I’m staying with some non-Jewish friends at Loma Linda University this weekend. I’m going to be on a panel Sabbath afternoon talking with three Christians and a Jew about a new book.
My friends have never hosted an Orthodox Jew for the Sabbath before.
I found myself asked, “What does kosher mean?” And I stumbled. “I think it means ‘fit’ or ‘appropriate’,” I said. “Food fit for a Jew. I’m a vegetarian and that makes keeping kosher much easier.”
And then I found myself explaining “kosher grape juice.” I said that about 2,000 years ago, the rabbis decided that Jews should only drink grape juice and wine grown by Jews. I didn’t explain but I think this is obvious, that it was part of the rabbinic fence to minimize socializing with non-Jews.
If you can’t drink with them, you are less likely to sleep with them.
I am a man of exquisite sensibilities, the most delicate of temperaments, so I did not spell this out.
Last time I was at Loma Linda, I got the most severe case of yellow fever. It took me many months to burn it out of my system. Damn Seventh-Day Adventist girls, they are so fine. If only I could’ve believed that stuff about Jesus coming soon, I’d be married now.
Many times married.
