Yesterday at WeighWatchers I learned something interesting. Polar bear is a power food. So is squirrel. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean that I want to eat them or that they are kosher. They are not. Although you can find kosher gummy polar bears. But the leader went on to talk about clean eating. All the rage these days. Eating things from the outside edges of the grocery store. Fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, fish, chicken, beef, lean dairy, whole grain bakery. Foods that are not processed. Some extend that to organic, or non-GMO. Some say that paleo or gluten free or dairy free are better forms of clean eating.

Maybe. We talked about how keeping the synagogue kitchen kosher means keeping the community alive, unique, set apart, holy. We talked about other traditions that make Judaism unique and yes sometime isolated. Mezuzah on the door, kippah on your head, observance of Shabbat, circumcision. These keep the community set apart and it is harder to assimilate. That can be either good or bad.

When Sarah was little, there was another rabbi who she said put people in little boxes. Either you were Jewish or not. Or you kept kosher or not. And if you kept kosher, how kosher were you. He used kashrut to divide people. Here at CKI kashrut has also been used to divide. Is the warmer kosher? What about asparagus? What about bourbon with honey? What about Coke? Lamb for Passover? The general state of our kitchen? My job as the mara d’atra requires me to spend a lot of time thinking about kashrut and ensuring the kashrut of our kitchen. I view it as a sacred obligation.

And a way to unite people? To build community.

So what does kashrut mean? What does it mean to you? Why bother?

It is more than not eating pork or shellfish. And what is that animal we will read about later today that crawls on the bottom. Is it really a lobster—not kosher but no one really knows. Or not mixing meat and milk. Or having separate dishes.

It means fit or proper.

Some translate it as clean. It is the Weight Watchers power foods. When I was a 7^th grader my Hebrew School class was no picnic. We were children of board members, the synagogue president, vice-president, rabbi, synagogue administrator. We thought we owned the building and we did. The parents stepped in and took over the teaching in mini-courses all the rage back in the day. My mother, the classical Reform Jew, taught the section on kashrut which consisted mostly of a trip to the kosher deli, long gone. We learned from the rabbi that kashrut was an outmoded form of Judaism and about blue and red soap. That deli is long gone but the rabbi keeps kosher now. It wasn’t until I went to college that I learned that some people really do do this. I bought dishes for my room, yellow ones and white ones and marked the backs with nail polish for meat and dairy. I wanted anyone that visited my dorm room to be comfortable eating there. It is about I’ve been keeping kosher ever since. At some level or other.

But why? Why does any of this matter today? Do we care about polar bears or squirrels? Pork, camels, horses, dogs? Grasshoppers and locusts? Keeping meat and milk separate?

What modern questions might we ask about the food we eat? USY asked these questions:

• Is it organic? Is it local?
• Is it healthy?
• How were the animals treated in the production of this food?
• What impact does this meal have on the environment?
• How were the farmers, factory workers, and grocery store employees treated during the production line?
• Is this a Fair Trade product?

These questions are not a lot different than what we found in the Talmud.  USY used this text to propel our questions and our understanding: Rabbi Yohanan and Resh Lakish both explain: At the time when the Temple stood, the altar used to make atonement for a person; now a person’s table makes atonement for him.” – Talmud Bavli, Masekhet Chagigah 27a.

It is an important text because from it we learn that our houses are little mishkans, little sanctuaries. And how we eat can make us whole, can make us holy. It is like the old question do we eat to live or live to eat?

Some answers that can be drawn out the text include eating the proper foods, and that those food choices are in line with other Jewish values like not wasting, bal taschit, not destroying and protecting the environment, inviting guests like Abraham and Sarah did, so that no one is alone and we have community, and studying words of Torah. Pirke Avot, the very Pirke Avot chapter that we will study later today says that if three people have eaten at one table and spoken words of Torah, then it is as if they had eaten from the table of G-d, from the altar of the Divine. It’s like that line in Les Mis. To love another person is to see the Face of G-d. Maybe it is to eat with another person is to see the face of G-d.

But kosher is more than food. We talk about kosher Torah scrolls. Ones that are fit to read from. We talk about kosher soap, ones not made with lye. We can even talk about kosher sex. But that is next week. So what are the modern questions about Kashrut?

Rabbi Arthur Waskow asks four questions:

1. Are tomatoes grown by drenching the earth in pesticides “kosher” to eat, at home or at the synagogue’s next wedding reception?

I would add are they kosher is they tomato field owners refuse to pay a penny more a pound and thus exploit the tomato workers?

2. Is newsprint made by chopping down an ancient and irreplaceable forest “kosher” to use for a Jewish newspaper?

I would add is it kosher to eat beef that requires 14 pound of grain for every pound of beef?

3. Are windows and doors so carelessly built that the warm air flows out through them and the furnace keeps burning all night — are such doors and windows “kosher” for a home or for a Jewish Community Center building?

I would add is it Kosher to use Styrofoam for synagogue functions, even though the “kashrut” is more reliable than washing dishes that may be confused with milk and meat?

4. Is a bank that invests the depositors’ money in an oil company that befouls the ocean a “kosher” place for me or for a UJA to deposit money?

I would add is it kosher to use kosher meat when the animals are not treated ethically even if they are slaughtered according to Jewish law? What if the workers are not treated ethically? Or as is debated in our house frequently, is veal ever kosher?

This group of questions sets up a new kind of kashrut. Eco-kashrut. Kashrut that includes the traditional laws that we will read this morning. But beyond that. Ways of living fit and proper. Clean eating. Local sourcing. Organic and non-GMO foods. Fair trade. Responsible eating. Responsible use of power and water. The word eco-kashrut was coined in the late 1970’s by Rabbi Zalma Schachter-Shalomi, of blessed memory, founder of the Jewish Renewal movement. He saw the siddur, the traditional Jewish prayer book, like a cookbook. A guide to eating but not the food itself. A siddur is a guide to praying but not the prayer itself. So as Waskow teaches, Schacter-Shalomi saw the code of kosher food in much the same way. He asked is electric power generated by a nuclear plant, “eco-kosher?” And so these are really important questions, particularly as we approach earth day. As an aside, my father worked for Barry Comoner at Washington University in Saint Louis. Barry is the one who coined the term ecology, so I grew up with all this language—if not the kashrut part!

So this is where our Bible text that we will read today becomes meaningful in a modern world. This week we will hear lots about climate change and global warming. We will hear much about Earth Day. About protecting water resources. And cleaning up the land. We talked about sh’mita last week. About letting the land rest.

It seems to me kashrut comes to set personal boundaries and community boundaries. We know enough about what we should eat. We agree that clean eating and power foods are the way to go. We know that there is enough food in the world to allow everyone to eat if we could only distribute it equitably. Yet we still have hungry people.

So why do I care if we at CKI have a Kosher Kitchen? Is it to make it more complicated for people out here who can’t get into Skokie or Buffalo Grove? No, for me it is more fundamental than that.

It is about living consciously. Thoreau said that he went to the woods to learn to live deliberately. Kashrut is a way that I live deliberately, mindfully, with purpose.

But Thoreau lived in a cabin that just had room for three people. I choose, deliberately, to live in a community that is bigger than that. Keeping kosher and having these very debates helps me to do that. It keeps the Jewish community alive.

You all know that I am a meat and potatoes girl. And while I think that ethically vegetarians have a lot of important points, even from a kashrut standpoint, I am probably not going to give up my steak. It is even a Weight Watcher power food! And yet, I like a new designation, Magan Tzedek, for meat that is being raised ethically. I like some colleagues who have gone to using locally raised, grassfed beef as being more kosher than the large meat packing plants in Iowa that got caught up in a sting a couple of years ago.

I thrill when I can answer questions like where to find Kosher cheese—and find local sources: Meijers, Jewel, Trader Joe’s, Costco, all have some. Trader Joe’s has Israeli Kosher Feta. It is a like a treasure hunt and I love it! It doesn’t have to be difficult. I can buy fair trade, organic kosher coffee for my Keruig and use recyclable K-Cups. Messy but then I can use the grinds in the compost bin. I can buy my kosher coffee at Starbucks—or even at McDonalds. And I can choose to use my own cup which is better for the environment, making my double latte doubly kosher. I can choose to buy my kosher wine at Binny’s or from my favorite Jewishly owned vineyard in northern Michigan. I can go to the Elgin Harvest Market and buy the most perfect summer tomato or peach, locally grown and supporting local farmers. And that reminds me.

Ultimately, keeping kosher—Biblical Kosher, Rabbinic Kosher, eco-Kosher, is a way is a way to connect with the Divine. To remember at every meal to be grateful. To be thankful for what we have.

I am glad that we are CKI have a kosher kitchen. Quite simply, it helps builds the community.