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September 12, 2008
Value trade-offs of keeping kashrut
Does keeping a kosher kitchen mean that you can't eat ethically?
MIRA SUCHAROV
I've been thinking a lot about kashrut lately, and not only because Rosh Hashanah makes me wax nostalgic for my Babba Rosie's trans-fat-coated soup mandlen. Kashrut has been on my mind because it's one of Judaism's clearest and most obvious day-to-day examples of an absolute value commitment. It's also one that I find troubling along ethical lines, at least in its current formulation. That is, to keep kosher one must decide to bracket all other ethical and value concerns: ecological, health and social, to name a few. With the exception of sh'chita (kosher slaughter) – the humaneness of which is itself debated within the animal-rights community – kashrut is arguably not intended to be an ethical system beyond its own internal logic.
This is not to say that one cannot be kosher and ethical – including seeking out organic, healthy and pro-labor or pro-social products – but it's clearly a lot harder to do so. If you find yourself shopping for kosher cranberry juice, you might end up having to buy the sugar-added juice (which happens to have a hechsher – kosher certification) over the bottle containing 100 per cent juice, as I had to when an observant relative once came to visit. If you're selecting which kind of brisket to buy for a yom tov, it is a much more formidable task to find kosher, grass-fed beef, than kosher beef filled with bovine-disease-causing grain and antibiotics. To keep kosher means one is necessarily prohibited from choosing the certified-organic, but non-certified-kosher, over its kosher alternative.
My day job has me researching and writing a book manuscript about Jewish values but, for now, what concerns me is the idea that a literalist interpretation of halachah (including the laws surrounding kashrut) forces these decisions without any room for value trade-offs. It's not a matter of setting priorities and negotiating value compromises; with kashrut, no such process is permitted for ethical negotiation.
One could say that kashrut ends up being a pretty value-thin commitment; the commitment being the goal of kashrut-adherence itself. So what, beyond the world Jewish community deciding to abolish kashrut (as was the case with animal sacrifice following the destruction of the Second Temple), is to be done?
Some in the Jewish community have decided to address these problems by adhering to a loose practice known as "eco-kashrut." Inspired by Jewish Renewal founder Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi in the 1970s, eco-kashrut refers to ensuring that what one eats conforms not only to halachically kosher principles, but to ethical ones as well. This might mean seeking out organic food, adopting vegetarianism or eliminating Styrofoam. With the increasing popularity of the "new food movement" being spread by the ideas of the 100-mile diet, community-supported agriculture projects and the recent writings of food author Michael Pollan, Internet-savvy Jews are adding a Jewish flavor through groups such as Hazon and its accompanying blog "The Jew and the Carrot."
More specifically, perhaps, and encouraged by the worker-abuse scandals surrounding Agriprocessors, Inc., the largest kosher meatpacking plant in the United States – the Conservative movement has gone further in recognizing that kashrut should force ethical choices beyond simply the commitment to halachah. To that end, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism has initiated the concept of a hechsher tzedek, a symbol that would accompany the traditional hekhsher, and that would indicate that the product has resulted from fair labor practices, has a limited environmental footprint and involves corporate transparency.
Why should this be a community concern, and why is it not simply a personal one? I would argue that kashrut has clear implications at the public level. It is much more likely that the organizers of a Jewish community event will serve a trans-fat-laden cake (it being parve) over an all-butter alternative. The amount of Styrofoam present at Jewish events is similarly alarming. The idea of hecsher tzedek doesn't necessarily address the types of dishes their certified food is to be eaten on, but an overall mindfulness to aspects and practices beyond the halachic stipulations of not mixing meat and milk, for instance, cannot but bring us closer to attaining a global spirituality that takes note of a broad range of ethical concerns.
It also helps keep Judaism – and Jewish communal involvement – relevant for those whose ethical compass points in directions beyond a literal reading of Jewish textual sources and towards those with whom – whether animal, vegetable or mineral – we share this earth. That may not be good for the soup mandlen company, but it cannot be but good for Jewish stomachs and souls.
Mira Sucharov is an associate professor of political science at Carleton University.
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