Q: My daughter was invited to a birthday party. I know the other family, they even attend the same shul as I do, but I am fairly certain that they are not as strict as we are in areas of Kashrut. Can I ask them to tell me the ingredients in the birthday cake? Is it preferable for me to send my daughter with her own cake? Or should I tell my daughter simply not to eat or to decline the invitation?

A: The Laws of Kashrut are certainly one of the most important of the 613 commandments of the Torah, especially since the Bible itself gives as the overall reason for Kashrut, "You shall be holy". Holiness implies self-discipline as well as separation - and undoubtedly our laws of Kashrut have been a critical factor in protecting us as a separate nationality and religion especially when living in exile among the Gentiles.

To separate us from the Gentiles, but "insofar as possible" not to separate us from our fellow Jews; much the opposite. Observant Jews throughout the world belong to a special kind of fellowship through which they feel united whether they live in Israel, New York, Cape Town, Melbourne, London, Paris, Madrid and even Bangkok.

At the same time, unfortunately there are Jews who are not observant and eating in their homes would compromise our own commitment . How can we orchestrate between our desire for Jewish unity on the one hand and our commitment to the observances of our faith on the other? As usual, the Shulkhan Arukh provides the answer.

On the basis of a Rabbinic discussion in a number of places in the Talmud (B.T. Gittin 2b, 3a and Hullin 10), normative Halakha determines that an observant Jew may eat in any home where the individual responsible for the kitchen is a Sabbath observer. Once he/she observes the Sabbath, he/she becomes an acceptable witness who automatically testifies as to the Kashrut of the home. Note well that the Shulkhan Arukh doesn't ask that the would-be guest inquire or himself check into the ingredients; the assumption is that the Sabbath observer (a suitable criteria for which is one who does not use electricity on the Sabbath) would be careful about the Laws of Kashrut as well. As my revered Rebbe Rav Soloveitchik zt"l was accustomed to say, "Kashrut is more a matter of reliability (ne'emanut) than it is of truth." I rely on the Sabbath-observer even though I do not check into all of the products used.

My own practice in my own home is to follow many stringencies such as Glatt kosher and Halav Yisrael. However I would not dare to say that Sabbath-observers who do not observe these stringencies have homes in which I would not eat; in my opinion, this is changing Kashrut from a unifier of the Jewish community into a divider of the Jewish community. It leads to a kind of one-upmanship which measures religiosity in terms of how many Sabbath-observing homes I would not eat in. I would strongly endorse the Halakha in the Shulkhan Arukh.