Keeping Kosher Diet Is Not ‘All or Nothing’

Thank you for your informative article on “Keeping It Kosher” (Oct. 29). By implying, however, that Orthodox Jews are the only ones who follow Jewish dietary laws, your article unwittingly makes keeping kosher sound hopelessly provincial, obscure and arduous.

An increasing number of moderate and liberal Jews are establishing kosher households along a continuum of levels of observance. Solutions range from “biblical kosher” (refusing to eat forbidden foods such as pork and shellfish) to “house kosher” (following laws in the home while being more flexible at restaurants) to eating only vegetarian meals outside the home.

In this way, keeping kosher becomes an ongoing exploration--creative, revelatory and delightful as well as narrowly restrictive. With each meal, every Jew has the chance to discover, experience and reinvent the shaping limits of the dietary laws, thus renewing the covenant.

JULIA REINHARD LUPTON,

Irvine