This is her version of being an American peasant. In Ireland, where she was brought up as 7 of 9 Orthodox children, she probably ate white potatoes. white potatoes with salt and butter and may white potatoes with a sliver of meat on Shabbat.

But hey, at least she is keeping glatt kosher when she screams at my children for taking pretzels from the pantry without asking because she has to keep “inventory” on the food or goes yells if they fail to mumble a bracha on their salty processed white flour.

Ahhh, spirituality.

The reason that cholent became the classic dish of Orthodox Jews is because they were poor peasants who could not afford to eat meat, so they saved it for Shabbat and strectched it as much as possible with beans and potatoes. Every culture has it’s iconic peasant foods that are delicious and stretch the expensive meat so that everyone can have a sliver.

The reason I choose not to buy Kosher meat, much less Organic Kosher meat, is because I prefer not to life like a peasant.

This is 2008. The evil management at Wal-Mart has the ability to provide my family with sanitary, heavily regulated meat at low prices. They exploit their workers within the letter of the law of the land.

Therefore, I shop within the budget of a single working mother with 3 children who pays child support to her loser of an Ex-husband, to provide my offspring with the most nutritious and least expensive food I can without blatantly disregarding the freedoms of capitalism and democracy we are privileged to have in the U.S.

Spirituality is free. Organic Kosher chop meat is $7.00 a pound.
Keeping Kosher is a right and privilege of the rich, for all the rest of the schleppers spirituality has to take a backseat to living. For me being spiritual includes tryng to be a good citizen of my State and Country. Many in my little village prefer welfare fraud, IRS fraud and yes, to eat the products of 9000 child labor violations in the name of spirituality. Makes no sense to me, but hey, neither does having a baby and going back to work the next day.

In any case, they make organic kosher meat; why not buy that?

Sometimes it’s time to say “these laws are not helping our culture evolve spirituality” but I guess I’m the only one saying that…anyone? JTS? Reconstructionists? Anyone? Secular Jews?

So what hechsers of kosher meat are going to be available in this Country’s Jails?

That said, Agriprocessors didn’t even follow Torah anyway; following the laws of the land is required, and clearly the Rubashkins didn’t follow that one.

I know the answer is “it’s the people, not the laws”…but if the laws aren’t making better people, what the hell are they for? Anyone? Just to torture us? Anyone? Because being Ortho is not…anyone? easy or anyone? Fun… or anyone? Inexpensive.

I am really going to try to have this be the last nasty sarcastic remark I make between now and Yom Kippur because all this self-hatred is killing me.