who are seeking it find a new beginning and a sweet year.

Turkey Sandwich

I've finally decided to faced the fact that we are a mere two weeks from Passover. The more ambitious of my tribe have been cleaning, scrubbing, and planning for weeks while I've merrily had my head in the sand. The friend who normally prods me into action as we plan our shared family seder is no longer speaking to me, so I've been a state of denial and realize that I'm going to have to make it happen without her which is both overwhelming and quite sad.

I made the initial crosstown trek to the one Albertson's store that carries all the kosher-for-Pesach items and bought the initial round of supplies including 10 pounds of matzah and the nasty kosher marshmallows that my kids seem to find a reasonable compensation for a week without bread, pasta, tortillas, cereal, and crackers. I've never understood th attraction of the marshmallows but they keep the kids happy.

I was feeling generous and decided to splurge a bit and buy The Dark Lord some flesh. While we have the requisite two sets of dishes (more actually) and all the cookware and what have you to enable us to cook and serve separate meat and dairy meals, meat is rarely seen in our house. I'm just not much of a meat cook, mostly because there's not a whole lot of meat I like. I did order 5lb of beef brisket which, when cooked according to my grandmother's recipe, really isn't meat at all as it melts in the mouth..."like buttah". I'll pick that up next week and cook it to serve my family midweek when the post-seder grumbling begins.

But today I bought the kid a pound of sliced kosher turkey so he could make a bunch of sandwiches and grow a few more inches. I can only buy this stuff at the one store across town so it's a bit of an occasion but I was happy to get the kid his much loved meat. He hoovered down a couple of sandwiches this afternoon and was eating the turkey once again when I came home from work this evening. I noticed that he had his meat sandwich on a dairy plate and was pointing out the error when I realized that he'd also put a bunch of cheese on his turkey sandwich. Now, mixing up plates I can understand. We eat meat so rarely that it's not uncommon to reach for the default (dairy) plates but someone usually remembers. But it's rather hard to accidentally put cheese your turkey sandwich. When I asked him about it, what I heard was something along the lines of "the rules are stupid, I can eat whatever I want, and I'm not even Jewish anyway".

Whew. It felt like one of those handle-this-correctly-or-you're toast parenting moments. I tried to stay calm which wasn't easy while The Spouse (who, I'll just add here, isn't even Jewish) tossed the whole $6.50/lb turkey sandwich in the trash which rather ticked off both The Dark Lord and myself as I was busy trying to determine my best response.

I know I can't force my kid to be Jewish. I can't (nor do I want to) tell him how he has to be Jewish. But it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that he be expected to respect the rules of this house. We keep kosher. Not by Chabad standards, but biblical kashrut is an important part of my keeping a Jewish home and it's been that way since The Dark Lord was tiny. I have no idea why he wanted to flaunt the rules so blatantly tonight. I kept trying to imagine what he hoped to accomplish with that turkey and cheddar sandwich. Why was it so important to him? And to me?

Judaism and I have a complex relationship and I tend to move in and out of my need for traditional observance. Sometimes I attend services regularly and other times I just can't be bothered. Sometimes I am bowled over by the wisdom and beauty of Jewish ritual and sometimes I think it's all hooey and I'd rather just knit. I've had periods when I examine the mitzvot (commandments) in great detail and try to increase my level of observance and other times I dig deep and realize that I can't in good conscience participate.

But the thing is, kashrut is easy. My friends who have more liberal diets will think I'm crazy for saying so, but really, it's easy once you get the hang of it. And it's concrete. There are things Jews don't eat and there are ways that Jews don't eat. There's nothing inherently wrong with shrimp or bacon or cheeseburgers--we just don't eat them. I don't have to dither around about what's permitted or how I can justify something. The food is either kosher or it isn't. And every time I choose the hechshered sour cream over the one with gelatin, every time I order the only vegetarian dish in a restaurant, every time I drive across town for kosher meat then I'm making choices that affirm my Judaism. At least that's what I've always thought.

I've always been squeamish about meat. I can't really choke it down unless I block out images of dead animals. Kashrut requires separate meat and dairy meals--you make one or the other. I like to say that I'll take butter over meat any day, but really I find it rather nasty to cook and eat meat so 99% of the time we eat dairy or vegan around here. We're always told that kosher slaughter is more humane but in the end, the cow is still dead and probably isn't able to distinguish between the relative merits of a bolt to the skull or a sharp knife to the throat.

Today as the man in the kosher deli sliced up my Rubashkin turkey I couldn't help but think of all the horror stories I've read about the kosher meat processing plants. It's bad enough that the meat's not sustainably raised and that the animals likely don't have much of a life before slaughter. It's also very likely that the meat was processed by exploited laborers who work a miserable, dangerous job for shockingly low pay. And my buying this "kosher" meat perpetuates all of this. What, I wonder, is Jewish about that?

So in the end all I could really do is talk to The Dark Lord about respecting his parents by respecting house rules which, if you know your ten commandments falls under number five. That teen bravado that's been flexing its muscles backed down pretty quickly. He couldn't say it or anything, but I knew he was sorry when he started baking cookies and brought me the first fruits of his labors.