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Reform Judaism - Some Questions and Answers
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6. What about Kashrut, the Jewish dietary laws?
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 On kashrut, in particular and Jewish practice in general, we try to encourage a deeper and fuller lived Jewish life through study and experience rather than simply to legislate. We recognise that individuals will come to their own decisions but are as insistent as possible that those decisions be based on Jewish thought, knowledge and experience.
In a way, then, the answer here is not very different from the answer to the question about Shabbat. The Jewish dietary laws are about bringing a religious dimension to the ordinary, everyday act of eating. They are an attempt to make even this mundane event holy (set apart for a special purpose), they are a reminder to us that we are Jewish even when we are having an earnest business lunch or a quick snack out. Rabbi Lionel Blue once described kashrut as the equivalent of a knot in a handkerchief, a reminder. This is another of Judaism’s brilliant insights.
However, there are times when some of the ‘traditional’ legislation seems to us to have got quite out of hand and become an end in itself, if not an obsession. Reform Judaism is extremely keen on people retaining the knot in the handkerchief, remembering their Jewishness and their Jewish values when they are eating. How this is achieved will vary – some find abstaining from ‘forbidden foods’ sufficient, others wish to keep a traditionally ‘kosher home’, many others hear in vegetarianism traditional Jewish values expressed in 21st century terms. We believe in kashrut but, as with so many mitzvot (commandments, obligations), refuse to allow its definition to be frozen in the past.
It goes without saying that all Reform Synagogues observe kashrut on their premises. This is a recognition of the need for the community to provide a living experience of observance which individuals can use as part of their learning and personal decision making.
Acknowledgement: ‘What is Reform Judaism' by Rabbi Tony Bayfield.
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