A Bat Mitzvah’s Teaching on the Downstream Effects of Kashrut
This past Shabbat we celebrated the Bat Mitzvah ceremony of Claire Englander. Claire’s Torah portion falls in the Book of Devarim (Deuteronomy) where Moses is delivering his parting address to the Israelites as they get ready to cross over into the promised land.
A central part of this address is a recapitulation of the laws the people were given at Mount Sinai. In particular, this week, the text of Claire’s parashah (portion) included the laws of Kashrut—keep kosher. Claire initially questioned the importance of kashrut, wondering aloud whether she had received significant material in her Torah portion in comparison to some of the more ethically-driven material.
Upon reflection, however, Claire decided that one of the functions of kashrut is that when we cultivate an orientation towards our food through which we aspire to make the fundamental, commonplace act of eating sacred, we begin to orient towards all life through a lens of recognizing and upholding its sacredness.
To that end, she shared about her Bat Mitzvah project in which she is raising money for a cause she discovered on a trip to Mongolia with her family: Let’s Change Our Toilets. To quote from the website of the organization she is supporting, “Bacteria and contamination from current outhouse toilets spread through groundwater to nearby wells, causing a majority of children’s diarrhea — the number one killer of children under five in [Mongolia]. Many small children fall and die in dangerous outhouses. Yet until recently, it was socially embarrassing to talk about toilets even among family members. But Mongolian attitudes are changing — people are now enthusiastically discussing the need for improvement. Thanks to the movement ‘Let’s Change Our Toilets’ led by the NGO Local Solutions, Mongolians are able to live safer and healthier lives.
