The other day in the diamond exchange I spotted a young rotund Hassid eating potato chips. Manny, my boss, hates Raffa, since the two of us constantly discuss religious matters based on Talmudic laws. I called to him and asked, "What are you eating that tref for?"
"Tref? Potato chips aren't tref." The 25 year-old father of five read off the list of ingredients on the packaging. "Dehydrated potatoes, modified food starch, sugar, corn oil, salt, soy lecithin, leavening, and dextrose. Nothing about dairy and meat."
"No," I took out my iPad and googled kosher potato chips. "Lays doesn't have a OU stamp of approval and there are rumors that that chips have tref in them."
"Tref?" Raffa's face screwed up in a knot, as if his rabbi had discovered him eating a pork chop.
"Only the baked chips are kosher, but even then chips are khazeray." Which is Yiddish for disgusting. "All the goyim are fat from chips. The Hassids too. It's poisonous dreck same as Coca-Cola and the rest of processed food.
"But it tastes so good."
"Everything bad tastes good. Even bacon."
"Don't mention that word."
"There is nothing unhealthy about bacon. The only reason Yahweh made the Chosen People give up pig was that it tasted so good and he couldn't think of a greater sacrifice."
"Very funny." Raffa liked my irreverent take on the Talmud. "What other thinking can I expect from the Shabbos Starker?"
"At least I didn't try and schnoor your chips?" Any food touched by a gentile is tref.
"Thank you for that?" Raffa bid me good-bye for the holiday. He was heading up to Bethelem in the White Mountains. It was a Hassidic retreat which I had suggested to him. It even had separate swimming pools for men and women.
"Sie gesund." I was heading to the Hamptons.
Oysters and lobsters.
I am so glad to be a goy.
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