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{{data|26 August 2022}}
[[File:Cymes.jpg|thumb|Tzimmes, a traditional Jewish dessert made of carrots (and possibly other root vegetables) and raisins (and other dried fruits), sweetened with honey or sugar and seasoned with cinnamon. In Polish the word ''``cymes"“cymes”'' is still used to mean anything that's that’s exceptionally good, even if few modern Poles have actually sampled actual tzimmes.<br>{{small|The picture comes from [https://toriavey.com/toris-kitchen/recipesrecipës/stovetop-tzimmes/ Tori Avey'sAvey’s] cooking blog.}}]]
This is the second part of my attempt at explaining Jewish dietary law. In [[Of This Ye Shall Not Eat for It Is an Abomination|my previous post]] I focused on the restrictions kosher rules place on animal-based products. Today, we’ll take a closer look at plants, as well as some holiday fare.<ref>The title of this post is a paraphrase of the Biblical passage, ``Go “Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart"heart”; {{Cyt
| tytuł = Authorized (King James) Bible
| rozdział = Ecclesiastes
=== First Fruits ===
Not to make things too easy for the vegetarians, though, there are also some limitations regarding plant-based foods. One is quite obvious: as we know, all ``creeping things" “creeping things” are unkosher, therefore all fruits and vegetables that are infested with maggots aren’t kosher either.
But that’s not all. In the times when the Temple of Jerusalem still stood, Jews were obligated to pay various kinds of taxes and tithes to the priests. These included the ``first fruits"“first fruits”, or produce from the first harvest of a given crop in a given period. For example, Jews couldn’t consume any cereals that had grown in the early spring until some of the grain was brought to the Temple for the feast of Passover.
{{ Cytat
| When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest {{...}} And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day [i.e., the 16th of the month of Nisan] that ye have brought an offering unto your God {{...}}
| źródło = {{Cyt
| tytuł = Authorized (King James) Bible
}}
The Temple is now long gone, but the rules which command you to wait until you can eat certain grains or fruits are still in effect. There is, however, a loophole for the Jews living in the diaspora. Note that both of the passages above begin with the qualification, ``when “when ye shall come into the land which I give unto you"you”. One way of reading it is simply that God gave Jews their law while they were wandering in a desert, so agricultural regulations would only become relevant once they entered the fertile promised land, that is, modern-day Israel. But another interpretation is that even today these commandments are in force exclusively in Israel, so the Jews living in other countries need not worry about them (as long as they don’t eat any produce imported from Israel).
=== Wine ===
There are some more rules still regarding one particular plant-based product. Jews are not allowed to drink wine that has passed through non-Jewish hands. Wine is only kosher, if all stages of wine production – from the pressing of grape juice down to bottling – is performed by observant Jews.
This rule was introduced by rabbis mostly to limit the occasions for Jews to drink together with Gentiles. Why? Imagine a Jewish man drinking wine with a Gentile woman. It could lead to some unforeseen consequences, including starting a mixed family. And who would then cook the Jew his kosher meals? Or – even worse – the Jew could convert to his wife’s faith and who would then make pilgrimages to the Temple of Jerusalem as mandated by the Scripture, which adds that one should never come to Temple empty-handed?<ref>``Three “Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles: and they shall not appear before the Lord empty {{...}}" ” {{Cyt
| tytuł = Authorized (King James) Bible
| rozdział = Deuteronomy
It’s clear from these excerpts that idolaters offer wine in sacrifice to their idols. And this means you can never be sure that wine purchased from idolaters hadn’t been used in some pagan rituals. By partaking of such wine a Jew would indirectly participate in worshipping an alien god, which is strictly forbidden in Judaism. In modern times, there are different opinions whether all non-Jews are necessarily idolaters; some rabbis consider members of other monotheistic religions, that is, Christians and (especially) Muslims, to be excluded from that category.
[[File:Abendmahl, Mathilde Block.jpg|thumb|left|Jesus of Nazareth, a famous Jewish preacher from the 1st century {{small|CE}}, saying a blessing over wine.<br>{{small|By Mathilde Block (1906)}}]]
There is a way, though, to protect wine from getting ``spoiled" “spoiled” through contact with Gentiles. Ancient rabbis were convinced (hard to tell why) that boiled wine was unfit for being offered as a sacrifice. Which means that if you heat up some wine to a high enough temperature, then it can be consumed by Jews without the need to worry that it was, say, poured by a Gentile waiter who may have secretly consecrated it to his heathen godhead. Thus, flash pasteurization may protect wine from spoilage by both microbes and idolaters.
Making sure that wine wasn’t previously used in alien religious rituals is important because Jews also use wine in their own religious rituals. ''Kiddush'', a special blessing recited at the beginning of a holiday meal, is said over wine, which is then drunk. Traditionally, red sweet wine is used for this purpose, although exceptions are possible. For example, in places and times where the blood libel is a concern, white wine may be used to avoid associations with blood. If wine is hard to get in a given area, then some other alcoholic beverage may be used instead; Polish Jews sometimes said their ''kiddush'' over vodka. And what about teetotal Jews? They can recite the blessing over non-fermented grape juice, with the caveat that all rules regarding wine apply to such juice as well.
== Special Occasions ==
[[File:Chałka FKŻ.jpg|thumb|upright|Hallah, braided wheat bread eaten especially during Sabbath. Its name comes from a portion of dough set aside as an offering in the Temple.<br>{{small|The picture comes from a poster advertising the 3rd Jewish Culture Festival in Cracow (1992).}}]]
All of the rules I’ve written about this far are in force 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 52 weeks a year. However, there are also special rules for special occasions. There are specific rules which are only relevant during the week-long Feast of Unleavened Bread, also known as Passover, which is celebrated in the early spring. Even more important is the weekly holiday of Sabbath, a day of rest from work (including from cooking). And then, there is the most holy day of the year, the Sabbath of Sabbaths, namely, the Day of Atonement (''Yom Kippur''), observed in the autumn. But here, things are rather simple (simple to understand, that is, but not necessarily simple to carry out), as for 25 hours you’re just not allowed to eat or drink anything.
| adres rozdziału = https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+20:8-11&version=AKJV
| wydawca = Bible Gateway
}}</ref> You might think it’s nice to have at least one day off from work per week. But leave it to the Jews to interpret ``rest" “rest” as an occasion to find multiple creative ways of making their own lives even more complicated.
What does it have to do with food? Quite a lot; cooking is creative work after all, so it’s forbidden to prepare any meals on Sabbath. And what if someone did cook a meal on Sabbath anyway? Is it okay for Jews to eat it? The answer is yes, it is, but only after the Sabbath is over. If the meal had been prepared by a Gentile, or even by a Jew, but inadvertently (because, say, they forgot it was Sabbath), then all Jews will be allowed to consume it. If, however, the meal had come about as a result of an intentional violation of Sabbath, then it can be eaten (after the Sabbath) by any Jew except the one who cooked it. The prohibition against working on Sabbath doesn’t directly regulate what is or isn’t kosher, but still, it does influence what Jews are allowed to eat and drink on that day. The Bible explicitly says that Sabbath meals must be prepared on Friday, so that the Sabbath could be devoted entirely to resting (and eating).
{{ Cytat
| “This is that which the Lord hath said, To morrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto the Lord: bake that which ye will bake to day, and seethe that ye will seethe; and that which remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning.” And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade {{...}} And Moses said, “Eat that to day; for to day is a sabbath unto the Lord: to day ye shall not find it in the field. Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the sabbath, in it there shall be none.”
| źródło = {{Cyt
| tytuł = Authorized (King James) Bible
}}
To dispel any possible doubts as to what counts as ``work"“work”, rabbis devised a list of 39 activities – mostly various agricultural chores, construction duties, as well as tasks related to textile production and leather working – which are proscribed for Jews on Sabbath. And so, on that day, Jews are not allowed to engage in:
<nomobile>{|
Obviously, each of these kinds of work was later expanded into an entire category of activities one should avoid just in case.
[[File:Blacha.jpg|thumb|upright|left|A gas stove top covered with a metal sheet for Sabbath]]The prohibition against baking includes all kinds of cooking, or thermal treatment of food, that is, boiling, frying, roasting, stewing, grilling, microwaving, etc. And yet, enjoying a hot meal is considered an essential part of celebrating Sabbath. How does it all square? Well, the trick is to prepare a hot meal on Friday and then keep it warm until serving it during Sabbath. The key here is to make sure that the dishes are fully cooked before Friday sunset; all you can do afterwards is to maintain their constant temperature. Once Sabbath starts, stirring is not allowed as it’s part of the cooking process. So is adding any new ingredients, unless they are already cooked as well (rabbis assume that something which is already fully cooked cannot be cooked even more). Even such simple tasks as brewing coffee or tea counts as ``cooking" “cooking” (it is allowed, though, to add hot water to a coffee or tea essence which has been brewed in advance).
All this has led to the tradition of cooking cholent for Sabbath. ''Cholent'' is a one-pot meal consisting of beef (typically brisket, a cheap cut from the front part of the animal), ''kishke'' (see [[Of This Ye Shall Not Eat for It Is an Abomination#Blood|previous post]]), pearl barley, legumes (chickpeas, lentils, beans, etc.), potatoes, onions and hard-boiled eggs. All of this is covered with water or stock and seasoned generously with garlic, salt, pepper, etc. In the past, Jewish housewives would take thus prepared cholent, in a special metal container, to their local bakery, where the dish would stew slowly in a well-heated bread oven. They would return to retrieve the ready dish on the following day, just before dinner.
{{ Cytat
| Wash white beans, put them in a pot or bowl, in which you also put a few marrow bones, some thick pearl barley, all raw, a piece of fatty meat on top or in between, and enough salt to be able to taste it. On Friday afternoon, send it with a lid on to the baker, who will then add water and put it in a specially constructed oven, where it will stay until Saturday noon and whence it can be retrieved while still hot. This dish may be prepared in a variety of ways: you can knead flour, chopped fat, chopped onion, salt and water into dough, place a small piece of fat or marrow on the bottom of the pot, place the dough, formed into a ball, on top and then add either or both of beans and pearl barley, as above, as well as green wheat, marrow bones or fatty meat and salt, and send it to the baker. Or you can put into the pot some marrow bones and garlic sausage, previously washed in hot water, add sorted and washed peas, salt, and send it to the baker.
| źródło = {{Cyt
| nazwisko = Wolff
}}</ref> Of course, like any electric appliance, the slow cooker must be switched on before the Sabbath begins and can only be switched off once the Sabbath is over (closing and opening an electric circuit is also a form of kindling and extinguishing fire).
[[File:Czulent.jpg|thumb|upright|Cholent in a slow cooker]]
Some of the other Sabbath prohibitions, when subjected to an appropriately wide interpretation, can also severely restrict what Jews can do in the kitchen or at the table. Here are some of the more interesting examples. The prohibition against threshing is to be understood as a general proscription against extracting edible parts from any plant. This means you can neither shell peas nor press juice from fruit (you can’t even squeeze a few drops of lemon juice into your tea). The prohibition against grinding means it’s forbidden to crumble, crush, grate, chop or blend anything, to say nothing of using a pepper mill. The prohibition against sifting results in a general ban on using any kind of sieves, strainers, colanders and filters for the purpose of separating one kind of things from another. It’s okay to use a salt shaker as long as it only contains salt, but not if someone’s added rice grains to prevent the salt from clumping. The prohibition against kneading means you’re not allowed to create any thick mixture by combining a liquid with solid particles. That rules out making custard, adding granola to your yogurt and pouring milk into your mashed potatoes. The prohibition against tanning hides may seemingly have nothing to do with food, but just in case, on Sabbath it’s forbidden to preserve anything by salting. So if you like your fresh cucumbers salted, then it’s fine as long as you salt each cucumber individually just before eating. Otherwise, you risk leaving some uneaten salted cucumbers which might then begin to pickle.
# They failed.
# So let’s dig in!
There is some truth to that, as most holidays in Judaism do in fact commemorate the Jewish nation narrowly escaping some predicament posed by foreign powers: the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans and so forth. However, many of these holidays have their roots even further in the past. Proto-Jews used to celebrate the cycle of seasons and the associated changes in nature, especially those that mattered to their agricultural or pastoral ways of life. The farmers and the herders had always had their differences, as shown, for example, in the Biblical story of Cain, a ``tiller “tiller of the ground"ground”, who murdered his brother Abel, a ``keeper “keeper of sheep"sheep”.<ref>{{Cyt
| tytuł = Authorized (King James) Bible
| rozdział = Genesis
In the early spring (around the time of the Christian Easter), Proto-Jewish farmers celebrated the beginning of barley harvest, while sheep herders rejoiced because their ewes were having lambs. The former marked the occasion by eating unleavened bread from freshly harvested and ground barley, while the latter feasted on roast lamb. These two traditions were later combined into a week-long holiday called Passover (''Pesah'') or the Feast of Unleavened Bread, memorializing the legendary escape of the Jews from slavery in Egypt (according to the Biblical account, the fugitives used lamb blood as an identification marker and ate unleavened bread because they had no time to wait for the dough to rise). Seven weeks later (around the time of the Christian Whitsunday), Jews observe the Feast of Weeks (''Shavuot''), which they mark, as I mentioned in my [[Of This Ye Shall Not Eat for It Is an Abomination#Meat and Dairy|previous post]], by consuming dairy dishes. Originally, it was an agricultural festival of the beginning of wheat harvest coupled with a pastoral festival of calving cows, which was eventually given a new meaning as a memento of Moses receiving the Pentateuch.
Beginning of grape harvest was celebrated around the middle of summer. It’s one of the minor Jewish holidays in modern times, but a joyous one, observed as a Day of Love (''Tu be'Avbe’Av''), or a kind of Jewish Valentine’s Day. At the onset of the autumn rainy season came an almost month-long period of major holidays: Jewish New Year (''Rosh ha'Shanahha’Shanah''), the fasting Day of Atonement (''Yom Kippur'') and the week-long Feast of Booths (''Sukkot''). During that period, the grape harvest was coming to an end, while other fruits were being gathered as well. To this day, apple and pomegranate are symbols of the New Year’s Day, while citron is associated with the Feast of Booths (the citron is a fruit that was hybridized with the lime to produce the lemon). The latter festival is also a relic of the times when the Jews’ pastoral ancestors lived as nomads in their tents and sheds.
Around the time of Christmas there is the eight-day long Feast of Lights (''Hanukkah''), when Jews indulge on fat-heavy treats like doughnuts and potato pancakes. Back in ancient Israel it was the time for harvesting olives and pressing oil out of them. The oil was used both in culinary applications and as fuel for lamps. The occasion was eventually associated with the Maccabean Revolt (2nd century {{small|BCE}}) and the alleged miraculous increase of the amount of oil used to illuminate the Temple. And in January, when almond trees blossom in Israel, Jews observe the New Year of the Trees (''Tu bi'Shevatbi’Shevat''). If a four-year-old fruit tree blossoms before that day, its fruits are not going to be kosher, but if it blossoms later, then they are.
=== Passover ===
{{ Cytat
| Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, and in the seventh day shall be a feast to the Lord. Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days; and there shall no leavened bread be seen with thee, neither shall there be leaven seen with thee in all thy quarters.
| źródło = {{Cyt
| tytuł = Authorized (King James) Bible
}}
For the purpose of this prohibition, ``leaven" “leaven” is defined as flour or any other cereal product which was in contact with water for longer than 18 minutes. Naturally, if you store grains or flour at home, you run the risk of your stock getting damp. That’s why you’re not allowed to keep any cereal products (other than matzah) in your home during Passover. As part of spring cleaning in Jewish households, all corners are thoroughly searched for all particles of flour, groats, malt, bread, rolls, hallah, [[Holey Breads#Bagels|bagels]], cookies, pasta and so forth. The same applies to all liquid, especially fermented, cereal products, like beer, vodka or whisky. You must also make sure there are no bread-crumb-covered fish fingers at the bottom of the freezer, no ketchup containing grain-alcohol vinegar left in the fridge and no Maggi seasoning (whose main ingredient is hydrolysed wheat protein) standing around in the cupboard. Even some kinds of medicine may be unkosher of Passover, if they contain ingredients of cereal origin. Everything that is leavened or potentially leavenable must be taken outside and disposed of by burning.
[[File:Matzot René Neymann Wasselonne avril 2014.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Matzah]]
It’s not a big deal as long as it’s just some tiny old crumbs. But what would you do if you owned entire stores worth of good grain, flour or beer? Besides, the commandment applies not only to homes, but to all Jewish businesses and institutions alike. It would make no sense to destroy all of their cereal-based supplies! Luckily, there is a loophole. You can sell all such supplies to some Gentile (usually through a rabbi acting as a middleman; [https://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/sell_chometz_cdo/jewish/Sell-Your-Chametz-Online.htm you can even do it online]) for the duration of Passover. You don’t even have to remove them from your home or your business; it suffices that you put them all in a locked storage room you’re not going to enter during the entire holiday. For example, each year the Israeli government sells the entire state-owned stock of cereal products to a single Muslim guy for the symbolic amount of 20 thousand shekels, only to buy it back a week later.<ref>{{Cyt
| tytuł = The Independent
| rozdział = The Muslim guardian of Israel's Israel’s daily bread
| adres rozdziału = https://web.archive.org/web/20090419182119/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-muslim-guardian-of-israels-daily-bread-1663404.html
| data = 6 April 2009
| nazwisko r = Kornbluh
| imię r = Jacob
| rozdział = Why is Israel's Israel’s governing coalition falling apart? The players, the ironies and the possible outcomes explained
| adres rozdziału = https://forward.com/news/485123/why-is-israel-coalition-falling-apart-naftali-bennett-benjamin-netanyahu/
| data = 6 April 2022
}}</ref>
Just like dairy and meat, unkosher-for-Passover products can ``stain" “stain” other foodstuffs as well as all vessels, tools and surfaces they come into contact with. Which is why all worktops, kitchen appliances, sinks and ovens must be thoroughly cleaned before Passover, to make sure they’re not contaminated by anything leavened. Smaller pieces of kitchen equipment, like dishes and utensils, which are used year-round are hidden away in cupboards, while special Passover sets are taken out. Do you remember what I wrote about a Jewish kitchen having three sets of vessels and utensils? Well, it wasn’t entirely true. You actually need six:
<nomobile>{|
| nazwisko r = Zimmerman
| imię r = Ann
| rozdział = What's What’s Different This Passover? No Margarine
| adres rozdziału = https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB120835576139919511
| data = 18 April 2008
Phew! I’ve written a longer text than I’d intended to and still it’s but a brief, simplified summary. Evidently, the rules of ''kashrut'' are quite complex. It’s hard to imagine anyone even remembering all the minutiae, let alone following them in practice. How do Jews deal with them?
[[File:Śmietanka migdałowa.jpg|thumb|Almond creamer marked as neutral (''parve'') and kosher for Passover (and, therefore, also year round). The letter U inscribed inside an O is a symbol of the Orthodox Union, the largest Orthodox Jewish organization in the United States, which has issued a kosher certificate for this product.]]As I’ve mentioned in my previous post, there are special organizations whose job is to certify foodstuffs, restaurants, hotels, etc., as kosher. They employ rabbis who carefully inspect the scales on fish, check the lungs of ritually slaughtered cows for any lesions, verify that a food-processing plant sells all of its ``leaven" “leaven” before Passover or that a restaurant uses separate vessels and utensils for dairy and meat. If everything checks out, then they issue an appropriate kosher certificate.
Sometimes you may find a kosher certification symbol even on those products whose kosherness would seem obvious. Gentiles may find it funny or even suspect some kind of rip-off when they see, let’s say, a bottle of kosher mineral water. Is there unkosher water? Some folks imagine a rabbi making kosher water like a Catholic priest makes holy water: taking regular water, saying a short prayer over it, getting his paycheck and there, you’ve got kosher water! In fact, a rabbi doesn’t make water kosher, but only certifies that it already is kosher. To this end he ascertains, for example, that on the way to the bottle the water wasn’t pumped through the same pipes that had previously carried something treif.
When all is said and done, whether something is kosher depends a lot on one’s interpretation of the rules. Most of what I wrote above may be easily challenged by anyone who says their rabbi has a different view on this detail or another. There’s more than one kosher certifying agency and their criteria aren’t exactly the same. There’s even more discrepancy among ordinary Jews, both in theory (defining what is or isn’t kosher) and in practice (deciding to what extent one is willing to actually follow the rules).
[[File:Katz's Katz’s Deli - Lunch.jpg|thumb|left|A Reuben sandwich contains meat and cheese, so it isn't isn’t kosher, but it is Jewish.]]There are Jews whose lips will never touch anything they aren’t 100% sure to be kosher. On the other hand, there are many Jews who consider the kosher dietary laws ancient superstition and break them with full premeditation. Jewish delicatessens in the United States often sell a snack called Reuben sandwich composed of corned beef, Emmentaler cheese and sauerkraut grilled between slices of wheat-and-rye bread. While obviously unkosher (meat and cheese together), it is nonetheless part of Jewish culinary culture. In Kazimierz, the former Jewish quarter of Cracow, you will find many restaurants serving dishes which may look and taste just like traditional kosher delicacies, such as Jewish caviar, cholent or geflite fish. But as long as these establishments use ingredients with no kosher certification, cook with the same equipment for both meat and dairy and don’t sell their ``leaven" “leaven” before Passover, then they may be ``kosher style"“kosher style”, but certainly not kosher. Again, there are Jews who will never patronize such places, but there are plenty of those who wouldn’t mind.
And then, there are Jews who try to find the middle ground by following the rules of ''kashrut'', but rather liberally. So, for instance, they keep kosher at home (often treating it more as part of their ethnic heritage than a religious requirement), but then they go to unkosher restaurants. Some employ a kind of presumption of kosherness: if you can’t see with your naked eye that something is evidently unkosher, then it’s probably safe to eat. There’s a custom among the moderately religious part of American Jews to frequent Chinese restaurants (especially on Christmas, when Christian restaurants tended to be closed). Chinese cuisine isn’t kosher, but the low amount of dairy ingredients, along with the fact that pork and prawns are finely chopped and hidden inside dumplings or spring rolls, makes it acceptable for those Jews who wish to keep kosher, but not too tight.<ref> {{Cyt
“I felt awkward.”
“What do you mean, you felt awkward?”
“Well, you see… I was dining at a Christian restaurant.”
“And why were you eating in an unkosher restaurant?”
“I had no choice. It was the Day of Atonement and all the kosher restaurants were closed!”</poem>
