I'm starting to think it may be like driving while brown or black.
I currently work whatever nights my current employer requires of me, which means at least 50% of Shabbats. I can't really complain; I got this job before I seriously considered conversion and the staff is very small.
However, I think it is important to at least attempt to find a position that both respects Shabbat and my school hours. After all, I am willing to work Sundays, Christmas, Easter and New Year's! I can't do repetitive heavy lifting for a few months (I broke a rib) and I'd prefer a job in health care, nutrition or fitness.
I'm looking at nursing homes, in-home health care companies, herb and supplement companies, clinics, hospitals. I am willing to do nearly anything, including assisting elderly and disabled people with their bathroom needs.
Unfortunately, several hospitals and hospices within an hour's drive of my home are owned by Catholic organizations. So even to look at job postings online, I have to click past the mission statement: "We carry on the healing mission of Jesus Christ..." and then continue past... "we are a diverse family of individuals who have a number of attributes in common. These include compassion, integrity, humility, passion and spirituality." (Italics mine.) Placing this on a job notice appears to be requiring employees to share their spirituality and therefore a violation of the Equal Opportunity Act.
9% of medical school applicants are Jewish. 26% are Asians or Asian Americans. According to this article - http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/050714/doctorsfaith--.shtml, medical doctors are far more likely to be Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist and Muslim than are people from the general population. The same article states that only 60% of medical doctors describe themselves as Catholic or Protestant, even though 80% of patients are so self-described.
Unfortunately, there is a loophole for this discrimination. From the Equal Opportunity Commission:
"Religious Organization Exception: Under Title VII, religious organizations are permitted to give employment preference to members of their own religion. The exception applies only to those institutions whose “purpose and character are primarily religious.” Factors to consider that would indicate whether an entity is religious include: whether its articles of incorporation state a religious purpose; whether its day-to-day operations are religious (e.g., are the services the entity performs, the product it produces, or the educational curriculum it provides directed toward propagation of the religion?); whether it is not-for-profit; and whether it affiliated with, or supported by, a church or other religious organization."
A hospital with all Catholics on its board might claim it is an institution with a primarily religious purpose even if the rest of us believe its purpose is to deliver babies, perform open heart surgery and otherwise do major medical care we wouldn't want a preacher doing in church.
Considering hospitals are open 24/7/365, how would they expect to staff on Sundays and Christmas?
The employment page of a particular hospital hovered on my computer for over half an hour, while I decided whether or not I really wanted to click the "I agree" button at the bottom of the page so I could continue to view job openings. I did finally click "I agree" and both of the two jobs for which I qualify had the same mission statement as part of the job description. We're talking front desk and dietary aide jobs here, not chaplain's assistant.
If they REALLY think they are continuing the healing mission of Jesus Christ, do they heal people for free and then celebrate with free wine afterwards?
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Sunday, May 9, 2010
The Sage at Night Catches a Possum
This has nothing to do with converting, I'm afraid.
Biding time until I move closer to Eugene, I work at one of the worst jobs ever: night audit at a hotel. It's not physically difficult; in fact I'd prefer menial labor. I spend about 2 hours doing bookkeeping type work and 6 hours just sitting and staring out the window, reading or fooling around online. Some folks would like that, I suppose. I find it brain depleting.
About midnight I saw a cat chasing a baby possum out in the hotel parking lot. So I got up from my chair, chased the cat away, rushed back inside, found a box, crept along behind the possum as it hugged the wall until I could whisk the box over the little rat-like critter. Then I went inside, closed up the box, cut a few air holes in it and told myself I'd put on gloves to check it for injury when I got home, then let it loose in my barn, which has deep litter, high rafters and no longer holds any goats or sheep, damn it. I checked in a customer. I forgot all about the possum for about an hour.
I peeked in the still closed box and was shocked to find it was gone! Duh! Possums can climb trees, even little ones... I guess they can climb boxes, too! It occured to me that maybe rat-like critters would not be welcome in high end hotels with bakeries and cafes. Trying to ignore my smarting, recently cracked rib, I bent down to check under the sofa and the overstuffed chairs. I looked in the bakery and bathroom. I went upstairs to the upper lobby and checked under the sofa and chairs up there. Hmmmm.... no possum.
So I sat back down, imagining myself explaining to the owner why people were screaming in the cafe. Honestly, since I'm moving in June, it's past time for me to update my resume, anyway.
I started worrying about the little possum. What if they poisoned it or caught it in a trap? What if Cesar, the maintenance man, chased it with a shovel? I was so MAD at myself! So I got back up and started looking for it again. The cat was prowling in the parking lot again, I suppose looking for the possum, too.
Three hours later, no possum. I started looking on Craigslist for jobs.
Four hours later, no possum. I sat back down to do my nightly accounting when suddenly I saw a flash of movement by the elevator. I grabbed the box, cornered the possum and GOT IT! This time I taped the box shut.
I brought a whole litter of baby possums into the house when I was little. Mother marched me to the doctor for a rabies shot. Apparently that didn't dampen my love of the little critters.
Biding time until I move closer to Eugene, I work at one of the worst jobs ever: night audit at a hotel. It's not physically difficult; in fact I'd prefer menial labor. I spend about 2 hours doing bookkeeping type work and 6 hours just sitting and staring out the window, reading or fooling around online. Some folks would like that, I suppose. I find it brain depleting.
About midnight I saw a cat chasing a baby possum out in the hotel parking lot. So I got up from my chair, chased the cat away, rushed back inside, found a box, crept along behind the possum as it hugged the wall until I could whisk the box over the little rat-like critter. Then I went inside, closed up the box, cut a few air holes in it and told myself I'd put on gloves to check it for injury when I got home, then let it loose in my barn, which has deep litter, high rafters and no longer holds any goats or sheep, damn it. I checked in a customer. I forgot all about the possum for about an hour.
I peeked in the still closed box and was shocked to find it was gone! Duh! Possums can climb trees, even little ones... I guess they can climb boxes, too! It occured to me that maybe rat-like critters would not be welcome in high end hotels with bakeries and cafes. Trying to ignore my smarting, recently cracked rib, I bent down to check under the sofa and the overstuffed chairs. I looked in the bakery and bathroom. I went upstairs to the upper lobby and checked under the sofa and chairs up there. Hmmmm.... no possum.
So I sat back down, imagining myself explaining to the owner why people were screaming in the cafe. Honestly, since I'm moving in June, it's past time for me to update my resume, anyway.
I started worrying about the little possum. What if they poisoned it or caught it in a trap? What if Cesar, the maintenance man, chased it with a shovel? I was so MAD at myself! So I got back up and started looking for it again. The cat was prowling in the parking lot again, I suppose looking for the possum, too.
Three hours later, no possum. I started looking on Craigslist for jobs.
Four hours later, no possum. I sat back down to do my nightly accounting when suddenly I saw a flash of movement by the elevator. I grabbed the box, cornered the possum and GOT IT! This time I taped the box shut.
I brought a whole litter of baby possums into the house when I was little. Mother marched me to the doctor for a rabies shot. Apparently that didn't dampen my love of the little critters.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
More on Kosher Food Laws
Food is my favorite subject. I should be 400 pounds. So when I heard Rabbi Maurice was teaching a Kashrut class at Temple Beth Israel in Eugene, I naturally enrolled. Rabbi also teaches children, so I suppose my comments and questions aren't too unusual; at least he is very patient with me.
In the previous Biblical Kosher article I mentioned the best known permitted and prohibited foods. I couldn't go into great detail because the space I'm allotted for my weekly column is rather small, and besides, the foods I didn't discuss are not really that popular in the United States today. I mean, when was the last time you ate weasels, rats, vultures, owls, bats, beetles and earthworms?
Ok, I have to admit I've eaten two of the above. And so have you, I'll bet, though not knowingly. Several bottled sauces (especially those that contain tomatoes) in grocery stores and restaurants contain earthworms and beetle wings. A number of food colorings are also derived from insects. But I actually researched using insects as an inexpensive protein source some years back, and you truly can hide earthworms just about anywhere, just like tofu!
The Dutch are already incorporating insects in foods. I've heard of an environmental group that promotes grasshoppers as an alternative to shrimp. They call them land shrimp, and apparently they taste pretty good. Rabbi Maurice's mother was in the class today, and said that they ate locusts in Morocco - and they were delicious.
I wonder what the Jews in Denmark do? Because according to Talmudic rabbis, insects and earthworms are definitely taboo.
Although I've done a lot of reading on permitted and forbidden foods, I have not spent much time on the separation of plates, utensils, etc. I actually did keep mostly rabbinically kosher for the month of January - until my refrigerator died and suddenly I was cooking room temperature perishable food in every pot I owned. Shortly thereafter, I moved out of my 2,500 square foot house into a motorhome to save money while I go back to school. Have you ever tried having two sets of dishes in a motorhome?
But I digress. Instead of interpreting the prohibition against boiling a kid in his mother's milk literally, the Talmudic rabbis built up a mountain of rules separating dairy and meat products.
The rabbis said in addition to not eating dairy products and meat in the same meal, people had to completely separate them in their houses. This means separate sets of dishes, pots and pans, utensils, even separate dish pans and sponges for washing (because the meat essence that lingers on dishes can contaminate the sink even for items washed later) . People sometimes go so far as to have separate refrigerators and ovens.
On the website bubbygram.com, I found the following joke about how far people can carry prohibitions against mixing milk and meat. A handy explanation of Jewish terms and additional rules for Passover are included.
Yaakov was emigrating to Israel by boat. He is bringing with him seven refrigerators. Arriving in Haifa, he is stopped at the port by a customs official. "Sir, you are allowed to bring in only household appliances for your own personal use."
"These are for my own personal use," Yaakov explains. "I'm Orthodox, so I need one for milchig, one for fleischig, and one for parve.*"
"Fine," says the official. "But that's only three. It still doesn't explain seven."
"You're forgetting Passover," says Yaakov. "I also need milchig, fleischig, and parve for Pesach."
"OK. So now we're up to six. It still doesn't add up to seven," said the customs officer.
Yaakov says, "And, nu, what if once in a while I want to eat a little treyf*?"
milchig: milk and dairy
fleishig: meat
parve: neither milk nor meat
treyf: that which is not kosher at all
During Passover, religious Jews use a completely different set of dishes. Kitchens must be thoroughly cleaned before Passover, lest any leftover "chomitz" (that which is not kosher for Passover) contaminate their Passover food. Some religious Jews actually have an extra kitchen for use only on Passover just to be extra sure their Passover foods are not mixed with everyday food.
In Rabbi Maurice's class today, we discussed kashering (making kosher) items used for storing, preparing or cooking food. Whenever dishes get "treyfed" (made impure) by puposeful or accidental contact with something that isn't kosher, you are supposed to make it kosher again. Also when you first buy a set of dishes you need to make them kosher. Rabbi handed out xeroxed sheets explaining how to do this and as I'm wont to do, I read ahead and started smirking.
Depending on exactly what made the items unkosher in the first place, the fix could be heating the items, immersing them in boiling water, washing them, leaving them untouched for 24 hours or a year... OR sticking an item (like a knife) in the earth 10 times.
"What happens if the knife touches an earthworm or earthworm castings?" I said. The other women in the class started giggling. I continued, "You have to find really, really water logged clay soil - so water logged it's anerobic and not one earthworm can survive..." Rabbi apparently hadn't heard that before, but he said that modern rabbis had recently ruled that if you lived in an apartment, you could use the soil in flower pots - and there probably weren't any earthworms in there.
Shew... another potential kashrut emergency avoided.
My classmates were a little concerned about my comments earlier about sauces containing earthworms. Yes, most ketchup contains worms and Heinz 57 contains beetle wings. Rabbi Maurice saved the day again: if you buy kosher-certified sauces, you needed worry about a single insect masquerading in the ingredient list as "natural flavors" ever again, because the rabbis who inspect factories also oversee how products are made.
In the previous Biblical Kosher article I mentioned the best known permitted and prohibited foods. I couldn't go into great detail because the space I'm allotted for my weekly column is rather small, and besides, the foods I didn't discuss are not really that popular in the United States today. I mean, when was the last time you ate weasels, rats, vultures, owls, bats, beetles and earthworms?
Ok, I have to admit I've eaten two of the above. And so have you, I'll bet, though not knowingly. Several bottled sauces (especially those that contain tomatoes) in grocery stores and restaurants contain earthworms and beetle wings. A number of food colorings are also derived from insects. But I actually researched using insects as an inexpensive protein source some years back, and you truly can hide earthworms just about anywhere, just like tofu!
The Dutch are already incorporating insects in foods. I've heard of an environmental group that promotes grasshoppers as an alternative to shrimp. They call them land shrimp, and apparently they taste pretty good. Rabbi Maurice's mother was in the class today, and said that they ate locusts in Morocco - and they were delicious.
I wonder what the Jews in Denmark do? Because according to Talmudic rabbis, insects and earthworms are definitely taboo.
Although I've done a lot of reading on permitted and forbidden foods, I have not spent much time on the separation of plates, utensils, etc. I actually did keep mostly rabbinically kosher for the month of January - until my refrigerator died and suddenly I was cooking room temperature perishable food in every pot I owned. Shortly thereafter, I moved out of my 2,500 square foot house into a motorhome to save money while I go back to school. Have you ever tried having two sets of dishes in a motorhome?
But I digress. Instead of interpreting the prohibition against boiling a kid in his mother's milk literally, the Talmudic rabbis built up a mountain of rules separating dairy and meat products.
The rabbis said in addition to not eating dairy products and meat in the same meal, people had to completely separate them in their houses. This means separate sets of dishes, pots and pans, utensils, even separate dish pans and sponges for washing (because the meat essence that lingers on dishes can contaminate the sink even for items washed later) . People sometimes go so far as to have separate refrigerators and ovens.
On the website bubbygram.com, I found the following joke about how far people can carry prohibitions against mixing milk and meat. A handy explanation of Jewish terms and additional rules for Passover are included.
Yaakov was emigrating to Israel by boat. He is bringing with him seven refrigerators. Arriving in Haifa, he is stopped at the port by a customs official. "Sir, you are allowed to bring in only household appliances for your own personal use."
"These are for my own personal use," Yaakov explains. "I'm Orthodox, so I need one for milchig, one for fleischig, and one for parve.*"
"Fine," says the official. "But that's only three. It still doesn't explain seven."
"You're forgetting Passover," says Yaakov. "I also need milchig, fleischig, and parve for Pesach."
"OK. So now we're up to six. It still doesn't add up to seven," said the customs officer.
Yaakov says, "And, nu, what if once in a while I want to eat a little treyf*?"
milchig: milk and dairy
fleishig: meat
parve: neither milk nor meat
treyf: that which is not kosher at all
During Passover, religious Jews use a completely different set of dishes. Kitchens must be thoroughly cleaned before Passover, lest any leftover "chomitz" (that which is not kosher for Passover) contaminate their Passover food. Some religious Jews actually have an extra kitchen for use only on Passover just to be extra sure their Passover foods are not mixed with everyday food.
In Rabbi Maurice's class today, we discussed kashering (making kosher) items used for storing, preparing or cooking food. Whenever dishes get "treyfed" (made impure) by puposeful or accidental contact with something that isn't kosher, you are supposed to make it kosher again. Also when you first buy a set of dishes you need to make them kosher. Rabbi handed out xeroxed sheets explaining how to do this and as I'm wont to do, I read ahead and started smirking.
Depending on exactly what made the items unkosher in the first place, the fix could be heating the items, immersing them in boiling water, washing them, leaving them untouched for 24 hours or a year... OR sticking an item (like a knife) in the earth 10 times.
"What happens if the knife touches an earthworm or earthworm castings?" I said. The other women in the class started giggling. I continued, "You have to find really, really water logged clay soil - so water logged it's anerobic and not one earthworm can survive..." Rabbi apparently hadn't heard that before, but he said that modern rabbis had recently ruled that if you lived in an apartment, you could use the soil in flower pots - and there probably weren't any earthworms in there.
Shew... another potential kashrut emergency avoided.
My classmates were a little concerned about my comments earlier about sauces containing earthworms. Yes, most ketchup contains worms and Heinz 57 contains beetle wings. Rabbi Maurice saved the day again: if you buy kosher-certified sauces, you needed worry about a single insect masquerading in the ingredient list as "natural flavors" ever again, because the rabbis who inspect factories also oversee how products are made.
Biblical Dietary Laws for Christians and Jews
I write a weekly food column for the local paper, Douglas County News (Oregon). My allotted space is tiny, so the articles are rather truncated, but you may enjoy the following small series on kosher foods I published a couple months ago. I put them together as one article (except for the conclusion) for easier reading.
Biblical Dietary Laws
by Larisa Sparrowhawk
In the next several columns I will discuss Biblical dietary laws that are relevant to both Jewish and Christian denominations.
On the Sixth Day, God said He gave man "every seed bearing plant that is upon the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit" for food and also that he gave all the animals, including birds, "all green plants" (or "herbs," depending on your translation) for food. Clearly, the original diet for all was vegetarian.
No details are given of how Noah understood the concept of clean (acceptable as offerings or human food) and unclean (not acceptable) meats, but Noah did. Man may have already become an omnivore. God instructed that Noah take seven pairs of every clean animal and only one pair of the unclean, with him into the ark. Once the waters receeded, God gave Noah instructions that "every creature" could be eaten, which seems odd in light of the previous classification of clean and unclean. Moreover, the simple fact that Noah was instructed to bring enough of the clean animals to allow burnt offerings, meals and procreation, suggests that details are missing here that will be supplied later.
Throughout Genesis, before the Revelation at Sinai, we read of meals of game, kids (goats), lambs, cattle, bread, lentils and grains. All the animals used in offerings were animals later mentioned as ritually clean. Unleavened bread and lamb are required by God for Passover rituals. We get an early example of "be careful what you wish for" when the Israelites grumble that they have no bread and meat and are sent so much manna and quail they sicken of them. (Modern scientists believe the manna Israelites found to eat in the wilderness was actually a secretion of a type of aphid.)
In Exodus, God promises that if the people follow his laws, they will be free of the diseases of the Egyptians, "for I, the Lord, am your healer." With the laws of both food and bodily cleanliness, He shows how.
The Book of Leviticus, which lays out God's expectations for the Israelites, includes dietary laws. Many have tried to discern hard and fast rules for why certain animals are included or prohibited. The only clear commonality I see is that "clean" meats are low on the food chain. Most of the "unclean" animals are predators or carrion eaters. Others are simply unusual for where they live, like animals that live in water but can walk on land or are so simply made that there is no way to separate ingestive and excretory organs from the meat (as in shellfish). Clean animals include: cloven hooved animals that chew their cud, fish with fins and scales, crickets, locusts and grasshoppers, and non-predatory and non-carrion eating birds.
The fact that pork is prohibited is well known, and most people assume this is for health reasons. In Virginia, I raised pigs. They are hilarious and intelligent, but they will eat absolutely everything. I purchased them to clear marshy woods (unsuitable for goats) of thorn bushes and poison oak, which they did admirably. They also ate grass, some live chickens (to my horror) and excess garden produce. Occasionally, they'd break fences and go beg at the neighbors' houses or run up Courtney's Corner Road to Highway 17, literally looking for road kill to eat. An animal that died three days ago is still food to a pig. No doubt, the ancients knew that any animal that ate decomposing critters could give them food poisoning. Distressed pigs will also turn on human handlers and eat them.
Poultry also are rather unpicky about their diet, but the Israelites may have highly valued their proclivity for chasing down and eating insects.
Although the command "you shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk" is repeated three times, it is never explained. The Rabbis in the Talmud wrote that milk and meat could not be eaten in the same meal, but the Bible itself does not say this. The Bible also commands one to never slaughter a calf in front of its mother and to set a mother bird free before taking her young. I view the "boiling a kid" rule as an injuction against cruelty to its mother.
The Rabbis also could have been concerned about health; dairy and meat together are difficult to digest. Milk contains lactoferrin, which inhibits iron absorption, and vegetables contain vitamin c, which increases iron absorption. Neither milk nor meat contain fiber; they require fiber from vegetables to move through the digestive tract. Therefore, we would do better to eat meat with vegetables and not with milk products.
Wheat, oats, barley, spelt and rye were all grains used in Israel. A famous early recipe for bread in Ezekial includes both grains and beans and is a complete meal. During Biblical times, leavened breads were made from grains that were soaked, thus creating sourdough that tasted better and was more easily digested. They were somewhat domed, small round loaves about the size of the palm of your hand and men typically ate several a day, along with lentils and vegetables. Meats were eaten IF they had been slaughtered and prepared in a kosher manner, with appropriate thanks given to God.
During the long exile of Jews from Israel, both the Vatican and the Talmudian Rabbis had political reasons to disassociate their religions from each other, despite both claiming ancestors in the Old Testament. Thus, it became common for Jews to greatly expand upon Biblical dietary laws. Christians, interpreting part of the Book of Matthew and teachings of Paul, abandoned dietary laws. However, a closer reading of the Books of Matthew and Acts has brought some Christian groups, most notably the Seventh Day Adventists, back to the Law in Leviticus.
Paul taught that one should eat whatever was placed before him, without question. If one bought meat at a market, one should not worry that it may have come from a ceremony worshipping idols because unpure foods could not make a man unpure. However, Jesus followed the laws of kashrut (kosher foods), and well after the Crucifixion, Peter continued to follow kosher laws. Jesus, in Matthew 5:17-20, said "I came not to destroy the Law or the Prophets... til heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law until all is fulfilled. whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven..."
When the Philistines confront Jesus regarding washing hands before eating bread, Jesus gives a long answer, only part of which is commonly quoted (Matthew 15:11): "Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man." Peter asks for clarification, and Jesus explains in Matthew 15:18-20: "...whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated. But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man... evil thoughts, murders, adulteries... these are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man."
In Acts 10:10-28, Peter, while praying on the roof, has a vision in which a sheet descended from heaven, covered with non-kosher animals. A voice told him to eat, but Peter answered, "Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean." God advised he should never call what He had given him common or unclean. Peter, still musing this, met Romen men at the door and realized the meaning: "God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean."
Conclusion:
In the preceeding three articles, I presented the basics of the original Biblical dietary laws and how they were expanded by Talmudic rabbis and eliminated by the Vatican. Without crossing grandparents who follow the traditions of their faith, what should a modern family wishing to make meals more holy do?
Joel Salatin, a farm rights activist who has written a number of very popular sustainable and ethical farming books, is a devout Christian. After he gives one of his rousing Revivalist style speeches, he is often asked why he thinks pork was taboo. Joel answers that during the time the Bible was written, the only pork available was either wild boar (carrion eaters) or from filthy city lots - the ancient version of modern factory farming. Although he would never touch feedlot pork, pigs range happily over dozens of wooded acres on his own farm. They do not smell or bite each others' ears or tails off. They are lean, muscular and healthy. I've enjoyed pork not only from Joel's farm, but also from others who free range their pigs: Double H Farm in Wingina, Virginia, Afton Field Farm in Corvallis, Oregon and Deck Family Farm in Junction City, Oregon.
I won't claim to be the model religious citizen myself. In college, I dabbled with Buddhism. I wandered in and out of churches for ten years and let a whopping 23 years elapse between synagogue visits. However, I do study Torah and Talmud almost daily, so what I lack in outward observance, I hopefully make up in education. I now keep Biblically kosher at home, meaning I eschew forbidden foods. Although I follow the Talmudic injunction against eating milk products in the same meal with meat, it is only because I don't like waking up the next day with a sour stomach. I do not go so far as to keep two sets of dishes and silverware to prevent mingling of meat and milk.
Like Disciple Paul, while I am a guest, I eat whatever is placed before me. Tuesday, I visited my mother, who served shrimp with a delicious Askenazic buckwheat pilaf. I saw no contradiction, ate with gusto, and returned for second helpings.
I don't feel deprived in the least. I don't miss pepperona pizza; I always thought pepperoni was scary stuff, anyway. Although pork sausage is tasty, I prefer Cattail Creek Farm's expensive but delectable lamb sausage. (Junction City, Oregon.)
Lamb is more expensive than pork (dressing out a 45-50% of weight in comparison with pork's 65%), but I've found center leg slices from Anderson Ranch (Brownsville, Oregon) at great prices at Sherm's Thunderbird. For a treat, sometimes I go to Long's Meat Market in Eugene (at 28th Street, near the Willamette Market of Choice) and fairly salivate over their fine in-house butchered products: very reasonably priced local lamb as well as beef.
B&K Natural Farm in Sutherlin has excellent prices on free range poultry. Afton Field Farm gives a discount if you help on processing day!
Since my kids moved out, I eat meat rarely - only two or three meals a month, but every bite is top notch, from pastured animals. I enjoy every bite with a clean conscience and a happy belly.
Biblical Dietary Laws
by Larisa Sparrowhawk
In the next several columns I will discuss Biblical dietary laws that are relevant to both Jewish and Christian denominations.
On the Sixth Day, God said He gave man "every seed bearing plant that is upon the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit" for food and also that he gave all the animals, including birds, "all green plants" (or "herbs," depending on your translation) for food. Clearly, the original diet for all was vegetarian.
No details are given of how Noah understood the concept of clean (acceptable as offerings or human food) and unclean (not acceptable) meats, but Noah did. Man may have already become an omnivore. God instructed that Noah take seven pairs of every clean animal and only one pair of the unclean, with him into the ark. Once the waters receeded, God gave Noah instructions that "every creature" could be eaten, which seems odd in light of the previous classification of clean and unclean. Moreover, the simple fact that Noah was instructed to bring enough of the clean animals to allow burnt offerings, meals and procreation, suggests that details are missing here that will be supplied later.
Throughout Genesis, before the Revelation at Sinai, we read of meals of game, kids (goats), lambs, cattle, bread, lentils and grains. All the animals used in offerings were animals later mentioned as ritually clean. Unleavened bread and lamb are required by God for Passover rituals. We get an early example of "be careful what you wish for" when the Israelites grumble that they have no bread and meat and are sent so much manna and quail they sicken of them. (Modern scientists believe the manna Israelites found to eat in the wilderness was actually a secretion of a type of aphid.)
In Exodus, God promises that if the people follow his laws, they will be free of the diseases of the Egyptians, "for I, the Lord, am your healer." With the laws of both food and bodily cleanliness, He shows how.
The Book of Leviticus, which lays out God's expectations for the Israelites, includes dietary laws. Many have tried to discern hard and fast rules for why certain animals are included or prohibited. The only clear commonality I see is that "clean" meats are low on the food chain. Most of the "unclean" animals are predators or carrion eaters. Others are simply unusual for where they live, like animals that live in water but can walk on land or are so simply made that there is no way to separate ingestive and excretory organs from the meat (as in shellfish). Clean animals include: cloven hooved animals that chew their cud, fish with fins and scales, crickets, locusts and grasshoppers, and non-predatory and non-carrion eating birds.
The fact that pork is prohibited is well known, and most people assume this is for health reasons. In Virginia, I raised pigs. They are hilarious and intelligent, but they will eat absolutely everything. I purchased them to clear marshy woods (unsuitable for goats) of thorn bushes and poison oak, which they did admirably. They also ate grass, some live chickens (to my horror) and excess garden produce. Occasionally, they'd break fences and go beg at the neighbors' houses or run up Courtney's Corner Road to Highway 17, literally looking for road kill to eat. An animal that died three days ago is still food to a pig. No doubt, the ancients knew that any animal that ate decomposing critters could give them food poisoning. Distressed pigs will also turn on human handlers and eat them.
Poultry also are rather unpicky about their diet, but the Israelites may have highly valued their proclivity for chasing down and eating insects.
Although the command "you shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk" is repeated three times, it is never explained. The Rabbis in the Talmud wrote that milk and meat could not be eaten in the same meal, but the Bible itself does not say this. The Bible also commands one to never slaughter a calf in front of its mother and to set a mother bird free before taking her young. I view the "boiling a kid" rule as an injuction against cruelty to its mother.
The Rabbis also could have been concerned about health; dairy and meat together are difficult to digest. Milk contains lactoferrin, which inhibits iron absorption, and vegetables contain vitamin c, which increases iron absorption. Neither milk nor meat contain fiber; they require fiber from vegetables to move through the digestive tract. Therefore, we would do better to eat meat with vegetables and not with milk products.
Wheat, oats, barley, spelt and rye were all grains used in Israel. A famous early recipe for bread in Ezekial includes both grains and beans and is a complete meal. During Biblical times, leavened breads were made from grains that were soaked, thus creating sourdough that tasted better and was more easily digested. They were somewhat domed, small round loaves about the size of the palm of your hand and men typically ate several a day, along with lentils and vegetables. Meats were eaten IF they had been slaughtered and prepared in a kosher manner, with appropriate thanks given to God.
During the long exile of Jews from Israel, both the Vatican and the Talmudian Rabbis had political reasons to disassociate their religions from each other, despite both claiming ancestors in the Old Testament. Thus, it became common for Jews to greatly expand upon Biblical dietary laws. Christians, interpreting part of the Book of Matthew and teachings of Paul, abandoned dietary laws. However, a closer reading of the Books of Matthew and Acts has brought some Christian groups, most notably the Seventh Day Adventists, back to the Law in Leviticus.
Paul taught that one should eat whatever was placed before him, without question. If one bought meat at a market, one should not worry that it may have come from a ceremony worshipping idols because unpure foods could not make a man unpure. However, Jesus followed the laws of kashrut (kosher foods), and well after the Crucifixion, Peter continued to follow kosher laws. Jesus, in Matthew 5:17-20, said "I came not to destroy the Law or the Prophets... til heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law until all is fulfilled. whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven..."
When the Philistines confront Jesus regarding washing hands before eating bread, Jesus gives a long answer, only part of which is commonly quoted (Matthew 15:11): "Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man." Peter asks for clarification, and Jesus explains in Matthew 15:18-20: "...whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated. But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man... evil thoughts, murders, adulteries... these are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man."
In Acts 10:10-28, Peter, while praying on the roof, has a vision in which a sheet descended from heaven, covered with non-kosher animals. A voice told him to eat, but Peter answered, "Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean." God advised he should never call what He had given him common or unclean. Peter, still musing this, met Romen men at the door and realized the meaning: "God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean."
Conclusion:
In the preceeding three articles, I presented the basics of the original Biblical dietary laws and how they were expanded by Talmudic rabbis and eliminated by the Vatican. Without crossing grandparents who follow the traditions of their faith, what should a modern family wishing to make meals more holy do?
Joel Salatin, a farm rights activist who has written a number of very popular sustainable and ethical farming books, is a devout Christian. After he gives one of his rousing Revivalist style speeches, he is often asked why he thinks pork was taboo. Joel answers that during the time the Bible was written, the only pork available was either wild boar (carrion eaters) or from filthy city lots - the ancient version of modern factory farming. Although he would never touch feedlot pork, pigs range happily over dozens of wooded acres on his own farm. They do not smell or bite each others' ears or tails off. They are lean, muscular and healthy. I've enjoyed pork not only from Joel's farm, but also from others who free range their pigs: Double H Farm in Wingina, Virginia, Afton Field Farm in Corvallis, Oregon and Deck Family Farm in Junction City, Oregon.
I won't claim to be the model religious citizen myself. In college, I dabbled with Buddhism. I wandered in and out of churches for ten years and let a whopping 23 years elapse between synagogue visits. However, I do study Torah and Talmud almost daily, so what I lack in outward observance, I hopefully make up in education. I now keep Biblically kosher at home, meaning I eschew forbidden foods. Although I follow the Talmudic injunction against eating milk products in the same meal with meat, it is only because I don't like waking up the next day with a sour stomach. I do not go so far as to keep two sets of dishes and silverware to prevent mingling of meat and milk.
Like Disciple Paul, while I am a guest, I eat whatever is placed before me. Tuesday, I visited my mother, who served shrimp with a delicious Askenazic buckwheat pilaf. I saw no contradiction, ate with gusto, and returned for second helpings.
I don't feel deprived in the least. I don't miss pepperona pizza; I always thought pepperoni was scary stuff, anyway. Although pork sausage is tasty, I prefer Cattail Creek Farm's expensive but delectable lamb sausage. (Junction City, Oregon.)
Lamb is more expensive than pork (dressing out a 45-50% of weight in comparison with pork's 65%), but I've found center leg slices from Anderson Ranch (Brownsville, Oregon) at great prices at Sherm's Thunderbird. For a treat, sometimes I go to Long's Meat Market in Eugene (at 28th Street, near the Willamette Market of Choice) and fairly salivate over their fine in-house butchered products: very reasonably priced local lamb as well as beef.
B&K Natural Farm in Sutherlin has excellent prices on free range poultry. Afton Field Farm gives a discount if you help on processing day!
Since my kids moved out, I eat meat rarely - only two or three meals a month, but every bite is top notch, from pastured animals. I enjoy every bite with a clean conscience and a happy belly.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Introduction
I suppose it would be a good idea to start with who I am and why I'm here. My name is Larisa. I was born in Oregon but moved when very young to a suburb of Washington, D.C. and only recently moved back to Oregon. I grew up in an unusually non-religious environment and still do not entirely understand the reason for this; I suspect there is a story I've never heard. My next door neighbor first described angels to me while we were sitting in the dirt, playing with little erasers shaped like animals. I went inside and asked my mother if angels were real. Her answer, "Angels are real if you believe they are!"
I was sent off to a Mormon summer camp when I was eleven, probably because it was inexpensive and fairly close by. On the second night, while we were all clustered around the campfire, the camp leader asked if I would read from the Scriptures. I was totally mystified. "What are Scriptures?" I asked. To the leader's credit, she quickly stopped the giggling and whispering by telling the other girls that it was a good deed to be kind to outsiders. The other girls were nice to me the entire six weeks.
I really started asking questions in junior high and high school and tagged along with neighbors to their various places of worship. I caught my father (may his memory be a blessing) watching tv specials about the life of Jesus a couple of times and confronted him: "I thought you didn't believe." He told me Mom didn't believe. She told me he didn't believe. I didn't know what to believe.
I visited a Catholic church first and hated it. It was stuffy. I thought it was silly that people had to confess their sins to another person who wasn't their parent. I knew people who put statues on their lawns when they wanted to sell their houses, had rosaries and velvet paintings and statuettes of Mary. (If you haven't guessed by now, I'm middle-aged... younger readers probably haven't seen a real velvet painting ever...) I was favorably impressed by the architecture, but negatively by the hurdles one had to jump to get to God... there were all these saints and religious officials in the way, and then Mary and Jesus and finally there was God.
Seeking a new perspective as an adult, I visited the National Cathedral twice as an adult. I lingered long in the gilded and marbeled rooms, taking photographs and longing to touch. I hurt my neck looking up at the ceiling. I loved the stained glass. Hoping to understand, I searched the faces of other women present. I was clearly a tourist, in sensible slacks and shoes, with a camera. On the faces of the more reverantly dressed, I saw thoughtfulness, concentration, irritation with the wrigglings of children and even dewy transcendance. I, however, felt nothing other than curiosity over the human effort and expense involved in the creation of this building. I wanted to belt out the tune from Porgy and Bess: "It ain't necessarily so... the things that they're liable to tell in the Bible... it ain't necessarily so." I figured if God was present in the Cathedral, He would rattle those magnificent stained glass windows in answer. Instead, I simply left.
I visited several Methodist, Mormon and Presbytarian Churches and felt like Huckleberry Finn, longing to be outside.
When I was out in the country, away from the light pollution that stretched 20 miles beyond DC (probably farther now!), I would look at the stars and feel God. I also felt God in the wind, in thunderstorms, in meadows and rivers and lakes and the ocean... in other words, I felt God whenever other humans were not involved.
I began to pray in thanks, but never for assistance. I began to believe as a Deist does, that there is a God, but He is very far removed from the daily existence of mere mortals like us.
As a teenager and young adult, I had a fascination with children of religious workers. I dated several sons of preachers. This made it easy to visit other churches. I felt nothing until I went to a revival at a black Baptist church in Vienna, Virginia. Here was part of what I longed for: active participation on the part of the community. People sang, swayed, laughed, got up from their pews to shout out and offered themselves for salvation. These people weren't in church because their mothers or wives or community thought they should be. They were there because they loved it and they lived it.
I considered offering myself to be saved. The problem? I had read in the Bible that Jesus said "I came not to change the law." So I wondered why a whole new religion was based around him. Jesus disagreed with certain sects of Judaism, but he lived as a Jew, keeping kosher until the end. Peter, his disciple, kept kosher for years after the crucifixion. Jesus taught people to be better people and better Jews during a time it seemed very likely that the world would end.
I continued to visit churches as a young adult. I toured the part of the Mormon Tabernacle in Maryland open to visitors. I gasped at the golden dome of the Buddhist Temple in northern Virginia. I enjoyed the gardens and the red candles in the Franciscan Monestary in DC. I noticed, however, that the monks were wearing very fashionable shoes under their plain brown robes. I wondered: were they rebelling quietly or had there been an actual decision to allow this small luxury in a life of ascetism?
I dabbled in Buddhism, Shintoism and studied Native American beliefs. I read about Pagans and became friends with Rastafarians in Richmond, even visiting their makeshift church and playing much of their music on a radio show I hosted, but never partaking of that stinky stuff.
One thing I realized early was that I was insecure about many aspects of myself, but my intelligence was not one of them. I never once got drunk or stoned and lost control of what sometimes seemed my only asset. Always physically and socially clumsy, never quite healthy, I was the brunt of jokes throughout school.
At 20 I married a Japanese citizen who owned a DC sushi bar. We accidentally got pregnant almost immediately and that strained what was probably an illogical marriage, anyway. We divorced shortly after our son's birth.
At 21 I walked into the first synagogue I had ever visited and announced to the office staff I wanted to join. I had never attended a single service. I looked extremely young at the time, maybe 15, and very blonde. They viewed me with what appeared to be disdain. Embarrassed, I left and didn't set foot in a synagogue again for 23 years!
Over the years, however, I occasionally felt secretly Jewish. After I moved to Oregon I started having these thoughts more often. A few times I identified myself as Jewish when asked. I began having dreams, many of them in the summer of 2009. After a major health scare in September, these dreams became relentless, as if I was being told it was long past time to do something about it. In one of these dreams I was lobbying on behalf of Jewish interests in Congress. (I told this to students in and Introduction to Torah class and they laughed, but this was really not very far fetched for me, since I began lobbying Congress for environmental causes when I was 8 and still actively pester Congress to uphold Constitutional privacy and property rights, especially when they affect farmers.) In another dream a major public figure I have admired for 10 years divorced his wife and asked me to marry him; I surprised myself even in the dream by saying I could not because he was Christian and I was Jewish! I told him my religion was as important to me as his was to him and I knew we'd never be happy.
During my rather painful and public (in a small town) recovery, I was visited by people of multiple religions, trying to convert me and save me before I possibly took a turn for the worse. I was visited by folks from a branch of an East Indian religion and from numerous denominations of Christians. I, of course, told them I was Jewish, which hardly stemmed the tide of prosyletizers; it may have even increased it. One afternoon a lady was sitting in a chair near me, watching three people come in. She said, "Wow, God must really want you!" I smiled at that; I was starting to believe it as well, although I told her I wasn't a "very good Jew".
By Hannukah, I was trolling online, researching. I bought the CD "Songs in the Key of Hannukah" and played the songs that included rap (!) over and over so I could sing along! I started raiding the library and shortly exhausted their Jewish books. Like many others, the economy had a devastating effect on my personal finances, but I started buying books whenever I found them inexpensively on Amazon. Books or groceries? Books.
During Christmas, I was visited by a Jehovah's Witness at work. I've had pleasant conversations with several women from the local church. They were nice ladies, whether we disagreed or not. This fellow, however, would not leave. He talked my ear off and since it was slow at work, I couldn't get away from him. The following day he was back, so I told him that I was happy with my Judaism, thank you very much, and didn't want to endure another three hours of his prosyletizing. I thought he would say excuse me and leave, but he unleashed a violent torrent of "Jesus killer" type comments at me and wrote a very long, unflattering letter to my employer about me. I made a copy just in case he turned out to be a dangerous stalker and I needed court evidence later. Thankfully, I haven't seen him since.
I enrolled in the above mentioned Intro to Torah class at Temple Beth Israel, which was an hour and 15 minute drive away. Despite my constant exhaustion from working two dead end jobs, I was alert and an active participant, often seeming to know more than the born Jews in the class. I cornered the charming Rabbi Maurice after the third class and told him I wanted to convert.
We met a few weeks later and I was disappointed to hear I'd have to wait a year!
In this blog I will share my thoughts as I discover wonderous, puzzling, difficult and humorous things along my conversion journey.
I was sent off to a Mormon summer camp when I was eleven, probably because it was inexpensive and fairly close by. On the second night, while we were all clustered around the campfire, the camp leader asked if I would read from the Scriptures. I was totally mystified. "What are Scriptures?" I asked. To the leader's credit, she quickly stopped the giggling and whispering by telling the other girls that it was a good deed to be kind to outsiders. The other girls were nice to me the entire six weeks.
I really started asking questions in junior high and high school and tagged along with neighbors to their various places of worship. I caught my father (may his memory be a blessing) watching tv specials about the life of Jesus a couple of times and confronted him: "I thought you didn't believe." He told me Mom didn't believe. She told me he didn't believe. I didn't know what to believe.
I visited a Catholic church first and hated it. It was stuffy. I thought it was silly that people had to confess their sins to another person who wasn't their parent. I knew people who put statues on their lawns when they wanted to sell their houses, had rosaries and velvet paintings and statuettes of Mary. (If you haven't guessed by now, I'm middle-aged... younger readers probably haven't seen a real velvet painting ever...) I was favorably impressed by the architecture, but negatively by the hurdles one had to jump to get to God... there were all these saints and religious officials in the way, and then Mary and Jesus and finally there was God.
Seeking a new perspective as an adult, I visited the National Cathedral twice as an adult. I lingered long in the gilded and marbeled rooms, taking photographs and longing to touch. I hurt my neck looking up at the ceiling. I loved the stained glass. Hoping to understand, I searched the faces of other women present. I was clearly a tourist, in sensible slacks and shoes, with a camera. On the faces of the more reverantly dressed, I saw thoughtfulness, concentration, irritation with the wrigglings of children and even dewy transcendance. I, however, felt nothing other than curiosity over the human effort and expense involved in the creation of this building. I wanted to belt out the tune from Porgy and Bess: "It ain't necessarily so... the things that they're liable to tell in the Bible... it ain't necessarily so." I figured if God was present in the Cathedral, He would rattle those magnificent stained glass windows in answer. Instead, I simply left.
I visited several Methodist, Mormon and Presbytarian Churches and felt like Huckleberry Finn, longing to be outside.
When I was out in the country, away from the light pollution that stretched 20 miles beyond DC (probably farther now!), I would look at the stars and feel God. I also felt God in the wind, in thunderstorms, in meadows and rivers and lakes and the ocean... in other words, I felt God whenever other humans were not involved.
I began to pray in thanks, but never for assistance. I began to believe as a Deist does, that there is a God, but He is very far removed from the daily existence of mere mortals like us.
As a teenager and young adult, I had a fascination with children of religious workers. I dated several sons of preachers. This made it easy to visit other churches. I felt nothing until I went to a revival at a black Baptist church in Vienna, Virginia. Here was part of what I longed for: active participation on the part of the community. People sang, swayed, laughed, got up from their pews to shout out and offered themselves for salvation. These people weren't in church because their mothers or wives or community thought they should be. They were there because they loved it and they lived it.
I considered offering myself to be saved. The problem? I had read in the Bible that Jesus said "I came not to change the law." So I wondered why a whole new religion was based around him. Jesus disagreed with certain sects of Judaism, but he lived as a Jew, keeping kosher until the end. Peter, his disciple, kept kosher for years after the crucifixion. Jesus taught people to be better people and better Jews during a time it seemed very likely that the world would end.
I continued to visit churches as a young adult. I toured the part of the Mormon Tabernacle in Maryland open to visitors. I gasped at the golden dome of the Buddhist Temple in northern Virginia. I enjoyed the gardens and the red candles in the Franciscan Monestary in DC. I noticed, however, that the monks were wearing very fashionable shoes under their plain brown robes. I wondered: were they rebelling quietly or had there been an actual decision to allow this small luxury in a life of ascetism?
I dabbled in Buddhism, Shintoism and studied Native American beliefs. I read about Pagans and became friends with Rastafarians in Richmond, even visiting their makeshift church and playing much of their music on a radio show I hosted, but never partaking of that stinky stuff.
One thing I realized early was that I was insecure about many aspects of myself, but my intelligence was not one of them. I never once got drunk or stoned and lost control of what sometimes seemed my only asset. Always physically and socially clumsy, never quite healthy, I was the brunt of jokes throughout school.
At 20 I married a Japanese citizen who owned a DC sushi bar. We accidentally got pregnant almost immediately and that strained what was probably an illogical marriage, anyway. We divorced shortly after our son's birth.
At 21 I walked into the first synagogue I had ever visited and announced to the office staff I wanted to join. I had never attended a single service. I looked extremely young at the time, maybe 15, and very blonde. They viewed me with what appeared to be disdain. Embarrassed, I left and didn't set foot in a synagogue again for 23 years!
Over the years, however, I occasionally felt secretly Jewish. After I moved to Oregon I started having these thoughts more often. A few times I identified myself as Jewish when asked. I began having dreams, many of them in the summer of 2009. After a major health scare in September, these dreams became relentless, as if I was being told it was long past time to do something about it. In one of these dreams I was lobbying on behalf of Jewish interests in Congress. (I told this to students in and Introduction to Torah class and they laughed, but this was really not very far fetched for me, since I began lobbying Congress for environmental causes when I was 8 and still actively pester Congress to uphold Constitutional privacy and property rights, especially when they affect farmers.) In another dream a major public figure I have admired for 10 years divorced his wife and asked me to marry him; I surprised myself even in the dream by saying I could not because he was Christian and I was Jewish! I told him my religion was as important to me as his was to him and I knew we'd never be happy.
During my rather painful and public (in a small town) recovery, I was visited by people of multiple religions, trying to convert me and save me before I possibly took a turn for the worse. I was visited by folks from a branch of an East Indian religion and from numerous denominations of Christians. I, of course, told them I was Jewish, which hardly stemmed the tide of prosyletizers; it may have even increased it. One afternoon a lady was sitting in a chair near me, watching three people come in. She said, "Wow, God must really want you!" I smiled at that; I was starting to believe it as well, although I told her I wasn't a "very good Jew".
By Hannukah, I was trolling online, researching. I bought the CD "Songs in the Key of Hannukah" and played the songs that included rap (!) over and over so I could sing along! I started raiding the library and shortly exhausted their Jewish books. Like many others, the economy had a devastating effect on my personal finances, but I started buying books whenever I found them inexpensively on Amazon. Books or groceries? Books.
During Christmas, I was visited by a Jehovah's Witness at work. I've had pleasant conversations with several women from the local church. They were nice ladies, whether we disagreed or not. This fellow, however, would not leave. He talked my ear off and since it was slow at work, I couldn't get away from him. The following day he was back, so I told him that I was happy with my Judaism, thank you very much, and didn't want to endure another three hours of his prosyletizing. I thought he would say excuse me and leave, but he unleashed a violent torrent of "Jesus killer" type comments at me and wrote a very long, unflattering letter to my employer about me. I made a copy just in case he turned out to be a dangerous stalker and I needed court evidence later. Thankfully, I haven't seen him since.
I enrolled in the above mentioned Intro to Torah class at Temple Beth Israel, which was an hour and 15 minute drive away. Despite my constant exhaustion from working two dead end jobs, I was alert and an active participant, often seeming to know more than the born Jews in the class. I cornered the charming Rabbi Maurice after the third class and told him I wanted to convert.
We met a few weeks later and I was disappointed to hear I'd have to wait a year!
In this blog I will share my thoughts as I discover wonderous, puzzling, difficult and humorous things along my conversion journey.
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