Given by Rabbi Gerald L. Zelizer on 3/26/2011
"Kashrut or Anti-Semitism?"
A few Shabbatot ago I was leaving the synagogue after kiddush when I was confronted with two different experiences. The first was a member of the congregation who inquired about the kashrut of a certain product. After I explained, a second person standing nearby said "Tell me rabbi. Isn't what comes out of the mouth more important than what goes into the mouth?" Nonplussed, I exited the shul to the parking lot, where I had the second experience. Some children ran out of the building, very upset, and reported to me about vile anti-Jewish slogans written on the external walls of the shul and the outside of our Beit Midrash. I assured them that it would be removed as soon as possible and that we would talk.
The two experiences preoccupied me all of Shabbat to the extent that they interfered with my Shabbat nap! And that takes a lot! Obviously, neither was welcome. But then I began to ruminate: "Which of the two is more worrisome?" Clearly, and without any hesitation, it was the lack of understanding by a Jew about kashrut. The person who asked me "What is more important or what comes into the mouth or what goes out of it?", unwittingly cites a term of the Christian Bible in which Paul challenges the necessity of the Torah. That lack of understanding by a Jew troubled me more than the vile, upsetting graffiti. Let me explain why, especially since the origins of kashrut are the center of today's Sidrah in chapter eleven - which by the way never uses the word kosher but 'clean and unclean food.' More about that later.
I am in process of gathering some of our kids who were so upset, and a few others, to discuss the anti-Jewish graffiti . What will I tell them? And by extension us? That because of historic reasons, some of them rooted in Christianity and others secular origins, there are individuals and groups, even in our state who dislike Jews, Judaism and Israel. I tell them that my own origins were in a Midwestern city with an even smaller population of Jews, and that I had personally experienced physical and verbal hate against Jews. I tell them that hooliganism and desecrating our property with anti-Jewish diatribes should not go unnoticed or without response. I also related that many Jews previously lived every day under this kind of popular hate, backed by governments which encouraged it and that the important difference in the U.S. is that in all its history there has only been once instance of government backed anti-Semitism, which was quickly reversed by President Lincoln.
I also tell them that side by side with hate of Jews, is paradoxically a great admiration of Jews in the U.S. - So much that Jews are overrepresented in Congress, relative to our population; the finest Universities, which once excluded Jews, now have Jews as presidents; the exclusion of Jewish doctors from hospitals is no longer the case. And what of attitudes to Judaism as a religion? The data we have actually shows that anti-Semitism in this country is at a fifty year low. Some of you may know the important book .Bowling Alone. . by Robert Putnam at Harvard, which made us understand so much about the benefits of group affiliation in the U.S. He has written a new book, "American Grace - How Religions Divides and Unites Us". (Putnam incidentally is a shul Shabbat attending Jew.) He documents some of the following:
- Americans feel warmest toward Jews, mainline Protestants, and Catholics.
- And, for some readers, it is perhaps most surprising for Jews, given the past intensity of anti-Semitism both in the United States and abroad. We note, however, that we are not alone in finding positive regard for Jews. Awareness of the Holocaust led public expressions of anti-Semitism to drop dramatically in the twenty years following 1945. Since then, anti-Semitism has continued to fall through generational replacement - younger people are less likely to harbor. The Anti-Defamation League published the results of a study that found 'anti-Semitic attitudes equal to the lowest level in all years of taking the pulse of the American attitudes toward Jews.'
- Who are three groups that stand out for their unpopularity - Mormons, Buddhists, and Muslims.
Just to put this in some historic understanding. The bench mark of high levels of anti-Semitism since 1950 was in 1964. In 1964, 29% of Americans reported anti-Semitic feelings as compared with 12% recently. That is still a lot of people. That is still unacceptable. But that low historic number should be acknowledged next to that second phenomenon - what many scholars understand is a great wave of philo-semitism in this country that is admiration of Jews and Judaism. We see that, - among fundamentalist Christians; in liberal and secular contexts which have seen in the last years, many high profile mixed marriages . which surely would have been repulsed by the non-Jewish community just a generation or two ago. I conclude, with these children that we Jews should be stung by ignorant and vile anti-Jewish graffiti such as was painted on our building; we should help the police and our own security to locate and prosecute those responsible now and in the future. And at the same time, we should not overact in concluding that the whole society out there hates us. Very much the opposite. We Jews should also be able to accept the good news.
But now let us speak lack of understanding or something disdain by Jews of kashrut . at the center of religious Judaism. When a fellow Jews says that to me, it is worrisome. Because it is not an attack from without but it is a serious lack of understanding from within of the centrality of kashrut in religious Judaism. Our Sidrah refers to impure food, not kosher food. Where did the word .kosher. come from? Where did it first occur? Interestingly, not in the Torah but in the Book of Esther, chapter 8:verses 4 & 5. 'The king extended the Golden Sceptre to Esther, and Esther arose and stood before the king.'
- 'If it please your majesty, and if I have won your favor, and the proposal seems right to your Majesty.' That is the first time the word is used - at a tref banquet! So there is something in kashrut as a term, as a ritual, system, that the Book of Esther intuits is capable of saving the Jewish people under attack from a vile anti-Semite. The Midrash extends this thought and picks it up in Esther Rabbah 7:13. It puts a conversation in the mouth of Elijah - yes moving ahead to Pesach in a little over three weeks. Elijah asks Moses, quoting the book of Isaiah: 'How will you respond to trouble as Israel is coming to the breaking point?' Moses answers Elijah: 'Is there a virtuous kosher man in that generation?' Elijah answers 'There is, and his name is Mordecai,' Moses responds 'Go and tell him to pray there and I will pray here and together we will pleas with God for mercy for Israel.' That is if there a kosher-man like Mordecai (not clear if using kosher, in ritual or ethical sense or both) - the entire generation would be saved. Notice that it is kashrut, not even Milah, not even Shabbat, not tzedakah which is envisaged as being powerful enough to save the Jews from destruction. It is because of .kosher. Mordecai that Israel is rescued from an act of anti-Semitism. The outer rescue is attributable to his inner fortitude.
So the answer to the person who inadvertently referred to the Christian Bible when saying "Isn't what comes out of the mouth more important than what goes in?" Judaism would respond "What goes in and what goes out are equally important." Why? Because kashrut begins with clean and unclean food in our Sidrah but it expands to a whole ritual and ethical system. Kashrut is about humane and ethical slaughter. Kashrut is about the words of the Torah at a meal. Kashrut is about the praise of God, Jerusalem, and food for the whole world in the Birkat Hamazon. Kashrut is about hechsher tzedek, the ethical treatment of the employees of plants where there is kosher slaughter. It is about the kashrut of the food at our seder, even for the poor who must be invited and provided for a seder for direct indication or through subsidies of Maot Hittim.
I will continue my conversation with those children. I will tell them 'It is about what comes out of the mouth and what goes in.' Resisting hooligans is about security, and police, and even fists when necessary. It is just as much about inner pride re: religious, Judaism, not only what comes out of the mouth but what goes in. Kashrut is the best vitamin to build the collective Jewish body which then wards off hooliganism and anti-Jewish blows.