Keeping Kosher

Keeping Kosher

Like a lot of people who decide to start keeping kosher, the Veingrads began by koshering their kitchen and only bringing kosher products into the home. Still, at the time, Alan would eat out in restaurants, and recalls the time that he was in a very expensive steakhouse for a business meeting.

“Here there were, bringing these large platters of seafood, with shrimp and oysters and jumbo shrimps. I didn’t eat any of it because I was starting to keep kosher at home, and I was becoming more conscious about what I was eating, more aware. My boss ordered a couple of nice bottles of wine and with the wine, I had a steak. When I went back home, I remember telling a friend of mine how proud I was that hadn’t eaten any of the seafood.

“We just had some wine,” I told him. “What?” he said, “you had wine?” He was like, “Forget the seafood! You had wine? How could you drink non-kosher wine?” We make a bracha, a blessing over wine, and I had non-kosher wine. I understood that the two can’t go together. We can’t make a blessing over non-kosher wine, and we need to make the blessing. So the fact that I didn’t eat the seafood led me to a greater sense of awareness. If I hadn’t been so proud of myself, I wouldn’t have told my friend about it, and I wouldn’t have learned about the wine. I started to become more vigilant about keeping kosher.

“Not long after that, I went to New York with my family for a big weekend that we had planned with two other couples, with a fancy dinner or two on the schedule.

“We’d been keeping kosher full-time at home, and when we went out for dinner with the other couples, I figured it would be my last hurrah in one of New York’s great restaurants. Needless to say, we ate non-kosher food. Later that night, I got violently sick. The next morning, when we met downstairs, I asked if anyone else had been sick. “No,” they said, none of them got sick. But I got sick and my wife got sick. My wife called our Rabbi, and he explained some things and said, “You know your body needs kosher food.” It was obvious. I ate non-kosher food and my body rejected it. So I started to keep kosher after that, inside the home and outside. There’s no wavering.

“Do you cheat ever?” a friend asked me, “like once in a while?” It’s “No, not a drop. It’s not even a question, what do you mean cheat? Who am I cheating?” If you’re out somewhere and you’re hungry, you’re hungry. But you can go into a grocery store, there’s always something you can eat. If you’re traveling, you plan ahead. You make something and you take it with you. I travel all over the place and I always have food with me, or I eat before I go. You work it out.

The next level came, of course, when I learned about keeping Cholov Yisroel. I was in West Orange, New Jersey, to speak at a Shabbaton, and I was sitting talking with the young Rabbi there. He was very enthusiastic about how I’d come from the NFL and affiliated myself with authentic Judaism, learning Torah and doing mitzvos. The Rabbi was very excited about it.

Somehow, the conversation turned to keeping Cholov Yisroel. I just thought that it was another level that the Rabbis keep, and didn’t know much about it. So I asked him, and we started talking about. The Rabbi pulled out some books, and called his father, who is also a Rabbi, and even his mother. I was asking all these questions, and he sat explaining everything to me until 1:00 in the morning, when I finally said, “Okay, I’ve heard enough.”

“What do you mean?!” the Rabbi said. “I’m keeping Cholov Yisroel now,” I told him, and he was like, “No, you can’t! You can’t! You’ve got to talk to your Rabbi! It’s a big step.” Not after the explanation, it wasn’t, it wasn’t a big step for me. I’m 41, when am I going to start? I made the decision, and I’m Cholov Yisroel right now. At home, when I got back, I took all the dairy out, and that was it.

People ask me, “What do you miss? Do you miss going to Joe’s Stone Crabs? Do you miss going to New York Prime Steak?” I don’t miss any of it. What’s to miss? I don’t think about it. I go to the kosher Prime Grill over here with my friends, Jewish and non-Jewish. Great steaks, great sushi. I have to schlep a little further sometimes to get kosher food. So I have to schlep a little further.