Mississippi to Denver: A Kosher Journey to Jewish People

Today’s society is hugely revolved around food. Everywhere one looks there are commercials, ads, and billboards, all with the purpose of publicizing the many restaurants that there are in the world. On street corners people eat in cafes, and along many streets one could find a couple of fast food chains. Sounds great, right? Endless amounts of food, waiting to be eaten.

But here’s the catch. Restaurants that are Kosher are extremely scarce, making the unlimited food a lot more limited. Therefore, it is very easy to long for some of the other food people are eating, when Kosher-keeping Jews have barely any selection of food choices.

In some ways, this could be viewed as a negative aspect of keeping Kosher. Wouldn’t it just be easier to go out to the nearest Burger King and get some lunch than to have all the rules of keeping kosher? Keeping Kosher could make people feel as though they are bound to the many laws associated with food and cannot enjoy things as well as they might be able to if they didn’t keep kosher.

But there is a completely different viewpoint on keeping Kosher. These restrictions on food are important, in order to remind people that they are different from everybody else; that they are Jews. In this way, people could embrace the limitations of keeping Kosher, and instead use them to enhance their awareness of being Jewish.

For people in a community where everybody keeps Kosher, it might be hard for them to realize that they are different as Jews, because everyone around them is doing the same thing. In this type of lifestyle, it is even more difficult for one to embrace their Jewish identity. I grew up in a community the opposite of this. Where my life was based, most people were either not Jewish or they didn’t keep kosher. In fact, when I was younger, we didn’t keep kosher. I lived in Jackson, Mississippi, where there were only about ten Jews in our community, all non-religious. My family moved to Denver to be part of a bigger Jewish community, and it was here that my parents began learning about the laws of keeping Kosher.

Little by little, my family began increasing the number of parts of keeping Kosher that we took upon ourselves, until we kept the generally accepted level of keeping Kosher. At the time, I went to a non-Jewish school. At first, it was easy for me to bring my kosher lunch to school. My friends accepted the way my family had to eat, and everything was normal. As I got older, things started to change. On extended field trips, I had to schlep all my food with my class so that I could eat on the trip, while everyone else was able to go to restaurants and cafes. This is when I began noticing that I really was different - religion-wise - than the others in my class. At first, I will admit, it was hard for me to not do the things everyone else at school was doing. It was not until a couple years later that I became glad that I had these Kosher laws to follow - I was able to educate my friends on why I kept Kosher, and I really did feel that I was different; for the first time, I really felt like a Jew. Honestly, at some points, it was very hard for me to keep accepting the laws; but when I resisted the temptation of eating out with my friends, I was proud that I had made the choices that I did and felt my spiritual senses heightening.

Keeping Kosher really is a hard thing to do - maybe harder for some people than others, but either way, it is a huge, difficult part of the Jewish religion. Resisting the urge to eat non-kosher food, however - or even realizing that you are eating different food than most people - can help people realize and think about their Jewish identity. Keeping kosher helps us grow by symbolically putting us on a higher level than others in our awareness of who we are as Jews. Trust me; I have had a first-hand experience.