3. It should be served exactly the way it is baked, closed, in its aluminum foil wrapping, just as the kosher flight food packs are served on airlines.
4. Since it is hot, it cannot be eaten from a non-kosher dish nor with non-kosher cutlery. Therefore, the waiter will bring plastic cutlery and a paper plate—or the fish can be eaten out of its own foil container. Some hotels keep on hand brand-new flatware which they bring for first-time use in these circumstances.
I tried this once at a health spa, where the management was most accommodating and even asked me to come to the kitchen to see that everything was “kosher.” I must admit I was a bit apprehensive, and every time the waiter passed I reminded him not to open the aluminum foil but that I would do it myself. However, there are Orthodox Jews who travel a lot and find it works without a hitch. A friend suggests that a telephone call to the chef in the quiet hours of the afternoon to explain the whys and wherefores makes it much simpler.
The same procedures can be followed when people who observe kashrut are invited to the homes of people who do not. True, some hosts will feel awkward about serving a guest a fresh salad when others get roast duck, but by extending themselves and by agreeing not to be embarrassed on either side, justice can be done to both kashrut and the need to socialize.
The above suggestions will enable one to eat out with friends or in business situations while meeting the technical requirements of kashrut. Some Jews would object on the principle of marit ayin. Others might point out that the dishes used had not been immersed. Still others would argue that the very purpose of kashrut was to discourage excessive socializing with people who don’t observe the laws. However, none of these objections are flaws in the basic condition of being kosher.
I believe that the purpose of kashrut is to make eating a special experience and to serve as a reminder of a Jew’s ethical conscience as well as of the other unique teachings of Judaism. To me, distinctiveness and not separation is the Jew’s calling. This feeling is possible in the presence of nonobservant Jews and of non-Jews. The values of friendship, human solidarity, and socializing are highly esteemed Jewish values; making a living and exchanging professional service (sometimes performed over a meal) also are respected in Jewish culture. One of the great qualities of the Jewish tradition is its ability to balance contradictions—idealism and realism, Jewish particularism and unusual concern for humanity. Similarly, in the act of eating, one can strike that balance between fidelity to one’s own principles and shared friendship and respectful contact with others.
How does it feel to be strictly kosher?
I have given a good many words to eating kosher in non-kosher eating places. It would seem to suggest that there are some Orthodox Jews who keep strictly kosher yet who underneath it all are dying to eat non-kosher. The truth? For 99.9 percent of my life, the thought simply never crosses my mind. I was born into a kosher home, have lived that way all of my life, and have never really felt deprived. I have shopped, cooked, and eaten according to the laws of my faith—and I do so out of love and not a sense of oppression. I have never tasted shrimp nor eaten at Regine’s and it is all the same to me. To be sure, there have been a dozen times in my life when I’ve had a passion to eat something I wasn’t permitted to have—marshmallows, as a child growing up in Seattle; dark chocolate mousse being served at a non-kosher neighbor’s birthday party while I smile sweetly over my poor bowl of strawberries; feeling a huge craving for a gourmet meal prepared by Jean Banchet of Le Français that I read about in TWA’s Ambassador magazine (February 1981); or when I’ve eaten a bad meal at a kosher restaurant whose banquettes smell slightly of mildew—well, I can’t always say kosher is the best thing in the world.
And yet, I like keeping/being kosher, for as I’ve said earlier, it is not only a way of eating, it is a way of life. Kashrut is like a portable faith, perhaps more so for a woman than for a man who has tangible religious paraphernalia to remind himself and others who he is. An Orthodox Jewish woman, having no such visible symbols as kepah and tzitzit, tallit and tefillin, feels a heightened sense of Jewish awareness as she goes about her worldly business, all the while carrying with her this elaborate and very special discipline. Strange, but walking past a hot-dog stand or reading labels in the supermarket aisles or breaking raw eggs into a glass one by one makes me feel—Jewish!
I like it, too, because it says something to me about the generations. Not just the past but the future. When Moshe scrutinizes the label of something I’ve bought and tells me he won’t eat it, I don’t consider it the one-upmanship of an adolescent. Instead, I am very proud of him, for he has done what we had hoped—he has taken the laws of kashrut as his own serious responsibility. Yitz and I now know that Moshe could travel anywhere around the world or find himself in any social circumstance—and he would remain a faithful Jew, inextricably tied to his people and to his tradition. What more could a parent want!
Though I might dwell a few moments on thoughts of dinner at Le Français, a dispensation for a day is not something I would ever consider. I’ve kept this body filled with kosher food all these years—and it has served me pretty well—body and soul. I intend to keep doing the same for as long as I live. Someday I’ll find my kosher Monsieur Banchet and have my elegant orgy. Meanwhile, no one makes chicken soup and knaidlach like Sylvia G.
CHAPTER · 3
TAHARAT HAMISHPACHAH: THE LAWS OF FAMILY PURITY
In traditional Jewish literature, one can find both positive and negative attitudes toward sex. There are statements made by great rabbis that are thoroughly positive and wholesome:
Where there is no union of male and female, men are not worthy of beholding the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence.
—The Zohar
… when you are ready for sexual union, see that your wife’s intentions combine with yours. Do not hurry to arouse her until she is receptive. Be calm … as you enter the path of love and will.
—The Holy Letter,
attributed to Nahmanides
Yet, turn a page or two, a century or two, and you will find more circumspect attitudes. But as with all things in Judaism, no matter what the attitude or the interpretation of certain laws, there is a special way to behave. So it is with marital sex.
If I were asked to list the central rituals that characterize and regulate the life of an Orthodox Jew, I would swiftly recite my catechism: Shabbat, kashrut and taharat hamishpachah, the laws of family purity. Taharat hamishpachah is a fairly accurate euphemism for those laws that prohibit sexual intercourse each month during a woman’s menses and during the seven days following menses; the entire period of abstinence is concluded with ritual immersion. Two other equally good code words that summon up this body of laws are mikvah (ritual bath) and niddah (woman in a state of sexual unavailability).
Of all the laws that govern an Orthodox Jew’s life, these are the most private, the most secretive, and without contest, the most difficult. Which explains, in part, why Conservative, Re-constructionist, and Reform denominations, though retaining varying degrees of observance of Shabbat and kashrut, have all but discarded taharat hamishpachah from their ritual agendas.
Not so Orthodox Jews. That is not to say that some individuals have privately decided not to adhere, or, more likely, have simply defaulted. On the one hand, the secrecy and privacy allow that only a woman and her husband know for sure whether they observe the laws or not. On the other hand, locking horns with something as powerful as the sex drive makes it a surety that the law will not always prevail. Nevertheless, despite a measure of noncompliance among Jews who consider themselves Orthodox and are so identified, taharat hamishpachah remains a basic assumption of Orthodox Jewish family life.
Taharat hamishpachah is given great weight in the tradition: (1) Niddah is one of three mitzvot assigned primarily to women—the other two being challah and nerot (candlelighting). (2) The laws of niddah and mikvah are Biblical in origin. The Torah even gives us the exact punishment for a man and a woman who
have sex during menstruation; it is the dreaded and mysterious karet, a divine punishment of cutting off their souls from the Jewish people. (3) Most surprising of all, constructing a mikvah, a ritualariam as it is sometimes called, takes precedence over many other mitzvot. For example, where there is no mikvah, community leaders are required to sell the Torah scroll in order to pay for building a mikvah. And if communal resources are such that a choice must be made between a synagogue or a mikvah, the latter comes first. (It doesn’t usually happen that way, but that’s how it is on record.)
What is it all about? Why such secrecy? Why such import? And what does it say to us today?
The Torah gives the law, not once but three times:
1. “And if a woman have a bodily flow and this flow from her flesh be blood, she shall be in her impurity for seven days. And whosoever touches her shall be unclean until the evening” (LEV. 15:19).
2. “And unto a woman while she is impure by her uncleanness you shall not approach to uncover her nakedness” (LEV. 18:19).
3. “And if a man shall lie with a woman having her flow and shall uncover her nakedness—her source he has uncovered and she has uncovered [to him] the fountain of her blood; both of them shall be cut off from among their people” (LEV. 20:18).
The Biblical laws appear in two different contexts: one (1) in a list of ritual impurities, the other (3) as part of a litany of forbidden sexual unions. The middle verse, Leviticus 18:19, seems to be the bridge phrase interweaving the two themes. But it is important to keep in mind that there is a distinction between impurity, taboos, and forbidden relationships, for it affects the way we use language regarding niddah as well as the way we understand the meaning of the laws today. More about that later.
The Bible requires a minimum of seven days of abstinence, beginning with the onset of flow and concluded by purification in the mikvah. The Rabbis expanded the minimum from seven to twelve days—five-day minimum for the flow and seven “white” days following the last day of flow. In the Talmud, we read that it was the women themselves who increased the severity of the law, that is, extended the off limits time.
Briefly, it works this way: as soon as menstruation begins each month, the woman and her husband separate from each other sexually. A woman should keep track of her menstrual rhythm so as to anticipate onset day. Toward the end of her menstrual flow, she will begin to examine herself to see exactly on what day the flow stops. At the end of the last day of staining, she begins to count the seven “white” days, days that are free of any staining. If her menses lasts longer than five days, or if she stains for a long while after the end of the regular flow, she and her husband have an extra burden. However, there are numerous rabbinic qualifications as to what constitutes staining, and the rabbis took extenuating circumstances into consideration as they legislated.
I have used the term “whites,” a literal translation of the Talmudic levanim, rather than the more commonly used term “clean,” as in “seven clean days,” because clean implies unclean. I would like to get away from categories of unclean. Menstruation is natural and healthy. At worst, it is a nuisance, but it is not unclean and impure. In Temple times, those words were appropriate. They meant ritually impure and unclean, that is, unfit for Temple access. Today, however, they summon up negative associations of “not clean” or “dirty,” which the term “whites” does not. I, for one, don’t consider my body impure just because I am a niddah. I might feel more pure after immersion in the mikvah, but I didn’t feel unclean or impure before it. It’s a shade of difference, but it matters.
The law proscribes all physical contact during niddah. This harks back to Temple times when impurity could be transferred by touch. The prohibition of bodily contact can also be explained by the domino theory of sexual passion, a la Victorian novels—for example, he touches her earlobe and inevitably, four pages later, they’re down on the grassy green riverbank.
Thus, not only intercourse, but everything short of it is also forbidden. That is why you will never see in an Orthodox home only one bed in the master bedroom: twin beds, or occasionally a queen and a twin, but never only one bed. For at least twelve days of every menstrual cycle, a niddah woman and her husband must sleep in separate beds. In some homes, twin beds are pushed apart for the duration. Not only is sleeping together prohibited, but also kissing, holding hands, touching, and so forth.
There is, however, a range of behavior among Orthodox with regard to all physical contact. Some men will never shake hands with a member of the opposite sex, because of the possibility of it being her time of niddah. But some Orthodox rabbis will shake every woman’s hand every Shabbat. Some couples will not hand the car keys directly to one another during niddah, but rather one will put the keys down on a neutral surface and the other will retrieve them; other Orthodox Jews will hold hands and display other gestures of affection. There is, as one might expect, a good deal of personal packaging of this very private mitzvah.
In the evening, at the end of the seventh “white” day, a woman goes off to the mikvah. The mikvah is sometimes housed in the synagogue, but more often it is a discreet, nondescript building apart, a kind of brown-wrapper edifice, much as taharat hamishpachah is kind of a brown-wrapper mitzvah, replete with tones of modesty, taboo, innuendo, privacy, and great secrecy. (One is expected to speak of niddah and mikvah in hushed tones, which, to my mind, does not exactly help to gain adherents.)
At the mikvah, the woman prepares herself, immerses in the mikvah waters, and recites the blessing over this Mitzvah. A couple is expected to resume sex that night, although there is no law that directly says, “Thou shalt …”
For a woman who has just given birth—and is considered to be a niddah—the procedures are quite similar, although the count of days for flow is different. If she has given birth to a boy, she counts a minimum of seven days for flow or staining, plus seven full white days, after which she goes to the mikvah. If she has given birth to a girl, she counts a minimum of fourteen days for the flow, followed by seven whites. There are numerous explanations for the gender differential in the length of impurity state. Some of these explanations are sexist, some apologetic, some irrelevant, some elegiac. Whatever, Orthodox men and women have been trained to wait as the law prescribes. A week earlier, a week later, the new baby is a sufficiently large distraction that no one has mounted a protest at what many outside the community consider to be theoretically discriminatory. Besides, most gynecologists require their patients to wait even longer.
PROCEDURES AT THE MIKVAH
What happens at the mikvah deserves a fuller description. Contrary to uninformed assertions (for example, “I can take a bath at home”), the mikvah is not for bathing or cleansing. One must be perfectly clean before entering the mikvah, which is why there is a regular bathtub in the very same chamber as the mikvah pool, or in a room adjacent to it. The first type of setup is called a “private”; the second type is called “semiprivate”—two or three individual bathing rooms open onto a small vestibule that leads to the mikvah basin room, which the semiprivate clients share in consecutive fashion. In order to ensure maximum privacy for each semiprivate client, all doors are closed immediately after entry or exit. It sometimes feels like we’re playing musical doors in going to and from the mikvah room.
The mikvah is not just an ordinary pool of warm water: its waters must be live waters, that is, from a living source, such as rain, river, or ocean. The water must be in its natural state—not drawn in by pumps and plumbing. The ideal (and original) mikvah would be an actual lake or river. Since it would be virtually impossible to gather such large amounts of fresh water every day for indoor mikva’ot (plural), the Rabbis allowed that only a portion need be live waters and the rest may be tap drawn. When the tap-water portion is connected to the live-water source, it is considered, by means of a legal fiction, to be as one living water source. Constructing a kosher mikvah* is quite complex, and certain engineering skills are needed. But one doesn’t have to reinvent
the wheel. Jewish law being as ancient as it is, there are many ready-made architectural and plumbing designs—some dating as far back as the Talmud—that make it relatively easy to construct a mikvah today. Every American city with a sizable Jewish population has at least one mikvah.
A woman prepares herself for the mikvah in a special way: she removes anything that would constitute a barrier between the water and her body—all jewelry, bandages, dentures, makeup, nail polish, and so forth. She brushes her teeth; she clips her finger- and toenails and brushes them in order to dislodge any particles of dirt beneath them. (The fingernail injunction has caused some women to complain.) Unlike women of ancient times, when long nails were a sign of unkemptness, modern Orthodox women pride themselves on long, beautiful nails. Many an argument has been waged in the mikvah chamber over the length to which a woman must cut her fingernails. My father-in-law, a great Talmudic scholar, was once summoned to the mikvah in Boro Park, to give a p’sak, a rabbinic decision. The mikvah lady wanted the nails cut and the “client” balked. The only authority they could both agree upon was my father-in-law, who came armed with his legal codes. He calmed the “client” and eased the mikvah lady’s mind by showing her in fine Hebrew print that as long as the nails were perfectly clean, their length made no difference. Vanity was a perfectly legitimate reason for post-Talmudic rabbinic authority to interpret ancient law.
After a woman has prepared herself, she steps into a bath that has been drawn for her. She bathes for a few minutes, washes herself, shampoos, and then rinses off thoroughly with a shower. She then combs out her hair free of knots, rinses her mouth with a cup of water, wraps a large white sheet around herself, and presses a buzzer. The buzzer will summon that unique and special functionary in the Jewish community, the mikvah lady.
In larger mikva’ot there are several mikvah ladies, ladies of the lake, I call them. Nice Jewish women all, there is something of a pecking order: the one who supervises the immersion is at the top—the professional. Next come the attendants (assistants) who draw the baths, supply the sheets, towels, soap, and so forth. At the bottom are those who scour the tubs and wash the floors to prepare the room for the next niddah. Even in the most busy mikva’ot, there are never more than five women in attendance, and in many smaller mikva’ot one woman does all three jobs, with just an occasional bit of assistance. We, the community, take these trusty soldiers for granted. (I wonder what it must be like to inspect thirty bodies a night for loose hairs and trimmed toenails, or to wash thirty bathtubs a night.) They serve the community quietly, modestly, seriously, and with dignity; understandably, mikvah jokes are distasteful to them.
How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household Page 12