Ask about Judaism

[B.H.]

Agricola,

What do you have to say to people who think Ezekiel's "wheels" were flying saucers?

[agricola]

I try not to get into conversations with people who wear tinfoil on their heads, BH.

[agricola]

On a lighter note:

Funny Romantic Personal Ads from funnyandjewish.com

I am a sensitive Jewish prince whom you can open your heart to. Share your innermost thoughts and deepest secrets. You can confide in me. I’ll understand your insecurities. No fatties, please.

Jewish male, 34, very successful, smart, independent, self-made. Looking for girl whose father will hire me.

Your place or mine? Divorced man, 42, with meat dishes only. Seeks woman with nice dairy set. (he's talking about sets of dishes)

Yeshiva bochur, Torah scholar, long beard, payos. Seeks same in woman. (a yeshiva bocher is a professional student. payos are those long side curls)

Israeli woman, 28, works behind falafel counter in pizza shop, looking for Jewish man with sense of humus…

Desperately seeking shmoozing! Retired senior citizen desires female companion 70+ for kvetching, kvelling, krechtzing. Under 30 is also OK too.

If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the blech. Heimishe balabusta, 39, will cook you such a tzimmes. Hurry, it’s getting cold. (a heimishe balabusta is a motherly homemaker. Tzimmes is a mixed vegetable dish but what is means is 'a hot mess' (sort of))

Successful orthodox diamond cutter. Both Shea and Yankee Stadium. No Shabbos games. Will not mow lawn during s’firah. Seeking wife.

Matzo supplier, 53, seeks cloth bag manufacturer. Let’s play “Hide the Afikomen.”

Nice Jewish guy, 38. No skeletons. No baggage. No personality.

Are you the girl I spoke with at the kiddish after shul last week? You excused yourself to get more horseradish for your gefilte fish, but you never returned. How can I contact you again? (I was the one with the cholent stain on my tie). (cholent is stew)

Sincere Jewish feminist, wears tzitzis, seeking male hard working, observant, who will accept my independence, although you probably will not. Oh, just forget it. (tzitzis ae the ritual fringes on the corner of a prayer shawl. Few women wear those - VERY few, it is almost entirely considered a male thing only)

Jewish businessman, 49, manufactures Sabbath candles, Chanukah candles, havdallah candles, Yahrzeit candles. Seeks non-smoker.

80-year-old bubby, no assets, seeks handsome, virile Jewish male, under 35. Object matrimony. I can dream, can’t I? (a bubby is a grandmother)

[agricola]

There's nothing better than Rabbi Nachman for when you are feeling down:

The day you were born is the day God decided the world could not exist without you.

[agricola]

for a little laugh - you've seen Fiddler on the Roof, right? Well these Hasidic Jews never had watched it before...

h**ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSH4jxSxKzA

[agricola]

There are probably some websites for 'ex-orthodox Jews' - but the dynamic is a bit different:

Dropouts have always been part of the Orthodox story, but the Pew Research Center’s most definitive 2013 study found dropouts have fluctuated with the generations, the older generation dropping out with far greater frequency than the younger one. Pew states that there was “a surge [78 percent] switching [out of] Orthodox Judaism from the 1950s to the 1970s, followed by a higher retention within Orthodox Judaism in recent decades.” The retention rate is now soaring among young Orthodox adults (aged 18-30); 83 percent of those who were raised Orthodox still are. That means, however, that 17 percent have left.

Well, not all actually left, a finding that casts a fog over any numbers or conclusions. Unlike Christianity, where belief in Jesus provides a fairly definitive line of religious demarcation, Judaism defines religious fidelity not by belief but by action. Religious Christians don’t “somewhat” believe in Jesus, but Nishma found that 45 percent of the dropouts remained “somewhat” Orthodox. It is interesting that 33 percent of OTDs still believed in God, but it is more pertinent to Orthodoxy that 31 percent still kept kosher, 53 percent still lit Shabbos candles, 68 percent still participated in Shabbos meals and 66 percent still felt an attachment to Israel (and the people of Israel). If one keeps Shabbos (to whatever extent) and kosher, when most Jews don’t, how is that person “off the derech”? And yet, in a highly judgmental community, “with Orthodoxy’s exacting standards,” the study noted, “a respondent could consider himself or herself lapsed and still be more religious than most.”

In Jewish circles: 'religious' refers to how traditionally OBSERVANT one is, not to one's 'faith' or 'inner belief' or 'spiritual sense' - and measuring 'regular attendance' at synagogue doesn't precisely correlate, either.

Take all surveys that use 'weekly attendance' as a measure of 'religiosity' with a large grain of salt, when it comes to Jews.

Read more at h**p://www.thejewishweek.com/news/new-york/ort ... 5D216VH.99

[agricola]

interested in enhancing human abilities? Or transplants? cyborgs? here's one rabbi's take, based on sources:

The Faith Forum of the Reno Gazette asks, "Is enhancing human abilities ok?" Judaism permits therapeutic procedures and considers healing an obligation. What about more revolutionary techniques? According to Tiferet Yisrael, one of our Sages, “Anything for which there is no reason to forbid is permissible with no need for justification because the Torah did not enumerate all permissible things, [but] rather forbidden ones.” (Yadayim 4:3). Thus, as new techniques evolve, they should be viewed as permissible. Current examples might include the use of cochlear implants to help some of those who are deaf, or implants used to shock the heart into a normal rhythm.

There are a number of bioethical issues to be considered when providing enhancement. The individual’s current quality of life must be balanced against the risk and benefit with the enhancement.
Is enhancement necessary? Who is paying for it? What is the individual’s motivation? Our underlying intention must be to use our creative abilities to do good. http://www.rgj.com/…/faith-forum-enhanc ... /89781966/

[agricola]

I think I mentioned 'yeshivish' previously - it is the communication language of choice among the orthodox religious school students (the yeshiva bocherim), mixing yiddish, Hebrew special talmudic legal terms, and English - I know this next bit looks impenetrable, but to the dedicated talmid chachim (talmud students) it is completely understandable!

The yeshivish version of the Gettysburg Address

Be'erech a yoivel and a half ago, the meyasdim shtelled avek on this makom a naiya malchus with the kavana that no one should have bailus over their chaver, and on this yesoid that everyone has the zelba zchusim.

We're holding by a geferliche machlolkes being machria if this medina, or an andere medina made in the same oifen and with the same machshovos, can have a kiyum. We are all mitztaref on the daled amos where a chalois of that machloikes happened in order to be mechabed the soldiers who dinged zich with each other. We are here to be koiveia chotsh a chelek of that karka as a kever the bekavodike soldiers who were moiser nefesh and were niftar to give a chiyus to our nation. Yashrus is mechayev us to do this.

Lemaise, hagam the velt won't be goires or machshiv what we speak out here, it's zicher not shayach for them to forget what they tued uf here. We are mechuyav to be meshabed ourselves to the melocha in which these soldiers made a haschala - that vibalt they were moiser nefesh for this eisek, we must be mamash torud in it - that we are all mekabel on ourselves to be moisif on their peula so that their maisim should not be a bracha levatulla - that Hashem should give the gantze oilam a naiya bren for cheirus - that a nation that shtams foon the oilam, by the oilam, for the oilam, will blaib fest ahd oilam.

Translation:


Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

[Letmethink]

In Jewish circles: 'religious' refers to how traditionally OBSERVANT one is, not to one's 'faith' or 'inner belief' or 'spiritual sense' - and measuring 'regular attendance' at synagogue doesn't precisely correlate, either.

Take all surveys that use 'weekly attendance' as a measure of 'religiosity' with a large grain of salt, when it comes to Jews.

Lol, not so different from the coc. When asked if John Doe was a faithful Christian, the answer was a definitive "yes" if he showed up Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday. Attendance is equated with faithfulness.

[agricola]

The hallmarks in the orthodox communities are keeping kosher and observing Shabbat (which doesn't include attending services, really).