8 Ways to Avoid Ministry Burnout
Why Fellowship is Crucial to Your Faith
God Will Fight for You!
17 Ways to Empower Yourself
20 Ways to Bless Others
10 Negative Labels You Need to Remove
Going Coo-Coo for Coconut Oil
5 Ways to Stay Healthy This Summer
6 Steps to Healing Yourself
Christian Artists Who Offer Hope
7 Inspiring Lessons You Can Learn from Tom Hanks
10 Ways to Bring Summer Inside
10 Steps to Discipline
The 7 Habits of Stress-Free People
7 Secrets to Finding Fulfilling Work
10 Steps to Calmer Parenting
10 Questions to Ask Before Getting into a New Relationship
Chocolate production doesn’t much resemble the magical world portrayed in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. No chocolate rivers, no trained squirrels, and sadly, no everlasting gobstoppers. However, there’s one very unfortunate similarity – the size of the laborers. The workers in the cocoa farms are often no taller than an oompa-loompa. But they don’t sing and dance. That’s because, they’re enslaved children.
As a nation that is commanded to remember that we ourselves were once slaves, perhaps plying our friends and families with chocolate gelt isn’t the most kosher way to celebrate hanukkah.
Fortunately, there’s Divine Chocolates, a fair trade cooperative, that now produces a line of kosher, fairly traded milk chocolate coins. (Sorry, I can’t find a pareve version.) They are available from a number of on-line stores for $4-5 per bag (about 17 coins.) I suggest you ask your synagogue gift shop and your local co-op to order them as well. Oh, apparently they also sell them at that store that hates health care Whole Foods.
Speaking of food that you feel good about eating, tonight we are having beef for shabbat. This is a first for us, as I will not buy factory farmed meat. However, recently our nearby Chabad house bought a local, grass-fed, pasture raised cow and, um, killed it. In exchange for a donation, I came home with 3 bags of frozen, kosher beef out of which my brother will make a delicious stew. Mom baked the challah. And everything else will be leftovers. This is why I love Thanksgiving.
-
Advertisement
-
click here to see all of our uplifting newsletters» About Me
I'm a mother of two girls, raised in suburban Baltimore, and transplanted to a small New England town. I teach, write, and try to create a vibrant Jewish home for my family while spending very little time in synagogue. Â I guess you could say we're home-shuling. You can contact me at homeshuling at gmail dot com.Check out Amy’s Books!
-
Advertisement
posted November 30, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Yum! That’s awesome that you got free-range kosher beef! We’ve been working on setting something like that up around here, but can’t find a shochet. Our family makes the choice to eat well-raised, rather than kosher-killed, since we can’t have both. Well, that and BC can’t digest tofu or beans, and is now having problems with fish, means we have lots of chicken. (ugh)
Thanks for the info on Divine Chocolates. That will make a great Hannukah gift for lots of our family members.
posted November 30, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Thank you for the teachable moment!! This never occurred to me and I am so glad that you wrote about it.
We are starting to make the move to free-range/grass-fed meat. A good decision for us.
posted December 1, 2009 at 10:28 am
Love The Challahs. There beautiful! Would you share your recipe?
Thanks
posted December 4, 2009 at 1:39 pm
posted December 5, 2009 at 10:37 pm
those are some gorgeous challot!!!
i have to tell you, my kids were fascinated by the turkey as my dad carved it at thanksgiving. since we don’t eat meat (they did taste the turkey), they’d never really seen that whole carving thing before. i kept referring to it as “that dead turkey” which probably wasn’t the most PC…but it made me giggle.
thanks for the heads up on the chocolate. i’ll have to head over to whole foods!