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Sometimes my students wonder if they are too old for converting to Judaism? Is there a maximum age limit? Is there a point to converting after a certain age? After all, so many of our traditions and public celebrations revolve around babies, Bar Mitzvah kids, and newlyweds. And synagogues quite visibly bend over backwards to attract young families, not older members. This happens even though (or perhaps because) synagogue members tend to be older.

Maybe you’re considering taking steps to become Jewish, but you’re worried: There’s so much to learn…Is it too late to start?

I wanted to share with you something that happened yesterday that was very special to me. It was a unique day, even though the circumstances are less and less rare.

Inspiring People, Starting “Late”

Yesterday I had the privilege of sitting on the beit din (rabbinic court) for the conversion of two holy souls who became Jewish.

Now, I’m not sure what the average age is of someone who converts to Judaism. I was about 25 years old (24 and three-quarters, as my youngest daughter might say). And for whatever reason, we think the typical person who converts is someone in their 20s, maybe early 30s, who wants to convert right before they get married, because of family pressures being exerted on their significant other, a la Fiddler on the Roof.

Whatever the average age is, these two were above average. I’m bad at guessing ages, but I can tell you that one guy was there with his wife of 30-some years and their two adult children, both in their 20s. The other woman was accompanied by her grown daughter and three grandchildren.

And I’ve seen older. A good friend of mine converted in her seventies. Another man converted who finally felt ready after living a Jewish life with his partner of over 40 years.

But I have to say, in the words of Bachman-Turner Overdrive: You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Abraham: Original Convert, Senior Citizen

When God decided to start a special relationship with a particular human family and make a covenant with Abraham that would radically change the course of human history, Abraham (then Abram) was 75 years old. We consider Abraham to be the first Jewish “convert” because he wasn’t born Jewish.

Want to top that? Part of the deal was that Abraham would have innumerable progeny. Even though he and his wife had no children yet (she was only 65).

Later, when God heard the cry of Abraham’s great-great-grandchildren, buckling under the weight of forced labor and genocide in Egypt, God picked a leader to shepherd them out, through the wilderness and into the Promised Land.

Born Jewish, but a “Late” Bloomer

Actually, God picked a literal shepherd, but he was a second-career shepherd. That guy had kind of fallen into the shepherd game, working for his father-in-law. His first career? Prince of Egypt. But he’d had to leave town to beat a manslaughter rap.

And when God picked this guy to start his third and final career, his life’s masterwork for which he would be most famous, how old was he?

Moses was 80 years old.

And he did pretty well for himself (and us, and God) after that.

My Personal “Late Start” Hero

One more example: Not so old, but he kind of started from behind. And also a shepherd. And my personal hero.

This shepherd was around 40 years old when one day he wandered into a cave. He was probably chasing a lost sheep, kind of how another shepherd we know discovered a burning bush (see above). And he was distracted because he couldn’t stop thinking about his beloved, who had told him there was no way her father would let her marry him, a lowly shepherd, unless he became either a wealthy businessman like her father, or else a famous scholar. Both seemed unlikely, as this poor 40-year-old shepherd was totally illiterate.

But instead of a bush, he saw a flat rock with a hole in the middle of it. There was water dripping from the ceiling of the cave through the hole. Now, our shepherd couldn’t read a single letter, but he was familiar with nature, and knew that it was the water dripping from the ceiling that had made that hole in the rock over a number of years.

And in that moment he had an epiphany: If water, which is soft, can penetrate rock, which is hard…surely the words of Torah, which are strong as iron, can penetrate my heart of flesh and blood.

Old School

Next, thing we know, Akiva (that’s his name) is sitting among kindergarten-age kids, learning the first few letters of the alphabet. Fast forward through a 1980s-movie-style training montage (a la Karate Kid) and career-building montage (a la…Scarface? Not the best example.), and our friend Akiva is now Rabbi Akiva, one of the most influential Sages of the Talmud, who some say had 24,000 students at one point.

All this from a standing start at age 40 as an illiterate shepherd. At least Moses had had management training in Egypt.

This story has always inspired me to keep going in my second (and final) career as a rabbi. But I have to say, that inspiration pales next to two moments at the mikveh yesterday, where first I heard a man blessed by his grown sons as he immersed, and later, I heard a grandmother say the Shema for the first time as a Jew.

Still think it’s too late for you to start?

Hero, wherever you are on your path, and whatever next step is hovering in front of you – but perhaps just on the other side of the particular fear that it might be too late for you – remember my friends from yesterday. Remember Abraham. Remember Moses. Remember Rabbi Akiva. All “late bloomers” who changed the world.

Who knows what change might be in store for you, just waiting for you to get started, no matter what age you’re starting from?

My advice: No matter how many candles are on your cake, blow them out (take 2 tries and have 3 friends help, if you need) and take that first step.

Thanks for reading, Hero. If you’re considering becoming Jewish – or you already are but you want to engage more deeply – is age or some other consideration standing in your way? What frustrating you most on your journey? Please let me know in the comments below.

PS…If you want to find people of all ages (not to mention time zones) who’ve faced similar challenges and are ready to support you on your journey, consider joining The Jewcurious School. In addition to new live classes every week (and recordings of all prior classes), I bet you will find Jewcurious people just like you to share your path.

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It marks the symbolic end of the Holocaust on January 27, 1945, when Red Army liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration/death camp in Poland.

On this day we remember not only the 6 million Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis; we also remember around 6 million more the Nazis murdered: Slavs, ethnic Poles, Romani (also known as Roma or Gypsies), mentally and physically disabled people, and gay men.

The United Nations designated this day of commemoration in 2005. This followed the lead of several European countries which had already marked this date as a national day of remembrance.

How is International Holocaust Remembrance Day different from Yom HaShoah?

International Holocaust Remembrance Day is a civil day of commemoration in many countries, marked ever January 27th by the Gregorian calendar. Yom HaShoah, on the other hand, is a Jewish holiday.  The State of Israel designated the 27th of the month of Nisan by the Jewish calendar for Yom HaShoah. Yom HaShoah honors not only the victims of the Holocaust, but also resistance fighters, such as those who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943.

How does a someone who converted to Judaism connect with the Holocaust?

I was eleven years old when I first met someone who wa in Auschwitz at the time of its liberation, a woman named Edith Bell. She and her husband Sid were friends of my parents. theirs was probably the only Jewish family in the small town in West Virginia where we lived at the time. They were also the first Jewish people I ever remember meeting. Edith would occasionally speak at the local college, telling her personal story of survival as a young girl.

Since then, I have had the privilege of meeting many more survivors and hearing their stories – in private, during school programs, and at big public events. If I can make a suggestion / ask a favor, Hero: If you ever have the opportunity to listen to a survivor of the Holocaust speak, please take advantage of it.

First, I can tell you from personal experience and the experience of my friends and students: Hearing about the Holocaust from someone who was there is an experience you will not regret, nor ever likely forget.

Second, with the passage of time, we have fewer and fewer survivors left every year, and this is a story that must not die with the generation of people who lived through it.

The most recent time I heard the story of a survivor was just a few weeks ago.  A guest speaker came the Miller Introduction to Judaism class I was teaching. Whenever possible, the Miller program arranges for a survivor to speak to the class on night we discuss the Holocaust and antisemitism. I had heard several survivors speak over the years, but this one had a unique effect on me.

One Woman’s Personal Account

Before our speaker, Paula Lebovics, arrived, I asked my students what questions they had about the topic before class began, to make sure we cover all of the questions over the course of the evening. One student asked: “What do we say to people who question or deny that the Holocaust ever happened?”

(If you haven’t yet encountered a Holocaust denier, either online or in person, count yourself lucky.)

I wrote the question on the board, hoping by the end of the evening, my students would have their answer.

Then Paula joined us to share her story. She was among the young women who were present when the Red Army liberated the camp. By that day of liberation, Auschwitz was nearly deserted; the Germans knew the Russians were coming, and 10 days before the liberation, German soldiers evacuated most of the prisoners on foot in harsh winter conditions, in effect creating a death march. Many of the prisoners left behind were children who had been singled out by Dr. Josef Mengele for medical experimentation. German soldiers clearing the camp had ignored that ward of children in the evacuation.

These children remained in the camp without access to food or warm clothing; what supplies hadn’t been looted by evacuating soldiers, or set fire to, were on the far side of electrified fences. Only when Red Army soldiers cut the power to the fences could Paula and children like her eat for the first time in days.

What Changed for Me

But what struck me more than the end of her story was its beginning. Paula was six when the Nazi regime took hold of her Polish town; being dispossessed and harassed for being Jewish was almost all she ever knew to that point. She told of an incident that happened shortly before being sent to a concentration camp. A German soldier had found her hiding, and he ordered her at gunpoint to show her where others were hiding. When she couldn’t help him, he ordered her to turn around so he could shoot her. Knowing what would happen, she refused, trembling and crying all the while. At a critical moment, another soldier, drunk, shouted at him something like, “Don’t waste the bullet! She’ll be dead soon anyway.”

Like I said, I’ve heard moving stories from survivors before, but this time it was different. At the moment she was almost shot, she was only nine years old.

The same age as my daughter.

At that moment in Paula’s story, I imagined my own daughter trembling and crying, fearing for her life. For the rest of the evening, in every description of what had happened to Paula, I pictured my daughter enduring it. All for the “crime” of being born Jewish, as my daughter was.

I don’t know that I will ever hear a survivor’s story the same way again.

How to Answer the Deniers

After Paula left, I pointed at the whiteboard on which I’d written students’ questions in the beginning of class. Specifically, I indicated the question, “What do we say to Holocaust deniers?”

My answer: Everyone here tonight can now say, “I wasn’t there, but I know someone who was.”

We have fewer and fewer people left who carry this story. But now, everyone who has heard it bears a responsibility. We are responsible for keeping these stories alive, beyond the lives of the witnesses, for as long as we live. We are now the witnesses, and it’s up to us to pass that responsibility to future generations as well.

Thanks for reading, Hero. You may see other messages, headlines, or stories about International Holocaust Remembrance Day today. I urge you to take in what you can, and bear witness when you must. And if you ever get the chance to hear a survivor speak, please hear their story, and carry it forward to future generations.

Have you heard: Judaism has 613 commandments. 613!

A lot of students I’ve worked with get stressed out by this. How am I going to keep ALL of them?!

I know how stressful this feels, because once I felt it, too. Then my rabbi helped me to chill out.

613 Commandments, for real.

Rabbi Alexander Davis was my rabbi when I lived in Minnesota, before I moved to California to go to seminary. (Of course, I still consider him my rabbi!) He explained to me that yes, when the Sages of our tradition sat down and counted all the “thou shalts” (positive commandments) and “thou shalt nots” (negative commandments) in the Torah, they came up with 613 of them.

There are a couple of medieval books that list and explain all of them. These books give some of the reasons behind them as well. They are the Sefer HaMitzvot (Maimonides) and the Sefer HaHinukh (author unknown).

But…

Don’t panic.

Our Sages deduced long ago that Jews cannot observe many of them today, so there’s no expectation for keeping them, and no judgment or punishment for breaking them. These include many of the agricultural laws, like not eating the fruit of trees for the first few years of the tree’s life, which occasioned the recent holiday of tu BiShvat, because the Torah prefaces that rule by saying “When you enter the land (Israel)…”

The Sages don’t expect you to observe these agricultural laws outside of the land of Israel.

Jackpot!

Of course, you may set aside some of the yield of your work (whether your a farmer or an accountant or whatever) for the poor if you wish, and we still celebrate Tu BiShvat to remind us of abundance in Israel and our responsibility for stewardship of the environment. Still good to do!

Further, many laws have to do with procedures in courts of law. Our Sages deduced that Jews could only observe them when the Sanhedrin, a holy law court in the classical era, was convening. No Sanhedrin, no expectation to keep these particular procedural commandments.

My rabbi summed it up like this: Don’t worry about keeping all 613. Do what you can as you grow into them, one by one. The most religious person you know is good for 30 or 40 of them. 🙂

Baby steps, y’all…

I teach this to my students today, with an addition bit of advice: The ones you DO plan to keep, don’t try to do it all at once. You will get overwhelmed, judge yourself, give up…and wind up keeping (or benefitting from) none of them.

It’s better to take the mitzvot one by one and grow gradually.

In my personal experience and my observation of others, this is the surest way to success in keeping commandments, AND experience the most meaning in your life from keeping them.

ESPECIALLY when it comes to Shabbat and Kashrut (the rules of keeping kosher)…These are complex exercises in mindfulness with a LOT of rules. The best way: Start small, where you are now, and add one rule or aspect of observance at a time.

If you’d like to know more about our mitzvot and how to do them, I highly recommend you join us in The Jewcurious School. If you’re not ready for that, consider downloading the “3 Things” guide by clicking the picture below. You’ll get a guide to the best approach to adding mitzvot to your life, and you’ll stay in the loop as I teach the basics online every day.

How to Become Jewish – YouTube Live

Hey, Heroes! I recently recorded my first YouTube Live video, all about how to become Jewish.

If you want to know how to become Jewish, you should know that there are four and a half steps.

Wait…”and a half”? What’s the half step?

It’s a step that only half of people who want to convert have to take. The dude half, so to speak.

You’ll see.

How to Become Jewish: The Four and a Half Steps

Just in case reading is a better way for you to learn than watching a video, here’s a summary of the steps. I go into much greater detail in the video, but in case you’re looking for the Cliff Notes, here we goes:

1. Start learning. 

First things first: You should know what you are getting into. Being Jewish comes with some pretty serious responsibilities; we like to know that you understand them and willingly accept them before you join the family.

First, you are responsible for keeping the mitzvot or commandments – the do’s and don’t’s listed in the Torah and deduced by the Sages of our tradition over the intervening centuries. Observing the holidays, keeping the dietary laws, not murdering people, that sort of thing. There’s a whole new culture’s worth of rules that would suddenly apply to you if you became Jewish! It’s important to know if you’re up to the challenge and whether this is something you really want to take on.

Second, it’s important to know how big and diverse this family is that you’re joining. There’s Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardic Jews, Mizrahi Jews (heard of that one?), and more. There’s Orthodox Jews, Conservative Jews, Reform Jews, Reconstructing Jews, Humanist Jews, post-denominational, trans-denominational, atheist Jews, and Jews of every skin color.

Anyone who tells you there’s one right way to be Jewish or to look Jewish is historically ignorant or lying to you.

So you should know about the wonderful diversity of the family you hope to join, if for no other reason than to understand that you belong, no matter how different you think you are.

Finally, it’s important to know our history. At one time or another, we’ve been kicked out of nearly every country that’s ever called itself a country, perhaps including the country you live in now. People and nations have expelled, imprisoned, economically isolated, beaten, and murdered us just for being Jewish. And unfortunately, this pattern has repeated itself so many times in history, as much as we say “never again” it would be naive to take that for granted.

Plus, while you are learning all of this scary stuff, you should be trying out different aspects of Jewish observance – Shabbat, dietary laws, holidays, prayer, etc. – to see if it’s for you.

Still want to join?

This isn’t to scare you off, per se. But the reason the conversion process is 99% educational and experiential (vs 1% rituals and ceremonies at the end) is so that you can fully appreciate and sincerely commit to what you’re going to be for the rest of your life: Jewish, and part of the Jewish family.

You can take this first step by contacting a synagogue or rabbi close to you and seeing if there is a class in your area, often with a name like “Introduction to Judaism”.

If you’re in Los Angeles, I recommend this one.

If you don’t have a rabbi or synagogue nearby, or the in-person classes don’t work for you, I highly recommend you visit us at The Jewcurious School.

2. Get a sponsoring rabbi.

After you’ve spent some time on your Jewish education, and you’re fully committed to becoming Jewish, you should enlist the help of a sponsoring rabbi.

While the sponsoring rabbi isn’t technically legally required to convert, it’s nice to have a relationship with a rabbi who can guide you through the process. They can answer questions one-on-one and in private that you may be embarrassed to bring up in your class. They can dig deeper with you and make sure that becoming Jewish is really right for you, or whether you may be better served by simply studying Judaism, but not joining the people.

It’s also nice to have a sponsor with you when you go before the beit din. First off, having a person there who knows you will help ease your anxiety. More than that, the beit din will warm up to you faster if they know at least one other rabbi is willing to vouch for you. And it’s possible that some batei din (plural of beit din) won’t meet with you unless you have a sponsoring rabbi from their same denomination at least sign off on you, even if they can’t be there with you that day.

Your Spiritual Autobiography

Some sponsors may ask you to write an essay or series of essays about your Jewish journey and what you believe about certain topics. This serves a couple of useful functions. First, it helps you demonstrate – to yourself as well as your sponsor – what you’ve learned in the process, both about Judaism and about yourself. Second, the sponsor can pass it on to your beit din, and they can get to know you in writing before you meet with them in person, “warming up the room” a little before your meeting.

For this purpose I like to ask people I sponsor to write just one essay. Following the custom of a teacher of mine, I ask them to write their spiritual autobiography up to this point that brought them to the point of conversion. Many have reporting that this is a very moving and fulfilling experience to write.

Also, at this point you’ll want to start thinking about choosing a Hebrew name for yourself. You’re sponsor can help you with this meaningful step.

When you and your sponsor are both convinced that you’re ready to take the next step, your sponsor can guide you through making arrangements for the final few steps, like the mikveh, the beit din, and possibly…

2-1/2. Do Brit Milah or Hatafat Dam Brit.

I call this a half step because it’s only required of half the population…the half with a penis.

(If this doesn’t apply to you, feel free to skip ahead to #3.)

If this does apply to you, and you are not circumcised, you will need to have brit milah – circumcision for the sake of the Jewish covenant with God – done. There are many urologists – the applicable specialty – who are also trained mohelim, or knowledgeable practitioners of this procedure’s ritual as well as medical aspects.

If you are circumcised, you will need a different procedure called hatafat dam brit. This requires that a single drop of blood be extracted from the area where the foreskin would be. You can get a mohel to do this; it only takes a couple of minutes, and they usually don’t charge for it. Some rabbis I  know will let you do it yourself, with them present to instruct you and to witness that it was done.

A New Question I Get

I’m intentionally not saying “men” or “males” here because I’ve been asked a number of times whether transwomen who have the genitals they were born with, or transmen with a surgically constructed set, need to undergo one of these procedures. The short answer: Yes, they do. Now, while trans people have been around a long time, this is a relatively new scenario for most rabbis I know. The consensus among the Jewish legal scholars I’ve talked to: Anyone with a penis – whatever gender they consider themselves or identify as publicly – requires one of these procedures.

3. Go to the beit din.

A beit din is a court of three rabbis who convene to interview candidates for conversion. What’s most common in my experience is that a person will go before the beit din and then, with their endorsement, go to the mikveh on the same day. The beit din will often meet in the same location as the mikveh, and you can take both steps the same appointment, if all goes well.

People get really nervous about this step. I mean, you’ve been studying for months, maybe even a year or two or longer. You’ve made a life changing decision, but one that requires the endorsement of three total strangers for it to come to fruition. It’s easy to think of the beit din as the three-headed gatekeepers to your dream-come-true.

Will they like you?

Will they ask you questions you can’t answer?

Is it possible they will prevent you from being Jewish if you say one wrong thing?

In my experience with the Batei Din – the one that witnessed my conversion, the one that witnessed my wife’s, and with the dozens of Batei Din I’ve either served on or sponsored converts in front of – it’s okay to be nervous, but you have nothing to fear.

Of course you’re nervous. Talking to the beit din is an important moment in a big, life-changing day. But look at it this way: The beit din is not there with the express purpose to keep you out. The beit din is to make 100% sure that you know what you are getting into. Acting on behalf of the whole Jewish family, we want to be as certain as possible that you will make a safe addition to a family that had its share of problems. Acting on your behalf, we want to make sure that joining our family will be good for you, too.

Relax.

As one of my colleagues on the beit din says, we just want to get to know you. In order to do that, we ask questions. Some of those questions are about you, so there is no right or wrong answer, only honest ones. We also ask you questions about Judaism, and even there we’re not necessarily looking for one “right” answer. We only want to satisfy ourselves that you’ve studied enough to take this significant step with full awareness of the responsibilities you’ll be taking on. The beit din may may ask you easy questions like, “What’s your favorite holiday, and why?” and “How did you pick your Hebrew name?” Or they may ask you harder questions like, “What did you struggle with most in your learning?” or “Is there something about Judaism that is challenging for you or distasteful to you?”

What’s the Right Answer?

The important thing is that you be honest. No family is perfect, and no family member has to love every other family member or family tradition. The important thing is that we’re loyal to each other, and that we pledge to keep trying, together.

This step typically takes 30-60 minutes, depending on where the conversation takes itself, and it usually concludes with your reading a formal statement of commitment to the Jewish people and signing a document (in your regular signature, not your Hebrew one…relax!).

4. Immerse in a mikveh.

As soon as the beit din approves and endorses your conversion, you are eligible to go immerse in a mikveh. Many cultures have purification rites involving water, and many religions use a cleansing-in-water ritual for officially joining their religion.

In Judaism our version is full bodily immersion in a mikveh, or a gathering of water. This mikveh should contain predominantly mayim hayim, or living waters.

Don’t worry: That doesn’t mean water full of fish, bugs, or other living things. It means water from a natural source. Thus, you can use a river, lake, or ocean as your mikveh, because it’s all water from a natural source. Alternately, you can use a constructed mikveh, which can range from the size of a large hot tub to the size of a small swimming pool. Such a constructed mikveh is kosher for use as such as long as it’s fed by a source of living water (such as a cistern of collected rainwater), and it’s big enough for its user to immerse fully.

Bathing Suit = Birthday Suit

One important thing to know about mikveh: Unlike public baptism ceremonies in other faiths, where people dress nicely for the occasion or at least cover up for modesty, mikveh immersion is only valid if the person immerses completely nude. Don’t worry, though: We take every precaution to preserve the modesty of the person taking the dunk.

In a constructed mikveh, there is usually a shower room where one can get wash up before using the mikveh. All jewelry, make-up, nail polish, hair extensions, etc., need to be removed. The person should be as close to their natural-born state as possible. For medical devices that you can’t remove without surgery or significant health risks, orthodontics, etc., those can remain. The person should remove anything you can safely remove. They can get in the pool in privacy, and if doing it for some reason other than conversion, the person can do it without any witnesses.

Witnesses to Your Conversion Immersion

For conversion, however, witnesses need to be present, to be sure the person immerses correctly for this serious, life-changing purpose; it is an official part of joining the Jewish family. Nevertheless, we do all we can to preserve the modesty of the person using the mikveh.

There need to be two witnesses in the room, usually rabbis, but there may also be a curtain in the room between the witnesses and the person in the mikveh. If a woman is immersing, for example, a person called a mikveh lady (because she’s the lady that supervises the mikveh) and any female witnesses can observe the immersion, and if it’s complete, the mikveh lady calls out to “Kasher!” (good one!) to any witnesses on the other side of the curtain. If a man is immersing, male witnesses are on his side of the curtain, and female witnesses are on the other side.

3 Dunks

It’s customary for people converting to immerse fully three times. After the first immersion, the person says a couple of blessings (we give you these to study ahead of time). After the third immersion, people often say the Shema, a six-word prayer about the Oneness of God that is central to Jewish prayer. You may have learned this prayer, and even said it many times before, but this time is different: You’re saying it for the first time as a Jew. For many, this is a powerful, emotional, and moving experience.

We then will often leave the person alone in the mikveh, so that they can have a private moment to reflect on the experience, or a private conversation with God.

It’s customary not to shower off right after the mikveh, to let the living waters and holy experience soak in for a while.

That’s It! Mazal Tov!

Finally, now that you’re Jewish, it’s a nice idea to celebrate the occasion with family, friends, or your community. Often people will go to a synagogue on a Shabbat morning soon after their conversion, so that they can receive the honor of an aliyah (saying a blessing over a Torah reading) for the first time as one of the tribe. Likewise, you may now take part in any activity or take on any responsibility or leadership that had heretofore been reserved for Jews, because now you are one.

If you are on this journey, or you are considering it, what questions do you have? How has your experience been so far? I would love to hear from you in the comments below.

If you are ready to take the first step, we’d love you to take it with us in The Jewcurious School. We have an Introduction to Judaism course inside the school that will satisfy the educational requirements of most non-Orthodox communities, plus a friendly Community of Jewcurious people just like you.

Thanks for learning with me today, Hero!

What makes Jewish food Jewish?

After eight days you cut the end off of it.

Just kidding!

(Sorry, I went to a bris yesterday.)

Jewish Food: The Gateway Brisket

Certainly, many people’s introduction to the Jewish community involves food: a Passover seder, a Jewish wedding or a bar mitzvah celebration, or someone bringing you matzah ball soup when you have a cold. You’ll scarcely find a gathering of Jewish people without food present. Even Yom Kippur, our traditional day of fasting and atonement, end with a feast to break the fast.

There are lots of foods we associate with Jewish holidays, of course, but today I want to answer the question:

What makes food Jewish?

Keepin’ It Kosher

Of course, there’s more to Jewish food than the religious dietary laws, but it helps to understand the the basics of kashrut (ritual appropriateness, rules of keeping kosher) as this has a big impact on the development of our distinctive cuisine through the ages.

Two principal elements of kashrut that affect Jewish cuisine:

1. Restriction on the species of animals fit for eating
2. Separation of meat and dairy

First, the animals we do eat:

• Mammals with a split hoof that chew their cud, such as cows, sheep, and goats
• Fish that have both fins and scales, like salmon, tuna, and carp
• Birds that are, by and large, not predators or scavengers, such as chickens, turkeys, and ducks

That’s quite a lot of animals we can eat! But there are some common animals people eat worldwide that we don’t eat, most famously pork and shellfish.

Bakin’ without Bacon

So as popular as it has become, you won’t see a lot of bacon in traditional Jewish recipes, and if you’re at a fancy party, you’re more likely to see hors d’oeuvres of smoked salmon than, say, bacon-wrapped scallops or shrimp cocktail.

Second, based on three appearances in the Torah of the phrase, “You shall not cook a kid in its mother’s milk”…Well, we crank that up to eleven and refrain from cooking any kind of meat in any kind of milk.

“But chickens don’t give milk!” you may protest.

Yeah, I know, sorry. Cranked to eleven.

This means that you won’t see a kosher restaurant serving cheeseburgers or pepperoni pizza.  Much of classical French cuisine, in which chefs cook a lot of meat in a butter-based sauces, is right out. My favorite

But with all these rules about what we can’t eat, how did we come up with things like matzah balls, latkes, lox, and cholent?

Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Cultural Adaptation

Since the Babylonian exile (586 BCE), and possibly well before, not all Jewish people have lived in one place. From the Holy Land, we’ve spread out across the middle east, around the Mediterranean Sea into northern Africa and southern Europe, across Europe from Ireland to Siberia, and throughout Asia and the Americas. At every place we’ve stopped long enough to settle, we have adapted the local fare through the filter of our dietary laws.

In places where cooking with lard (usually from pork) was popular, we adapted by cooking with rendered chicken fat (also known as schmaltz).

In places in America where lots of Jews live, it’s easy to find a good hamburger. Just don’t order a bacon cheeseburger. 🙂

Jewish food from Morocco tends to be spicier than Jewish food from Lithuania, but then, everybody’s food in Morocco is spicier than in Lithuania.

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the Maccabees did not have latkes at the first Hanukkah celebration: These fried potato pancakes likely originated in the mid-1800’s when a series of crop failures in Poland and Ukraine led to the mass planting of potatoes, a cheap and easy crop to grow.

Which brings me to another feature of traditional Jewish food: It tends to be what poor people ate.

The Cuisine of Poverty

Throughout our history in diaspora, various restrictions on Jews’ earning a living have been in place. In Europe in the middle ages, we couldn’t own property to farm or join craft guilds to do artisanal work; Jews found themselves relegated to the fringes of the economy in the merchant trades or, occasionally, moneylending. Certainly a few did very well for themselves, but most folks were broke and getting by on what we could find that was local and cheap, while keeping to the dietary laws as best we could.

I don’t know if this is how it started, but matzah ball soup is a great use of both leftover chicken parts AND all that matzah meal left over after Passover.

Gefilte fish, another delicacy likely originating in eastern Europe, is a dish made of poached ground fish. It is traditionally made from a white fish like carp, because carp used to be one of the cheapest fish you could buy. Now, more and more, we are seeing pink versions made from salmon. Thanks to factory farming, salmon (once considered a luxury) are now among the cheapest fish you can buy.

Cooking Follows Observance, Part Two

Another reason gefilte fish became so popular is because it is made from fish that has been deboned, ground, and then cooked. Observant Ashkenazi (northern and eastern European) Jews favored this dish on Shabbat, because picking the bones out of fish while you eat is violates Shabbat restrictions on borer, or sorting. So in addition to our dietary laws, Jewish food has also evolved in keeping with our laws of Shabbat.

Another delicious example of this: Cholent.

Cholent is a kind of stew that is made to be eaten on Shabbat, though you might find some people who have it other days of the week. Its ingredients vary by local custom – spicier in north Africa, potatoey-er in Siberia – but the cooking methods are largely the same: All the ingredients are put in a sealed pot that is placed by a heat source that will cook it slowly. While we traditionally don’t cook during Shabbat, it’s okay to start cooking something before Shabbat, as long as you don’t fool with the dish or its heat source during Shabbat.

Nowadays, this dish is easiest to make with a slow-cooking crockpot or something similar. I think it became so popular across the Jewish world, with a variety of different flavor profiles native to its locale, because it’s a great way to get a hot meal on Shabbat afternoon, while observing not only the dietary laws, but also keeping with the spirit (and law) of Shabbat.

Jewish Food in a Nutshell

So there you have an overview of Jewish food, which I would summarize as: Food Jews can afford, in keeping with Jewish laws, wherever Jews happen to live.

I may share some of individual recipes soon; we’re starting to see a number of students post recipes in the community forum of The Jewcurious School, and of course, I have some family favorites, like my wife’s challah and my own special hummus recipe.

What are your favorite Jewish foods? I’m hungry to find out! Let me know in the comments below.

Tu BiShvat: It’s Not Just About the Trees

Tu BiShvat, a Jewish holiday that starts at sundown this Sunday, has come to be called “Israeil Arbor Day” and “Jewish Earth Day” because of its traditional focus on trees and its modern observance focusing on the health of the environment.

On a deeper level, though, I believe this is also a holiday about patience. Increasing holiness requires forbearance in taking advantage of what’s in front of us and deferring our own gratification because of higher principles.

The Holiness Code is a section in the very middle of the Torah where God spells out for us how to keep the charge to be a holy people. Nestled with in it, the care of fruit trees:

“When you arrive in the Promised Land and plant all sorts of trees for food, you shall count that fruit as forbidden, and not eat a new tree’s fruit for three years. In the fourth year, its fruit shall be holy, set aside for praising God. In the fifth year it may be eaten. All this is to increase the trees yield in the future.” (Leviticus 19:23-25…translation mine)

To keep this commandment, it became necessary to record the age of particular trees. And since it’s tough to keep track of that many “birthdays”, the Sages of our tradition established a kind of “fiscal year” assigning all trees planted in a particular year the same birthday. According to the Mishnah (Rosh Hashanah 1:1), Shammai thought we should mark it on the first day of the Hebrew month of Sh’vat, but Hillel thought we should celebrate it on the fifteenth. As usual, Hillel carried the day.

Et Tu, BiShvat?

By the way, the Hebrew number system sometimes operates like Roman numerals, where letters stand for numbers. “Tu” in Hebrew is spelled with a tet and vav, which equal 9 and 6, respectively. So Tu BiShvat just means “the fifteenth of Sh’vat”. Not the fanciest name for a holiday, but it gets the job done.

(Get it? The headline’s a Roman joke!)

The Meaning(s) of Tu BiShvat

In taking one day a year to focus our attention on trees and what they give us, it is right and proper, I think, to use it as an occasion for mindfulness not only of God’s bounty, but also our responsibility for stewardship. Not only for trees, either, but for all of God’s creation.

But as I said, this holiday has an addition point of mindfulness for me: a reminder of the necessity of patience. If by restraining your own appetites in the moment, you can actually improve the outcome in the future, then be patient. Not easy, but wise.

(Anyone who knows me knows that patience is not a strength of mine. I could probably use a few more Tu BiShvats each year.)

Enter Parashat Beshallah

By contrast Beshallah, this week’s Torah portion, is about initiative – facing your fears, getting off the fence, and taking immediate, faithful action.

“God said to Moses, “Why do you cry out to me? Speak to the people Israel, and urge them forward!” (Exodus 14:15)

The medieval commentator Rash interprets this: When the people were at the edge of the sea, blocked on one side by water, even as they are pursued from the other side by Pharaoh’s army, God chastises Moses for stopping too long and praying for a solution. Shorten your prayer, God says, and lead your people forward. THEN I will make a path for them.

There’s also a midrash (homiletical interpretation by early rabbis) that tells the story of Nahshon ben Aminadav, a leader of the tribe of Judah. While all the tribes at the water’s edge fought each other NOT to be the ones to step in first, Nahshon jumped in started walking, sinking lower into the water as he went. As the water entered his nose and his feet no longer touched bottom, he prayed, and only at that moment, God split the sea.

Because one person of faith took action first and then prayed for help, God saved everyone else.

Tu BiShvat & Beshallah: Like Chocolate & Peanut Butter

It’s not for me to say whether this is a coincidence, but it is interesting to me that Tu BiShvat usually falls within a few days of the Shabbat when we read this very Torah portion. Every year we encounter this juxtaposition of faithful patience in the orchard and faithful initiative at the edge of the sea. What can we learn from this?

There is due time for everything, Ecclesiastes teaches.

I believe there is a time for patience: when restraining yourself from taking action will actually help others, or yourself.

I believe there is also a time for taking action, even or especially when there’s no guarantee of success. When you know something is right, when you know something is helpful, and when the only thing standing in your way is your own fear of an uncertain failure, take action. Act, and as you do, pray for help.

I don’t believe the purpose of prayer is to ask God to do something for you.

I do believe at least one purpose of prayer is ask to help you do it yourself, when you don’t think you’re strong enough or smart enough or guaranteed success.

As we approach Shabbat Shirah, the Shabbat where we also read the joyful song the people Israel sang when they arrived safe upon the far shore – the reward for one person’s initiative, and sometimes it only takes one person to save everyone – I bless you with patience in those areas of life where restraint bears fruit, and I bless you with courage and faith when what is good for you stands on the other side of your fear.

Shabbat Shalom!

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