In much the same way that we refer to our secular brothers and sisters as “not-yet frum,” I look at my new 8-quart Farberware (and I have had many over the years) as “not-yet fleishig.”
Yehudis fed Holofernes cheese and then gave him wine to quench his subsequent thirst. (Personally, I usually have seltzer — it has never caused me the kind of trouble he had.). When the good general fell into a deep and drunken sleep, Yehudis took his sword and decapitated him. She came into the town square brandishing the head-bearing spear and placed the head on the wall. The Yidden rejoiced in this sign of victory from Hashem, while the Greeks fled in panic, vowing to abstain from feta cheese, at least for the duration of the war.
But all that comes by way of tangential introduction. The point is that we commemorate this great miracle and Yehudis’s heroism by eating milchig. Both grateful and glad are we that we can celebrate Hashem’s kindness with a cappuccino and not with the roast left over from Succos. But roast or roast coffee, what we’re really grateful for is that we don’t have to celebrate by eating an entire pareve meal.
For really, friends, what is pareve if not a euphemism for “almost milchig” or “soon-to-be fleishig”? In much the same way that we refer to our secular brothers and sisters as “not-yet frum,” I look at my new 8-quart Farberware (and I have had many over the years) as “not-yet fleishig.” How long will it take this time? One night? Six months? Each new pot is a tabula rasa — a clean slate. But soon life in the kitchen will make its claim on your pareve innocence. What culinary mishaps will deem the right or left side of my kitchen as your ultimate resting place? Human error? Effervescent schnitzel oil?
Of the hows and the whys I cannot be sure. But of the inevitability, I am almost certain. For yours is a transient state.
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