Dishwashers of the San Francisco Bay

Maybe somebody can help me decipher this. Today, as I rode my trike along the Bay Trail, I stopped to watch a family down on the beach. They were unpacking box after box and bag after bag of stuff from Crate & Barrel... glasses, serving trays, bowls, all of it either glass or silver. It looked like they bought half the store.

I thought I was watching the beginning of the strangest picnic ever. I thought a photoshoot was in progress (until somebo0dy pulled out a point-and-shoot camera). Then the two young people rolled up their pants, picked up some wine glasses and waded out into the bay. They dipped the glasses in, returned to the beach and then kept returning to the water until everything had been rinsed, packed up again and returned to the car.

The young man of the group was wearing a white yarmulke (but not the older man-- no cover at all) so I'm wondering if it has some connection to the part of the Seder where a vegetable is dipped in saltwater to symbolize the tears of the Jewish slaves in Egypt.

I was burning with curiosity but I didn't dare approach them, not knowing how solemn this ritual might be.

Comments

Emily said…
I wonder if it is a form of kashering the dishes...
LunaSea said…
I keep checking back to see if anyone has come up with an explanation to this. I'm intrigued!
Anonymous said…
I'll ask my sister; she has a friend that keeps a kosher home.
~The Mad Hatters
Unknown said…
Could this be an explanation? http://www.torahlab.org/calendar/article/dipping_your_dishes/
Benjamin said…
My sister said, "It could be they were cleansing the dishes from a non-kosher factory, in a kind of Mikvah bath. It's my best guess."
~The Mad Hatters
Anonymous said…
I lived in Israel with a bunch of American Jewish roomates for about 2 years- I never heard of any of this kind of stuff before- it is possible they belong to a Jewish sect that practices some "baptismal ritual" but it's hard to say. I just hope they run it through a dishwasher later on, is all I can say.

By the way, some groups are PATHALOGICAL about keeping kosher. I took covered dishes of food to different dinner parties while in Israel, and some were accepted and put on the table, and eaten with no problem. (This from many dinner parties of former Concentration camp survivors and their decendants- they learned to appreciate food- ANY food- non-kosher or not.)

Other food I took was exclaimed at in horror, put immediately in a plastic bag and exited the house, to go right into the garbage. I was then shunned the entire evening for having " defiled the house" with my offensive gift. This was usually done by American Jews who were trying really really hard to out-Jewish the neighbors who had been in Israel for hundreds of years. (My next door neighbors there explained this to me- they look with amusement at these sort of obsessive people as the local freak show, apparently.

Its all good- I guess - food or dishes, its ok- As long as people stop killing themselves over there (or anywhere) over religion, they can do what ever they want with their Crate and Barrel treasures. I figure God's ok with it, as She has got to have developed a sense of humor by now for human beings!


Annalisa
Unknown said…
http://www.uswaternews.com/archives/arcquality/4orthjews6.html
Unknown said…
Immersion in a ritual pool
To instill holiness, both new and newly kosher utensils require immersion in a Kosher Mikveh especially made for utensils or a natural ocean, lake, or a river when it has not rained within 3 days. Utensils made in Israel by Jews do not require immersion. All utensils must be free of label or glue residue. They must be completely immersed at one time in the water of the ritual pool.

All metal, glass, Pyrex, china, or glazed utensils require immersion. If some parts come in contact
with food, they must be immersed.

http://www.hanefesh.com/edu/Kosher_Kitchen.htm
Unknown said…
The Jewish table is likened to an altar, its holiness compared to that of the Beit Hamikdash. Before dishes and utensils can be used in the kosher kitchen, they must acquire an additional measure of holiness which is conferred through the ritual immersion in a pool of naturally-gathered water, or Mikvah. A Mikvah is a specially constructed ritual pool connected to a source of pure rainwater. Vessels may also be immersed in certain natural bodies of water such as the ocean. The procedure is known as toiveling (derived from the Hebrew tovel, to immerse).

http://www.ok.org/Content.asp?ID=115

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