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Well, hiker45,I sure meant it as a happy post, to inspire. You chose to zoom in on the only thing in there to harp upon and make your sorry point as an Atheist.
Why is that night different? On Passover only, our very large extended Jewish family now has three home seders according to kitchen requirements of 3 movements. On all other nights, we dine together.
You're an Atheist. Why do you ask me a rhetorical question about whether my god is pleased? I couldn't possibly answer that, and if I could, you wouldn't accept any answer so why try.
Please explain how you can all dine together on nearly every night except for Pesach?
Thanks for the very clear answer.
Do you think your god would even more pleased if all family members would celebrate Passover together instead of dividing into three groups?
My observation is that you are more interested in stirring the pot and creating discord, than discussing what makes god happy or having a respectful dialogue or finding out about Jewish celebrations , so I am disinclined to answer. You describe yourself as an atheist, yet give patronizing advice to others on how to make god happy. For me, that makes me wonder about your motivation.
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 09-08-2015 at 02:58 PM..
TFF, you will not dry your wife's tears by parsing out the differences between these movements, although that's certainly a worthwhile exercise.
If you and she are concerned for the future unity of your family, and closeness among first cousins which is precious, I can tell you from 35 years' experience married to a family of brothers covering these movements that it is all possible if people work hard to accommodate each other at simchas, Shabbat meals, and stop deciding/declaring that one way is "right" (Torah-observant) or more "relevant" (nonOrthodox).
My brothers-in-law are all born Reform Jews who either maintained that, or became (one each): Conservative, B.T. Orthodox, Reconstructionist, Reform. All became highly educated Jews within their own movements. The wives either were born Jewish or became Jewish under different movements' supervisiions. Everyone's passionate, cares a lot, and practices according to their movement.
Assembling for Pesach proved too hard, which broke up their family seder of 100 years on U.S. soil. But the rest: Shabbat visits, lifecycle, holidays all occur with various accommodations for start-times, food served and more. Different services in each others' synagogues, and shiva rules at home according to how different movements count a minyan, also proved difficult and bruised feelings but can anyone tell me their shiva week with sibings went smoothly? No. These are times of stress for families, and if people decide the stress derives from the ritual differences, it will be worse. If people look for the unifiers, they can heal and celebrate together. THAT"s a real choice, that TFF and his wife may imagine as a challenge, which it will be, but doable.
That does NOT mean the Reform and Recon brothers cater kosher, although at one Bar Mitzvah that was a path chosen by the host family because the meal was at their recon synagogue that required it.
Children at first mimicked their parents walking through their aunts' kitchens to act like the unappointed mashgiach (kosher supervisor), particularly obnoxious. Depending on the aunt's level of forbearance, some stopped inviting to eat. Other solutions used over years: paper plates with carefully selected foods, sealed meals ordered only for kosher relatives, and families who walked in with their own food in paper bags.
The children-cousins were all NOT confused because their primary goal is always to gather. Children are very smart, and watch how their parents solve problems. Most stayed aligned with the way they were raised, although as young adults theres been movement in ALL directions.
For you and your wife right now, I'd encourage: if nobody gives up, you can work out all differences enough for most family gatherings. If you spend the gathering focussing (from either "side") on differences, yes, you can all fracture your family over it. But that's up to you and your wife, as well as her brother and his new wife, to do the work to figure things out.
Most likely, your future sister-in-law just wants to become family, and brother-in-law wants second marriage to succeed. How you and your wife position yourselves to let that happe your responsibility. They sound like they're going to build a Reform Jewish household in a movement that will fully accept her children until/unless they want different in their own adult lives. If you tell your own children their cousins are not Jewish, by age 5 your niece and nephew will have heard that through your children. Leave her conversion alone, let her raise a family as Reform Jews in the U.S., and you'll all be a lot better off as an extended Jewish family, is my experience.
Excellent post. And I'd say the items you mention above are exactly the things we are doing and are the reason my wife and I have stayed so close to our very secular family. I just spent the last 2 days at my wife's sisters house and her Catholic husband. I adore him. They are amazingly accommodating to our kashrus needs. I also should be allowed to feel sad that my sister in law married a non Jew. The present state is fine, but the potential is missing entirely.
The point of this thread is not to disparage non Torah Jews and their goyisha spouses. It's to express my sadness at how far the Jewish people have fallen that we tolerate interfaith marriage and that we go so far as to attack the chutzpah of a Jew who criticizes the abandonment of Torah values.
theflipflop -- something I learne that's from Talmud, about talking to Jews who arrived by conversions: "Never remind someone they once had pork between their teeth." Haha, I keep that in mind and choose words so carefully.
I do feel extremely sad on the occasions when 4 of my 18 nieces/nephews annouced they're marrying Christians (meaning those still practicing Christianity in its secular American format: Christmas trees, no church or synagogue joining. Just stone cold.).
Surprisingly, those came from 2 (of their 5) who were raised by B.T.'s! Plus 2 others raised in the other movements discussed here. I tried to talk to them all, because I'm that aunt..but go talk to a wall!
Fortunately, a majority of the others, raised from ALL those movements discussed in this thread, are indeed dating and marrying Jewish. By now some have teenagers, and we're into Bar/Bat Mitzvah joy.. two in the next younger generation have recently married Jewish.. more chuppah joy from great-niece and great-nephew now. So, I'll go with the majority and take that result. I believe that we, as a family, survived to the next generation -- tho yes, we've lost a few along the way. They'll still visit and we'll all deal, somehow.
There are some surprises as *my* 18 nieces/nephews/own kids choose, too: one niece found a sabra Israeli boy in Brooklyn. A nephew (following a birthright trip) went off alone to Israel is now a Lone Soldier in IDF, so will surely end up marrying Jewish when he's ready. More prosaically, one American Reform-raised married another with identical Jewish background. So, it's a big range.
I see no parent has a lock on their children's future choices. But I hope that every Jewish couple from every movement will commit deeply to each other to practice and raise their kids as Jews with a loud, clear voice, because it's noisy out there.
--
Pruz -- what I meant about "all other nights" was that Pesach cleaning requirements for my Orthodox and Conservative relatives were so intense that the Reform and Recon couldn't measure up to the levels needed for the Orthodox and Conservative to relax and put food in their mouths. So many chances for inadvertent mistakes to occur back in a nonKosher kitchen, they were genuinely worried. A single ingredient with chametz (leavening) listed in fine print on the label could treif (contaminate) an entire main course. One brother's Pesach hechsher (seal of kosher approval) wasn't good enough for the other brother; long discussions ensued. It just became overwhelming on Pesach and Chol Hamoed Pesach meals (passover first and last days plus all the intervening midweek days).
Here's an example: when the BT brother visited, I'd cook in my oven a kosher fish wrapped heavily in aluminum foil, serve everyone on paper plates, and make salad where I broke up lettuce and cukes by hand not knife. I could buy and prepare enough fresh ingredients that it'd work. BUT for Pesach week, he said we'd have to blowtorch our oven first. That's what I mean by "too stringent" (for my household) during Pesach.
However, it's okay that the 5 brothers divided up into 3 seders, because 3 brothers by now are themselves now the Zayde (grandpa). So every of those 3 tables is very full. We're talking about a 30-year timespan, and such changes happen as nobody stays young forever at his parent's table.
Look, I think an American Jewish family in 2015 with multiple movements represented, that can work it out to dine together for any meal except Pesach is doing well. My brothers-in-law gnash teeth sometimes, it's so hard for ALL of them to work this stuff out, but they all believe it's important. The sisters-in-law have seen how hard it is to work out, and don't undo whatever these brothers manage to work out.
For awhile it was hardest on their mother, who wanted her boys at her table of course! She raised them all (Reform). After awhile she learned to shop and study hechshers (labels) for the times they'd visit. She told them to bring in their own kosher pots that they stored in the basement to haul out and, with great concession, let her daughters-in-law cook in her kitchen. She didn't like it at first, but came around. Early on, the more observant brothers asked her to make her kitchen kosher, but she wouldn't/couldn't/didn't. She met her boys halfway. She did not accept that 2 of her sons and all their children would never again eat at her table. She just kept working at the compromises, and so did the sons. Hard work. And I guess that set a tone of Shalom Bayit (peace in the house) for all of us.
--
thanks to others who chimed in; I'm not ignoring anyone, just have already taken up so much bandwidth it's time for me to stop typing. Long posts aren't helpful, generally.
Last edited by BrightRabbit; 09-08-2015 at 04:44 PM..
pruz, here are a few more examples of how we all COULD dine together from 4 movements of Judaism (Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Reform), although 3 of 5 aunts, and the 5 boys' mother (the Reform matriarch "Bubbie" of this clan), had nonKohser kitchens for their own households.
I know it's of issue in many extended families, where practices differ on kashrut, but people still love each other. My mother-in-law's refusal to be told "I can't eat in your house anymore, Mom.." was unacceptable to her. She was a problem-solver who kept trying different things to keep serving big family meals. She's passed now, but the daughters-in-law kind of carried on this approach into another generation.
Everyone understood kashrut was important and nobody tried to fool anybody else into eating something. Respect ran very deeply as an ethic. As it happens, none of these six households ever themselves ate pig or shellfish, so the big treif (Biblically forbidden foods) wasn't in the picture at all. One aunt is a vegetarian, making evreything easiest over there.
Very few meals were ever meat, except at Bubbie's house. When they were, kosher meat was purchased and throw-away cookware used for that meal, for example, those aluminum foil baking pans sold at supermarket here for $3 apiece. The envionmental ethic of "bal tashchit" (don't waste or throw away unnecessarily, no 'wanton destruction') -- that we weren't good at because we did use a lot of disposable items for cooking, serving and eating.
I will add that this Reform American Bubbe was not at all wealthy. Suddenly having to start buying kosher meat for five sons, wives and many grandchildren was very hard on her budget, and she wasn't used to that. When she mentioned it (a quiet lament away from the meal table..) all the sons subsidized. They knew where she kept her household grocery cash and quietly added to that as they left the house after each meal or longer visit. She knew but it was never discussed.
Every meal was announced ahead to the larger family as being either meat or milk. For individuals who needed to plan enough hours between, to avoid mixing milk/meat in their own bodies, that was their responsibility and not discussed at a meal table. Parents helped their children learn what to do, but quietly and without publicly shaming other aunts and uncles for their practices.
Every now and then, a nonKosher uncle would get fed up with being restricted on not mixing milk/meat within his own body. For example, after a big-family meat meal at Bubbe's or his own home, he'd long to add some milk into his after-dinner coffee. So he'd get up silently, go to the refrigerator and pour some into his own styrofoam cup,bring it back to the table, glare out rebelliously and drink his own coffee. That was the kind of thing "everyone" noticed but didn't comment upon loudly in front of children, because that kind of reaction just creates bad dinnertable fighting. If the parent sorted it out later with their children in private conversation, they said whatever they said and I hope it preserved the concept that, in our family, people eat different ways but we're all Jews here.
If any aunt was uncertain about any product on her shelf, she didn't use it. Everyone learned to read ingredient labels. That took some time and education from the nonkosher aunts and an attitude of "this is interesting" instead of "what a burden on me!" If there was an inadvertent mistake, nobody stormed out in anger. Mistakes happen in every home, and we kept moving forward to do better.
The table never looked attractive, really. China serving dishes and the nonKosher's regular sets of home dishes (unseparated) weren't ever used. Rather: paper plates or disposable aluminum foil. Store-bought kosher bread and cookies were served right in their plastic bag on the table, so all could read the package label and not worry. If a kosher relative brought over something homebaked, like a challah, that was put onto the table and enjoyed by all. The nonkosher aunts were asked to bring things in like kosher wine, fruit with peels on them, and so on as we had to help each other with food quantities. Nobody "shnorred" (freeloaded).
THe emphasis was on fresh foods, so many cold vegetable or fruit salads. Rather than make a potato kugel, more likely the starch dish would be foil-wrapped baked potatoes, one per diner. I suppose we ate more like peasants than kings, but at least we ate together.
Everyone owned one big frying pan and one big soup-pot, a large stirring spoon and a spatula. These were set aside and used only to prepare the large family meals that included kosher cousins.
We are fortunate to live where we can buy breads and cookies wrapped in plastic with kosher hechsher (label).
For meat meals, which was rare, with effort each aunt could find in her location either Empire Kosher Chickens at the supermarket or go right to a kosher butcher; that depended on her location. The aunts regretted the extra cost of kosher meat, so more and more meals became dairy or vegetarian instead.
Everyone at the table used only paper plates and plastic utensils, like a picnic, and disposed after each meal (no dishwashing).
Each aunt also kept one good vegetaable chopping knife, paring knife, mixing bowl and cutting-board in her kitchen. These were used only for big family meals, and stored elsewhere otherwise.
Paper tablecloths were used and disposed. Even a Shabbat or holiday meal looked like a simple summer picnic, but we just didn't care how it looked. We wanted to eat together. We actually learned a lot of these shortcuts (paper dishes/plastic utensils) from the B.T. If any of the aunts cared about using their own pretty plates and serving dishes, it wouldn't have worked at all.
And here's the hard part. People stopped asking each other all the questions that would upset. If a non-Shomer (non-observant) Jewish relative arrived at someone's door on Saturday who lived at a distance, meaning they had arrived by car, they just walked in and were welcomed. How they got there was not a topic for conversation. When the Orthodox ate at a nonOrthodox cousin's home, they didn't walk around an tape down their light switches for them or study their stovetops because they already knew the non-observant were turning things on and off. They wouldn't, themselves, light anything but they recognized that for the nonOrthodox cousins this was not a restriction. I suppose they thought of us as our own Shabbos Goy in our own house, but however they managed to keep the peace, they did.
It was up to each set of parents to teach their children to observe their own way and not comment upon each other. I think perhaps that taught something about simple manners, derech eretz, family unity, or things that a rabbi could characterize as a good value even if the kashrus wasn't perfect at every turn. We tried best we could. Everyone felt slightly inconvenienced so we all had that in common, but the presence of family together and lack of concern for "a pretty table" was essential. If anyone needed to ask about a particular food item, they could and knew they'd hear an honest answer. Sometimes my mother-in-law couldn't resist baking some cookies earlier in the week, and she'd set out "hers" for some grandchildrenb and "store-bought kosher" for others. Obviously, that caused children to cry so she stopped doing that stuff.
Last edited by BrightRabbit; 09-09-2015 at 08:24 AM..
pruz, here are a few more examples of how we all COULD dine together from 4 movements of Judaism (Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Reform), although 3 of 5 aunts, and the 5 boys' mother (the Reform matriarch "Bubbie" of this clan), had nonKohser kitchens for their own households.
I know it's of issue in many extended families, where practices differ on kashrut, but people still love each other. My mother-in-law's refusal to be told "I can't eat in your house anymore, Mom.." was unacceptable to her. She was a problem-solver who kept trying different things to keep serving big family meals. She's passed now, but the daughters-in-law kind of carried on this approach into another generation.
Everyone understood kashrut was important and nobody tried to fool anybody else into eating something. Respect ran very deeply as an ethic. As it happens, none of these six households ever themselves ate pig or shellfish, so the big treif (Biblically forbidden foods) wasn't in the picture at all. One aunt is a vegetarian, making everything easiest over there.
Very few meals were ever meat, except at Bubbie's house. When they were, kosher meat was purchased and throw-away cookware used for that meal, for example, those aluminum foil baking pans sold at supermarket here for $3 apiece. The environmental ethic of "bal tashchit" (don't waste or throw away unnecessarily, no 'wanton destruction') -- that we weren't good at because we did use a lot of disposable items for cooking, serving and eating.
I will add that this Reform American Bubbe was not at all wealthy. Suddenly having to start buying kosher meat for five sons, wives and many grandchildren was very hard on her budget, and she wasn't used to that. When she mentioned it (a quiet lament away from the meal table..) all the sons subsidized. They knew where she kept her household grocery cash and quietly added to that as they left the house after each meal or longer visit. She knew but it was never discussed.
Every meal was announced ahead to the larger family as being either meat or milk. For individuals who needed to plan enough hours between, to avoid mixing milk/meat in their own bodies, that was their responsibility and not discussed at a meal table. Parents helped their children learn what to do, but quietly and without publicly shaming other aunts and uncles for their practices.
Every now and then, a non Kosher uncle would get fed up with being restricted on not mixing milk/meat within his own body. For example, after a big-family meat meal at Bubbe's or his own home, he'd long to add some milk into his after-dinner coffee. So he'd get up silently, go to the refrigerator and pour some into his own styrofoam cup,bring it back to the table, glare out rebelliously and drink his own coffee. That was the kind of thing "everyone" noticed but didn't comment upon loudly in front of children, because that kind of reaction just creates bad dinner table fighting. If the parent sorted it out later with their children in private conversation, they said whatever they said and I hope it preserved the concept that, in our family, people eat different ways but we're all Jews here.
If any aunt was uncertain about any product on her shelf, she didn't use it. Everyone learned to read ingredient labels. That took some time and education from the non kosher aunts and an attitude of "this is interesting" instead of "what a burden on me!" If there was an inadvertent mistake, nobody stormed out in anger. Mistakes happen in every home, and we kept moving forward to do better.
The table never looked attractive, really. China serving dishes and the non Kosher regular sets of home dishes (unseparated) weren't ever used. Rather: paper plates or disposable aluminum foil. Store-bought kosher bread and cookies were served right in their plastic bag on the table, so all could read the package label and not worry. If a kosher relative brought over something home baked, like a challah, that was put onto the table and enjoyed by all. The non kosher aunts were asked to bring things in like kosher wine, fruit with peels on them, and so on as we had to help each other with food quantities. Nobody "shnorred" (freeloaded).
THe emphasis was on fresh foods, so many cold vegetable or fruit salads. Rather than make a potato kugel, more likely the starch dish would be foil-wrapped baked potatoes, one per diner. I suppose we ate more like peasants than kings, but at least we ate together.
Everyone owned a pot and large stirring spoon set aside and used only for the large family meals that included kosher cousins. That allowed for soup ingredients to be put into that one pot and simmer away.
We are fortunate to live where we can buy breads and cookies wrapped in plastic with kosher hechsher (label).
For meat meals, which was rare, with effort each aunt could find in her location either Empire Kosher Chickens at the supermarket or go right to a kosher butcher; that depended on her location. The aunts regretted the extra cost of kosher meat, so more and more meals became dairy or vegetarian instead.
Everyone at the table used only paper plates and plastic utensils, like a picnic, and disposed after each meal (no dishwashing).
Each aunt kept one good vegetable chopping knife, paring knife, stirring spoon, mixing bowl and breadboard in her kitchen used only for those meals and stored elsewhere otherwise.
Paper tablecloths were used and disposed. Even a Shabbat or holiday meal looked like a simple summer picnic, but we just didn't care how it looked. We wanted to eat together. So nobody had sets of dishes. We actually learned a lot of these shortcuts (paper dishes/plastic utensils) from the B.T. If any of the aunts cared about using their own pretty plates and serving dishes, it wouldn't have worked at all.
And here's the hard part. People stopped asking each other all the questions that would upset. If a non-Shomer (non-observant) Jewish relative arrived at someone's door on Saturday who lived at a distance, meaning they had arrived by car, they just walked in and were welcomed. How they got there was not a topic for conversation. When the Orthodox ate at a non-Orthodox cousin's home, they didn't walk around an tape down their light switches for them or study their stovetops because they already knew the non-observant were turning things on and off. They wouldn't, themselves, light anything but they recognized that for the non-Orthodox cousins this was not a restriction. I suppose they thought of us as our own Shabbos Goy in our own house, but however they managed to keep the peace, they did.
It was up to each set of parents to teach their children to observe their own way and not comment upon each other. I think perhaps that taught something about simple manners, derech eretz, family unity, or things that a rabbi could characterize as a good value even if the kashrus wasn't perfect at every turn. We tried best we could. Everyone felt slightly inconvenienced so we all had that in common, but the presence of family together and lack of concern for "a pretty table" was essential. If anyone needed to ask about a particular food item, they could and knew they'd hear an honest answer. Sometimes my mother-in-law couldn't resist baking some cookies earlier in the week, and she'd set out "hers" for some grandchildren and "store-bought kosher" for others. Obviously, that caused children to cry so she stopped doing that stuff.
I'm pretty lucky with my relatives in Brooklyn as they are all Orthodox (Modern through Hassid) and when in doubt Beigel's is usually found to cover issues when the oven situations sometimes arise. The one's outside of NYC are another story.
pruz, here are a few more examples of how we all COULD dine together from 4 movements of Judaism (Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Reform), although 3 of 5 aunts, and the 5 boys' mother (the Reform matriarch "Bubbie" of this clan), had nonKohser kitchens for their own households.
I know it's of issue in many extended families, where practices differ on kashrut, but people still love each other. My mother-in-law's refusal to be told "I can't eat in your house anymore, Mom.." was unacceptable to her. She was a problem-solver who kept trying different things to keep serving big family meals. She's passed now, but the daughters-in-law kind of carried on this approach into another generation.
Everyone understood kashrut was important and nobody tried to fool anybody else into eating something. Respect ran very deeply as an ethic. As it happens, none of these six households ever themselves ate pig or shellfish, so the big treif (Biblically forbidden foods) wasn't in the picture at all. One aunt is a vegetarian, making evreything easiest over there.
Very few meals were ever meat, except at Bubbie's house. When they were, kosher meat was purchased and throw-away cookware used for that meal, for example, those aluminum foil baking pans sold at supermarket here for $3 apiece. The envionmental ethic of "bal tashchit" (don't waste or throw away unnecessarily, no 'wanton destruction') -- that we weren't good at because we did use a lot of disposable items for cooking, serving and eating.
I will add that this Reform American Bubbe was not at all wealthy. Suddenly having to start buying kosher meat for five sons, wives and many grandchildren was very hard on her budget, and she wasn't used to that. When she mentioned it (a quiet lament away from the meal table..) all the sons subsidized. They knew where she kept her household grocery cash and quietly added to that as they left the house after each meal or longer visit. She knew but it was never discussed.
Every meal was announced ahead to the larger family as being either meat or milk. For individuals who needed to plan enough hours between, to avoid mixing milk/meat in their own bodies, that was their responsibility and not discussed at a meal table. Parents helped their children learn what to do, but quietly and without publicly shaming other aunts and uncles for their practices.
Every now and then, a nonKosher uncle would get fed up with being restricted on not mixing milk/meat within his own body. For example, after a big-family meat meal at Bubbe's or his own home, he'd long to add some milk into his after-dinner coffee. So he'd get up silently, go to the refrigerator and pour some into his own styrofoam cup,bring it back to the table, glare out rebelliously and drink his own coffee. That was the kind of thing "everyone" noticed but didn't comment upon loudly in front of children, because that kind of reaction just creates bad dinnertable fighting. If the parent sorted it out later with their children in private conversation, they said whatever they said and I hope it preserved the concept that, in our family, people eat different ways but we're all Jews here.
If any aunt was uncertain about any product on her shelf, she didn't use it. Everyone learned to read ingredient labels. That took some time and education from the nonkosher aunts and an attitude of "this is interesting" instead of "what a burden on me!" If there was an inadvertent mistake, nobody stormed out in anger. Mistakes happen in every home, and we kept moving forward to do better.
The table never looked attractive, really. China serving dishes and the nonKosher's regular sets of home dishes (unseparated) weren't ever used. Rather: paper plates or disposable aluminum foil. Store-bought kosher bread and cookies were served right in their plastic bag on the table, so all could read the package label and not worry. If a kosher relative brought over something homebaked, like a challah, that was put onto the table and enjoyed by all. The nonkosher aunts were asked to bring things in like kosher wine, fruit with peels on them, and so on as we had to help each other with food quantities. Nobody "shnorred" (freeloaded).
THe emphasis was on fresh foods, so many cold vegetable or fruit salads. Rather than make a potato kugel, more likely the starch dish would be foil-wrapped baked potatoes, one per diner. I suppose we ate more like peasants than kings, but at least we ate together.
Everyone owned one big frying pan and one big soup-pot, a large stirring spoon and a spatula. These were set aside and used only to prepare the large family meals that included kosher cousins.
We are fortunate to live where we can buy breads and cookies wrapped in plastic with kosher hechsher (label).
For meat meals, which was rare, with effort each aunt could find in her location either Empire Kosher Chickens at the supermarket or go right to a kosher butcher; that depended on her location. The aunts regretted the extra cost of kosher meat, so more and more meals became dairy or vegetarian instead.
Everyone at the table used only paper plates and plastic utensils, like a picnic, and disposed after each meal (no dishwashing).
Each aunt also kept one good vegetaable chopping knife, paring knife, mixing bowl and cutting-board in her kitchen. These were used only for big family meals, and stored elsewhere otherwise.
Paper tablecloths were used and disposed. Even a Shabbat or holiday meal looked like a simple summer picnic, but we just didn't care how it looked. We wanted to eat together. We actually learned a lot of these shortcuts (paper dishes/plastic utensils) from the B.T. If any of the aunts cared about using their own pretty plates and serving dishes, it wouldn't have worked at all.
And here's the hard part. People stopped asking each other all the questions that would upset. If a non-Shomer (non-observant) Jewish relative arrived at someone's door on Saturday who lived at a distance, meaning they had arrived by car, they just walked in and were welcomed. How they got there was not a topic for conversation. When the Orthodox ate at a nonOrthodox cousin's home, they didn't walk around an tape down their light switches for them or study their stovetops because they already knew the non-observant were turning things on and off. They wouldn't, themselves, light anything but they recognized that for the nonOrthodox cousins this was not a restriction. I suppose they thought of us as our own Shabbos Goy in our own house, but however they managed to keep the peace, they did.
It was up to each set of parents to teach their children to observe their own way and not comment upon each other. I think perhaps that taught something about simple manners, derech eretz, family unity, or things that a rabbi could characterize as a good value even if the kashrus wasn't perfect at every turn. We tried best we could. Everyone felt slightly inconvenienced so we all had that in common, but the presence of family together and lack of concern for "a pretty table" was essential. If anyone needed to ask about a particular food item, they could and knew they'd hear an honest answer. Sometimes my mother-in-law couldn't resist baking some cookies earlier in the week, and she'd set out "hers" for some grandchildrenb and "store-bought kosher" for others. Obviously, that caused children to cry so she stopped doing that stuff.
All good posts. My family has become experts at accommodation, and yes, it can work. But what I think everybody is missing is the sadness my wife feels for her brother. He davka got divorced so that he could marry a Jew. And when he finally picked somebody, she's not halachically Jewish. It's just such a close call, but in the end, he didn't solve his problem.
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