Kimberly Reynhout wrote: "The dining halls' willingness to be accommodating [towards religious dietary observances] does not spread very far. Perhaps fearing complaints, the dining halls neglect to acknowledge the Christian holiday of Easter. On Good Friday, and all through Lent, when Catholics are not permitted to eat meat on Fridays, the dining halls make little or no attempt to provide them with other options such as fish or pasta. Students are forced to set aside their religious restriction, go hungry, or pay to eat elsewhere." [Man cannot live on dining hall food alone, 9/15/95, YH].
"It's been 4,000 years," my stepdad would say. "Let the bread rise!" Or, to coin a cliché, it is time to bury the rabbinically approved slaughtering hatchet. There is always something for each student to eat which will not compromise his or her dietary codes, even if it's just salad or soylada. No one will "go hungry," and I have noticed that there is scrod on Fridays, along with the challah. We're all old enough to know better than to gripe unnecessarily. Lest we undermine our credibility, let us save our (carbohydrate-bolstered) energy for more important things.
More troubling is Reynhout's implication that one set of religious holidays - and with it, one religion, culture, or tradition - may be favored over another. Nit-picking of this variety is petty and ancient, but it isn't harmless - it promotes provincialism and bad will which eat away at the linings of the stomach long after the "funeral-baked meats" are (more or less) digested.
Put up any sort of holiday greeting you like (a Kwaanza sign would be fun, or a paper dragon for the New Year - who are we Christians and Jews to complain?), or none at all, and we all should certainly be able to take the situation sitting down, calmly eating as we choose. Be a mensch, I say - it's a state of mind, not a "cultural" thing - and enjoy lunch. We're not here to bicker. "You are in New Haven! New Haven as opposed to the universe - or my waist measurement - is not expanding!" as Mrs. Singer from Annie Hall might say.
-- Sarah Beck, TD '99
Copyright 1995, The Yale Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
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