Is this the deep end, and have I gone over it?

Recently I had the opportunity to bring in questions to my halacha (jewish law) class. A special kind of class was arranged after we finished reading through relevant texts about how to kasher our kitchens (theoretically, as Pardes is non-coercive:). So, I came prepared. I have had a somewhat burning question for months now but held off until the big day…

My question regarded dishes that my great aunt Minnie, one of my namesakes, used and my family later inherited. The summer before I moved into my first apartment in Montreal I was rummaging around one day in my home in Syracuse and came across a set of dishes…they were ceramic and slightly asymmetrically shaped and have pictures of fruit painted on in loose shapes and warm tones – bananas and watermelons or something like that… I asked my mom if I could take them and after some bargaining she agreed. So I went to school, dishes with me, and I used them for the next three years. I did break a few over the years, and once even fed one poor soul shards of ceramic plate (unbeknownst to me or to him at the time) from one of the broken plates. He was not so happy with me, although I hope he forgives me now:) They are back in Syracuse now, I’m sure waiting anxiously for my return…along with the rest of my beloved inanimate objects (I had to leave many pairs of shoes at home when I crossed the ocean…a travesty, I know). Back to halacha class…

So a few weeks ago came the class where we were told to bring in personal questions about our kitchens. Now, we had learned in the course of our studies a few important laws that relate to my plates:

1) Jewish law has deemed things made out of clay (ceramics, porcelain, stoneware, etc.) to be unfixable, un-kasherable, un-returnable to a neutral state once they have been made “un-kosher”. For example, my mom told me that these plates, while not having been used for 30 years prior, were used for both milk and meat which makes them traif. In my own use of them I cooked with unkosher cheese for reasons I won’t get into here… Once these plates were traifed up, therefore, I shouldn’t theoretically be able to use them any more because they are not capable of returning from that state (unlike metal, for example, which can be returned to a kosher state).
2) If something is of great value (expensive, or an heirloom) then it can be kashered by following certain, pretty easy steps.

For weeks I felt like I was living in a cliffhanger of domestic enormity (note playful exaggeration). I knew that maybe I was being ridiculous. But it didn’t hit me until I was sitting in class that I may have reached the deep end…and may have already gone over its edge.

Do I really care if my plates are kosher by traditional halachic standards? Am I really sitting on the edge of my seat to hear what my teacher will say?

My teacher’s answer: yes you can kasher them. Leave them in a box for a year and don’t use them and then boil them…essentially that was his answer.

My answer: yes I have gone a bit over the deep end. But I like it here and I don’t feel like I have left the pool where I started from. What rabbis and Jewish texts have to say is important to me…but so is what my parents and friends say. And most of all what is important to me is how something makes me feel. I like kosher plates. They aren’t hard to manage and they make me feel close to a community that I enjoy belonging to. I am more aware of what I cook, how I cook it, what is in my kitchen. Granted there are a lot of things that could get me there but this seems to be doing the trick for now. I hope for a long time. I imagine a sign being up over my kitchen: “Beware: Crazy Lady Trying to Create Holy Space…And Tasty Vegetarian Food”.

By the way, I don’t bring up this perhaps trivial topic out of the blue…a lot of my time here I am forced to be very up front with myself and constantly re-evaluate how what I am learning fits into my life. That’s some of what I have so far.

Chag Kasher v’sameach – Happy Passover. I hope that wherever you are and however you are and if you are at all celebrating the holiday that it is meaningful for you and those you share it with.

And for all my non-Jewish folk – have one hell of a good day.

Much much much love.