Tangential in this case, Cootie. This particular shooter was triggered by, mainly, hate: hate for immigrants, hate for Jews, and most particularly and for this I lay the blame DIRECTLY at Donald Trump's doorstep: hate for the idea that 'the Jews' were enabling or assisting, non-white immigrants from non-English speaking cultures.
Which, of course, they are, through HIAS, which sees assisting immigrants (irrespective of race, religion, or color) as their mandate as Jews.
Love the stranger, for you were strangers in a strange land.
Leviticus 19:33-34 says, “When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”
Judaism and thinking about God
Re: Judaism and thinking about God
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: Judaism and thinking about God
I understanding blaming of Trump. He is very vocal and all over the news and personally I don't think he helps his cause with the broader audience with some of the things he says or how he delivers them.
Unfortunately, hatred for immigrants and particularly Jews is nothing new. Through history they have been the target of hate and being seen as responsible for ills in society from witchcraft in the dark to middle ages to financial problems early in the twentieth century (results are quite evident and horrific). We also see the internet and the ability to seem larger than a group really is because of a presence on the internet and the relative anonymity it can provide. We also see, with the internet as well, state sponsors of jewish hate and in our own country people such as Louis Farrakhan just recently calling Jews termites all of which fuels an ignorant or irrational emotion into an actionable and devastating act of violence. I do not like it and pray for peace and understanding.
I agree Trump doesn't always help but I also think there is a lot of other information out there just as enabling if not more enabling to the cause of pure unadulterated hate not to mention history and the lack of understanding or lack of knowledge about that history.
It must be very unsettling for Jewish people more now living. I know history has shown Jews to be walking around with a perpetual target on their backs, and it is sad to say that in the U.S. the target seems to be getting larger and clearer for those that wish to do evil. Sad for all. These senseless and irrational acts of violence only serve to cloud the discussion and maybe that is the ultimate intention.
Unfortunately, hatred for immigrants and particularly Jews is nothing new. Through history they have been the target of hate and being seen as responsible for ills in society from witchcraft in the dark to middle ages to financial problems early in the twentieth century (results are quite evident and horrific). We also see the internet and the ability to seem larger than a group really is because of a presence on the internet and the relative anonymity it can provide. We also see, with the internet as well, state sponsors of jewish hate and in our own country people such as Louis Farrakhan just recently calling Jews termites all of which fuels an ignorant or irrational emotion into an actionable and devastating act of violence. I do not like it and pray for peace and understanding.
I agree Trump doesn't always help but I also think there is a lot of other information out there just as enabling if not more enabling to the cause of pure unadulterated hate not to mention history and the lack of understanding or lack of knowledge about that history.
It must be very unsettling for Jewish people more now living. I know history has shown Jews to be walking around with a perpetual target on their backs, and it is sad to say that in the U.S. the target seems to be getting larger and clearer for those that wish to do evil. Sad for all. These senseless and irrational acts of violence only serve to cloud the discussion and maybe that is the ultimate intention.
Re: Judaism and thinking about God
I agree. Though the shooter was not Trump supporter, I too lay blame Trump for his apparent bigotry against Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Hondurans and Blacks as He and his father was accused of by the US Government. I note his attempt to go easy on white supremacists in Charlotte. Those guys are killers. Their chant was "Blood and Soil Blood and Soil The Jews will not replace us." It is a translation of a Nazi chant in German. I like your quote as it gives God's attitude which reflects Christ's as well.agricola wrote:This particular shooter was triggered by, mainly, hate: hate for immigrants, hate for Jews, and most particularly and for this I lay the blame DIRECTLY at Donald Trump's doorstep: hate for the idea that 'the Jews' were enabling or assisting, non-white immigrants from non-English speaking cultures.
Which, of course, they are, through HIAS, which sees assisting immigrants (irrespective of race, religion, or color) as their mandate as Jews.
Love the stranger, for you were strangers in a strange land.
Leviticus 19:33-34 says, “When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”
Re: Judaism and thinking about God
So - back to 'thinking about God'.
So many times, I hear people saying - or implying - that without belief in God, there is no morality - that, in the words of Doestoevsky (I think): 'without God, everything is permitted'. I have even had people tell me flat out, that if they didn't believe God was watching them, they would certainly murder, steal, rape and otherwise be despicable (by the way, when people tell me that, I do my best to avoid them VERY CAREFULLY...).
so here we come around again - and this probably also tied into the confusing fact that there is such a thing as a 'Jewish atheist' (there is certainly no such thing as a 'Christian atheist'):
So many times, I hear people saying - or implying - that without belief in God, there is no morality - that, in the words of Doestoevsky (I think): 'without God, everything is permitted'. I have even had people tell me flat out, that if they didn't believe God was watching them, they would certainly murder, steal, rape and otherwise be despicable (by the way, when people tell me that, I do my best to avoid them VERY CAREFULLY...).
so here we come around again - and this probably also tied into the confusing fact that there is such a thing as a 'Jewish atheist' (there is certainly no such thing as a 'Christian atheist'):
Many people today begin their conversations about religion with the proverbial question “Do you believe in God ?” But Judaism understands that if that question is the first one, then people who cannot answer yes will not be able to begin the journey. That is why the question “Do you believe in God?” is not the central Jewish spiritual question. It is not an illegitimate question; Jews are certainly not forbidden to ask it. But Judaism has chosen a different emphasis, a focus not on belief, but on faith. Jewish life is interested not in proving God’s existence, but in feeling God’s presence. Judaism is interested not in philosophic arguments for God, but in what modem Jewish philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) called moments of “awe and wonder,” moments when God suddenly seems close.
From Belief to Faith | My Jewish Learning
R. Gordis
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: Judaism and thinking about God
Yes!Jewish life is interested not in proving God’s existence, but in feeling God’s presence. Judaism is interested not in philosophic arguments for God, but in what modem Jewish philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) called moments of “awe and wonder,” moments when God suddenly seems close.
Re: Judaism and thinking about God
Random stuff - here is a post by a young rabbi who teaches kids at a religious day school - he teaches Torah, Talmud etc - nice young man.
He is also the founder and moderator (one of them) of a MAJOR international private facebook group, with over 10 thousand members (no lie) most of them orthodox.
I learn a LOT in that group, and find some of it totally non-comprehensible, never mind the guys that invariably post in Hebrew because enough of the world's orthodox Jews know Hebrew that they have no trouble with it (I do, I have to ask my husband half the time).
So today, my young (really, he's barely 20's) friend posted this about his class today (yesterday, actually) and it is a fairly typical (and well done) explication of the story of baby Moses...
The comments were pretty good too.
He is also the founder and moderator (one of them) of a MAJOR international private facebook group, with over 10 thousand members (no lie) most of them orthodox.
I learn a LOT in that group, and find some of it totally non-comprehensible, never mind the guys that invariably post in Hebrew because enough of the world's orthodox Jews know Hebrew that they have no trouble with it (I do, I have to ask my husband half the time).
So today, my young (really, he's barely 20's) friend posted this about his class today (yesterday, actually) and it is a fairly typical (and well done) explication of the story of baby Moses...
What strikes me first and strongest, I think, is something I myself have felt ever since I began to 'learn Torah' with a group instead of reading it alone - and I too, of course, 'knew the story perfectly well'! - that, sometimes, you read that story you know 'perfectly well' and Lo and Behold! Suddenly you understand it in a WHOLE NEW WAY.I'm really really grateful that I've had the opportunity this year to teach a story I thought I knew really well, Parshat Shemot. I've only done 2-3 perakim this year so far, (depending on the class) but here's some things I've never picked up on before that came out while I was teaching.
1. The beginning of Shemot is extremely women-centered to a degree that I don't think is matched anywhere else in Tanach.
-Every "good guy" character at the beginning of the story is a woman. The midwives who defy Pharoah. The mother who hides her baby in the Basket. The sister who watches her brother in the river. The daughter of Pharoah who is with her "נערות“ when she sees the basket. The handmaid who retrieves the basket (according to the peshat reading) and the sister and mother again, who arrange for the boy's mother to be his wet nurse. (because I run a text skills focused class, this is excellent, because it gives us a lot of practice with feminine prefixes and suffixes that are relatively rare elsewhere)
-there also seems to be a stress on jobs dealing with and staffed by women in the biblical mileu, particularly those dealing with childbirth and children, with the midwives and wet nurses.
I think it's possible that when Chazal make mention of women playing a crucial role in the geulah they're drawing off a theme in the peshat.
2. The intro we get to Moshe, probably Chumash's main character, is interesting, because it seems to be stressing one very particular character trait. He sees a Jew being beat, he intervenes. He sees two Jews fighting, he intervenes. He sees shepherds beating up the daughters of Yitro, he intervenes. The Torah *really* wants us to think of Moshe in a certain way, as someone who acts when he sees injustice. That's the only thing it really wants to tell us about Moshe's "origin story".
3. That said, a student asked a really interesting question. The passuk says that Moshe began his career of sticking up for the oppressed Jews only upon his growing up. It even seems to imply that this was an extremely sudden development (after the story where he kills the Egyptian, it says ויצא ביום השני, And He went out on the second day, seeming to imply this was just the second day of his hero career). Where was he until now? Was he just unaware of the fact that Jews (his own people! He must have found out at some point!) were being enslaved? How could he be? Was he just living in the palace, in the lap of privilege, and then something clicked?
4. With that in mind, let me suggest something a little bold. The two people who are fighting, who Moshe tells to stop, and then they rudely go "who put you in charge" and threaten to rat him out? Maybe they have a point. Maybe they're saying "hey, Mr. Hero, you can't just come down from the palace after never getting whipped in your life and assume that just because you did one good thing you get to be king of the Jews and preach solidarity at us." and maybe this is less, "wow, people sucked" and more "Moshe needed to learn some lessons about leadership.". The next time he saves people, The Midianite Priest's daughters, he makes no attempt to do anything further. He doesn't even come home with them until their father says hey, why didn't you bring home for lunch? Maybe that's also why he's so insistent, in his conversation with Hashem at the burning bush, that the people won't believe him. It's not that he's denying God's power, he just thinks that, without them having any prior relationship with him at all, he has no foundation for them to trust him.
5. The biggest theme of all of it, I think, is empathy. Pharoah has no empathy for B'nei Yisrael, and paints them as an other, an outsider, a them. Every successive story is a "repair" of that breach. The midwives have empathy for the babies. Bat Pharoah has empathy for the baby in the basket. The Sister has empathy for Bat Pharaoh needing a wet nurse. And then Moshe's intervening on behalf of all the people as we mentioned before. And then Hashem hears, k'viyachol, the cries of B'nei Yisrael. Empathy repairs what Pharoah broke.
Scattered things:
1. Why does the sister stress that she has a Hebrew wet nurse available? It could be that she was offering a Hebrew wet nurse for the Hebrew baby. But a darker possibility: Because all the baby boys were being killed, there were a lot of Hebrew women available for wet nursing.
2. The wonderful subtlety and economy of using The Midianite Priest asking his daughters why they got home so early to tell us that their getting bullied at the well is a daily occurrence.
The comments were pretty good too.
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: Judaism and thinking about God
Really good commentary!
Re: Judaism and thinking about God
Bumping this up, because - darn it - Akiva's commentary on the first section of Exodus IS pretty darned good!
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: Judaism and thinking about God
It is 5782 - a new year!
We are in the Ten Days - the period from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur. In Jewish - what is the word I want? - metaphor? - God is in God's palace, on the Throne - having arrived on Rosh Hashana - and God is currently judging everybody, for the acts in the past year.
The Book of Judgment is open, and the appropriate angelic court flunkies are doing their things - the satan angel is pointing out everyone's faults and failures, and the defense angels are pointing out the good efforts and successes. We are each being 'balanced and weighed', and we have this LAST SHORT PERIOD OF TIME before the Book closes at the end of Yom Kippur (next Thursday) to influence the final decision:
Who shall live and who shall die (and how) before the next year.
The idea is, God always is ready to forgive offenses against GOD - but only the 'part' of the offenses that are against God, not the part that are against our fellows. It is up to each of us to seek forgiveness from other people. Our actions affect, mostly, other people, and it is other people who must be approached for forgiveness.
Also, true repentance requires that we make a GOOD FAITH EFFORT to set right whatever we did that wrongfully affected our fellow person. In other words, 'being sorry' is NOT enough. You have to 'be sorry' AND 'fix it'.
Relevant to Christians, here, is the story Jesus says to his apostles, that even if they are already walking their sacrificial animal to the altar, if they have some argument or problem with 'your brother', they need to stop right there and go fix THAT, before completing their 'ritual' task of sacrifice.
Exact same idea.
There is also the teaching that forgiving OTHER people is, itself, a positive act. Being 'unforgiving' towards the truly repentant is - almost literally - unforgivable.
That said - it is ALSO considered nearly sinful to forgive people who are NOT sorry about their actions. How can someone be forgiven without they, themselves, repenting of their actions?
We also have the belief that forgiveness is only effective from the person who was offended. The routine habit of many Christians of expressing 'forgiveness' toward someone who committed some sin (like murder or assault) against SOMEBODY OTHER THAN YOURSELF is simply outlandish thinking and totally inappropriate, to a Jew. How can Joe forgive Marty for something Marty did to JANE? Only Jane has the right to forgive Marty - and she should not forgive Marty unless Marty is both a) sorry he did it (repentant) AND b) trying to make things right/return Jane to her original condition.
Joe was not offended. Joe has no 'right' (no standing) to forgive Marty for acts Marty committed against other people. Joe can only forgive Marty for the secondary affects of Marty's actions on society in general.
Pursuant to that:
This is an online forum, and we frequently see that - without the clues of spoken word and faces - the written word can be taken in different ways, some of them unintended.
On this forum, I have never (I hope) DELIBERATELY INTENDED to offend anybody.
However, it is possible that I may have done so, anyway.
If so, I am truly sorry that I didn't take enough time in writing a response, to make sure it was clear enough. I have been careless. I am trying to be more thoughtful of my answers (or at least, to remember to read the darned thing OVER before I post it!).
Anybody offended by my words over the past year, I am asking forgiveness from each of you. I am sorry. It was unintentional. I am attempting to be more aware of ambiguities in writing, and be a clearer, better, responder.
We are in the Ten Days - the period from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur. In Jewish - what is the word I want? - metaphor? - God is in God's palace, on the Throne - having arrived on Rosh Hashana - and God is currently judging everybody, for the acts in the past year.
The Book of Judgment is open, and the appropriate angelic court flunkies are doing their things - the satan angel is pointing out everyone's faults and failures, and the defense angels are pointing out the good efforts and successes. We are each being 'balanced and weighed', and we have this LAST SHORT PERIOD OF TIME before the Book closes at the end of Yom Kippur (next Thursday) to influence the final decision:
Who shall live and who shall die (and how) before the next year.
The idea is, God always is ready to forgive offenses against GOD - but only the 'part' of the offenses that are against God, not the part that are against our fellows. It is up to each of us to seek forgiveness from other people. Our actions affect, mostly, other people, and it is other people who must be approached for forgiveness.
Also, true repentance requires that we make a GOOD FAITH EFFORT to set right whatever we did that wrongfully affected our fellow person. In other words, 'being sorry' is NOT enough. You have to 'be sorry' AND 'fix it'.
Relevant to Christians, here, is the story Jesus says to his apostles, that even if they are already walking their sacrificial animal to the altar, if they have some argument or problem with 'your brother', they need to stop right there and go fix THAT, before completing their 'ritual' task of sacrifice.
Exact same idea.
There is also the teaching that forgiving OTHER people is, itself, a positive act. Being 'unforgiving' towards the truly repentant is - almost literally - unforgivable.
That said - it is ALSO considered nearly sinful to forgive people who are NOT sorry about their actions. How can someone be forgiven without they, themselves, repenting of their actions?
We also have the belief that forgiveness is only effective from the person who was offended. The routine habit of many Christians of expressing 'forgiveness' toward someone who committed some sin (like murder or assault) against SOMEBODY OTHER THAN YOURSELF is simply outlandish thinking and totally inappropriate, to a Jew. How can Joe forgive Marty for something Marty did to JANE? Only Jane has the right to forgive Marty - and she should not forgive Marty unless Marty is both a) sorry he did it (repentant) AND b) trying to make things right/return Jane to her original condition.
Joe was not offended. Joe has no 'right' (no standing) to forgive Marty for acts Marty committed against other people. Joe can only forgive Marty for the secondary affects of Marty's actions on society in general.
Pursuant to that:
This is an online forum, and we frequently see that - without the clues of spoken word and faces - the written word can be taken in different ways, some of them unintended.
On this forum, I have never (I hope) DELIBERATELY INTENDED to offend anybody.
However, it is possible that I may have done so, anyway.
If so, I am truly sorry that I didn't take enough time in writing a response, to make sure it was clear enough. I have been careless. I am trying to be more thoughtful of my answers (or at least, to remember to read the darned thing OVER before I post it!).
Anybody offended by my words over the past year, I am asking forgiveness from each of you. I am sorry. It was unintentional. I am attempting to be more aware of ambiguities in writing, and be a clearer, better, responder.
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: Judaism and thinking about God
Hello again! I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving - within the constraints of good sense and responsibility - toward turkey and pumpkin pie at least!
This year, we felt able to travel, able to join family (cousins, NOT siblings!) and just BE together (along with a serious amount of eating).
It was great, and my husband and I are already on our planned diet to deal with the after affects. But it was, indeed, a LONG drive! Next year, we think the venue will be must closer to home, and we are BEYOND grateful that this set of cousins reached out to us early on, as soon as we moved here, to include us in their own long standing family tradition of sharing Thanksgiving.
Heaven knows, my SISTER never did any such thing. Not even when we were IN Nashville for our stepmom's FUNERAL, she didn't invite us to join her family for Thanksgiving.
We ate at a restaurant.
Did I mention that my brother in law is an Elder and my sister is an Elder's Wife? (yes, capital letters, because that is a Real Occupational Position in a Church of Christ).
We saw my sister in June, when we traveled to her house for lunch one day when we were in the area (why am I always the one making these arrangements?). We had a pleasant enough - though superficial in conversation - lunch. Both of us rapidly backed off when a president's name seemed to be hovering imminently in the conversation! Whew.
My high school reunion had been pushed back a year due to Covid, as so many things have been.
This year, we felt able to travel, able to join family (cousins, NOT siblings!) and just BE together (along with a serious amount of eating).
It was great, and my husband and I are already on our planned diet to deal with the after affects. But it was, indeed, a LONG drive! Next year, we think the venue will be must closer to home, and we are BEYOND grateful that this set of cousins reached out to us early on, as soon as we moved here, to include us in their own long standing family tradition of sharing Thanksgiving.
Heaven knows, my SISTER never did any such thing. Not even when we were IN Nashville for our stepmom's FUNERAL, she didn't invite us to join her family for Thanksgiving.
We ate at a restaurant.
Did I mention that my brother in law is an Elder and my sister is an Elder's Wife? (yes, capital letters, because that is a Real Occupational Position in a Church of Christ).
We saw my sister in June, when we traveled to her house for lunch one day when we were in the area (why am I always the one making these arrangements?). We had a pleasant enough - though superficial in conversation - lunch. Both of us rapidly backed off when a president's name seemed to be hovering imminently in the conversation! Whew.
My high school reunion had been pushed back a year due to Covid, as so many things have been.
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.