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Thanks For Visiting My Site
Jewish values have always guided my weltanschauung. What complicates the process of distilling those values is the understanding of our culture/history and interpretation of our sacred texts in light of evolving ideas and time. One of the leading 20th century Jewish philosophers, my teacher, Eliezer Berkovitz struggled with this his entire life:
“…not only does the method of Authority not work, it actually defeats the eternal validity of the Torah. The Torah is eternal because it has a Word for each generation…if they have the authority they impose the Word meant for yesterday and thus miss hearing the Word for today for this generation, for this new hour in the history of the Jewish people…”
These powerful words launched me on a lifelong odyssey of listening and learning, in search of the relevant Word for today and through this process living my Judaism to the fullest. |
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Twinkies
The summer of 1956 was a watershed summer in that I was presented with the first of my nisionot (nisionos for yeshivisha pronunciation) in how deep my commitment to Jewish observance ran. Not that I want to compare myself to Abraham’s 10 nisionos, which he passed with flying colors, nevertheless and unlike father Abraham I was truly challenged with this first one because of the sheer will power demanded of me. It was expected of me by generations of Jews who came before me who martyred their lives “leshem shamayim” (for the sake of heaven), to withstand the temptation to eat a Twinkie knowing that it was my god given right and that of every American kid to snack on them. Some other products at the time, which hadn’t had hechsherim, you could get away with, because everyone knew that the products were kosher, like Hershey’s Chocolate. Even the name sounded Jewish. Twinkies, on the other hand sounded American, looked treif and in fact was glatt treif. There was no away around this, no rationalization, no excuse. It was universally accepted that they were treif. There was no dissension on this, not even from the most modern of the rabbanim in Albany Park. Animal fat listed in the ingredients, which undoubtedly made them irresistible hardly came from a kosher slaughtered bovine creation.
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