My office is amazing when it comes to being understanding about religious practices. They have been more than accommodating with kosher in particular. It doesn't hurt that a whole bunch of the staff are Jewish (including the head of the group) but as we all know, that can be good or bad with regard to religion. Today, for fun, pizza was ordered for the whole office for lunch. I am still frum in practice (except for the whole davening thing) so I ate my already packed kosher lunch in my office. No biggie. The thing is afterward the no.2 guy in the company, who decided to make today pizza day, came over and apologized for not thinking to order kosher pizza for me. (I want to take this moment to acknowledge that I work for some of the greatest people in the world. My colleagues are kind, hard-working and thoughtful.) As usually I felt bad that he felt bad about the whole kosher thing but now it has an added dimension. Until now I just felt bad about making a big deal about the kosher thing. My attitude is "if it can be worked out easily, great. If not, forget it. I'm not going to starve and I don't want to make a big deal out of my religious practice". But now its worse. I've never eaten treif (non-kosher) in my life but now that I don't believe in the whole Kosher thing I REALLY feel bad putting people out as they cater (heh) to my needs.
Oy Gevalt.
5 comments:
try out torah judaism, now that you escaped the lubob asylum.
I've also found that the work world is willing to put themselves out to accomodate my need for kosher food, as well as my schedule for Shabbat and Yamim Tovim.
Rather than refuse their efforts I try to pay it back. In my previous job I volunteered to be the on-call guy for Xmas and secular New Years. I'd also work Sundays when needed in order to make a deadline.
Currently I am inviting my immediate team over for Sunday Chol Hamoed Sukkot - many of them have never seen in a sukkah.
So rather than telling your bosses not to bother, find a way to show your appreciation and make a little kiddush Hashem at the say time.
If you believe that religion is man-made, as you may now, why deal with the kosher issue? In any event do what makes you joyful with regard to whether you eat kosher or not.
When you eat your pork chops, can you show it on a video?
If more Chabadniks (especially the Rabbonim) worried what came out of their mouths, as opposed to what they put in it, Chabad would vastly improve.
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