Beit Sarah

One of the requirements of being a Jew is to eat kosher foods, but not every Jew adheres to the Laws of Kashrut. A Jewish friend once told me that she did not think that G-d would send her to hell just because she ate pork. “There is just one thing wrong with your logic,” I replied, laughing. “Many Jews, including you, do not believe in the existence of hell.”

All humor aside, keeping kosher is serious business. It is not only about clean vs. unclean animals. It is also about how they slaughter and prepare the animals. Another element is who does the handling, from the slaughtering to the preparation.

Those who wish to keep kosher have certain challenges that they face. Most people today purchase food items from a grocery store and have no idea who handled or prepared it. We do not even know how it was prepared. Fortunately, some rabbis have taken it upon themselves to monitor and oversee some food handling and preparations to make it possible for us to purchase kosher-labeled items from off the grocery store shelves.

The Rabbis use several different symbols to label food items as kosher. The following video, courtesy of Jewish Learning Institute, explains more about these symbols: