Diverse Shabbats, sponsored by Airbnb

For kosher Airbnb hosts, can we trust that our kosher kitchen would remain kosher when we weren’t in the house and non-kosher-eating guests were?

For months, my wife and I had been tossing around the idea of renting out our house to help pay off our mortgage in Toronto’s insane housing market. The sticking point was always the kitchen. How could we trust that our kosher kitchen would remain kosher when we weren’t in the house and non-kosher-eating guests were?

A few solutions came to mind. We could supply guests with paper plates, plastic cutlery and Styrofoam cups to use with the non-kosher food they might bring in. We could lock up our dishes to make absolutely sure no one would (mis)use them. We could suck it up and re-kasher the kitchen after our guests left. None of the options were convenient or fail-proof, and so we wavered, unsure whether the financial benefits of renting outweighed the potential hassle.

Ultimately, the answer turned out to be rather simple. We just made the kitchen off-limits – it says so right in our advertisement on the website Airbnb (“3 Bdrm Downtown Kid and Pet Friendly Kosher House”). And while we figured being open about our kitchen might limit clientele to other Jewish families, we were wrong. None of our guests thus far have been Jewish, and they’ve all been entirely respectful of our house. Some have inquired what exactly “kosher” is, while others have simply obeyed the rules without asking any questions.

There was only one question left: where would we go on those weekends when our house was otherwise occupied? Fortunately, our parents were more than willing to take us in, and so we’ve been spending Shabbat surrounded by family this summer. It’s a great treat for the kids, blessed with four grandparents who love to spoil them, and for a set of tired parents lucky to have a couple of extra hands to help out on those long summer Shabbat afternoons.

It’s also an excellent opportunity for the kids to see how different people observe Shabbat. My parents live in a Toronto suburb with a heavy Orthodox population. On Shabbat morning, the kids get dressed up and head off to the same shul I went to as a kid. They eat the same chulent I ate. They play in the same parks I played in.

At my wife’s parents’ place, a farm on the Niagara Escarpment, Shabbat has more of a country flavour. There’s no shul nearby, and Shabbat days are spent going on walks to the nearby pond or feeding carrots to the animals at the farm across the street. We wear shorts and T-shirts all day.

But some things are the same no matter where we’re staying – blessing the candles on Friday night, Kiddush and challah (not to mention too many lollipops for the kids). That sort of religious continuity and stability is important, but so is the diversity of Shabbat observance our children get to experience from week to week.

At some point, it’ll be up to them to decide how they want to make Shabbat their own. In the meantime, they’re learning that different people do things different ways, and to trust diversity. Just like their parents learned by renting their house to complete strangers.

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