Let My People Eat!

So, I was listening to this Rabbi on the radio (no, this isn't the start of a bad joke).

He happened to be talking about what is and isn't kosher, what the word "kosher" means, and what the significance of keeping kosher is to the Jewish people.

I found out a lot of things I didn't know. For instance, a rabbi's blessing isn't necessary for food to be kosher. This is actually good news for the Noah's Bagels I use to work next to in Laurel Village; the one that had bags of bagels extorted from it each weekend by the person I came to regard as the "young, redheaded, asshole chasid". Actually, I think he was just orthodox since we don't have many Chasidim here (Thank Hashem. This goy feels shunned and made to feel invisible enough from the two Canadians that live above me.).

The other interesting thing I found out was that insects aren't kosher! So, if you were stuck in the middle of Africa, with no resources or food around you, you couldn't survive off of grub worms or big, juicy grasshoppers. But, but!, you could slaughter and eat a giraffe, because giraffes are kosher! (Uh, Hello? Ruminant animal, chews its own cud, has cloven hooves, isn't a carnivore? Get with it!)

Perhaps it's God's messed up sense of humor that he made Rabbis short and giraffes tall, since how else can the Rabbi carry out the ritual slaughter without climbing a ladder, and trust me, no giraffe is going to wait patiently around while some short, little old Jewish man kvetches his way up a ladder.

God, stop playin'! That ain't funny!

But as I was listening to this one particular Rabbi speak about spirituality and food, something he said struck a small chord in me. He said keeping kosher was part of being spiritually healthy, and part of being spiritually healthy was having the mind and spirit in control of the body, rather than the reverse.

You know, I'm not Jewish (or even religious), but I'm totally down with that. Speaking personally, lately I've felt that my mind and spirit were not running my body.

A case in point: I've been eating way too much meat.

Now, I don't have a problem with meat or meat-eating, per se. In fact, I can really put the smack down on some ribs. Biggles, you know what I'm talking about.

But lately, whenever I think about what a meal is, meat is always in the picture. And the Rabbi got me thinking, why does it have to be? Is my body running my mind and spirit, or is it the reverse?

So this week, I'm cutting back. In fact, I'm going to try to stick to only one serving of meat per day, preferably at dinner (since I already have a cooked chicken waiting in the fridge to be eaten).

I'm not expecting some grand epiphany or spiritual metamorphosis, but hell, it can't hurt now can it?

In the meantime, I'll explore some veggie lunch options near where I work and report back on them for your reading pleasure.

It should be fun!

k.