SO! Back to the topic (if I can find it).
Did we pretty much cover prophets and old age?
It is summer (well, pretty much) and in Israel, summers are long, hot and very dry. The daily prayer service asks for 'dew' because in summer, about all you can hope for is cool nights. Starting with Sukkot (the 'feast of Tabernacles') in the fall, we start praying for rain. Israel has a Mediterranean climate, and winters are when the precipitation arrives. So late fall is when plants 'revive' and regain their greenness after the deadly hot and parched summertime.
Spring starts when the almond trees blossom - which is about February. Early harvest time (the barley harvest) is about early May - the recent holiday of Shavuot (weeks, aka 'the festival of Pentecost') celebrates the early harvest - the other name for Shavuot is 'first fruits'. The late harvest - wheat, olives and so forth) is at Sukkot. A big harvest then, plus rains = enough to eat all winter + a probable fruitful spring-to-come = a joyful holiday.
The High Holy Days also come in the fall - Rosh Hashana is - among other things - the traditional anniversary of the Creation of the World (did you know that?). It wasn't originally considered the start of the year though. That came later.
The Jewish calendar is a bit confusing to most people: the first MONTH is not the first of the YEAR. Months are 'moons' and are entirely separate from YEARS (which are solar things). For some reason, we start months in the springtime, and start years in the fall.
There are also four different 'years': the calendar year (Jewish calendar) beginning on Tishri 1 in the fall, and the new year for Trees (a kind of fiscal year for tithing tree fruit/nuts) and the new year for kings (sort of like the Queen's birthday which is always celebrated conveniently in summer no matter when her birthday actually is) and another one I can't even remember.
(Before you think this is too weird, remember the ancient Romans did the same thing - years started with January, but the first MONTH was actually March. Plus we today have different KINDS of years too - we have calendar years, fiscal years, and school years, and they start at different times).
People who try to count actual dates using the Hebrew bible are opening up a can of worms sometimes - it isn't nearly as 'plain and simple' as it may seem. It was a long time before anybody starting actually counting years and applying a 'date' to them! Used to be, people just used major events or royal reigns (which were counted by 'king years' where you could have two within twelve months - or more than two - if the king died and another took over) to date something -
so someone would say something like 'it was three years after the drought' or 'this happened the year Saul's well went dry' or 'in the twelfth year of the reign of king such and such' and everybody pretty much knew when that was - for a while.
We don't see actual DATES until a whole lot later. Rome sort of started the idea - with them dating everything from a SINGLE point: 'the year of the founding of the city of Rome'. And then that little monk - Dionysius Exiguus - calculated the years from Jesus' birth in 'year one' (he had no concept of 'zero' to his own time - 525 or so and here we are now - just like the Romans, really, agreeing to count ALL years from a single point (even though poor Dionysius (or Dennis)) was probably off by 5 or 6 years or so.
Jews about the same time as Dennis did pretty much the same sort of calculation he did - and the same thing Bishop Usher did much later - and calculated the 'date' backwards using genealogies and calibrations to known events, back to 'the beginning of time' (not Creation, actually, but the beginning of RECORDED time, i.e., when Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden) and this year is, I believe, 5775.
Good heavens I am actually right.
Here is a great website for finding dates and when the Jewish holidays are - and we need this because ALL JEWISH HOLIDAYS FALL ON DATES ACCORDING TO THE HEBREW CALENDAR - which isn't the same as the calendars you pick up at the bank or chamber of commerce.
http://www.hebcal.com/holidays/2015
That 'date' - 5775 'from the Creation of the world' is of course, factually wrong. But at least it lets us - you know - date things.
Today is Sivan (month) 20, 5775 by the way. But I had to look it up.
Ask about Judaism
Re: Ask about Judaism
History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.
Re: Ask about Judaism
What makes food kosher?
Kosher means 'fit' as in 'proper, correct'. It starts with Leviticus, but there's been a couple or three thousand years of discussions since then, and the nuances nowadays are pretty intricate. One buys a book, generally, or consults a rabbi - or your grandmother!
First there are the allowed and forbidden varieties of animals, fish and birds - some are 'fit' to be eaten and others aren't. There are all kinds of loud arguments as to why this but not that, but essentially, it hardly matters. If the criteria were reversed (and pigs and horses were kosher while cows and sheep weren't) we'd have the same arguments, yes? The point it, we can't just go out and grab and eat anything that walks or slithers by.
The easiest and simplest way to keep a kosher kitchen though, is to become a vegetarian. If you are a vegetarian (even of the lax variety) then you don't have any issues to worry about.
But if you DO want to eat meat, THEN there are considerations, and those only start with Leviticus and the forbidden and allowable kinds of animals.
more later, but it is easier to answer questions if anybody has one - come right out and ask.
Kosher means 'fit' as in 'proper, correct'. It starts with Leviticus, but there's been a couple or three thousand years of discussions since then, and the nuances nowadays are pretty intricate. One buys a book, generally, or consults a rabbi - or your grandmother!
First there are the allowed and forbidden varieties of animals, fish and birds - some are 'fit' to be eaten and others aren't. There are all kinds of loud arguments as to why this but not that, but essentially, it hardly matters. If the criteria were reversed (and pigs and horses were kosher while cows and sheep weren't) we'd have the same arguments, yes? The point it, we can't just go out and grab and eat anything that walks or slithers by.
The easiest and simplest way to keep a kosher kitchen though, is to become a vegetarian. If you are a vegetarian (even of the lax variety) then you don't have any issues to worry about.
But if you DO want to eat meat, THEN there are considerations, and those only start with Leviticus and the forbidden and allowable kinds of animals.
more later, but it is easier to answer questions if anybody has one - come right out and ask.
History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.
Re: Ask about Judaism
I have heard that there are different dishes used for different types of food. Is that true?
Re: Ask about Judaism
There is remarkably little repetitive stuff in Torah, really. But there's one statement that appears three times:
you shall not (don't) seethe a kid in its mother's milk
three times. It seems like a fairly innocuous statement, but it is there THREE TIMES - so a single mention might get a pass, but something stated three separate times must be really important.
So commentators have traditionally interpreted that to mean that
a) you don't cook meat in milk
b) you don't eat meat with milk
c) you don't mix meat and milk together EVER.
So it is indeed customary for observant Jews to have - at a minimum - two complete sets of dishes. And silverware. And pots and pans. And, if they can afford it, dishwashers, sinks, stoves and refrigerators. (We can't afford it, but very observant Jews with enough money often do)
One set is for dairy foods, and the other set is for meat foods. If there is enough space and enough money, there is a THIRD set for 'pareve' foods - neither meat nor milk. And then you might ALSO have 'everyday' and 'Shabbat/holiday' sets - also multiples. Plus of course completely DIFFERENT complete sets for Passover.
Not only are meat and dairy items not cooked together, they are not eaten together to the point that there is a waiting period between eating one and eating the other - the waiting period varies from one to six hours, and is longer after meat than after dairy, and longer for communities originating in Eastern Europe (shorter in Western European communities).
One of the main jobs of a 'mashgiach' - a kashrut supervisor - at a food manufacturing plant or a grocery store, is to monitor equipment that cans or prepares foods. A plant that adds a dairy derivative to something, and later on the same equipment handles meats, must be completely and totally dismantled and steam cleaned in between. Plus the mashgiach knows a lot about food additives - all those things on the labels that you don't know exactly what they are - a mashgiach studies up on those things.
It is really far easier to run the kitchen if you simply avoid meat altogether, really.
Most of the rules of kashrut involve foods that require the death of an animal - meat products.
Not only must the animal itself be a 'kosher' variety ('Biblically kosher') it must also be slaughtered according to the rules of kashrut (by an observant Jew, with a completely sharp knife, in one stroke, instantly) and after that must be prepared properly besides. It's fairly complicated, and again, there will be a mashgiach.
(Becoming a mashgiach is one of the jobs that rabbis do if they don't want to be congregational rabbis - it is a specialty job, sort of like 'all doctors are medical doctors but some medical doctors are neurosurgeons').
We keep two sets of dishes and silverware (dairy and meat) and use them everyday and most holidays including Shabbat. Then we have a fancier set for Passover, which is meat. We also buy a lot of paper plates at Passover. For the pots and pans - I have a couple that are specifically meat or specifically dairy. Our kitchen is not 'kosher' by orthodox standards, but it is a whole lot closer to kosher than a lot of people would bother with. But there's only one dishwasher, fridge and stove.
Pareve (or parve) items are neither meat nor dairy - this includes all fruits and vegetables, and such things as eggs and fish (only fish with fins and scales are kosher).
I've thought about omitting meat, but we like it.
you shall not (don't) seethe a kid in its mother's milk
three times. It seems like a fairly innocuous statement, but it is there THREE TIMES - so a single mention might get a pass, but something stated three separate times must be really important.
So commentators have traditionally interpreted that to mean that
a) you don't cook meat in milk
b) you don't eat meat with milk
c) you don't mix meat and milk together EVER.
So it is indeed customary for observant Jews to have - at a minimum - two complete sets of dishes. And silverware. And pots and pans. And, if they can afford it, dishwashers, sinks, stoves and refrigerators. (We can't afford it, but very observant Jews with enough money often do)
One set is for dairy foods, and the other set is for meat foods. If there is enough space and enough money, there is a THIRD set for 'pareve' foods - neither meat nor milk. And then you might ALSO have 'everyday' and 'Shabbat/holiday' sets - also multiples. Plus of course completely DIFFERENT complete sets for Passover.
Not only are meat and dairy items not cooked together, they are not eaten together to the point that there is a waiting period between eating one and eating the other - the waiting period varies from one to six hours, and is longer after meat than after dairy, and longer for communities originating in Eastern Europe (shorter in Western European communities).
One of the main jobs of a 'mashgiach' - a kashrut supervisor - at a food manufacturing plant or a grocery store, is to monitor equipment that cans or prepares foods. A plant that adds a dairy derivative to something, and later on the same equipment handles meats, must be completely and totally dismantled and steam cleaned in between. Plus the mashgiach knows a lot about food additives - all those things on the labels that you don't know exactly what they are - a mashgiach studies up on those things.
It is really far easier to run the kitchen if you simply avoid meat altogether, really.
Most of the rules of kashrut involve foods that require the death of an animal - meat products.
Not only must the animal itself be a 'kosher' variety ('Biblically kosher') it must also be slaughtered according to the rules of kashrut (by an observant Jew, with a completely sharp knife, in one stroke, instantly) and after that must be prepared properly besides. It's fairly complicated, and again, there will be a mashgiach.
(Becoming a mashgiach is one of the jobs that rabbis do if they don't want to be congregational rabbis - it is a specialty job, sort of like 'all doctors are medical doctors but some medical doctors are neurosurgeons').
We keep two sets of dishes and silverware (dairy and meat) and use them everyday and most holidays including Shabbat. Then we have a fancier set for Passover, which is meat. We also buy a lot of paper plates at Passover. For the pots and pans - I have a couple that are specifically meat or specifically dairy. Our kitchen is not 'kosher' by orthodox standards, but it is a whole lot closer to kosher than a lot of people would bother with. But there's only one dishwasher, fridge and stove.
Pareve (or parve) items are neither meat nor dairy - this includes all fruits and vegetables, and such things as eggs and fish (only fish with fins and scales are kosher).
I've thought about omitting meat, but we like it.
History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.
Re: Ask about Judaism
There are several 'kashrut supervision' companies, which employ mashgiachim. A food company or slaughtering plant that wants to sell to the kosher market (or increasingly, the halal (Islamic) market) will hire the company, which sends supervisors to the company facilities.
The mashgiach certifies that the plant is in compliance, and the kashrut supervision organization 'certifies' the food by allowing the food company to put their symbol on their products.
The purchasers (me) can trust the agency, and we don't have to know everything about how every single grocery product was prepared. You can find the different kashrut symbols on all kinds of things, including toilet paper and aluminum foil (some foil is treated with cornmeal for some reason, and that can be an issue at Passover - I have NO idea how toilet paper could possibly involve kashrut, so I don't bother with checking tp labels).
The largest such organization in the US is the Orthodox Union. That symbol is the U in a circle. You've probably seen it often.
//oukosher.org/
usually there is a subscript next to the symbol that may say 'dairy' or 'pareve'. I buy pareve margarine, for example, to avoid having dairy products on the meat -containing table. Most regular margarines contain some dairy.
The mashgiach certifies that the plant is in compliance, and the kashrut supervision organization 'certifies' the food by allowing the food company to put their symbol on their products.
The purchasers (me) can trust the agency, and we don't have to know everything about how every single grocery product was prepared. You can find the different kashrut symbols on all kinds of things, including toilet paper and aluminum foil (some foil is treated with cornmeal for some reason, and that can be an issue at Passover - I have NO idea how toilet paper could possibly involve kashrut, so I don't bother with checking tp labels).
The largest such organization in the US is the Orthodox Union. That symbol is the U in a circle. You've probably seen it often.
//oukosher.org/
usually there is a subscript next to the symbol that may say 'dairy' or 'pareve'. I buy pareve margarine, for example, to avoid having dairy products on the meat -containing table. Most regular margarines contain some dairy.
History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.
Re: Ask about Judaism
As for the reasons people keep kosher (doing all this is 'keeping kosher') those vary from person to person. All the way from 'It is written in the Torah/it is a commandment from God' to 'because it is what we (Jews) do'. I lean to the 'what we do' end of the spectrum because I view it mostly as a folkway - a traditional practice which serves as a distinctive sign of a certain community.
There are of course many commentaries about WHY, mainly because the written Torah doesn't SAY 'why'. So naturally people spend a lot of time figuring out 'why' and coming up with rationalizations. One which I like rather well is that it serves to make us humans sensitive to the life of the animals we 'use'. Maimonides sees the prohibition against killing a calf and cow on the same day as a prohibition against animal cruelty. He tells us that animals may not think as well as humans, but their capacity for love of family - their emotional capacity - is just as great. Other rabbis tell us that keeping kosher is something like the Buddhist idea of 'mindful eating'. The discipline of keeping kosher continually requires us the think about what we are eating, and why we are eating it. When the temple stood, almost all animal slaughter for food was a religious activity - it was carried out by a priest, with prayers and intention, with respect for the animal. We can still respect the animal in the absence of a temple, and we should do so. Also, with the idea of 'you are what you eat', it is interesting to note that kashrut rules mean we never eat predators or scavengers, but all kosher animals are herbivores (birds and fish are a different story, but no kosher birds are raptors).
Traditionalists say that in the Garden of Eden, everything was herbivorous (even the lions) but we are permitted to eat animals since Noah, because humans are fallible and meat is tasty. But we are restrained from indiscriminate eating - we can't just kill and eat anything we want, anytime we want, anywhere we want. We are not animals, and we should not eat like animals. We should be mindful. But the ideal is a vegetarian lifestyle, and 'in the End of Days' we will all return to that ('and the lion will lie down with the lamb' and such).
There are of course many commentaries about WHY, mainly because the written Torah doesn't SAY 'why'. So naturally people spend a lot of time figuring out 'why' and coming up with rationalizations. One which I like rather well is that it serves to make us humans sensitive to the life of the animals we 'use'. Maimonides sees the prohibition against killing a calf and cow on the same day as a prohibition against animal cruelty. He tells us that animals may not think as well as humans, but their capacity for love of family - their emotional capacity - is just as great. Other rabbis tell us that keeping kosher is something like the Buddhist idea of 'mindful eating'. The discipline of keeping kosher continually requires us the think about what we are eating, and why we are eating it. When the temple stood, almost all animal slaughter for food was a religious activity - it was carried out by a priest, with prayers and intention, with respect for the animal. We can still respect the animal in the absence of a temple, and we should do so. Also, with the idea of 'you are what you eat', it is interesting to note that kashrut rules mean we never eat predators or scavengers, but all kosher animals are herbivores (birds and fish are a different story, but no kosher birds are raptors).
Traditionalists say that in the Garden of Eden, everything was herbivorous (even the lions) but we are permitted to eat animals since Noah, because humans are fallible and meat is tasty. But we are restrained from indiscriminate eating - we can't just kill and eat anything we want, anytime we want, anywhere we want. We are not animals, and we should not eat like animals. We should be mindful. But the ideal is a vegetarian lifestyle, and 'in the End of Days' we will all return to that ('and the lion will lie down with the lamb' and such).
History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.
-
margin overa
- Posts: 272
- Joined: Tue Oct 28, 2014 12:17 pm
Re: Ask about Judaism
I once asked my friend's dad why they still kept (mostly) kosher, when they in fact did not believe the "rationale" behind some kosher strictures (they weren't of the Orthodox tradition). His reply was that keeping the restrictions was an integral part of being Jewish, it tied them to their forebears, and the very fact of its being more or less onerous was a part of submitting, so to speak, to the understanding of being a people set apart. His family kept kosher because not keeping kosher was like renouncing being culturally Jewish.agricola wrote:As for the reasons people keep kosher (doing all this is 'keeping kosher') those vary from person to person. All the way from 'It is written in the Torah/it is a commandment from God' to 'because it is what we (Jews) do'. I lean to the 'what we do' end of the spectrum because I view it mostly as a folkway - a traditional practice which serves as a distinctive sign of a certain community.
Re: Ask about Judaism
Yes that is a common attitude - I think it is a matter of pride, and a matter of resistance to pressure - the world - Christian and secular both - is continually 'pressing' minority groups (any sort) to give up the things that make them distinctive, and minorities (in particular) are very sensitive to that because by becoming 'more normal' they essentially disappear altogether.margin overa wrote:I once asked my friend's dad why they still kept (mostly) kosher, when they in fact did not believe the "rationale" behind some kosher strictures (they weren't of the Orthodox tradition). His reply was that keeping the restrictions was an integral part of being Jewish, it tied them to their forebears, and the very fact of its being more or less onerous was a part of submitting, so to speak, to the understanding of being a people set apart. His family kept kosher because not keeping kosher was like renouncing being culturally Jewish.agricola wrote:As for the reasons people keep kosher (doing all this is 'keeping kosher') those vary from person to person. All the way from 'It is written in the Torah/it is a commandment from God' to 'because it is what we (Jews) do'. I lean to the 'what we do' end of the spectrum because I view it mostly as a folkway - a traditional practice which serves as a distinctive sign of a certain community.
Jews are usually quite aware of the fact that the Jews as a group are very much a minority in the world - a tiny, tiny group. One third of all Jews in the world died during the Holocaust, and to this very day, our numbers have not recovered to the pre-war population (good question to Holocaust deniers - just where ARE all those millions - literally MILLIONS - of Jews that were counted in censuses all over Europe BEFORE the war? Because they were there in the early '30's and gone in the late 40's, and it's not like they popped up in western Canada or something - they are gone, and all their potential offspring are gone.
So leaving Judaism in any fashion - whether just dropping it altogether, or converting 'out' - is seen as handing Hitler (may his name be erased) another 'victory'.
That doesn't actually make logical sense, because the Nazis targeted ALL Jews, observant or not, converted 'out' or not. It was about the first (not exactly, but nearly) persecution that was 'genetic' and not solely based on anti-Judaism. (The Spanish Inquisition was the first to talk about 'Jewish blood' and to spy on people based on ancestry, and not professed religion).
History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.
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FinallyFree
- Posts: 2389
- Joined: Sat Aug 01, 2015 3:29 pm
- Location: Southaven, MS
Re: Ask about Judaism
I have a question for you. Do they use musical instruments in the synagogue service? It seems like I have heard that they don't.
Re: Ask about Judaism
Short answer:
orthodox don't.
most Conservative don't
some Conservative do.
most Reform do.
Also, even among the congregations that do allow instruments, some will only play them on Friday night but not Saturday morning (there is no actual rationale for that whatsoever, by the way).
Longer answer requires some background information:
a) a synagogue is not a church
b) a synagogue 'service' is not analogous to a church service, except very superficially
So the reasons why 'no instruments in the service' is wildly different from synagogues versus churches, even though churches often point to 'the first century church was Jewish and followed Jewish practice'.
the MAIN reason most synagogues don't have music on Shabbat is because of a GENERAL prohibition against playing musical instruments (or riding a bike, or other actions involving some sort of 'tool') on the Sabbath and major holidays - no matter WHERE you are or what you are doing. Because although the actual playing of an instrument (or the riding of a bike) is not actually a problem in itself, the REPAIR of something - anything - is an actual prohibition.
So using something that might, hypothetically, break and need a repair, on the Sabbath (or holy days) is rabbinically forbidden, as a 'fence' around the Law (the Torah), as a way to remove the possibility that you might, unthinking, repair something (and break an actual Torah law in doing so).
Same reason we don't handle money on the Sabbath, or pick up a pencil, or a sewing needle. It isn't actually 'wrong' to touch those things, but if you touch them you might:
buy something
write something
sew something
and THOSE activities ARE forbidden.
The SECOND reason most synagogues don't play instruments on the Sabbath and holy days - specifically in the synagogue during 'services' - is because:
a) instruments were played in the Temple as part of the ceremonies of the Temple
b) music is joyful
c) the Temple is destroyed so we are in mourning for the destruction of the Temple
therefore: we don't play (joyful) music (on instruments) because we are mourning the destruction of the Temple.
There. Two completely different reasons, and neither of them is particularly close to the reasons the coc selects for refusing to play instruments.
(Reform and the more liberal parts of Conservative Judaism do play instruments because a)they feel like 2000 years of mourning is surely sufficient, especially now that b) there is a new nation of Israel, so it is okay to be happy again. But they still don't repair an instrument if it breaks, because that is Torah (by traditional interpretation) Law.)
orthodox don't.
most Conservative don't
some Conservative do.
most Reform do.
Also, even among the congregations that do allow instruments, some will only play them on Friday night but not Saturday morning (there is no actual rationale for that whatsoever, by the way).
Longer answer requires some background information:
a) a synagogue is not a church
b) a synagogue 'service' is not analogous to a church service, except very superficially
So the reasons why 'no instruments in the service' is wildly different from synagogues versus churches, even though churches often point to 'the first century church was Jewish and followed Jewish practice'.
the MAIN reason most synagogues don't have music on Shabbat is because of a GENERAL prohibition against playing musical instruments (or riding a bike, or other actions involving some sort of 'tool') on the Sabbath and major holidays - no matter WHERE you are or what you are doing. Because although the actual playing of an instrument (or the riding of a bike) is not actually a problem in itself, the REPAIR of something - anything - is an actual prohibition.
So using something that might, hypothetically, break and need a repair, on the Sabbath (or holy days) is rabbinically forbidden, as a 'fence' around the Law (the Torah), as a way to remove the possibility that you might, unthinking, repair something (and break an actual Torah law in doing so).
Same reason we don't handle money on the Sabbath, or pick up a pencil, or a sewing needle. It isn't actually 'wrong' to touch those things, but if you touch them you might:
buy something
write something
sew something
and THOSE activities ARE forbidden.
The SECOND reason most synagogues don't play instruments on the Sabbath and holy days - specifically in the synagogue during 'services' - is because:
a) instruments were played in the Temple as part of the ceremonies of the Temple
b) music is joyful
c) the Temple is destroyed so we are in mourning for the destruction of the Temple
therefore: we don't play (joyful) music (on instruments) because we are mourning the destruction of the Temple.
There. Two completely different reasons, and neither of them is particularly close to the reasons the coc selects for refusing to play instruments.
(Reform and the more liberal parts of Conservative Judaism do play instruments because a)they feel like 2000 years of mourning is surely sufficient, especially now that b) there is a new nation of Israel, so it is okay to be happy again. But they still don't repair an instrument if it breaks, because that is Torah (by traditional interpretation) Law.)
History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.