A central theme of the upcoming Yom Tov of Shavuos is conversion. The Oral Law too looms large at this time of year. It is after all only due to the oral tradition that we celebrate Shavuos when we do — day 50 from the 16th of Nissan — and the Gemara records fierce debates between Chazal and the deniers of Torah shebe’al peh over this very issue.
The timing was interesting then for the Jewish Week to feature a report on a new conversion brouhaha that’s brewing in Israel alongside a piece about a current controversy in New York involving something called keeping “Biblical kosher.”
The latter phrase popped up in an article describing the aftermath of the decision by the 92nd Street Y (92Y) an iconic cultural institution in Jewish New York to have a nonkosher caterer prepare the meals for its annual gala. Although the event invitation announced that the fare would be “kosher style ” longtime 92Y member Suzanne Goldberg told the Jewish Week that she’d been informed by the 92Y that it would be “Biblical kosher… and I was told it meant that milk and meat would not be served together.”
That response has given me newfound respect for the level of Jewish sophistication and scholarship at the 92Y. I’d have assumed that at an event featuring “Biblical kosher” food the only thing not allowed on the premises would be kids boiled in their mothers’ milk (or perhaps kids period considering what Manhattan babysitters take an hour these days).
