a group of jewish boys leading a dance/chant of “no ban, no wall” today during the protest at philadelphia intl airport
I’ll start.
+ I love being Jewish because struggling with belief in G-d is acknowledged by our religion. The name “Israel” literally means to wrestle with G-d.
+ I love being Jewish because I’m not just part of a religion. I’m also part of a culture that has existed since ancient times.
+ I love being Jewish because of the time based customs.
+ I love having a great community that’s so supportive
+ I love listening to people reading from the Torah it’s probably the most beautiful sound in the entire world
+ I love that G-d is genderless
+ I love that jewish people click the second the meet each other 99.8% of the time.
+ I love how a large part of our believes is to protect others and animals (eating kosher, etc.)
+ I love how in a lot of jewish families (im not saying all for sure) biggest concern with who we chose as a romantic partner is if they are jewish or notalso just smaller things like
+ we basically own bagels and lox like that’s our thing
+ we have the best cookies hands down. what other culture has anything that can compare to chocolate rugelach with raspberries?
+ I’ve never had to worry about filling in my eyebrows or curling my hair+ I love how we have no heaven or hell because you can make up for your wrong doings
+ I love the roots and all of the myriad branches, and all of the glorious variety that we have, each minhag being an equally valid answer to the question of “How shall we be Jewish?” and a connection with our roots
+ I love the rituals, and the connections they give me with my ancestors, whose voices have been swallowed by silence and time.
+ I love the emphasis on learning, on questioning, on ripping each argument to shreds until we have an answer
two sub-points of the last point:
+ I love how long we’ve been a literate people, and how much emphasis we place on teaching our children to read
+ I love that we basically invented rules-lawyeringand a few more:
+ I love the fact that a key point of our traditional wedding festivities is making the bride and groom laugh
+ I love how many hundreds-if-not-thousands of varieties of cholent there are, and no matter what ingredients they have, they are all cholent
+ I love how often we can speak in a kind of shorthand to each other about certain things even if we’ve never met
+ I love the game of Jewish Geography
+ I love how halacha cares about people, like the “disgusting factor” I mentioned in the end of the vampire post
If you’d like to give yourself the chills, I would recommend reading this week’s Torah portion in the context of the events of January 20th. You can find it here with translation and Rashi with translation. Start at verse 8, if you’re short on time.
Although, you know, this may be the wrong attitude. Because as much as it’s bad, it also has the seeds of our redemption. We learn of the birth of Moshe (Moses), who would eventually lead us out of Egypt. As much as we were oppressed by the Egyptians, we are taught: “as much as they [the Egyptians] would afflict them [the Jews], so did they multiply and so did they gain strength.”
This article is from Inauguration Week, which is a little while ago, but the lesson is still a Good.
Anonymous asked:
jewish-privilege answered:
In Jewish custom, you’re not supposed to write or enunciate the full name of G-d outside of formal liturgical situations–in prayerbooks and in prayer, for example. So, outside of those settings, the name isn’t written or pronounced in full, or substitutes are used (“Hashem” simply means “The Name”, for example).
Personally I object a little bit to hyphenating the English word “God,” as it bears no relationship whatsoever to the actual Name. (As I’ve occasionally put it, “It’s not a name, it’s a job description.”) I don’t know of any formal opinion that agrees with me on that, though.
I had a rabbi in high school (he ended up being the m'sader kedushin for my sister and brother-in-law and was a survivor who had taught at the school since 1945) who said that writing “G-d” is unnecessary because it is nowhere near the real name of Hashem. He said if you insist on writing “G-d,” you should also say “ginger kale.” Ever since then, I’ve written “God” with no compunction.
I enjoy seeing the way it’s done in different languages. I’ve seen d-eu, d’us and d-os.
I mostly do it as a cultural marker: Jews omit the middle letter, I am a Jew, therefore I omit the middle letter
Yeah there’s no actual need to do it (certainly not in English) but for personal emotional reasons I don’t like writing out a full Divine name, but I also don’t like the implications of taking something away, so I follow a Renewal practice of writing G!d with an exclamation point to remind myself of G!d’s overflowing expansiveness… I have a friend who writes G?d for their own well-thought-out reasons. :)
I like “G@d” myself - it’s not as in-your-face as “G!d” to me, and also, isn’t mixing the @ in such a perfect analogy for Judaism you guys
Hey, anyone interested in a jumblr book club? Maybe tie it in some way to @alternativetodiscourse? I’m right now mostly up for Jewish mysticism stuff, and could try to organize around that topic, but if people are interested in other things, we can talk.
I have created a sideblog https://jumblrbookclub.tumblr.com/ there are no posts currently, but if it gets enough followers that it seems like discussions could actually happen, I’ll start organizing through there. @alternativetodiscourse, could you signal boost this?
I was thinking “Jewish Magic and Superstition” by Trachtenberg to start, which I know @zookmurnig is supposed to be reading, I’m reading, and is theoretically available at sacred-texts, but the whole site is down at the moment. Sometime in the next couple of days I’ll list a bunch of books as possible options on that blog, and we’ll vote.
Yep! Sounds like it would be pretty cool. Signal boosting. (I’m not actually familiar with the book, if someone would care to enlighten me.)
idk if i’m being a huge disrespectful asshole by thinking this but like
my friend lives in an apartment previously owned by a very religious jewish family and they had 2 sets of every so that meat and dairy wouldn’t have to touch EVER and??? there comes a point??? when you have to ask yourself??? does god give a shit does god have time to supervise wether we use the same cutlery to eat meat and dairy like is it an immediate ticket to eternal suffering if i cut cheese with the same knife that touched meat
“Eternal suffering” isn’t a Jewish concept, first of all, so no, it’s not an “immediate ticket to eternal suffering” if you cut cheese with the same knife that touched meat.
However, if the G-d you conceive of doesn’t have the capacity to care about the “little” things along with the big, that’s not G-d you’re thinking of, it’s some kind of limited, non-divine being. The very fact of G-d’s infinity demands that He care about both the small details and the bigger ones, because in contrast to Him, even the most “important” things are absolutely nullified just as much as the “small” ones.
Why would G-d instruct people not to mix milk and meat if He…doesn’t care? Seems like a stupid thing to do? Therefore…He cares.
It’s nearly that time of year again where we celebrate that festival based on that time when they tried to kill us and we survived.
Oh yeah, the one with the food
you know the one with the traditions and the symbolism
Seeing how we’re getting specific: there’s singing
The Rabbinical Council of America and Orthodox Union posted a response to the Muslim ban executive order today. You can read it above.
“It’s That time of year again!”
– Goy
But seriously. It’s time for Chabad Chanukah Mitzvah Tank Mivtzoyim - we go around in an RV, giving out menorahs, candles, doughnuts, and anything else for your basic Chanukah needs! If you’re interested, I’ll be posting our locations on here.
For jumblr guys in the brooklyn area who would like to participate and join us on the “Mitzvah Tank”, please send me a message!
“Tis’ the season…”
- GoyBut seriously. It’s time for Chabad Chanukah Mitzvah Tank Mivtzoyim - we go around in an RV, giving out menorahs, candles, doughnuts, and anything else for your basic Chanukah needs! If you’re interested, Please spread this around, and stay tuned in for our locations for each Night of Chanukah. We will be in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and doing a few daytime runs as well, where we’ll also give out shabbos candles and opportunities to put on Tefillin!
I’ve been thinking a lot about compassion in Judaism, and being kind. In that light, I would like everyone to know that my current favorite Jewish supernatural headcanon is that, instead of driving vampires away with crosses or stakes through the heart, we say the Mourner’s Kaddish for them. I mean, that’s just so adorable. You see this threatening undead creature, and instead of yelling murder, you feel bad for them, and you mourn for them. Imagine being a vampire at the receiving end of that, having been chased away for years and years and told you’re a monster when you come across someone who sees you and your existence and accepts that you’re in a pretty bad place and offers help in the best way they can. I’m actually tearing up about this a little. If someone adds to this post I’ll love them forever.