It’s not easy being green (and kosher)
August 12th, 2009 | Tikkun Daily
I have, for the last five years or so, been working to create a kosher trustmark — a symbol that identifies compliance with known standards that are strictly halakhic (in accord with Jewish tradition) and green (including many rubrics, among them animal welfare, fair labour, and fair trade).
The Jewish Renewal movement created this sensitivity in the 1970s but nobody, even Arthur Waskow and Reb Zalman, really knew what the concept they called “eco-kosher” would become. That there was a strong ethical component to even traditional kashrut was known.
What would happen to food because of food science was not known.
The Orthodox movement, from which Reb Zalman came and to which he still adhered in many ways, was reasonably aware by the 1990s that eco-kashrut was an important concept. The general feeling was that the original notion stressed eco- before kosher.
The Beth Din I have formed in Ottawa is now working to implement an auditable method we call Greenkosher™. This will take some time and we are not rushing.
Every heksher (kosher trustmark) in Canada is Orthodox. There are three national heksher organisations here: COR in Toronto, MK in Montreal and BCK in Vancouver.
I was especially glad, then, to see this article on theJTA website. A Conservative rabbi in Georgia is challenging the state’s kosher law as unconstitutional.
Canadian law does not lock kashrut into Orthodoxy, as has been customary in the United States. Local community standards, however, do their best to deny Conservative rabbis any voice with respect to kosher certification.
This usually works — not because it is right but because almost all Conservative rabbis are either educators or congregational rabbis. Their schools and congregations are not generally supportive of other activities.
Orthodox rabbis in Canada are also commonly congregational rabbis or educators, but any number are not and many of these work fulltime in kashrut supervision.
The Conservative movement has been working slowly towards implementing what it calls a heksher tzedek. I think this is an important development and I look forward to implementing Magen Tzedek’s standards in Greenkosher™ audits.
Vegetarian diets are, of course, the best form of kashrut.
