April 3, 2007--$9.69 A Gallon

My first job, before I was "hired" to deliver prescriptions for Dr. Smith, was to make cartons of milk Kosher for Passover. This may shock you considering I was only ten at the time and not a rabbi. But since the neighborhood grocer didn’t have enough money to hire a real rabbi to kosher his milk, cheese, and other dairy products, he turned to me.

Here’s how it worked: to make things legitimately kosher for the holidays grocers would have to dispose of all perishable items for the eight days during which Passover is observed and engage a koshering rabbi to restock his store with products specially prepared for the holidays. This was quite expensive to do—first, one would have to throw away anything that could not be keep unspoiled for the eight days and then one would have to pay a premium for the Pesach dairy goods because in addition to the actual cost of the milk and cheese the rabbi also had to be paid for his services.

That’s where I came in—at virtually no additional expense (I think I was paid two dollars for my “services”), grocer Ginsberg bought stick-on labels that said in English and Yiddish, Kosher for Passover. And then, three days before Passover began, after the store was closed, I would put labels on all milk cartons, tubs of butter, and packages of cheese.

I have never before confessed this and have through the decades felt considerable guilt about this sacrilege. That is until the other day when the NY Times reported about kosher gasoline for sale in Teaneck, New Jersey (article linked below). If someone could get away with this, charging $9.69 a gallon nonetheless, what was so terrible about what I did as a young boy? (Of course, a lot but that’s for another day.)

Kosher gasoline? Like so much else that’s wrong with the world these days it’s all the government’s fault. Gasoline companies are required to add some ethanol to their gas as a way to reduce our dependence on imported oil. But ethanol is made from corn; and during Passover Jews are not allowed to eat or, here’s the point, “benefit” from corn which is not considered kosher for Passover.

Thus, an enterprising gas station owner in Teaneck is offering to sell gasoline that does not include any ethanol. What’s more, for an extra charge, he will siphon out of your tank any old gasoline which includes ethanol, thus koshering your tank in pretty much the same way that orthodox families are required to cleanse their homes of any leavened products--bread, cracker crumbs, etc.—prior to the first night of the holiday.

Since kosher gas became available in Teaneck the orthodox Jews who live there have been engaged in a debate about the meaning of the corn prohibition—are we just not allowed to eat anything that contains corn or are we also forbidden to benefit from corn, whatever that means. This in a town where there is a Glatt Kosher Smokey Joe’s Tex-Mex Barbecue.

With people smarting about non-kosher gas costing about $3.00 a gallon, you can only imagine the upset about having to pay more than three times that.

The good news, though, is that this was all a Purim hoax. Purim is sort of Jews’ April 1st when pranks are encouraged. But this was a good one because it got many to think that, in spite of the extra cost, maybe kosher gas is not such a bad idea after all. At the end of the Passover service, observers say, “Next year in Jerusalem.” In Teaneck some are adding, “Thirty years ago no one knew what kosher water was. Now we have it. So who knows . . . ?”