Living a Kosher Life: Kol Nidre 5769

I want to talk to you tonight about keeping kosher. Now I know what you are thinking…some of you are thinking “Oh here we go again, another sermon about how I should have two sets of dishes and silverware and about how I should stop eating the famous clam chowda in Newport.” Some of you, though less of you, are thinking “Oh here we go again, another sermon about keeping kosher, which I already do, so I guess I’ll just tune out for the next fifteen minutes.” However, no matter which group you fall into, the former or the later, you might be surprised to discover that while my sermon tonight will encourage us all to be Kosher, it has very little to do with food.
Let me start by telling you a quick story. A few weeks ago, while performing a very important preparation for Rosh HaShanah (going food shopping at Stop and Shop) I had a bit of a rabbinic crisis. You see I had picked up a fresh, fifteen pound Empire Kosher turkey for our yuntif meal (Or more precisely, my yuntif meal, Eliana is a vegetarian) and I was standing in the check-out line. The gentleman behind the counter was nonchalantly scanning my food when he suddenly stopped, apparently startled by something he saw on the register. It only took me a moment to notice that what had startled him was the price of the turkey.

“Forty four dollars for a turkey that can’t be right,” he said; certain that there must have been some mistake with the computer.
“No that’s right I said.”
“What kind of turkey is this? Does it also do your taxes?” he asked.
“No,” I said “It’s a kosher turkey and kosher turkeys are more expensive than non-kosher ones.”
Then came the big question; “What does kosher mean anyway? Doesn’t it have something to do with the Rabbi blessing the meat?”
“Well, no, not exactly,” I answered wondering just how far I should go? “It really has to do with the way the animal is slaughtered.”
“Oh you mean it’s killed in a more humane way?” he asked.
And this is when the crisis hit me.

How should I answer his question? What should I say? Maybe I should answer him by explaining that the actual laws in the Torah probably have nothing to do with treating the animal kindly at its time of death. After all, we all know that no matter how kindly you kill a pig or a lobster – it still isn’t Kosher. Or maybe I should just give the poor guy a break and answer him with a resounding yes saying “Actually it is the more humane way and that’s why being kosher matters to us as Jews, because we Jews are concerned about the safety and welfare of all of God’s creations on this Earth. But in light of some very disturbing events this past year regarding kosher food production to say all this would simply be a lie.
I am referring to a troubling series of events which took place this year in Postville, Iowa concerning the nation’s largest kosher meat producer Agriprocessors Inc.
According to the New York Times “The Postville plant has been owned since 1987 by Aaron Rubashkin and his family, Lubavitch Hasidic Jews who built the company from a Brooklyn butcher shop into a kosher meat giant controlling more than 60 percent of the market, with annual kosher sales of more than $80 million…” The first scandal came several years ago when an insider leaked some video of a slaughtering practice called “shackling and hoisting,” in which the animals suffer nearly twenty seconds of undue pain and discomfort before the actual slaughtering takes place. This mistreatment of animals is clearly a violation of Tz’a’ar B’alei Hayim, the ethical mitzvah which requires a Jew to treat all living things with dignity and respect.
And as if this weren’t bad enough we discover that Agriprocessors was mistreating not only the animals in the factories but their human workers as well. This past may an illegal immigration raid on the plant in Postville, Iowa discovered that 389 workers (nearly half of their entire staff) were illegal immigrants and nearly 60 workers were underage. As the story continued to develop it was found that these workers had long complained of being forced to work overtime, lax safety measures and even financial extortion on the part of the supervisors at the plant who sold the choice jobs to the highest bidder. The thought that a business such as this one could be called ‘kosher’ is enough to make you sick to your stomach.
Indeed a place like Agriprocessors which neither respects the inherent dignity in the animals or kal v’homer (all the more so) the humans in their plant, does not deserve to carry the name kosher. And yet for the last twenty years not only have we called them kosher, we even called them Glatt kosher! (A distinction that is supposed to mean that a slaughterhouse uses the utmost of care and precision in their work.) So how did all this happen? How did the word kosher come to mean a lifestyle which is most definitely treyf? When did we lose sight of the fact that living a kosher life means a lot more than just eating the right food?
Well I do have some good news to report. First of all, it wasn’t always this way. Allow me to tell a little about the great Rabbi Israel Salanter the founder of the Mussar movement, a movement which sought to place a primacy on Jewish ethics. Rabbi Salanter grew up in 19th century Latvia and Lithuania and he was surrounded by Jews who scrupulously observed the ritual mitzvot. Believe me, these Jews loved to say each and every prescribed b’racha, they davened three times a day without fail, they spent hours studying Talmud in the Beit Midrash and yet – they were not living ethical lives. They cheated each other in their business dealings (and they especially cheated their non-Jewish customers.) It was this environment in which Rabbi Salanter sought to create a movement which would, once again, place an emphasis on the ethical as well as the ritual mitzvot.
There is a famous story about Rabbi Israel Salanter and his habits immediately preceding the important holiday of Pesach. As you know there are many rituals surrounding the holiday of Passover which require a tremendous eye for ritual detail. One such commandment is that of baking the Matzah in a particular way. So before each and every Passover Rabbi Salanter would make sure that he himself personally supervised the baking of each and every matzah that would be used in his community. One year he became sick before the holiday and he was unable to supervise the baking. Immediately his students came into his room and the begged him, “Rabbi please tell us what it is that you supervise while you watch the people making the matzah, this way we can be sure to know that the matzah will be up to your high halachic standards!” The Rabbi simply said, “Be certain that the workers are paid fairly,” and that was it.
You see for Rabbi Salanter, kashrut meant a great deal more than simply the ingredients found in a certain product. For him Kashrut meant choosing to live your life according to an ethical philosophy, for him Kashrut meant an entire way of life.
I am pleased to tell you that Rabbi Salanter is most definitely not alone. In fact I am extremely proud to tell you that one of the first responses to the Kashrut crises that came out of Postville, Iowa came from the Conservative movement. A group of Conservative rabbis immediately assembled and petitioned the Rabbinical Assembly to start a new initiative here in America: the Hechsher Tzedek initiative. As you may know a Hechsher is the term we use for the symbol that is placed on a package of food that tells you it is Kosher (you know the OU, or the Circle K, or the Triangle K) and the term Hechsher Tzedek translates as “justice certification.” The idea is to create a symbol that will tell the consumer that the product they are purchasing is kosher with regard to its ingredients as well as ‘kosher’ with regard to its ethical business practices. This means that like Rabbi Salanter, our movement, the Conservative movement, is committed to ensuring that the Judaism of the future is one that concerns itself not only with the ritual commandments but with the commandments which dictate our behavior towards animals and towards our fellow human beings.
You see the fact is that the laws in the Torah that concern Kashrut are only a small fraction of the 613 mitzvot that we as Jews are commanded to observe. In fact did you know that the word “Kasher” does not even appear in the Torah, in the Five Books of Moses? In fact the first use of the word Kasher comes from the Book of Esther: Esther says “If it please your majesty, and if I have won your favor ‘v’chasher hadavar lifnei hamelekh,’ (and if the proposal seems correct to Your Majesty.) That is the first usage of the word Kasher in our Bible! From this pasuk it is clear that the word Kasher means so much more than merely a dietary regimen. Instead it means to do what is right, what is just, what is advantageous for society and what is correct in the eyes of the True King, God Almighty.
Now before I conclude let me make clear that simply because one production plant chose to engage in business practices that were entirely treyf, does not mean that the entire concept of keeping a kosher diet is bankrupt. In fact, I believe it means quite the opposite. It means that in a time when our country is suffering the result of business de-regulation, excessive greed and unscrupulous behavior now is the time to choose Kosher lives for ourselves and our families. And we should start with spending a little more time thinking about the food we put in our stomachs each day. By turning the truly instinctive, almost animalistic act of eating into a holy endeavor we are surely elevating our kitchen tables into sanctuaries for God’s presence.
But living a kosher life means so much more than just the food we eat. It means thinking about where we do our shopping. It means questioning those “always low prices” at Wal-Mart and recognizing that some of the reasons they keep their prices so low are because they make it difficult for employees to unionize and they lag far behind industry standards on employee health coverage. Likewise there are major ethical issues with their supply chain (as well as the supply chains of other super-stores) because many of their products come from places like China which do not adhere to international worker’s rights laws. So just because that T-shirt you bought from them doesn’t contain any pork products does not mean it is kosher. In fact, it may very well be treyf.
Lastly I want to stress a final point: The Hechsher Tzedek initiative is not simply a case of finding a modern cause and couching it in Jewish terms. We are not finding a Jewish hook upon which we can tenuously hang our ideals about modern business ethics. No, this goes much deeper. This is about reclaiming the ethical imperatives of our Torah.
In the second chapter of Pirkei Avot Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi reminds us that “one should be scrupulous to observe all the mitzvot (both the big ones and the small ones) because one can not know their reward.” In other words, we all should approach our Jewish observance with the knowledge that every single mitzvah is equal to its fellow.
And therefore we must reject the notion that the mitzvah of “Thou shalt not bake a calf in its mother’s milk” is somehow more important than the mitzvah that says “The wages of a laborer shall not remain with you overnight.” We must reject the notion that the commandment “Everything in the water that has no fins and scales shall be an abomination for you” takes precedence over “You shall not deal deceitfully or falsely with one another.” We must bring ourselves to realize that the mitzvah of “You may eat any land animal who has cleft hooves and chews its cud,” can and must be fulfilled in harmony with the law which requires us to respect all living things.
So therefore, let us each make a commitment here on this night, the holiest of nights. This year we will dedicate ourselves to live a truly kosher life. Our Kashrut will permeate everything we do. It will be apparent in what we eat, what we choose to buy, how we choose to live, and how we treat our neighbor. We will choose to by products that are created with minimal environmental impact. We will choose to cry out against unfair labor practices and the employment of children. We will help to make our entire world a more kosher place. In doing this we are not choosing to sacrifice the ethical for the ritual nor the ritual for the ethical. Indeed, i+f we all can do this; then each of us will have a very certain response to the question the young man in the supermarket asked me:
“Does Kosher mean more humane?”
The answer is: “Yes. Being kosher means being more humane to the animal and more humane to the human. Yes, being kosher means that ethics matter. Yes, being Kosher is a way of life.”