I don’t know if you heard the news, but Wilmington has a Kosher
restaurant for the first time in years, perhaps decades. And it’s not what you’d
think. Last month, the Va’ad certified Dropsquad Kitchen, on the riverfront at
Justison Landing, as our first kosher eatery. This is a big deal; sure, we’ve
had froyo and ice cream joints and a cupcake shop with kosher certification,
and you could get kosher food at Lodge Lane and the JCC, but it’s been a while
since you could buy lunch or dinner out at a kosher place.
The question then becomes, what is Dropsquad kitchen? It’s
not a new place; they’ve been on the riverfront since 2012. They’re a vegan, African
American owned and operated soul-food restaurant. The name was chosen by the
owner, Abundance Child, who took it from a Spike Lee movie. It’s a quirky
place, filled with books and board games, the kind of place I would have loved
to hang out in when I was in high school. The staff (who are mostly family) are
thoughtful and welcoming and kind, and the food is delicious.
I’d been there before they got their heksher, and you know
something? I’m absolutely thrilled. I have to tell you, I love the fact that it’s
not what you’d expect from a kosher place; it’s not a deli, not a bagel place.
Nothing about it says ‘Jewish’: no kreplach, no latkes, and certainly no
gribnes. But so what? Why does that have to be our idea of kosher? And why not
an African American business, downtown on the Riverfront as opposed to another
eatery in Trolley Square or on 202 in North Wilmington? We had our DERECH
meeting there this Tuesday and it was so great to get out of our own ruts, our
own comfort zones, and I can’t wait to see as others in the Jewish community do
the same.
For Dropsquad Kitchen to become kosher (and for the Va’ad to
give them the heksher) is, of course, a business decision. But it’s more than
that; it’s an experiment in radical empathy. Will Jews who want Kosher be
willing to go downtown and eat vegan tacos (which are pretty awesome by the
way), and will Dropsquad Kitchen want to welcome these folks in? Why wouldn’t
the restaurant stick with its usual clientele and the Va’ad wait for someone to
open up a more “classic” Jewish eatery?
Specifically, because it gets us to see
each other as part of a shared community, a shared experience. By eating kosher
soulfood, it challenges us to understand the value of kashrut as more than just a particular ethnic cuisine but as a
collection of values that are meant to lift us up and better ourselves and the
world around us. When we get beyond our own boundaries, we stop being strangers
to each other, and we become neighbors. And I can think of nothing more Jewish
than that.
A few minutes ago I reminded us that the idea of loving and
caring for the stranger, something that we are so familiar with in the Torah
that it verges on pablum, is one of the most radical ideas in the ancient world
and, I would argue, today. To say that we should take our shared experience of
being the stranger, the resident alien, in Egypt, our narrative of being
oppressed and ostracized, and transform that memory into radical empathy, is
nothing short of revolutionary. As Rabbi Shai Held reminds us in The Heart of Torah, Scripture could have
said, “since you were tyrannized and exploited and no one did anything to help
you, you don’t owe anything to anyone; how dare anyone ask anything of you?”
But that’s not what it said and not what I read; “You shall not oppress the
stranger for you know the feelings of the stranger having yourselves been
strangers in the land of Egypt.” Our memory is transformed from ethnic experience
to intense ethical obligation, from an act of remembering for its own sake to
one of moral responsibility. It’s not rational; we aren’t told “be kind to
strangers because you might get something out of it”, or, “be kind to the
resident alien in case they take over and you find yourself on the wrong end of
a sword,” or, “let’s be kind to the resident alien, but only the good ones, the
right ones who look like us and bother to get off the couch.” The appeal is
entirely emotional. We’ve been there, we know what it’s like, and because we do
we have an obligation to help when no one helped us; the immigrant Dreamer who
dreams American dreams, the refugee fleeing persecution and death, and the
African migrant coming to Israel hoping for safety and refuge, raising families
and children, converting sometimes to Judaism, only to be told by the Jewish
state that they should go to Rwanda. To forget our shared experience, our
narrative, or to think it doesn’t make a moral demand of us, is to betray God,
our Torah and ourselves. That’s what makes Dropsquad kitchen being kosher so
amazing; a simple act of radical kindness. And that’s what makes our current
debate around immigration, both here and in Israel, so infuriating. Yes, there
is a comfort in hiding behind walls of our own making, but Torah compels us, compels us as surely as it compels us to
keep the Sabbath or the holidays, to do differently, and to do better. That’s why we must act and work with JFS Rise
program to welcome refugees. That’s why we must join with the Religious Action
Center to call for a clean DREAM act. That’s why we must do what we must do to
make sure those who are not from here, the resident alien, the stranger, know
that they are welcome.
One of my favorite stories goes like this (you might know it
from that great source of midrash, The
West Wing): "This guy's walking down the street when he falls in a
hole. The walls are so steep he can't get out.
"A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, 'Hey you.
Can you help me out?' The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the
hole and moves on.
"Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up,
'Father, I'm down in this hole can you help me out?' The priest writes out a
prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on
"Then a friend walks by, 'Hey, Joe, it's me can you
help me out?' And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, 'Are you stupid?
Now we're both down here.' The friend says, 'Yeah, but I've been down here
before and I know the way out.'"
We’ve been down here before, and we know the way out. And
Torah reminds us what to do; we jump into the pit with them. Just let’s grab
some vegan kosher tacos for the road first.
