I have complete sympathy with the Rabbi and all his community for what's happened to them. If someone's seriously religious, that's a major part of their identity, and having someone mess with that is serious. No, it probably isn't as serious as death and destruction. But "tragedy" is a personal judgement - losing your job would be a big deal for you, even though life still goes on.

I'm still curious about why things can't be "rekasherised", given that they were presumably originally "treif". But I guess there's some deep ruling behind that from some long-dead religious bloke, so no worries - just curiosity. And giving the stuff away (instead of ceremonially smashing it or something) is eminently sensible.

What scares the crap out of me though is Rabbi Avraham Chaim Feuer and his bizarre idea of "we as a community are collectively guilty of not doing something right if God can let such a major tragedy befall us". Sorry, but no. I believe Job is common to Jewish and Christian texts, and a whole load of shit happened to Mr Job even though he was a good guy, because God wanted to test the depth of his faith.

So let's look at this from the religious PoV. If it's not God's doing, God won't care. But since this is related to religious observance, we have to assume God was involved. If it's God's doing, either it's a trial (to test faith) or a punishment (for lack of faith). But if it's a punishment, who's it punishing in failure to observe rituals? And check out what happened to the Egyptians for what happens when God's pissed off. Sure it could be a punishment, and it may serve as a reminder to people to keep following the rules.

But look at the other alternative though - the test of faith. Suppose you find that your recent observances of your faith's tenets have been brought down by some outside force. There's two ways you could react to that happening. The first is that you say "well it's not done me any harm, so I might as well not bother observing those rules", and you debase your beliefs as a result. But the second, you say "I don't care that someone else caused me to fail to observe those rules. I know in my heart that I did all I could, and I'll continue to follow those rules to the very best of my ability. God knows what I did, and God knows what I'll continue to do." Is this starting to look like familiar ground...?

That's where your quote of Rabbi Feuer gets my goat - the assumption that anything bad that happens, ever, unto the end of the world, is automatically a punishment for some failing. If he said "we MAY be collectively guilty" then he'd be correct. But the absolute "we ARE guilty" is plain wrong. Under any of the Judaism-based religions, it's clear that this statement is bad theology and bad philosophy, so it's worrying to me that someone who'd make a statement like that is in charge.

Graham.