As someone who firmly believes that life's too short to adhere to convention, the notion of conformity, especially for the sake of religion, has always been a bit problematic for me. It's not that I'm particularly difficult or unusually strong-willed, it's just that I can't envision a worse existence than that of selling myself out to an ideology--following someone else's rules--instead of going with my own flow. Being who I already am means everything to me. Content to fly insubordinately beneath the radar of societal norms, I live life on my own terms, not anyone else's. Although I consider myself open-minded and quite tolerant toward other viewpoints I don't necessarily understand, every now and then the lack of common sense which accompanies rigid traditionalism leaves me dumbfounded, nearly at a loss for words. Perhaps I'm in need of enlightenment, but why would anyone want to trade dogma for free thought? That's a way of life I just can't get my head around.
Yesterday, my son, Nick, came home from work, looking troubled. He said, "I found out I messed something up at work two weeks ago." For the last 10 months, he's worked at a natural foods store, a job he was very excited about taking mainly because of his interests in Ayurveda and alternative healing. The store is located in a diverse neighborhood with a large orthodox Jewish contingent. Although the store itself is not strictly kosher, it receives lots of business from the local Jewish population, and part of Nick's job is stocking and organizing kosher foods. Here's where I have to plead ignorance. When I think of kosher foods, I think of items like meat, fish, dairy, and eggs, and I totally "get" the whole concept of kosher and Halal laws pertaining to the ritual slaughter of animals. But, who would ever have thought that something as benign as a peanut could cause such a stir? I mean, what exactly is the point of kosher peanut butter?
Well, apparently freshly ground peanut butter made from kosher peanuts is a big seller at the store, so there are separate machines for holy and unholy peanuts. A couple of weeks back, Nick was charged with refilling the machines. By some accident, he unintentionally and unknowingly placed "tainted" peanuts in the kosher machine, an honest mistake that his boss discovered yesterday. I sat in disbelief as Nick told me that because of his human error, the store had lost all its kosher peanut butter sales. "We either have to get a new machine or take the old one apart and boil all its components." I'm sorry, but this is nothing short of ridiculous! First of all, every peanut in that store is organic, and as Nick puts it, "They've already been blessed by Nature." Secondly, if there is a God, does he really care about whether peanut butter is kosher? It seems he might have more pressing issues on his agenda. People have been buying and eating that unorthodox peanut butter for the last two weeks, yet there have been no reports of anyone in the community being struck down by the hand of God for inadvertently disobeying Halakhic law. Gimme a break! We're not dealing with allergies, GMOs, or a salmonella epidemic here; it's simply a matter of a few unconsecrated peanuts. Why not just run a few batches of kosher peanuts through the machine with a rabbi standing by to bless it? Wouldn't that be more common sensical? Frankly, I fail to see how the inner workings of this peanut butter machine could have been so drastically altered by a gallon of unanointed legumes as to render it unacceptable for future use. I have no doubt that God would also approve of my plan for absolving this defenseless machine of its iniquity.
It's all a matter is perspective, really. My work as an anesthesiologist involves life and death on a daily basis, and this tempers my philosophy about people who take themselves, their jobs, and their religion too seriously. Piloting an aircraft is one thing, whereas working in a grocery store is quite another. Theoretically, one could argue that stocking groceries carries the potential risk of selling expired or contaminated food, directly threatening public health, and in this case, carelessness can certainly be deadly. Nick's dilemma is less clear cut; he's unwittingly and unfairly assumed responsibility for the spiritual health of an entire community. What should have been a blip on the radar might turn into a big hairy deal. I'm willing to bet that the people making a mountain out of this molehill are also the biggest hypocrites in the bunch, the "holier than thou" whose sense of moral superiority and self-righteousness is thinly disguised beneath a veil of piety and service.
Does a depraved peanut taste any different or provide less nutritional value than one that's been sanctified? Can someone please explain convincingly how fresh organic peanut butter can be deemed unfit for consumption by some, while it's fine for everyone else, or why a machine that was perfectly good two weeks ago is now unclean and unusable? In other words, if consecrated peanut butter is really that different, why didn't anyone immediately suspect that's not what they were eating? Like Nick said, those peanuts were already blessed by Nature; isn't that enough? I find it difficult to appreciate how anyone's spiritual health was even remotely compromised in this situation.
Is the abandonment of reasoning, judgment, and intuition an inherent aspect of developing faith? Is faith itself necessarily blind, devoid of wisdom and practicality, intolerant of inquiry or human error? More importantly, why don't we have more faith in ourselves? Herein lies the quandary: if God exists, and God made everything and everyone, and God is everything and everyone, then isn't everyone and everything also God? And, what's the purpose of a God who's external to ourselves? When someone figures that out, please let me know. I'll be in Aisle 9 along with the other infidels and miscreants, shamelessly sampling the subversive peanut butter, la dolce vita style.
Yesterday, my son, Nick, came home from work, looking troubled. He said, "I found out I messed something up at work two weeks ago." For the last 10 months, he's worked at a natural foods store, a job he was very excited about taking mainly because of his interests in Ayurveda and alternative healing. The store is located in a diverse neighborhood with a large orthodox Jewish contingent. Although the store itself is not strictly kosher, it receives lots of business from the local Jewish population, and part of Nick's job is stocking and organizing kosher foods. Here's where I have to plead ignorance. When I think of kosher foods, I think of items like meat, fish, dairy, and eggs, and I totally "get" the whole concept of kosher and Halal laws pertaining to the ritual slaughter of animals. But, who would ever have thought that something as benign as a peanut could cause such a stir? I mean, what exactly is the point of kosher peanut butter?
Well, apparently freshly ground peanut butter made from kosher peanuts is a big seller at the store, so there are separate machines for holy and unholy peanuts. A couple of weeks back, Nick was charged with refilling the machines. By some accident, he unintentionally and unknowingly placed "tainted" peanuts in the kosher machine, an honest mistake that his boss discovered yesterday. I sat in disbelief as Nick told me that because of his human error, the store had lost all its kosher peanut butter sales. "We either have to get a new machine or take the old one apart and boil all its components." I'm sorry, but this is nothing short of ridiculous! First of all, every peanut in that store is organic, and as Nick puts it, "They've already been blessed by Nature." Secondly, if there is a God, does he really care about whether peanut butter is kosher? It seems he might have more pressing issues on his agenda. People have been buying and eating that unorthodox peanut butter for the last two weeks, yet there have been no reports of anyone in the community being struck down by the hand of God for inadvertently disobeying Halakhic law. Gimme a break! We're not dealing with allergies, GMOs, or a salmonella epidemic here; it's simply a matter of a few unconsecrated peanuts. Why not just run a few batches of kosher peanuts through the machine with a rabbi standing by to bless it? Wouldn't that be more common sensical? Frankly, I fail to see how the inner workings of this peanut butter machine could have been so drastically altered by a gallon of unanointed legumes as to render it unacceptable for future use. I have no doubt that God would also approve of my plan for absolving this defenseless machine of its iniquity.
It's all a matter is perspective, really. My work as an anesthesiologist involves life and death on a daily basis, and this tempers my philosophy about people who take themselves, their jobs, and their religion too seriously. Piloting an aircraft is one thing, whereas working in a grocery store is quite another. Theoretically, one could argue that stocking groceries carries the potential risk of selling expired or contaminated food, directly threatening public health, and in this case, carelessness can certainly be deadly. Nick's dilemma is less clear cut; he's unwittingly and unfairly assumed responsibility for the spiritual health of an entire community. What should have been a blip on the radar might turn into a big hairy deal. I'm willing to bet that the people making a mountain out of this molehill are also the biggest hypocrites in the bunch, the "holier than thou" whose sense of moral superiority and self-righteousness is thinly disguised beneath a veil of piety and service.
Does a depraved peanut taste any different or provide less nutritional value than one that's been sanctified? Can someone please explain convincingly how fresh organic peanut butter can be deemed unfit for consumption by some, while it's fine for everyone else, or why a machine that was perfectly good two weeks ago is now unclean and unusable? In other words, if consecrated peanut butter is really that different, why didn't anyone immediately suspect that's not what they were eating? Like Nick said, those peanuts were already blessed by Nature; isn't that enough? I find it difficult to appreciate how anyone's spiritual health was even remotely compromised in this situation.
Is the abandonment of reasoning, judgment, and intuition an inherent aspect of developing faith? Is faith itself necessarily blind, devoid of wisdom and practicality, intolerant of inquiry or human error? More importantly, why don't we have more faith in ourselves? Herein lies the quandary: if God exists, and God made everything and everyone, and God is everything and everyone, then isn't everyone and everything also God? And, what's the purpose of a God who's external to ourselves? When someone figures that out, please let me know. I'll be in Aisle 9 along with the other infidels and miscreants, shamelessly sampling the subversive peanut butter, la dolce vita style.