KOSHER WATER

Not too long ago, a yokel purchased a piece of property not far from where I live. But this was a most fortunate man. Under his barren land lay the largest pure water spring in the state. He had become a rich man nearly overnight. He bottled the water for consumers and food producers, and it was so pure that with proper sterilization it was sold all over the country to hospitals and research institutions.

One day the yokel sought me out. He was frantic. His salesman has tried to sell water to a company that produced kosher soups. He was told that his water would not be acceptable unless it was under rabbinical supervision.

The poor yokel could not appreciate the absurdity of the question, because he had not the slightest idea about kashrut. Assuming that he was a Bible-believing Christian, I referred him to the relevant passages in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, which he knew by heart. “But it doesn’t say anything about water!” he observed.

What could I tell him? That some rabbinical organization was trying to extort money from the suppliers of the water that went into the soup? So, standing in this facility that was producing absolutely sterile water for nuclear reactors, I made up some doubletalk about how they needed assurance that the water was “really pure.”

“Well, Rabbi,” he asked the obvious question, “can’t you tell them that it’s really pure?”

Another dilemma. I tried to explain to the befuddled yokel that he needed one of those rabbis with the beards and black hats and long black coats. He finally understood when I explained that I was like an Episcopalian and they were like Baptists.

I lost touch with the yokel, but I assume that his water is now kosher to orthodox standards, before it becomes polluted by the chicken and noodles.

The whole episode reminds me of the day in school that we looked at a drop of water through a microscope. We saw all kinds of one-cell creatures swimming around, and as I remember, none of them had fins and scales. Understandably, from that day forward, my beverage of choice has been Warsteiner.

FINALLY THE FIRST AT SOMETHING

Rabbis are insufferable braggarts. I may thus opine because I am one of them. Other than a handful of the most humble and righteous, one not need wait to ask rabbis where we have most recently spoken or when our last article appeared.

We particularly like boasting about being “the first,” as if this conferred some mystical authority: the first rabbi to shake the Pope’s hand when he was still an Archbishop, the first rabbi to meet Israel’s new assistant undersecretary of agriculture in charge of bananas, the first rabbi to sample pareve cheese.

Until this September, I had been “the first” at absolutely nothing. September brought us to Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina. It is a lovely place, the prototype of American lebensraum. There I lost my virginity and finally attainted my rabbinical first-hood. How, you ask?

Beyond this esteemed periodical, I write culinary quips for an internet food magazine. They had invited all their writers and editors to a traditional “pig pickin’” to celebrate our success. This feast, as you might surmise, is not a Champagne-and-caviar affair. It is 100 ravenous connoisseurs picking smoky, fatty flesh off a pig that had been roasted for hours by a chef ironically named Cohen.

I retained enough religious compunction to resist the perfumed pork that beckoned me. Besides, the poor pig was surrounded by an array of accompaniments upon which I declared a kashrut amnesty: “Hush Puppies,” fried cornmeal balls, vaguely reminiscent of Shabbos knoedel and Chanukah latkes, coleslaw, kartoffelsalate and plenty of German beer.

One iconoclast had just published a treatise on 50 ways to make deviled eggs. She served only 12 varieties, each very good, enticing us to read about the other 38 in her magnum opus.

I have no doubt that many a rabbi has indulged in pork. But this I guarantee: I am the first who has ever been the honored guest at a pig pickin’. It took only 56 years, but finally I am “the first” at something.

Now, get out of my way! I smell lobster boiling! Ah, another chance to be the first!