Don't read this while eating!

Many years ago, I had a roommate whose family lived here in the same town. They were Lutheran. At some point, her parents felt a strong call from God and converted to Messianic Judaism. Later, in response to another call from the Lord, the man, Don, was accepted in Yeshiva and became a Rabbi. He and his wife, Karen, have a Messianic Jewish church (I think you call it a Synogogue, but I'm not sure) in town. They're quite good friends of Don's and mine and I very often consult them with Biblical questions.

Through them, we met a woman about my age who was attending their church. She has a small farm and three young daughters. On Saturday, she invited us to join her family for dinner. We were celebrating the Lord's Day with a ceremony similar to the Jewish Sabbath Meal. Don and I have a form that we use that have the prayers, lighting the Sabbath lights, the sharing of the bread and blessing cup, etc. all written out. We took those along.

Melody laughed when we told her we had the sheets.

"We could've done it from my prayer book . . . in Hebrew," she said. We were very thankful we had taken the time to print out the service sheets.

After dinner, we visited for quite some time. She has a litter of pups about ready to be sold. They're Australian Sheepdogs and beautiful. They're fat, soft little nuzzlers and all my children fell instantly in love. As the boys snuggled with each puppy in turn, we chatted about the farm. Melody has pigs and she offers them for sponsorship. You can sponsor a whole pig for a set amount per week. That pays for food and upkeep. When they're big enough for slaughter, all the meat (roughly 155 lbs.) gets delivered to you, packaged neatly. All told, you sponsor for about 4 months from weening to slaughter. Not a bad deal.

The boys got very interested in the pig information and began asking a lot of questions. Melody told us that she is thinking about changing slaughterhouses. She's been unhappy with the one she previously used and may change over to "Happy Valley".

"Yep," I commented, " 'Happy Valley'. I bet those pigs are just delighted to go to the slaughter. Happy, happy. 'Come visit Happy Valley'!" Of course, I was mocking the name.

Dane spoke up. "How do they slaughter them, anyway?" he wanted to know. Melody's daughter began an explanation of typing their legs up, then hoisting them into the air, etc. I told her that he meant, 'How do they KILL the pigs?'

"They slit their throats and bleed them out," Melody interjected.

Since Judaism requires animals to be completely bled out prior to butchering, this made sense to me. Jewish law forbids them from eating blood because blood is considered the "life" that flows through them. Butchering must be done very specifically, according to Jewish laws.

"So they're Kosher pigs?" I asked. There was silence until Don rolled his eyes, shook his head, and said, "Oh, God. Oh, God!"

I only had a momentary lapse. I explained to him later, in the car going home, that I just wasn't thinking all the way through what I said. You see, if you don't know, pigs are considered "unclean" by Jews. They are not allowed to eat ANY pork. Once, when visiting Israel, I had a lovely pin that I wore on the lapel of my wool blazer. It was a pig. My father made sure I removed it so as not to offend the Jews. And here I blurted out, in the home of a Messianic Jewish family, the wierd thought of a "kosher pig", two words that just cannot go together.

Melody cracked up, as did her daughters. My children, at least the boys, didn't understand, but Deanna was quite embarrassed by me.

Melody very quickly said something funny. She has a wonderful sense of humor that really releases tension in situations like that. She wasn't offended and really thought it was humorous. Thank God.

So, I show up last night for our Support Group meeting. Don and Karen are there, as are Melody and her oldest daughter, Lynn. Don passes out a flier he had printed and says he'd like to talk about "kosher". He launches into an explanation of how you can know if something is kosher; what symbol to look for on the packaging, what the different symbols mean, etc. People began asking questions - why do you keep kosher, etc. I sat quietly, for a change, and pondered the proximity of this impromptu teaching to my serious faux pas. When the room quieted again, I caught Melody's eye and mouthed, "Did you tell him about our pig conversation?"

"No," she said. "What do you mean?"

By then, the whole group was watching us. I looked around and explained that I had said something very inappropriate while at Melody's house over the weekend. Of course, that stirred everyone's interest. It eventually became obvious that I had to tell the story. I apologized in advance to Don and Karen, in case I offended them, then explained the story.

Every laughed. Don actually roared with laughter. I sat, red in the face. Yes, I told on myself, but I still felt like an idiot to make a mistake like that. No one was offended, thank goodness, but that started the jokes and more questions.

Eventually, we moved on and were talking about another subject when one of the women suddenly laughed uproariously. We all stopped and looked at her.

"My husband just leaned over and whispered in my ear, 'Do you get kicked out of the synogogue if you get the Swine Flu?' "

Don, ever quick on his feet, responded with, "Nope. Only if you get the Avian Flu."