Shabbat Gathering: What looks like it isn’t kosher isn’t kosher.

Dear Chevrei, as is our custom, we will gather tonight at 5.45p ct to welcome Shabbat. These are the coordinates:

Zoom
Meeting ID: 963 5113 1550
Password: 1989
Phone: +1 312 626 6799

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Here we go.

A million years ago, when I was a newlywed and living in Brooklyn, I attended a family wedding. I had married into a vast and diverse Jewish family scattered across New York City and around the world all the way to Australia. As I recall, my bride and I were attending a Sunday afternoon wedding in Brooklyn. As was the tradition then, there was a cocktail hour before the ceremony. It was summer and I was nursing a cocktail and on the lookout for the passed hors d'oeuvres. A waitress finally came up to me and I was shocked, shocked to see shrimp and crab legs on the platter. The couple getting married was ConservoDox and kept kosher. What was the meaning of this?!? I was new to Judaism but not so new as to recognize this as obviously treyf, something non-kosher. I gave a panicked look at my bride and politely gestured the server away.

After the server walked away, my bride explained to me that the “shrimp” and “crab legs” were actually textured soy protein. Kosher food manufacturers had recently discovered they wonders of soy. Tofutti had become all the rage in kosher-keeping communities in NYC, and it was just a couple of steps from faux ice cream to “shrimp” and “crab legs.”

It turned out I might have made the right decision after all about the hors d’oeuvres being treyf. There’s a Jewish idea called marit ayin (the appearance to the eye). Briefly, this is the idea that giving the appearance of breaking a Jewish law is the same as breaking the Jewish law itself. So, for someone who keeps kosher, even appearing to eat shrimp — even when the shrimp is completely "kosher" — is tantamount to breaking the laws of kashrut.

As food science progresses, it becomes more and more difficult to sort out these type of issues. For example, consider Impossible Burger, a vegetarian meat substitute. It’s kosher, but is it kosher to slather it with real cheese? That would be like mixing meat and milk. Currently, there’s mixed opinions about this. And last week, I posted a PS about kosher roast pork flavored potato chips. It turns out the chips may not be kosher after all because they may break marit ayin.

I don’t keep kosher but I don’t go out of my way to flaunt that. I completely get this idea of marit ayin. There’s the notion of a shanda fur die goyim, meaning “a shame before the nations.” This is when there’s embarrassing behavior by a Jew where non-Jews can witness it. I try to avoid making a shanda fur die goyim out of a feeling of solidarity and representation. I try not to embarrass my landsmen (fellow Jews) and hope they don’t embarrass me.

And may it be for all of us a blessing.

See you tonight!
Gut Shabbes!

All my love,
brian.

PS

He’s a badger, he’s a Jew, and he might be the only Jew who lives full time in Greenland. He's also the son of our fellow congregant, Sue Robbins.

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