My Journey to Kosher

by Vivian Perez
"Why keep kosher?" was the foremost question on my mind ever since I decided to do something concrete about being Jewish. I used to pester my rabbi, Rabbi Yehoshua Binyomin Rosenfeld of Colombia, with that question at every possible opportunity, and he would always take the time to explain, yet again.

As newlyweds, my husband and I started to attend the rabbi's weekly Jewish studies classes. I remember looking questioningly at the rabbi, never being quite satisfied with any of the reasons as to why I should observe kosher. None of the answers seemed to justify changing my accustomed eating habits. Until one day. I don't really remember how, but I made the decision to just jump in. I decided I was just going to do it even though I still didn't understand it completely.

I'm not an impulsive kind of a person - quite the opposite, in fact. But something deep inside made me just dive in and begin keeping kosher. In that moment (I didn't truly realize it then) I felt that I dove into the comforting waters of kosher living.

As anyone who has ever gone deep-sea diving knows, it is only after you're enveloped by the sea that you begin to see and appreciate its hidden beauty.

Only after I actually started feeling beholden to and observing the kosher dietary laws did the answers begin to come. Surprisingly enough, they didn't come from outside; they came from somewhere within. The more meticulously I kept kosher, the deeper the answers from within resounded.

At first, I remember how joyous I was to feel my "Jewish essence." Every time I ate, I was reminded of my identity - my Jewish soul. Something that was once so physical had become so spiritual. I was awed at discovering that we can master such self-control, commitment, and purpose. I was experiencing and feeling how observing kosher captivated my entire life. In fact, my perspective on life had changed. No longer was I questioning and analyzing everything, for I felt that everything in creation was analyzing me.

Life was never going to be as trivial, as routine, as "dry" as it was before I committed myself to going completely kosher. It marked the beginning of the entry into the sea of inner-knowledge.

Through observing the kosher dietary laws in my day-to-day life, I came to understand what life is really about: there is a Creator. He knows our anatomy because He designed it. And He knows that the Jew has a holy soul which must be nurtured and guarded. There is physicality and spirituality. Each person has a holy soul and an animal soul. There are permissible foods and non-permissible foods. Just as we know that the air we exhale is only as good as the air we inhale, so too, what comes out of us through our thoughts, speech, or actions is influenced by what goes in.

Now that I observe the Jewish dietary laws, I think back on my eating habits before my observance with the following analogy: Think of the finest automobile in the world, and one day deciding to fill up the gas tank with heavy, leaded gasoline. After all, no one should dictate to me what to put into "my" car. It's mine. I can do what I want! And after the "fill up"? Maybe the car is still all shiny outside, but the engine just doesn't perform to its potential. For me, that's how I understand kosher.

Observing kosher has liberated my soul. No longer a spectator, it became the protagonist in my life. My soul sought to express itself not just at appointed food intervals, but in every conduit of the body, filling the body with divine purpose. Even in mundane, day-to-day dealings, I realized that there are "kosher" and non-kosher ways to conduct affairs, and I became sensitive to going about my life in a kosher manner.

To me, kosher observance is like "The Declaration of Independence" for the soul. To express, expand and permeate the depths of the kingdom, which is the body.

To think of the kosher dietary laws as just a grueling regiment with routine requirements and regulations, is like telling a professional diver in full scuba gear to stay close to the shore, to not dive beyond the shallow waters. That's how frustrated my soul felt when it was not given the fuel needed for its realization.

So, take the dive. Once you do, keep on going, deeper and deeper. Allow yourself to become enwrapped in the ocean and to see what magical beauty will reveal itself from within your own soul that you may never have known you had. P.S. Thank you Rabbi Yehoshua, the Lubavitcher Rebbe's emissary in Colombia, for motivating my soul to take the first dive.


Reprinted with permission from the upcoming book Going. Kosher in 30 Days by Rabbi Zalman Goldstein.