Last night the topic of my conversion class was kashrut. I had always found the rules of keeping kosher to be confusing and somewhat arbitrary. Eggs are pareve? Chicken used to be pareve? Fish is not meat and if your plates are really expensive, they can't be treifed. If anyone can tell me why I can't have cheese on my chicken sandwich that would really help me understand! The thing about keeping kosher is it's just one of those things that you do because you're supposed to. It's part of following the rules. Obedience for obedience sake. That is probably not exactly fair of me to say. I can see the necessity for being humane to what you eat because it gave it's life to prolong your own. There is also a spirituality in the mindfulness and thought placed behind what you eat, what enters your body and how it came to be. I try and do the same thing by avoiding red meat. I don't completely rule it out but when I can I choose non-mammalian meals. Why? Because it makes me think and thinking is good. Plus it removes the cheeseburger option from the Burger King downstairs. I mean what kind of chance do I have to lose weight? There is a Burger King in this building! But I digress. Today while surfing my new favorite site (Virb) I noticed a google ad for PETA and how Masta Killa is promoting vegetarianism. It came as a bit of a shock but not really considering we are talking about the Wu. So it made me reconsider something I have toyed with in the past. Eating vegetarian. It seems like the simplest path to keeping kosher as well. So I signed the veg pledge and requested some literature. I think the good thing is that I can break down and have a good steak and as long as I don't follow it with a milkshake I am still doing half of what I have set out to do.