The decision to observe kashrut

MALKA RAPPAPORT SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN

In the first of a two-part series, Malka Rappaport explains her decision to become kosher.

If milk comes from meat then why isn't it fleishig? Why is a kosher symbol required to know that a food product is kosher? Why can't china be kashered? Why do new utensils require immersion in a mikvah? Isn't it really hard to keep kosher? And why should I keep kosher anyway?

These are just a few of the endless questions I asked en route to making my kitchen kosher. And I do mean endless questions. It seems the more I learn, the more questions I have - and it's only been a year and a half for me. And, after a lifetime of keeping kosher, my rebbetzin is still discovering answers to new questions. You see, one of the beauties of the entire experience is discovering that kashrut, and the Torah itself, is like an ocean - astoundingly vast, full of life and deep.

Why keep kosher in the first place? Well, if you asked 100 people, I'm sure you'd get as many different responses. It's such a personal experience. For me, it started as an issue of identity, then grew to a matter of survival, commitment, belief and spirituality.

I had been seriously ill for an extended length of time. Bedridden then extremely incapacitated, not able to do all of the activities and pursuits that had been my primary sources of joy and identity, I experienced a sort of identity crisis. In the process of putting the pieces of my self back together, I recognized that I am a Jew and a Jewish woman, but I had no idea what that meant. So I set out on a mission to find out, "What does it mean to be a Jew, what does it mean to be a Jewish woman and how can I express these parts of myself?"

I started going to classes, asking questions of rabbis and rebbetzins, reading everything I could get my hands on and thinking, deeply. I discovered that there are three mitzvot especially entrusted to women: lighting Shabbat candles, symbolizing keeping Shabbat; separating challah, symbolizing keeping kosher; and the mikvah, symbolizing keeping the laws of family purity. I decided at this time that keeping kosher would be a very personal and meaningful way for me to express my identity as a Jewish woman. I also felt a sense of mission and responsibility.

I felt that if my ancestors could survive slavery, exile and Holocaust, then I can survive freedom and I have a responsibility to do so. I see it repeated over and over, time again, in countless Jewish families, including my own. One generation stops keeping Shabbat, then the next generation stops keeping kosher, the next marries a non-Jew. It's a road of assimilation leading ultimately to extinction, and I don't want to be a part of it. I had started to see the beauty of Judaism and wanted to know it better and preserve it. I want my children to know their heritage, to find in it meaning, strength and beauty, and to want to preserve it too. Keeping kosher would be a way for me to keep the Jewish people alive.

I remember how incredibly moved I was reading the story of the Canadian couple who travelled to Warsaw in 1963 on a rare science expedition beyond the iron curtain ("A Set of Dishes" in Body and Soul: A Handbook for Kosher Living).

Having toured the remnants of the once-thriving Jewish community, they were visited by a Polish Jew and his two children who they had met at the old Jewish cemetery:

"We had heard that there was a Jewish school and wanted to hear more about it. He, it [turned out], was looking for a handout. The seven-year-old child knew nothing. The 11-year-old proudly recited the sum total of his Jewish knowledge: the four questions from the Passover Haggadah. We drank tea. I gave them a gift of my business card and they left. Then we both cried. The end of Warsaw's centuries of Jewish creativity was a little boy who could barely stammer out 'Ma Nishtana.' Then Gail reacted. She sat up on her bed where she had been crying and spoke the most firm words I had heard in our seven years of marriage.

" 'I don't know what you think and I really don't care, but I've made up my mind. As soon as we get back I'm going to ask Moishe [Rabbi Feller] to make our house kosher. We're the only ones left. There's no one else. If we lose it, if we don't do it, if our children don't know about it, there won't be any Jews anymore. You can do what you want. But our house is going to be Jewish.'

"It was a defiant proclamation and she meant it. The pictures, the books and the music were not enough. She intended to transform the house organically, its very essence. Moreover, she was as good as her word...."

It's no wonder the Jewish woman is known as the akerit habayit, the pillar of the Jewish home. Having the mitzvot of kashrut, Shabbat and family purity especially entrusted to her, the Jewish woman is not only the pillar of the home, but the pillar of the nation. What an awesome trust and responsibility!

These ideas - identity and survival - turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg. The more I explored, the more I discovered how many layers of meaning there are to kashrut. For example, on a spiritual level, Judaism teaches that by fulfilling a Torah commandment - a mitzvah - we bring a little heaven down to earth:
"Each of the commandments, many of which involve physical objects, serves as a channel or connection between a Jew and G-d. Each mitzvah performed strengthens this connection. Physical existence, exemplified by the body, is neither spurned nor glorified for its own sake, but elevated and refined in the service of the soul. The physical world itself is a vehicle for bringing holiness into the world." (Body and Soul 4)

The Torah also teaches that there is a strong mind-body connection. How we treat our bodies affects our states of mind and the state of our souls. "The food we eat is absorbed into our flesh and blood, directly affecting all aspects of our being.... For a Jew, non-kosher food dulls the mind and heart, reducing the ability to absorb concepts of Torah and mitzvot." (Body and Soul 15) It is believed that when a Jew eats kosher food, receptivity to Torah and sensitivity to his/her spiritual task is enhanced. "Even a light shines brighter through a good lamp and the same trees yield different fruits according to the soil in which they are planted." (Body and Soul 6)

At this point in my life, there was no question for me, whether or not to keep kosher. It was a given. It was important to my identity, survival, freedom and well-being. Now I had to learn all the "hows." Having never lived in a kosher home, this task seemed rather daunting at first, so I wrote a list of eight steps to becoming kosher. I did not set a timeline, moving instead from one step to the next as I felt ready. One step took a month or so, another step took three. All in all, it was about a year of learning and practice before I felt ready for the final step, having my rabbi actually kasher my kitchen.

Next week: The steps to kashrut.

Malka Rappaport is a freelance writer living in Vancouver.

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