There is a story told about Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, one of the great ethical minds of nineteenth-century Judaism, that has stayed with me as Passover approaches. Salanter visited a matzah factory to certify it kosher. He spent time examining the ovens. But he spent even more time watching the workers: how tired they were, how fast they were forced to move, how little their dignity seemed to matter to anyone in charge. He declined to certify it. Even though the matzah was technically kosher, the moral dimensions were not.

For Salanter, the two were inseparable. I’ve been thinking about this teaching because I am a committed observer of kashrut, and I have come to an uncomfortable conclusion I can no longer avoid: the observance I love is failing the tradition it was built to serve.

I say this as someone who has kept strictly kosher for all of my adult life. Kashrut is not a quaint dietary quirk. Rather, it’s one of the central organizing practices of Jewish civilization, a discipline that links Jews across continents and centuries. At its best, it turns eating—one of the most mundane human acts—into a daily act of ethical accountability.

Yet kashrut has drifted from a system of moral consciousness........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)