Doing Most Things the “Right” Way Is Ok
We keep kosher and we observe Shabbos once a month. An ultra orthodox Jew would probably not eat in our kitchen. For reasons of convenience and keeping a reasonable grocery budget we break a few rules. We stock our kitchen with products that don’t have a heksher; bakery bread, cheese without rennet, and vegan vegetable broth. We don’t purchase glatt kosher meat. We don’t keep kosher to follow the rules, we keep kosher so that we are constantly thinking about G-d. The way that we do things is not the “right” way, but to us it is the right way because it keeps G-d and Judaism and our beliefs on our minds.
We just started doing Shabbos about a year ago and I had to BEG my husband to give it a shot. Since we have only been doing it for a short time and neither of us grew up shomer shabbos we have never made it from sundown to sundown without breaking a rule. We are learning as we go and after every shabbos episode we come up with a better way to do things.
Why do we only do it once a month? We are not ready to sacrifice all the things that come with observing shabbos every week. If we lived in a Jewish neighborhood it would be different. Doing shabbos with no other Jews around is isolating. I am glad we get the time for some quality family bonding but if we did it every week we would be missing out on a lot. And honestly, I don’t know how women handle shabbos every week, it takes so much time for me to prep!
This is not a “how to break the rules” post. I am sharing this information to tell you that it is ok to do what you can handle. Judaism is on a spectrum, find where you belong! Judaism is a religion that provides a lifestyle. Maybe you want to do more, like me, but you need to keep it manageable. Only take on what you can handle. Ease into it. Slowly start to follow the laws of kashrut. Try out shabbos and maybe commit to once a month depending on how it goes. If you push yourself to hard you will fail and end up disappointed. It is ok, I use my non existent Jewish authority to give you permission to pick and choose which laws you want to follow. And follow them not just because they are “the rules”, follow them because they improve your life.
