Keeping Kosher Enough

I have several distinct childhood memories of my family's experience with Kashrut. Probably my first such memory is my mother soaking meat in tall and round white metal container with a black rim near our back door in our house on Broadleigh in Columbus, Ohio. I remember asking her what she was doing and she said something like "I have to soak the meat to get the blood out so it can be kosher". I was about 4 years old at the time.

Another memory is of shopping with my mother at a store called Martin's, in Columbus, Ohio ("Marty's" to cool Jews). It was a kosher market, and I think there were even two locations at one point, but to a very young child it was merely the grocery. My mother and I would always check out with a clerk named "Ossie", a larger-than-life, soul-mother-of-the-earth sort of black woman--at least to me. Ossie and I "had a thing going on", and this 3- or 4- or 5-year old always loved Ossie; we were buddies, and I always looked forward to seeing her when Mom shopped at Marty's.

I also remember that, after we moved to St. Louis, my family stopped buying kosher meat. My mother said it was because the market was so far away (about 8 miles) and so expensive. We did, however continue to have two sets of dishes and silverware. And I remember my father railing against having margerine (pareve margerine, mind you) with meat meals because it was "being like the goyim". That pronouncement sparked endless debates around a dinner table which encouraged debate, but my father was, well, the father, so that was that. He would also check, on "fleischik" nights, to make sure our salad dressings contained no cheese, and he would only eat Campbell's Vegetarian Vegetable Soup, because the other kind was made with beef stock. One time, during Pesach, he really let me have it when, on a trip to Glaser's Drug Store, I bought a Hershey Bar (for $0.10). "Don't you remember it's Passover!?", he scolded.

"Sorry", I replied. "I didn't know chocolate bars were made with bread". To this day, I don't see what's so bad about a chocolate bar on Pesach--especially in such an ambiguously kosher family as mine.

Then there was my mother instructing us whenever my grandmother would visit, that we mustn't tell Grandma the meat isn't kosher. Apparently, even grown children care what their parents think, but only for a while. Some time later, I remember my mother, grandmother and I were eating at McDonald's. As always, my grandmother ordered "Filet of Fish", but I had a cheeseburger. Actually, make that a double cheeseburger. And a shake. As I unwrapped my aromatic treasure, my grandmother commented disapprovingly that my mom was letting me get cheese on my McDonald's hamburger. We're at freaking MCDONALD'S and my grandmother wanted me not to have cheese on my double treyf-burger. My mother told my grandmother, in so many words, to mind her own business and get with the times.

Later, when we moved to our smaller house on Springport, Mom jettisoned the second set of dishes due, she said, to space constraints in our new kitchen. From then on, the watchwords were "kosher style"--until, a few years later when "kosher" had even less to do with "style". After that, our relationship to kashrut was "why bother". So we didn't.

So it is against this mosaic of experiences that I have always approached Kashrut. For a while as a much younger man, I tried to keep Kosher, but I stopped. And when I realized lightning wouldn't strike me down if I ate pork bacon, I did that, too, but never in my house!! Perhaps another blog someday about people keeping a kosher house and eating treyf when they go out.

Kosher meat was seldom a question, and separating meat from milk, almost never a thought. Deep down, though, it always bothered me that I was so far removed from kosher eating, but I just never lived the sort of life where keeping kosher was easy. And trust me--my friends and family had plenty bad to say about those who tried. The most caustic comments about some Jews' audacity to keep kosher will always come from other Jews. The fact is, to many "modern" Jews, keeping kosher is irrelevant to the daily lives we've created for ourselves; it's just not done, and when it is, eyes roll.

But still, I always had a little spark of excitment when I'd walk into a kosher restaurant, or bakery, or market. It was like coming home again. On visits to St. Louis, I'd meet my friend, Brent, at Simon Kohn's kosher market & deli for lunch. I loved being there and eating their food, but always worried that I'd be discovered as a fraud. Surely some passer-by would see me in the window and shout "I've seen that man eating at McDonald's"!!! Oh, the embarrassment.

Not exactly for that reason, I decided about two months ago to keep what I call "Kosher Enough". I've stopped eating meat that wasn't killed according to the laws of Kashrut, and I don't mix meat with dairy. When I go out, I'm essentially a "fishetarian", and I'm as kosher as I'm comfortable with when we eat at home. Ergo, "kosher 'enough'". I'm sure there are many who think my "kosher enough" isn't kosher at all; but I get some comfort knowing that at least I'm trying (and also from knowing some people would find fault no matter how hard I tried).

Some day, I may even decide to keep a kosher kitchen with a full three sets of dishes--meat, milk & treyf (don't forget I have a Catholic husband who's not obligated to eat kosher food). If I'm out to prove anything, it's only to myself--that in a normal life, it's possible to honor such an important commandment. In so doing, it might be nice to show other Jews, though, that people honoring the commandment of Kashrut can do so without seeming offensive to other Jews who've chosen not to.

So far, it's been remarkably--even shockingly--easy. But I know the hardest part is just around the corner. When, for example, I eat at a friend's home, or attend an event where the meal is planned in advance, I'll have to try to stick to my kashrut without making a mini-scene. It'll be hard, but after I do it, I'm sure it'll get easier.

All that said, if I'm successful at this old, new "kosher thing", I will dearly miss pepperoni pizza.