We had the most lovely Friday night dinner recently. We don’t often have the opportunity to attend or host a traditional Shabbat dinner, but this past Friday, we did. My husband was off from work on December 24, so we decided to host a Shabbos dinner. We tried to invite Jewish friends, most of whom were either out of town or had other plans already. Ordinarily, we’d have invited some non-Jewish friends to round out our table, but we figured most of them would be busy that night.
As it turned out, a family we know who are not Jewish asked us Friday morning if we were still having a dinner that night, and we were still looking for guests. When we had trouble finding guests the more traditional way, I had resorted to pleas on my Facebook page for anyone who wanted to come who didn’t have any other plans. As it happened, despite their celebrating Christmas, our friends were very interested in coming to our house for dinner, so we happily welcomed them.
What resulted was a warm, friendly Shabbos table. We had a veritable feast. Given the whole day to cook, and the fact that both my husband and I can and do cook on a pretty equal basis, we were able to make quite a few dishes, from appetizer to dessert. We had homemade challah, cucumber-and-tomato salad, gefilte fish, Moroccan-style salmon, chicken, meatballs, broccoli kugel, roasted potatoes, and homemade brownies. We did candle-lighting before sundown, kiddush (blessing over the wine) and Motzi (blessing over the bread) before the meal, and the Grace After Meals at the end. The entire Shabbat dinner experience, and, all-in-all, quite a successful meal on all counts.
Our non-Jewish friends asked what the significance of the dinner was. Since it was a special night for most Christian or Christian-identifying people in the world, she wanted to know if December 24 specifically was special, or if we were just having a random dinner party, or what. I took tremendous pride in explaining that this was a reasonably traditional Shabbat dinner, something that Jews around the world do every Friday night. To us, what was special wasn’t that it was December 24, it was that it was Friday night. It occurred to me that some might look upon it with awe, that Jews have a special holiday dinner every week.
I felt especially Jewish last Friday, and not in a negative way. I felt like we were doing something so absolutely right, by having a nice Shabbat dinner on Christmas Eve, just like we might have on any given Friday night, whether it was December 24 or April 27 or August 5. On the other hand, the fact that we were having a nice Shabbat dinner on December 24, as opposed to all our neighbors and many of our friends who were celebrating Christmas Eve in whatever traditional way their families have, was a way of acknowledging in a particularly powerful way that we are different.
Showing posts with label American experience. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American experience. Show all posts
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
A Very Happy Hannukah
Note: Sorry for the two-month absence. We've been busy 'round these parts, with purchasing and moving into a new house. I'm going to try to get back on track with this blog, as I know some of you have been asking for more and others have been checking back to see if there's anything new. (I appreciate the votes of confidence! Please recommend my blog to your friends!) And so, I jump back in with a seasonally appropriate post, with the intent to continue posting in a more regular fashion!
A few weeks ago, as I’m sure you are all aware, was Hannukah. My older son is four now, and I expect he is beginning to make memories that will stick with him for a good chunk of his life, unlike the previous three years which have undoubtedly already begun to fade. Therefore, I wanted to make sure Hannukah would really make an impression and a good memory. I also wanted Hannukah to be meaningful to my two-year-old, so that even if he doesn’t remember it 10 years from now, he might at least remember it for next year and learn to be excited for it.
To this end, some Jewish Americans go the route of making Hannukah a big snazzy holiday with lots of decorations, lots of big presents, huge family meals, and so on, a la that other winter holiday. The theory is that if Jewish kids have their own big exciting winter holiday, they won’t envy their Christian friends who have all the trappings of a proper Christmas celebration, including a decorated tree, lights all over the exterior of the house, reindeer in the front yard, a huge inflatable Frosty the Snowman, and mega-gifts like LCD TVs and Wiis and this year’s equivalent of Tickle-Me Elmo.
I don’t subscribe to this theory. My feeling is that Jews have enough holidays to celebrate, enough gift-giving times of year, enough major family dinners, enough special traditions, that to inject the commercialized and frankly gaudy “traditions” of the Christmas “season” into an otherwise relatively minor Jewish holiday is just not necessary. Instead, make a big deal over our own holidays, so that by the time Christmas rolls around, the kids know that they have plenty of things to celebrate. Save the big gifts for birthdays or Passover.
I believe that the menorah (channukiah) lit with flickering candles and set in the window as a reminder to all of G-d’s miracles is beautiful and a lovely statement in contrast with the flickering LEDs of a modern string of Christmas lights.
I was gratified to find that my kids participated in and looked forward to the menorah lighting each evening this year. I was pleased with myself for remembering to light candles at home all eight nights. I was happy to be able to put a menorah in a front window of the house, albeit in the upstairs bedroom as opposed to by the front door. (I was amazed to realize that we have no front-facing windows on the first floor!) We lit one menorah in the kitchen so that we could enjoy the candles while we ate dinner. I even made pretty tasty latkes the first night. We lit a second menorah in the spare bedroom upstairs, displayed proudly in the window. The advantage to lighting two menorahs was that two kids + two menorahs means that each got to choose candles every night in a most equitable fashion.
It occurred to me, upon being asked how my Hannukah had been, that my younger son has never actually been exposed to the might of the Christmas “season.” He does not attend daycare, and all of the toddlers he plays with regularly are also Jewish. My older son goes to a non-religious Montessori school and previously to a nonreligious daycare, but Santas and wreaths and Christmas carols are all around for him. (Last year, he very excitedly pointed out a Santa decoration and said, “Look! There’s Samantha!”) This year, though, he didn’t seem to care as much. I feel that his teacher was very sensitive to the fact that not all of her students are Christian or celebrate Christmas. Indeed, my son is not the only one for whom Christmas is not the focus of the months of November and December. The school has a reasonably large Indian component, some of whom are Sikh, others Muslim, and I don’t know what else, presumably Hindu? The owner and administrator of the school are Muslim, from Iran, as well. This multicultural aspect of his school meant that my son wasn’t as inundated as he might have been elsewhere.
We did get them a few presents. Somewhat fortunately, my older son’s birthday is at the end of October, so he was still receiving presents into November, which was close enough to Hannukah that he didn’t feel deprived of gifts. My younger son was born five days before Hannukah two years ago, which puts his birthday near Hannukah every year, so he gets a lot of “This is for your birthday and Hannukah” type stuff. I don’t know how the dynamics of all of this would change if I were to have a non-fall baby, though!
I guess we’ll see how it all goes when they’re 10 and 8, or 16 and 14, instead of impressionable and malleable 4- and 2-year-olds. I can’t make the assumption now that my approach has proven successful, but I was an am very pleased so far with how my kids have taken to their own Jewish traditions and don’t seem to need Christmas to feel fulfilled.
I think having a nice, traditional Thanksgiving helped, too. One big family dinner is really plenty in the space of 6 weeks, in my opinion!
A few weeks ago, as I’m sure you are all aware, was Hannukah. My older son is four now, and I expect he is beginning to make memories that will stick with him for a good chunk of his life, unlike the previous three years which have undoubtedly already begun to fade. Therefore, I wanted to make sure Hannukah would really make an impression and a good memory. I also wanted Hannukah to be meaningful to my two-year-old, so that even if he doesn’t remember it 10 years from now, he might at least remember it for next year and learn to be excited for it.
To this end, some Jewish Americans go the route of making Hannukah a big snazzy holiday with lots of decorations, lots of big presents, huge family meals, and so on, a la that other winter holiday. The theory is that if Jewish kids have their own big exciting winter holiday, they won’t envy their Christian friends who have all the trappings of a proper Christmas celebration, including a decorated tree, lights all over the exterior of the house, reindeer in the front yard, a huge inflatable Frosty the Snowman, and mega-gifts like LCD TVs and Wiis and this year’s equivalent of Tickle-Me Elmo.
I don’t subscribe to this theory. My feeling is that Jews have enough holidays to celebrate, enough gift-giving times of year, enough major family dinners, enough special traditions, that to inject the commercialized and frankly gaudy “traditions” of the Christmas “season” into an otherwise relatively minor Jewish holiday is just not necessary. Instead, make a big deal over our own holidays, so that by the time Christmas rolls around, the kids know that they have plenty of things to celebrate. Save the big gifts for birthdays or Passover.
I believe that the menorah (channukiah) lit with flickering candles and set in the window as a reminder to all of G-d’s miracles is beautiful and a lovely statement in contrast with the flickering LEDs of a modern string of Christmas lights.
I was gratified to find that my kids participated in and looked forward to the menorah lighting each evening this year. I was pleased with myself for remembering to light candles at home all eight nights. I was happy to be able to put a menorah in a front window of the house, albeit in the upstairs bedroom as opposed to by the front door. (I was amazed to realize that we have no front-facing windows on the first floor!) We lit one menorah in the kitchen so that we could enjoy the candles while we ate dinner. I even made pretty tasty latkes the first night. We lit a second menorah in the spare bedroom upstairs, displayed proudly in the window. The advantage to lighting two menorahs was that two kids + two menorahs means that each got to choose candles every night in a most equitable fashion.
It occurred to me, upon being asked how my Hannukah had been, that my younger son has never actually been exposed to the might of the Christmas “season.” He does not attend daycare, and all of the toddlers he plays with regularly are also Jewish. My older son goes to a non-religious Montessori school and previously to a nonreligious daycare, but Santas and wreaths and Christmas carols are all around for him. (Last year, he very excitedly pointed out a Santa decoration and said, “Look! There’s Samantha!”) This year, though, he didn’t seem to care as much. I feel that his teacher was very sensitive to the fact that not all of her students are Christian or celebrate Christmas. Indeed, my son is not the only one for whom Christmas is not the focus of the months of November and December. The school has a reasonably large Indian component, some of whom are Sikh, others Muslim, and I don’t know what else, presumably Hindu? The owner and administrator of the school are Muslim, from Iran, as well. This multicultural aspect of his school meant that my son wasn’t as inundated as he might have been elsewhere.
We did get them a few presents. Somewhat fortunately, my older son’s birthday is at the end of October, so he was still receiving presents into November, which was close enough to Hannukah that he didn’t feel deprived of gifts. My younger son was born five days before Hannukah two years ago, which puts his birthday near Hannukah every year, so he gets a lot of “This is for your birthday and Hannukah” type stuff. I don’t know how the dynamics of all of this would change if I were to have a non-fall baby, though!
I guess we’ll see how it all goes when they’re 10 and 8, or 16 and 14, instead of impressionable and malleable 4- and 2-year-olds. I can’t make the assumption now that my approach has proven successful, but I was an am very pleased so far with how my kids have taken to their own Jewish traditions and don’t seem to need Christmas to feel fulfilled.
I think having a nice, traditional Thanksgiving helped, too. One big family dinner is really plenty in the space of 6 weeks, in my opinion!
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Instant Gratification
Today I experienced instant gratification on a whole new level. My brother got me an iPod Touch for my birthday (now that’s a good brother!). Another friend got me an Amazon.com gift certificate. The combination made me think: Kindle eBook! I downloaded the (free) Kindle App from the App Store, went to a blog I frequent, AskMoxie, clicked through to the book NurtureShock which she recommended, and with one click, bought the Kindle version, and with the click of a button on my iPod, I owned the book. (To my chagrin, in my haste, I used my 1-click shopping, which paid for the book with the credit card linked to my account instead of with the gift certificate, but that’s not the point here.)
In the space of LITERALLY three clicks, I had the book. It took maybe one minute. Five if you count how long it took to browse to and download the Kindle App. Maybe less. Oh, and I had to enter a password once.
Before Amazon, before Internet Shopping, we had two options: Drive to the store, browse the physical shelves, pick up the item, peek at the price tag, take it to the cashier, and pay for it using an approved method like, I don’t know, cash, and drive home. And, *gasp*, you might have to go to more than one store to get everything you needed. This was the “instant” method. Alternatively, you could order something from a catalog by mail and expect to wait six to eight weeks to get it, COD or check or money order accepted.
Then, 15 years ago, we got Amazon.com and the Internet Shopping Revolution. Now we just had to browse the virtual shelves for just about anything under the sun, take our credit card from our wallet, type a long string of numbers, enter our address, and, voila, less than a week later, you had your stuff, without even leaving your house.
It’s gotten worse. Now they save your information, so you don’t even have to get up to go find a credit card. You click a button, enter a password, and you’ve paid, like magic! You don’t even take part in the transaction anymore; you don't have to get out of bed. You pick something out, and you get it, just like that.
And now, with books anyway (I don’t suppose they’ve figured out how to email clothes or power tools), we can have it with no wait at all. No hoping the UPS guy will come today; no worrying that FedEx has misrouted your item. Click! There’s the book. Click! Paid for and ordered. Click! I’m reading it in the bathroom!
I was floored. And I’m no technophobe. I love computers; I’ve had one as long as I can remember. I was entering DOS commands before a lot of my friends had learned to type. I was slow on getting into the cell phone revolution, and I’ve only just obtained the iPod Touch, but that was a matter of money, not technophobia or reluctance.
But I was shocked by how easy it was. It didn’t even feel like spending money. I didn’t have to get up and go downstairs, find my purse, fish out my wallet, pick a credit card, come back upstairs, type in all the information, and then download the book. I just had to CLICK. Amazon already knows me! And so does Apple! How very convenient!
But what’s this have to do with the price of brisket in Crown Heights?
Well, for one, you still can’t download kosher brisket to your iPod, and I am now registering my formal complaint on that matter.
But, more to the point, what is this obsession with, this need for, instant gratification? Why do I need to have this book RIGHT NOW? Why should it even be possible? How impatient are we that someone actually thought up this whole system, so that I could have the book I want in three seconds or fewer?
In Judaism, we are taught to work for the sake of the work, not for the reward. We are taught that when we pray, we are to be in the moment, thinking of what we are doing right NOW, not what might come later. When we perform a mitzvah, it is for the sake of G-d and the performance of the deed, not for the sake of a reward we may or may not receive now or in the future. It's not about gratification at all, much less instant gratification. If anything, we might get a reward in the World To Come, which is about as far from instant gratification as I can think of.
Sometimes, maybe it’s worth getting in the car and driving to the store. Enjoy the time out of the house, see the sky, feel the ground beneath your feet, watch the clouds, smell the books, talk to people, oh, and if the book you want is on the shelf, interact with the cashier in order to buy it. And if the book isn’t there, maybe you didn’t need it all that badly, but at least you got some exercise walking the stacks.
If things are too easy, we forget the value in working for them. And the more we can instantly fulfill every whim, the more whims we will need to fulfill, and the faster we will need that fulfillment. This leads us to some amazing things, like the Kindle App for iPod. But it also leads us to recklessness and disregard in our quest to get what we want as fast as we can.
Take a moment just to be. Put down the iPhone when you’ve finished reading this post. That text message can wait, your client won’t notice if it takes three more minutes for you to answer her email, and your kids may as well start learning patience now. Do a mitzvah for the sake of the mitzvah. Here are some ideas for a simple mitzvah you can perform: Say a blessing over kosher food, ritually wash your hands when you wake up in the morning, say the Shema before you go to sleep, light Shabbos candles, give tzedakah, study Torah. If you need instructions on performing any of these mitzvot, or you want more ideas, feel free to leave me a comment, contact your rabbi, or (and I laugh even typing it) Google it.
Hey, the internet isn’t ALL bad.
In the space of LITERALLY three clicks, I had the book. It took maybe one minute. Five if you count how long it took to browse to and download the Kindle App. Maybe less. Oh, and I had to enter a password once.
Before Amazon, before Internet Shopping, we had two options: Drive to the store, browse the physical shelves, pick up the item, peek at the price tag, take it to the cashier, and pay for it using an approved method like, I don’t know, cash, and drive home. And, *gasp*, you might have to go to more than one store to get everything you needed. This was the “instant” method. Alternatively, you could order something from a catalog by mail and expect to wait six to eight weeks to get it, COD or check or money order accepted.
Then, 15 years ago, we got Amazon.com and the Internet Shopping Revolution. Now we just had to browse the virtual shelves for just about anything under the sun, take our credit card from our wallet, type a long string of numbers, enter our address, and, voila, less than a week later, you had your stuff, without even leaving your house.
It’s gotten worse. Now they save your information, so you don’t even have to get up to go find a credit card. You click a button, enter a password, and you’ve paid, like magic! You don’t even take part in the transaction anymore; you don't have to get out of bed. You pick something out, and you get it, just like that.
And now, with books anyway (I don’t suppose they’ve figured out how to email clothes or power tools), we can have it with no wait at all. No hoping the UPS guy will come today; no worrying that FedEx has misrouted your item. Click! There’s the book. Click! Paid for and ordered. Click! I’m reading it in the bathroom!
I was floored. And I’m no technophobe. I love computers; I’ve had one as long as I can remember. I was entering DOS commands before a lot of my friends had learned to type. I was slow on getting into the cell phone revolution, and I’ve only just obtained the iPod Touch, but that was a matter of money, not technophobia or reluctance.
But I was shocked by how easy it was. It didn’t even feel like spending money. I didn’t have to get up and go downstairs, find my purse, fish out my wallet, pick a credit card, come back upstairs, type in all the information, and then download the book. I just had to CLICK. Amazon already knows me! And so does Apple! How very convenient!
But what’s this have to do with the price of brisket in Crown Heights?
Well, for one, you still can’t download kosher brisket to your iPod, and I am now registering my formal complaint on that matter.
But, more to the point, what is this obsession with, this need for, instant gratification? Why do I need to have this book RIGHT NOW? Why should it even be possible? How impatient are we that someone actually thought up this whole system, so that I could have the book I want in three seconds or fewer?
In Judaism, we are taught to work for the sake of the work, not for the reward. We are taught that when we pray, we are to be in the moment, thinking of what we are doing right NOW, not what might come later. When we perform a mitzvah, it is for the sake of G-d and the performance of the deed, not for the sake of a reward we may or may not receive now or in the future. It's not about gratification at all, much less instant gratification. If anything, we might get a reward in the World To Come, which is about as far from instant gratification as I can think of.
Sometimes, maybe it’s worth getting in the car and driving to the store. Enjoy the time out of the house, see the sky, feel the ground beneath your feet, watch the clouds, smell the books, talk to people, oh, and if the book you want is on the shelf, interact with the cashier in order to buy it. And if the book isn’t there, maybe you didn’t need it all that badly, but at least you got some exercise walking the stacks.
If things are too easy, we forget the value in working for them. And the more we can instantly fulfill every whim, the more whims we will need to fulfill, and the faster we will need that fulfillment. This leads us to some amazing things, like the Kindle App for iPod. But it also leads us to recklessness and disregard in our quest to get what we want as fast as we can.
Take a moment just to be. Put down the iPhone when you’ve finished reading this post. That text message can wait, your client won’t notice if it takes three more minutes for you to answer her email, and your kids may as well start learning patience now. Do a mitzvah for the sake of the mitzvah. Here are some ideas for a simple mitzvah you can perform: Say a blessing over kosher food, ritually wash your hands when you wake up in the morning, say the Shema before you go to sleep, light Shabbos candles, give tzedakah, study Torah. If you need instructions on performing any of these mitzvot, or you want more ideas, feel free to leave me a comment, contact your rabbi, or (and I laugh even typing it) Google it.
Hey, the internet isn’t ALL bad.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Bacon, Bacon, Bacon
I have kept kosher to some extent pretty much all of my life. I’ve had varying levels of kashrut observance, from keeping separate dishes to eating certain kinds of meat in restaurants. Right now, we don’t eat meat that isn’t specifically kosher, but our kitchen isn’t 100% kosher, either. We’re sort of in the middle on the “kashrut spectrum,” if you will, where at one end is zero kashrut - eat anything, cook anything, try anything - and the other end is 100% kashrut, with carefully checked and marked food, separate dishes, utensils, cookware, and appliances.
That said, I remember eating bacon exactly one time in my entire life. Bacon is simply not in my culinary vocabulary, nor is any other kind of pork, shellfish, or game. It’s just something I would never eat. I don’t remember what bacon tastes like. I don’t have a clue why scallops and shrimp and lobster are so popular. To me, crustaceans look like giant bugs, and mollusks like big bags of mucus, and why would anyone want to eat that?
The thing is, I watch a lot of Food Network. (A lot.) I’ve learned quite a bit about cooking in doing so, and I consider myself a pretty decent cook (if I do say so myself…). Just about every chef on Food Network cooks a dish containing one or more non-kosher elements in just about every show. As an example, I was watching a rerun of “Giada at Home” this afternoon, and Giada de Laurentiis made stuffed peppers with ricotta, peas, and pancetta. She rhapsodized over the crispiness and saltiness of the pancetta, reveled in cooking it, and I sat there with a blank stare, because I couldn’t even begin to imagine what her dish would end up tasting like. As far as the rest of the ingredients, I could totally see myself making that dish – it looked delicious – but is it the same without the pancetta? I’ll never know.
I’ve learned not to let it bother me too much, the ubiquitousness of bacon and other pork products in most of the major world cuisines. I still enjoy watching the cooking shows, and I mentally remove the non-kosher items from a given dish, imagine what it might taste like, and decide if I’d like to try making it. (I won’t go into how chefs seem incapable of cooking anything without both meat and dairy products in them!) I’ve found some really brilliant and delicious recipes this way, such as Rachael Ray’s pumpkin soup (YUM). Simply replace the chicken stock with vegetable stock, or with a chicken-flavored, parve chicken soup base, and voila! Kosher soup. But I digress.
I understand that if you don’t keep kosher, bacon is pretty much a staple for breakfast, and bacon/pork fat are a perfectly reasonable thing to use to flavor your dishes. I don’t begrudge you non-kosher-keeping folks your bacon and pork. Really, I don’t. I don’t want any, but you’re welcome to eat it.
But recently I came upon a product in the store that I simply couldn’t get past. I couldn’t get it out of my head. That product is Kraft Deli Deluxe Cheese Slices, Bacon Cheddar. As far as I can tell, this is basically Kraft American Cheese with bacon in it. (I’m sure you’ve seen the idiotic commercials, with the “bomb squad” raiding a woman’s cooler, only to have the woman take the package of cheese out of the cooler, thank the bomb squad man, and happily put a slice of her bacon-cheese on a very nice looking sandwich.)
Is the American need for bacon so strong that it is now necessary to put bacon IN the cheese? See, this gets me on two levels. First, it’s bacon, as discussed above. Second, it’s meat and dairy together, which really doesn’t matter all that much, seeing as it’s bacon, except that I would never make a sandwich with both meat and cheese in it, so I simply cannot fathom the need to have a product which fuses the meat and the cheese into one simple slice.
On a similar note, I heard a commercial on the radio for turkey breast slices with bacon flavor. Apparently, the turkey is smoked along with the bacon, and you can actually see bits of bacon on your turkey! Wow!
I like turkey. I have nothing against it. But the thought of, well, contaminating it with bacon confuses me almost as much as the cheese.
I genuinely need some enlightenment, here. Is bacon that amazing that it needs to feature in every meal in the United States? What is it about bacon that makes people salivate so? And why, oh why, does Kraft need to put the bacon IN the cheese?!
That said, I remember eating bacon exactly one time in my entire life. Bacon is simply not in my culinary vocabulary, nor is any other kind of pork, shellfish, or game. It’s just something I would never eat. I don’t remember what bacon tastes like. I don’t have a clue why scallops and shrimp and lobster are so popular. To me, crustaceans look like giant bugs, and mollusks like big bags of mucus, and why would anyone want to eat that?
The thing is, I watch a lot of Food Network. (A lot.) I’ve learned quite a bit about cooking in doing so, and I consider myself a pretty decent cook (if I do say so myself…). Just about every chef on Food Network cooks a dish containing one or more non-kosher elements in just about every show. As an example, I was watching a rerun of “Giada at Home” this afternoon, and Giada de Laurentiis made stuffed peppers with ricotta, peas, and pancetta. She rhapsodized over the crispiness and saltiness of the pancetta, reveled in cooking it, and I sat there with a blank stare, because I couldn’t even begin to imagine what her dish would end up tasting like. As far as the rest of the ingredients, I could totally see myself making that dish – it looked delicious – but is it the same without the pancetta? I’ll never know.
I’ve learned not to let it bother me too much, the ubiquitousness of bacon and other pork products in most of the major world cuisines. I still enjoy watching the cooking shows, and I mentally remove the non-kosher items from a given dish, imagine what it might taste like, and decide if I’d like to try making it. (I won’t go into how chefs seem incapable of cooking anything without both meat and dairy products in them!) I’ve found some really brilliant and delicious recipes this way, such as Rachael Ray’s pumpkin soup (YUM). Simply replace the chicken stock with vegetable stock, or with a chicken-flavored, parve chicken soup base, and voila! Kosher soup. But I digress.
I understand that if you don’t keep kosher, bacon is pretty much a staple for breakfast, and bacon/pork fat are a perfectly reasonable thing to use to flavor your dishes. I don’t begrudge you non-kosher-keeping folks your bacon and pork. Really, I don’t. I don’t want any, but you’re welcome to eat it.
But recently I came upon a product in the store that I simply couldn’t get past. I couldn’t get it out of my head. That product is Kraft Deli Deluxe Cheese Slices, Bacon Cheddar. As far as I can tell, this is basically Kraft American Cheese with bacon in it. (I’m sure you’ve seen the idiotic commercials, with the “bomb squad” raiding a woman’s cooler, only to have the woman take the package of cheese out of the cooler, thank the bomb squad man, and happily put a slice of her bacon-cheese on a very nice looking sandwich.)
Is the American need for bacon so strong that it is now necessary to put bacon IN the cheese? See, this gets me on two levels. First, it’s bacon, as discussed above. Second, it’s meat and dairy together, which really doesn’t matter all that much, seeing as it’s bacon, except that I would never make a sandwich with both meat and cheese in it, so I simply cannot fathom the need to have a product which fuses the meat and the cheese into one simple slice.
On a similar note, I heard a commercial on the radio for turkey breast slices with bacon flavor. Apparently, the turkey is smoked along with the bacon, and you can actually see bits of bacon on your turkey! Wow!
I like turkey. I have nothing against it. But the thought of, well, contaminating it with bacon confuses me almost as much as the cheese.
I genuinely need some enlightenment, here. Is bacon that amazing that it needs to feature in every meal in the United States? What is it about bacon that makes people salivate so? And why, oh why, does Kraft need to put the bacon IN the cheese?!
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Community
When I think about a community, I think about a group of people who live in the same general region and who have something in common, who rely on each other, help each other out, and share friendships, social opportunities, and generally support each other. Community functions to give people a sense of belonging, to offer assistance during illness, when a new baby is born, to provide services for the dead. Community is often built around a religious institution or place of meeting, but it can also be based on other shared interests or simple geography.
In Judaism, community is essential. There are prayers that can only be said in the presence of 10 Jewish men, a minyan, prayers that are said daily. Weddings, funerals, and other rites of passage require the same presence of a minyan. Many laws can only be observed properly in the context of a community, since one needs a place to procure kosher meat, kosher baked goods, and the various types of clothing and religious items such as Torah scrolls, mezuzot, tefillin, and other ritual items commanded in the Torah.
Thus, Jews seek each other out.
We belong to a small community of Jews who are brought together under the roof and wings of our local Chabad rabbi and rebbetzin. It is Chabad’s singular purpose to bring Jews together, provide services to the Jewish community, and generally increase the holiness of the Jewish people wherever Jews may be found.
The past two days, we celebrated the holiday of Shavuot. Yesterday evening, our Chabad hosted an event at which we heard the reading of the Ten Commandments, as is traditional on Shavuot, and ate a dairy meal, also traditional on Shavuot. It was here that I witnessed something that strikes me as odd. We are not one community. We are three.
I say this is odd, because if we are “the Jewish community of Oceanside,” that implies that we have some familiarity with each other, that we have interacted on some level at some time. But there were people at the Chabad house last night whom I have never seen before, but who clearly were familiar with and to the rabbi and rebbetzin, and who knew other people there, also whom I had never seen before.
What happens is this: There are the cohort who attend services regularly or semi-regularly on Saturdays. There is the group made up of Hebrew school students and parents, who may either not attend services or who attend services at other area synagogues. And there are those who generally show up only for major events, such as this Shavuot dinner, the Passover seder, the High Holy Day services. That’s why I say we are three communities.
Last night was the first night where I felt like we three circles had a chance to interact and overlap. The rebbetzin went around encouraging us to introduce ourselves to people we don’t know, and our kids played together even though they’d never met. Certainly these people must have been at other events, but I felt like those other events were in more formal settings, which didn’t foster this kind of mingling. It was nice to see that “the Jewish community of Oceanside” didn’t consist solely of the 10 or so families I was most familiar with! Indeed, I would venture to say that last night was packed!
I feel that in a more traditional Jewish community, such as a more insular Orthodox neighborhood, this “three communities” phenomenon would not be so obvious. It seems like it reflects American society in general, where we have our school circles and our work circles and our social circles, and they mostly don’t overlap or interact. If we see someone we know in the supermarket, we might explain that, “Oh, that’s a friend from work,” or “Yeah, that’s the mother of my son’s friend,” and those two people may never have met and never will meet. They aren’t part of the same community, the same circles.
But if we are a Jewish community, shouldn’t we be a Jewish community? Shouldn’t we all be at least vaguely familiar to one another? We are all from the same circle. We all attend Chabad of Oceanside at least some of the time. I think as the community continues to grow and find cohesion, we’ll find the circles melding into one great group. As it should be.
In Judaism, community is essential. There are prayers that can only be said in the presence of 10 Jewish men, a minyan, prayers that are said daily. Weddings, funerals, and other rites of passage require the same presence of a minyan. Many laws can only be observed properly in the context of a community, since one needs a place to procure kosher meat, kosher baked goods, and the various types of clothing and religious items such as Torah scrolls, mezuzot, tefillin, and other ritual items commanded in the Torah.
Thus, Jews seek each other out.
We belong to a small community of Jews who are brought together under the roof and wings of our local Chabad rabbi and rebbetzin. It is Chabad’s singular purpose to bring Jews together, provide services to the Jewish community, and generally increase the holiness of the Jewish people wherever Jews may be found.
The past two days, we celebrated the holiday of Shavuot. Yesterday evening, our Chabad hosted an event at which we heard the reading of the Ten Commandments, as is traditional on Shavuot, and ate a dairy meal, also traditional on Shavuot. It was here that I witnessed something that strikes me as odd. We are not one community. We are three.
I say this is odd, because if we are “the Jewish community of Oceanside,” that implies that we have some familiarity with each other, that we have interacted on some level at some time. But there were people at the Chabad house last night whom I have never seen before, but who clearly were familiar with and to the rabbi and rebbetzin, and who knew other people there, also whom I had never seen before.
What happens is this: There are the cohort who attend services regularly or semi-regularly on Saturdays. There is the group made up of Hebrew school students and parents, who may either not attend services or who attend services at other area synagogues. And there are those who generally show up only for major events, such as this Shavuot dinner, the Passover seder, the High Holy Day services. That’s why I say we are three communities.
Last night was the first night where I felt like we three circles had a chance to interact and overlap. The rebbetzin went around encouraging us to introduce ourselves to people we don’t know, and our kids played together even though they’d never met. Certainly these people must have been at other events, but I felt like those other events were in more formal settings, which didn’t foster this kind of mingling. It was nice to see that “the Jewish community of Oceanside” didn’t consist solely of the 10 or so families I was most familiar with! Indeed, I would venture to say that last night was packed!
I feel that in a more traditional Jewish community, such as a more insular Orthodox neighborhood, this “three communities” phenomenon would not be so obvious. It seems like it reflects American society in general, where we have our school circles and our work circles and our social circles, and they mostly don’t overlap or interact. If we see someone we know in the supermarket, we might explain that, “Oh, that’s a friend from work,” or “Yeah, that’s the mother of my son’s friend,” and those two people may never have met and never will meet. They aren’t part of the same community, the same circles.
But if we are a Jewish community, shouldn’t we be a Jewish community? Shouldn’t we all be at least vaguely familiar to one another? We are all from the same circle. We all attend Chabad of Oceanside at least some of the time. I think as the community continues to grow and find cohesion, we’ll find the circles melding into one great group. As it should be.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Minyans on a Plane!
Back in 2005, my husband and I were flying to Israel for the second time to visit his family. The interesting thing about flying to or from Israel is that there is a much higher percentage of Jews around than just about anywhere else you might be, except in Israel itself (duh). What’s nice about this is that at the appropriate times of day, the religious men on the plane gather in a convenient place to pray whichever prayer service it is time for. On the plane, or in the airport, they have the advantage of being able to gather 10 Jewish men easily, thereby collecting a “minyan,” the minimum number of people required to recite certain prayers, such as the Mourner’s Kaddish*.
Every time I’ve been in a place where there are informally at least 10 Jewish men around (as opposed to in services, where it’s planned that way), it’s been amazing for me to watch the men gather in a loose bunch, whip out their prayer books (or these days, their iPhones or Blackberrys when it isn’t Shabbat!), and daven (pray) the morning, afternoon, or evening service, roughly together.
So, back to the plane on the way to Israel in 2005.
When the men began gathering to pray the morning service, a woman on the plane stood up and gravitated toward the group of praying men, bringing with her a tallit* bag so that she could don her prayer accouterments and daven with the men. We assumed that she was a Conservative, Reform, or Reconstructionist rabbinical student flying to Israel to study. We don’t actually know, but she fit the profile. Anyway. The men didn’t want her to pray with them, and she got miffed and was complaining about being asked to pray somewhere else.
We watched this drama unfold somewhat bemusedly. It illustrates so well the struggle many American women from the less traditional movements have. We women want to pray, too! We want to wear the tallit and the tefillin and the kippah, join the minyan, and daven the morning service. We want the privileges that the men get by default.
But see, if you’re Orthodox, there are two problems with this philosophy. First of all, women don’t need to wear tallit, kippah, and tefillin. Thus, a woman doing so makes an Orthodox man uncomfortable. Second, though a Reform or Conservative or Reconstructionist well-meaning woman wants to pray with the men, in a traditional Orthodox arena, women and men do not intermingle while they pray.
So, on the one hand, the woman on the plane had a right to be miffed. She had a right to want to wear the tallit and kippah and pray with the men. But on the other hand, the men had a right to be uncomfortable with her standing with them, and to request that she pray elsewhere on the plane.
Now, notice, they didn’t ask that she not pray. They asked that she not pray standing next to them. Whether they were in a plane, at the airport, in the middle of Jerusalem, or in a synagogue, they would not have wanted her or any woman to stand next to them while they prayed. It’s simply not proper. And no matter what, she wouldn’t count in their minyan.
If she wanted to pray her way, she needed a congregation or gathering of like-minded Jews, men or women, who do count women in the minyan and encourage them to wear tallit and kippah and tefillin. But it wasn’t really fair of her to insist on davening with a bunch of Orthodox men on their way to Israel. There, it became an issue of respect.
I think it’s interesting, too, that the men were respectful enough of her not to ask that she not pray in the way she wanted, but she was not respectful enough of them to know that she shouldn’t try to pray with them to begin with.
I run into this a lot, where what I want to do is in direct contradiction to my religious friends’ beliefs. For example, I drive and carry on Shabbat. We haven’t reached the point where we keep all of the laws of Shabbat. But I know that it is disrespectful to my more religious friends to make a big deal of it, so I make an effort not to carry or drive on Shabbat around them. They don’t watch me arrive or leave, and I try not to bring anything in or out of their house (except my kids and my keys). They insist on my using their diapers and wipes, on providing changes of clothes if my kids get dirty, and so on, so that I wouldn’t have had to carry anything with me. And on the flip side, if they want to give me something, they would never give it to me on Shabbat, because then I would have to carry it home. And I know not to ask.
In this same vein, the woman on the plane should have known already that she would not be welcome, and instead of trying to make a martyr of herself, or get upset about it, or stage a mini-protest, she should have respected that they were not of a mind with her, and she should have chosen a different part of the plane to daven.
* Tallit, tefillin, and kippah are the prayer shawl, leather strips and boxes placed on the head and arms, and the yarmulke or skull cap worn during the morning prayers. I’m not going to go into the significance or religious meaning of any of these items now, but Wikipedia has an article accompanied by pictures, if you’re curious what it looks like. (Men wear a kippah all the time.) Traditionally, women do not wear kippah, tallit, or tefillin, ever.
* The Mourner’s Kaddish is a prayer said by mourners. Traditionally, one says Kaddish for a parent, spouse, child, or sibling who died within the past 11 months, and also on the yahrzeit, the anniversary, of their death. The Mourner’s Kaddish can only be said in the presence of a minyan, 10 Jewish men who are all praying together.
Every time I’ve been in a place where there are informally at least 10 Jewish men around (as opposed to in services, where it’s planned that way), it’s been amazing for me to watch the men gather in a loose bunch, whip out their prayer books (or these days, their iPhones or Blackberrys when it isn’t Shabbat!), and daven (pray) the morning, afternoon, or evening service, roughly together.
So, back to the plane on the way to Israel in 2005.
When the men began gathering to pray the morning service, a woman on the plane stood up and gravitated toward the group of praying men, bringing with her a tallit* bag so that she could don her prayer accouterments and daven with the men. We assumed that she was a Conservative, Reform, or Reconstructionist rabbinical student flying to Israel to study. We don’t actually know, but she fit the profile. Anyway. The men didn’t want her to pray with them, and she got miffed and was complaining about being asked to pray somewhere else.
We watched this drama unfold somewhat bemusedly. It illustrates so well the struggle many American women from the less traditional movements have. We women want to pray, too! We want to wear the tallit and the tefillin and the kippah, join the minyan, and daven the morning service. We want the privileges that the men get by default.
But see, if you’re Orthodox, there are two problems with this philosophy. First of all, women don’t need to wear tallit, kippah, and tefillin. Thus, a woman doing so makes an Orthodox man uncomfortable. Second, though a Reform or Conservative or Reconstructionist well-meaning woman wants to pray with the men, in a traditional Orthodox arena, women and men do not intermingle while they pray.
So, on the one hand, the woman on the plane had a right to be miffed. She had a right to want to wear the tallit and kippah and pray with the men. But on the other hand, the men had a right to be uncomfortable with her standing with them, and to request that she pray elsewhere on the plane.
Now, notice, they didn’t ask that she not pray. They asked that she not pray standing next to them. Whether they were in a plane, at the airport, in the middle of Jerusalem, or in a synagogue, they would not have wanted her or any woman to stand next to them while they prayed. It’s simply not proper. And no matter what, she wouldn’t count in their minyan.
If she wanted to pray her way, she needed a congregation or gathering of like-minded Jews, men or women, who do count women in the minyan and encourage them to wear tallit and kippah and tefillin. But it wasn’t really fair of her to insist on davening with a bunch of Orthodox men on their way to Israel. There, it became an issue of respect.
I think it’s interesting, too, that the men were respectful enough of her not to ask that she not pray in the way she wanted, but she was not respectful enough of them to know that she shouldn’t try to pray with them to begin with.
I run into this a lot, where what I want to do is in direct contradiction to my religious friends’ beliefs. For example, I drive and carry on Shabbat. We haven’t reached the point where we keep all of the laws of Shabbat. But I know that it is disrespectful to my more religious friends to make a big deal of it, so I make an effort not to carry or drive on Shabbat around them. They don’t watch me arrive or leave, and I try not to bring anything in or out of their house (except my kids and my keys). They insist on my using their diapers and wipes, on providing changes of clothes if my kids get dirty, and so on, so that I wouldn’t have had to carry anything with me. And on the flip side, if they want to give me something, they would never give it to me on Shabbat, because then I would have to carry it home. And I know not to ask.
In this same vein, the woman on the plane should have known already that she would not be welcome, and instead of trying to make a martyr of herself, or get upset about it, or stage a mini-protest, she should have respected that they were not of a mind with her, and she should have chosen a different part of the plane to daven.
* Tallit, tefillin, and kippah are the prayer shawl, leather strips and boxes placed on the head and arms, and the yarmulke or skull cap worn during the morning prayers. I’m not going to go into the significance or religious meaning of any of these items now, but Wikipedia has an article accompanied by pictures, if you’re curious what it looks like. (Men wear a kippah all the time.) Traditionally, women do not wear kippah, tallit, or tefillin, ever.
* The Mourner’s Kaddish is a prayer said by mourners. Traditionally, one says Kaddish for a parent, spouse, child, or sibling who died within the past 11 months, and also on the yahrzeit, the anniversary, of their death. The Mourner’s Kaddish can only be said in the presence of a minyan, 10 Jewish men who are all praying together.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Hearing Both Sides of a Story
I don't usually post two days in a row, because, frankly, with two kids and a job, that's way too much of a commitment for me. Once a week has been working out well, and I hope that the intervening days don't leave you hanging too much.
No, that's not true. I hope that the intervening days make you very antsy waiting for the next post!
Anyway, something very interesting happened today, and it fits so well into the theme of this blog that I thought an extra post was warranted.
On Sunday, many of the Chabad communities in the Greater San Diego Area participated in a joint "Unity" Lag BaOmer celebration. (I'll probably write more about this next time.) There were bounce houses, arcade games, cotton candy, snow cones, a drum circle, and catered kosher food (burgers, etc.). I think a couple hundred people showed up.
I study on Tuesday mornings with my rebbetzin, along with another woman or two, depending who's available. Today, it was just me and C studying with the rebbetzin. C has several food intolerances and is in the habit of being very careful with what she eats, so that she doesn't spend the whole day throwing up or what-have-you. Which is reasonable. She can't have dairy or soy or gluten, primarily.
The kosher catering at the Lag BaOmer event included grilled corn-on-the-cob. C ordered corn and was asked if she wanted butter. She automatically said no, since when she hears butter, she thinks "dairy", and therefore doesn't want it. When she went to pick up her order, they asked if she wanted margerine. She asked whether it was margerine or butter, since the other guy had said butter, "because I can't have dairy." The woman who was handing her the order got extremely indignant and said something along the lines of "Of course it's margarine! We don't serve dairy with meat! I would never have butter available when I'm serving meat." C felt very bad that she'd made such a silly mistake. She hadn't been thinking, and she's so used to automatically checking exactly what she's eating that she didn't consider that, if this was a kosher meat meal, of course there would be no dairy in sight.
It affected her enough that she told us about it today when we were studying, prefacing the story with, "I made a faux pas." This is where things get interesting. C told it as though she felt very bad for making such a silly mistake and didn't understand why the woman had been so mean about it. The rebbetzin then said that the caterer had come to her and told her that someone had insinuated that her kashrut wasn't good enough, and was very indignant that someone would have the gall to question her on whether she was serving dairy or not! In other words, where C felt silly and a little insulted that the woman got so indignant, that woman though C was accusing her of trying to serve dairy and meat together and took C's innocent question as an insult! It's just coincidence that both women chose to tell the rebbetzin about it, so she could clear it up.
Rarely do we get the chance to understand why someone reacted the way they did in this kind of a disagreement. Rarely do we actually get to truly hear both sides. Both women involved misunderstood what the other wanted to convey, and both came away insulted when neither should have.
I just found this so incredibly fascinating. It reminds us to take a moment to examine our motivations before we jump down someone's throat.
The thing is, if C were religious, she would never have thought to raise the question, because she would have known instinctively that, if a bunch of Chabad rabbis have sanctioned the kashrut of this caterer, they definitely aren't serving any dairy. But because she's so used to having to police what she eats when she goes out, and she was thinking of this as "going out," her first instinct was to be sure. There's nothing wrong with being sure, and her impulsive question is completely understandable, especially since the guy she ordered from DID call it butter.
But on the other side, apparently the caterer was fed up with her kashrut being questioned and took it out on poor C, who really wasn't even thinking about kashrut at all! I think it's sad that Jews would question other Jews' kashrut in a situation like this one, but that's a topic for another post.
No, that's not true. I hope that the intervening days make you very antsy waiting for the next post!
Anyway, something very interesting happened today, and it fits so well into the theme of this blog that I thought an extra post was warranted.
On Sunday, many of the Chabad communities in the Greater San Diego Area participated in a joint "Unity" Lag BaOmer celebration. (I'll probably write more about this next time.) There were bounce houses, arcade games, cotton candy, snow cones, a drum circle, and catered kosher food (burgers, etc.). I think a couple hundred people showed up.
I study on Tuesday mornings with my rebbetzin, along with another woman or two, depending who's available. Today, it was just me and C studying with the rebbetzin. C has several food intolerances and is in the habit of being very careful with what she eats, so that she doesn't spend the whole day throwing up or what-have-you. Which is reasonable. She can't have dairy or soy or gluten, primarily.
The kosher catering at the Lag BaOmer event included grilled corn-on-the-cob. C ordered corn and was asked if she wanted butter. She automatically said no, since when she hears butter, she thinks "dairy", and therefore doesn't want it. When she went to pick up her order, they asked if she wanted margerine. She asked whether it was margerine or butter, since the other guy had said butter, "because I can't have dairy." The woman who was handing her the order got extremely indignant and said something along the lines of "Of course it's margarine! We don't serve dairy with meat! I would never have butter available when I'm serving meat." C felt very bad that she'd made such a silly mistake. She hadn't been thinking, and she's so used to automatically checking exactly what she's eating that she didn't consider that, if this was a kosher meat meal, of course there would be no dairy in sight.
It affected her enough that she told us about it today when we were studying, prefacing the story with, "I made a faux pas." This is where things get interesting. C told it as though she felt very bad for making such a silly mistake and didn't understand why the woman had been so mean about it. The rebbetzin then said that the caterer had come to her and told her that someone had insinuated that her kashrut wasn't good enough, and was very indignant that someone would have the gall to question her on whether she was serving dairy or not! In other words, where C felt silly and a little insulted that the woman got so indignant, that woman though C was accusing her of trying to serve dairy and meat together and took C's innocent question as an insult! It's just coincidence that both women chose to tell the rebbetzin about it, so she could clear it up.
Rarely do we get the chance to understand why someone reacted the way they did in this kind of a disagreement. Rarely do we actually get to truly hear both sides. Both women involved misunderstood what the other wanted to convey, and both came away insulted when neither should have.
I just found this so incredibly fascinating. It reminds us to take a moment to examine our motivations before we jump down someone's throat.
The thing is, if C were religious, she would never have thought to raise the question, because she would have known instinctively that, if a bunch of Chabad rabbis have sanctioned the kashrut of this caterer, they definitely aren't serving any dairy. But because she's so used to having to police what she eats when she goes out, and she was thinking of this as "going out," her first instinct was to be sure. There's nothing wrong with being sure, and her impulsive question is completely understandable, especially since the guy she ordered from DID call it butter.
But on the other side, apparently the caterer was fed up with her kashrut being questioned and took it out on poor C, who really wasn't even thinking about kashrut at all! I think it's sad that Jews would question other Jews' kashrut in a situation like this one, but that's a topic for another post.
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