Rabbi Shapiro's June Bulletin Message

For Your Consideration
Rabbi Mark Dov Shapiro

Back on Yom Kippur morning I raised a question with the congregation that struck a responsive chord. I asked you to think creatively about the larger significance of what we do and don’t eat. My sermon began with a discussion about kashrut in traditional terms and then went on to consider how we might think about kashrut as an ethical term. In the end, I suggested that drinking fair trade coffee might be “kosher” if we understood the word “kosher” as a term for what is proper or responsible.

Here is what has happened since that sermon.

Our Torah Study group, the Ritual Committee, and the Temple’s Board of Trustees have all spent time studying kashrut and how it might apply to Sinai Temple. We’ve been drinking fair trade coffee, of course. But, besides that, we’ve tried to create some broader guidelines for kashrut in our Temple building.

The result of all this thinking is the document enclosed with this Bulletin. It is called Guidelines for Kashrut at Sinai Temple: Considerations for Eating and Living in the 21st Century.

As the summer approaches, I invite you to read the document. The preamble explains how the document came to be written. You’ll find the “guidelines” in italics. At the end you’ll see footnotes that ground the ideas in text.

Two points to keep in mind: First, read carefully and you’ll realize these guidelines are not designed to tell you or me how we should eat or conduct our private lives. The guidelines apply to what our community does inside the Temple building. Secondly, please note that these guidelines are not going to be “policed.” The operative word is “guidelines.” This word was purposely chosen to indicate that no one is legislating for you or me. We are, instead, drawing on Jewish tradition to enrich our congregation’s conversation about one important way in which we live on this fragile planet. We want to have a conversation about the food we consume because we are Jews and because we care about the way in which we live.

Of course, now the fun begins! We want you to enter the conversation. Let us (let me) know how you feel. Sometime in the first week of June we will have the Guidelines on our website. (http://www.sinai-temple.org/forum) We will also have a few responses from congregants on the website. Your ideas are also welcome. Write or call.

As Reform Jews, we are always on the move. These Guidelines represent one new way in which we are trying to grow as Jews and human beings.

Prior Bulletin Messages from the Rabbi are available on this site.