Ask about Judaism

[agricola]

For fun and for moderators everywhere:

What are your main feelings towards the moderators?

Abject gratitude
A normal amount of gratitude
Normal respect
Grudging respect
Apathy
Simmering resentment
Outright hatred
What's a moderator?
Other:

ahem.

[agricola]

From a blog post by a young father converting to Judaism from LDS last year -

Conversion to Judaism is, wisely I think, not a quick process. In Mormonism, someone can go from knowing absolutely nothing to being a member in a month’s time: Listen to a half-dozen lessons, attend church a few times, pass a couple of interviews, take a trip to the baptismal font, and you’re in.

Conversion to Judaism requires at least a yearlong process of classes, attending services, and participating in the full array of Jewish holidays throughout the year. You are implored to read as widely as possible and to ask and discuss any and all questions; where Mormonism restricts information and presents itself as a religion that knows all the relevant answers about the life to come, Judaism overflows with information, loves questions for their own sake, and busies itself living out the questions of the present.

[agricola]

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day.

My MIL lost her entire family, starved to death in Lodz ghetto. She was left alone, a child of about thirteen. My FIL lost his sister and all her family at Auschwitz, and spent years in Nazi work camps along with his parents and brothers. His grandparents (in their 90's!) were deported and murdered at Auschwitz.

Today, seventy-plus years after the end of World War II, the Jewish population of the world HAS NOT YET recovered to the numbers before the war.

Not yet recovered the pre-war population, in the entire world. In seventy years (three and four generations).
Think about that.

[gordie91]

I wish more people would think about that.

It is a sad thing to think, after such a terrible event in human history, that humans have not remembered that event enough to end hatred against fellow humans. May all all those lives always be remembered.

[teresa]

Thank you for the reminder, agricola.

[SolaDude]

That is so horrible, Agricola. We saw the adult's and children's bronze shoes memorial by the river in Budapest where adults and children were bound together in groups of 3 facing one another and thrown in the river to drown by the Nazis. They were told to take off their shoes first. To save bullets, only one of the 3 was shot in the head to provide the dead weight to drown the other two. I hope the Holocaust is never forgotten and I wish all kids in the world were educated about it while very young so they would never forget it.

[B.H.]

My uncle by marriage had Jewish grandparents that emmigrated from Germany in the 1920's. After World War Two my uncle's father and grandfather went back to Europe to find his brothers,sisters, aunts and uncles and cousins. They could not find a one. And lots of them lived in the smller towns of Germany not likely to have been bombed or bombed a great deal. Many of these relatives were before the war living in areas still under German control when President Donitz later surrendered the country later. However, they were no where to be seen..

People can argue how many were gassed, shot or starved or allowed to die of disease. In the end it really doesn't matter how they died but the fact they were murdered for no good reason.

And there were lots of gypsies killed as well as captured American POW blacks and also lots of Russian prisoners of war. Shameful.

[agricola]

Question: do Jews believe that Genesis 1:1 is true?.
I should have re-read this after posting. No I am NOT in group 2!
I asked for and got permission from Dr. Mescheloff to quote his answer, from a question on Quora:

Do orthodox rabbis believe in 6-day creation of the universe?
David Mescheloff
David Mescheloff, Ph.D. mathematics, Ph.D. Talmud, Orthodox community rabbi and organizer of rabbis


The only thing one can say with certainty about this is that all of us Orthodox rabbis see the “science-Torah conflict” as a non-problem. That is because there are three entire “families” of ways to resolve the pseudo-problem. Different rabbis have different preferences - given that we agree on so much that is fundamental, it is no surprise that we disagree on some details.

Here is a brief outline of the three families. One way to present this is as follows: If we label with the letter A the position that “the scientific descriptions of cosmology, astronomy, and evolution etc. are correct”, and with the letter B the position that “the Torah’s description of the creation of our universe, understood literally, is correct”, and if we reject the possibility that both A and B are false, then there are three possibilities remaining: A is true and B is false; A is false and B is true; both A and B are true. Let’s take them one at a time.

1 A is true and B is false. Then it is sufficient to say that the Torah’s description is not to be taken literally. One way to do that will be stated in 3 below. Another way is to interpret the terms in such a way that they correspond to scientific understanding. So, for example, a - “Let there be light” may be an expression of the transcendental God’s creation ex nihilo of space-time-matter-energy in “The Big Bang”, b - the term “day” in Genesis does not mean 24 hours, but rather a long period of time defined by what God created in the course of that time - perhaps billions of years, c - the creation of human beings from “the dust of the earth” is a way of describing human beings’ development from earlier living creatures who did not create sustainable human cultures (a suggestion by Chief Rabbi Herz of England some sixty years ago or more). This approach is represented well by Professor Nathan Aviezer, who has written more than one book on the topic (look them up!). This is not an unreasonable position.

2 A is false and B is true. This is a position held by many, especially among Habad. This is a highly valuable position specifically from a scientific perspective, for it forces those who favor the scientific approach to examine their principles. For example, it is an unproven matter of faith among scientists that the measured rates of natural processes can be projected backwards in time almost indefinitely, without considering the possibility that they had a starting point somehow “in the middle”. Or, an as yet unresolved problem, is how a visual organ such as an eye could “evolve” when the slightest change in it makes it completely non-functional. It is legitimate for scientists to hold these assumptions, but it is also only fair to note that there are elements of faith in the scientific approach to matters of creation no less than there are in people’s faith in the literal truth of the Torah’s description. One scientist who pursued this approach was Professor Yirmiyah Branover, who held interesting conferences on these questions (look him up!).

3 Both A and B are true, because each addresses an entirely different sphere of human understanding. The scientific approach attempts to understand the laws of material nature, in the context of our space-time-matter-energy universe. But the Torah is not a scientific textbook - not of cosmology, astronomy, biology ,etc. Rather it aims to teach us healthy moral attitudes towards ourselves, towards each other, towards our material world, and towards God. Thus the creation story speaks of a world being made by God intentionally, in a fundamentally rational, ordered fashion, with the apparent aim of having a relationship with human beings. This is in stark contrast to ancient and modern approaches that see the world as the result of power struggles between gods, and random, uncaring forces. Also, our world is described again and again as a good place - in stark contrast to some Eastern approaches that see this world as a place of pain and suffering, with escape into nothingness as the highest goal a human being can strive for. Another example - men and women, while created with some differences, are fundamentally two parts of a single creation - a human being, who cannot be whole if only a man (or a woman). Etc. etc. etc.

There are Orthodox rabbis, and Orthodox Jews, who prefer different solutions to the pseudo-problem, with variations within each approach, or even combinations of the different approaches. Some even embrace the notion of evolution, as an expression of God’s making the world a better place gradually (this notion can be found in the writings of Rabbi Abraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook”.

So take your pick. Each approach has features to recommend it. And like every human understanding of everything, each has some weaknesses, too.

[SolaDude]

That is very interesting, agricola....it seems that what you have just shared seems to support the proposition that any belief or "conclusion" construct on the things and matters of this life, whether they be scientific, religious, atheistic, agnostic, etc. beliefs or conclusions, all have some dimension of faith underpinning the construct. So, mere possibilities for some are regarded by others as "more likely", i.e., as probabilities. But when some view their own beliefs as certainties which "stand alone", i.e., are mutually exclusive from any other belief constructs, it can be seen that in reality such is not so, that in all belief constructs, one can find some shared or "explainable" similarities as well inherent strengths and weaknesses. So, it gets down to an individual's own decision of belief. And that decision is fluid with time and over one's entire lifetime, he or she may change those belief constructs more than once. But since it seems everyone needs a rudder to guide them, it would be difficult to conceive of someone going through life without any belief construct at all, and perhaps the human psyche inherently requires the presence of some kind of belief construct for survival, ISTM.

[agricola]

Why are there no more prophets?
Because we don't need them any more -
from Quora, an answer from Elke -

During a dispute, one rabbi asked God to decide between the parties. A heavenly voice said that Rabbi was right.

Rabbi Joshua stood on his feet and said: "The Torah is not in heaven!"... We take no notice of heavenly voices, since You, G‑d, have already, at Sinai, written in the Torah to 'follow the majority.'"

Rabbi Nathan subsequently met Elijah the Prophet and asked him: "What did G‑d do at that moment?" [Elijah] replied: "He smiled and said: 'My children have triumphed over Me, My children have triumphed over Me.'

We have the Holy Books, we have the tradition, we have debate.

We have no more need of prophets. God gave us all info needed.

Hence, Jews established non-prophets, I mean, non-profits to care for the community

Jews believe God LIKES it when we argue with Him, and that argument ('dialog') is the best way to determine the best course of action - it is called 'arguments for the sake of Heaven' and it is the normal way of Jewish study - get a partner, and start arguing about what this verse means, what this WORD means, what ALL the possible meanings would mean...