Friday, May 05, 2006

You can call me Rabbi Susanne

Well I guess it makes sense. My friends that are accountants I expect to go through our restaurant bills and itemize who owes what. My lawyer friends I ask all my legal questions to, like can I build a pool on the roof of my apartment building (they tell me thats not a legal question...and I'm an idiot). So it makes perfect sense that my friends ask me all of their religious questions. After all, I work with Rabbis. Keep in mind, I'm not referring to my friends who aren't Jewish. I'm not even referring to my Jewish friends who aren't religious. I'm talking about the Super Jews! The ones who are way more observant then myself. Yesterday Devo asked me whether or not Haagan Dazs is kosher. Hell, if it wasn't I'd probably still eat there, its that good. J/k. But the point is I'm a Rabbi by association. I actually gave her a very Rabbinic answer too! How cool am I. I said "well all the ice cream is kosher, individual franchises aren't under an umbrella kosher organiziation because of equipment and toppings and what not. But in my opnion, everything is cold, so even if the scooper touched something questionable, its fine. Just avoid toppings that you don't recognize and check for kosher symbols on cones." Where the HELL did I pull that from?

Then today my fellow blog master IMed me:

Elana: i have a jew quesiton
me: hit me
Elana: I had potato chips and I just realized they be dairy
me: oooohh, chips
Elana: but now I want to eat my salad which contains chicken
what should I do?
me: ok, how long ago did you eat them
and how long do you genereally wait between?
Elana: i finished em like two min ago and I washed my mouth with water and I am eating celery now
i dont have a waiting time this never happens to me
me: well for me, im good to go after drinking some thing (not milk of course ) and then waiting a couple minutes. eating pareve between is helpful
elana: is there a rule?
me: its really really a minhag (custom) issue i think
i remember learning at chabad camp that you must wait 3 hours between dairy and meat. but they're psycho hard core.
Elana: thanks

How about that. I have totally become a Rabbi. Just gotta enroll in a Corny Joke Telling class and I'll be all set. Have a Shabbat Shalom!

4 comments:

Seth said...

What about Rabbi Rachel? Do you guys attend OU conferences together?

I think KMS is looking for a Scholar In Residence for their Shavuot women's Tefillah group, by the way. I still have connections over there; I can make a call.

Anonymous said...

Most of what rabbis do is tell people what is written in some halacha book - the scholarship comes in knowing how to read, and how to present it... Psak is the novelty of analysing new, unforseen situations - and is generally reserved for those ordained "yoreh yoreh."

Specific to eating meat after milk, unless you ate aged, hard cheese (e.g. Parmesan, or anything else that has been aged at least three months), you only should make a beracha achronah, and maybe rinse your mouth out. If you did eat hard cheese, then you should wait the same amount of time as in betwween meat to milk (6 full hours according to the Shulchan Aruch).

Gavi

Anonymous said...

Susanne, I don't think you have to enroll in the corny joke seminar. You've got that down. You're so going to be the best Rabbi

SusQHB said...

Seth- call my agent. He arranges all my speaking engagements, press tours, book signings, etc. Thanks Gavi for offering the actual halacha for milk and meat instead of my answer that I came to on the fly. Have no fear, I don't think people actually hold by my rulings. The frum world is still safe!