Go Kosher
 
5/2/03 - Many clients, koshering their homes for the first time, get emotional. They ask Lebovic to say a prayer for their new kitchen.
 

By Sue Fishkoff
The Rebbe's Army (Schocken)

Rabbi Sholtiel Lebovic is director of the nonprofit company Go Kosher, which is run out of his Crown Height home. He grew up in New Jersey, where as a boy he helped his father kosher Jewish homes. Now he runs a home-koshering operation that whips through 1,500 Jewish homes a year in the Greater New York area. In the competitive New York Jewish market he is able to charge for his services; many Chabad rabbis in other cities will kosher a home for free. Some of Lebovic’s clients are observant Jews who have moved to a new home and need help making it kosher, but he estimates that 70 percent are non-observant people looking to make that first step toward creating a Jewish home. “There are a host of reasons,” he says. “They could be the parents of children who went to Israel, and they want the grandchildren to be comfortable in their homes. They could be becoming observant themselves, or maybe they’re not shomer Shabbat [Sabbath-observant] but they want to keep kosher.”

Lebovic and his crew can usually kosher a home in one session, including taking all the utensils for ritual dunking in a mikvah, blowtorching the oven, cleaning out the refrigerator and kitchen cabinets, and advising the client on what has to be thrown away. “It’s not rocket science,” he says. “Lots of rabbis do this. But we have the system down. I try to make it as easy as possible. Once someone has committed to eating kosher, it’s just a matter of keeping separate parts of the kitchen for milk and meat, and buying kosher food. If they backslide, that’s fine. They can call me and I’ll walk them through it again.”

Many clients, koshering their homes for the first time, get emotional. They ask Lebovic to say a prayer for their new kitchen. Unfortunately, Judaism doesn’t provide a blessing for koshering a home, so Lebovic obliges by saying a psalm or a general blessing--perhaps a Shehechiyanu, the blessing for a new occasion. “I tell them that they should pray for themselves, but they want the rabbi to do it,” he says. “I do this day after day, so I’ve gotten desensitized. I have to remind myself what a big thing it is for these people. It means identity, it means feeling attached to Judaism. I have to remember that.”