Ivy said:You rock, AlexandraB.
How very kind....!
I'm getting lots of Reps...
you don't know how much this means to me....!
No, really, you don't!!
It means I am finally 'younger' in years than my Reps!!
yay me!!!
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Any Jews on this forum
- Thread starter Exegete12
- Start date
How very kind....!
I'm getting lots of Reps...
you don't know how much this means to me....!
No, really, you don't!!
It means I am finally 'younger' in years than my Reps!!
yay me!!!
The Jews in Israel. Although I couldn't understand a few of the technical terms in your posted article, yeah I can see where you are coming from. By the way what do people here think about the lost 10 tribes of Israel, and how they will return to Israel and Israel will not be big enough to manage the population and it will spill out into Lebanon? In the book of Ezekial it talks about it. I have been studying it with interest and gaining a lot of insight from the British Israelite theory to the Jewish connection with King Saul's descendants from Afghanistan etc areas saying they are the lost tribes.
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stillsmallvoice
The Narn rule!
- May 8, 2002
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Hi all (and this includes all the newcomers)!
I 'pologize for not posting yesterday; I got swamped at work & then spent my evening http://www.christianforums.com/t2487806-nfl-playoffs-afc.html&page=4#post21438684.
JosephStalin, my first question is, why did you choose a such a username? He was as big a mass-murderer as Hitler & Mao.
The quote in my signature is from "The Lion in Winter"; see http://tinyurl.com/bvskq (turn your speakers on!).
It's not that we orthodox wouldn't consider you Jewish, it's that you're not a Jew, simple as that.
Good in & of itself but normative, traditional, historic (i.e. orthodox) Judaism has never been an everyone-for-him/herself religion.
Well, sorry to disappoint you but DW & I will probably vote for Sharon's new party. There is nobody else who can lead the country. Labor's Amir Peretz, tho' he'll make things much more exciting than they've been in years, is a Bolshevik in social democratic clothing. I voted for the late Yitzhak Rabin & Labor in 1992 and then for Labor's Ehud Barak in 1999 and I'm not about to touch that hot stove a third time (my fingers still hurt). And the Likud, or rather I should say, the truncated vestige of what used to be the Likud, has veered sharply to the right & has chosen Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu (whom I heartily despise) to lead the party. The images that spring to mind is that of a dog returning to its vomit and a rabbit to its excrement, and lemmings going off a cliff.
About Netanyahu. He was a good enough Finance Minister & was great as our UN Ambassador way back but as Prime Minister, he was a disaster (he made the cover of The Economist under the headline "Israel's Serial Bungler") and neatly proved the Peter Principle. People voted for Ehud Barak & Labor in 1999 not because they loved Barak & Labor so much as they were disgusted by Bibi (as he is universally called). I, like many of my fellow Israelis, find him insufferably arrogant & smarmy. As PM, as head of the Likud, he preferred to surround himself with yes-men, non-entites or political newcomers, i.e. nobody who could possibly threaten him. Any senior Likud figure who was not a yes-man, a nonentity or a newbie, he either marginalized or drove out of the party (many of these latter formed the ill-fated and long since defunct Center Party). And the Likud paid a terrible price for the havoc that Bibi wrought, being left with a mere 19 seats in the 1999 drubbing. In fact, the only senior national Likud figure who was not a yes-man, a nonentity or a newbie that Bibi didn't alienate & drive away was Ariel Sharon (Ehud Olmert was Mayor of Jerusalem at the time). Bibi didn't get rid of him because everybody had written him off for politically dead (and buried & decomposed!). When Sharon was elected Likud Chairman after the 1999 shellacking, everybody saw him as a neutral, over-the-hill has-been who would merely be a caretaker until someone else (Olmert maybe) could take over. Nobody could ever have predicted in a million, billion, gazillion years that Ehud Barak would implode so spectacularly, that Sharon would not only actually lead the Likud (as opposed to being a mere caretaker), but would resurrect both it and himself, would crush Barak in the 2001 special election (for Prime Minister only; we experimented with a hybrid electoral system for a few years), would the Likud to a whopping victory in the 2003 general elections (see http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Modern+History/Historic+Events/Elections+in+Israel+March+2006.htm for a nice read on how our electoral system works) in which it doubled its Knesset representation from (Bibi's 1999) 19 to 38 (!) and would reinvent himself as a centrist/moderate.
Even if PM Sharon survives, he'll never recoverm, at least not well enough to return to active politics & leadership. Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is it. By default, he will be the one to lead Kadima in the March 28 elections, for good or ill. Kadima barely exists and can ill afford a leadership contest (bruising or otherwise) right now. Under Sharon, Kadima would've been a benevolent dictatorship. Olmert does/will not have that kind of gravitas and status. At best, he will be primus inter pares. The collection of (mainly, but not exclusively, ex-Likud) cast-offs & refugees known as Kadima will now have to put together a platform and a list of candidates from scratch, among themselves, in a collective effort (instead of accepting Sharon's fiat), without letting their egos get in the way. I think (I'm hoping!) that they'll be able to pull it off because these people have just been thrown headlong into the deep water. They've got to learn to swim (and fast) or drown. They've long since crossed their political Rubicons & there's no going back (to Likud, Labor, wherever) for them. They've got to get organized as Kadima, make Kadima work and move forward because the alternative is political oblivion & I think that the prospect of political oblivion can be a powerful kick-in-the-backside. Likud has veered to the right. Labor is led by a non-entity & is spouting the dead platitudes of Oslo as if the past 5 years of violence never happened. There is/was a large potential constituency for Kadima. Olmert & Co. will have to capture as much of the tremendous confidence that this constituency had in Sharon as they can & hope that the people who were prepared to follow Sharon will be willing to give them a try. Personally, I've never liked Olmert much. I thought he was a lousy mayor of Jerusalem. But I've got nowhere else to go & to quote Messrs. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, "If you can't be with the one you love, then love the one you're with." Olmert's it. I just hope & pray that he and his Kadima colleagues can rise to the occasion. Here's some American history for you. I'm hoping that Ehud Olmert will show himself to be something like US Pres. Chester Arthur, i.e. a political hack who became leader by default & transformed himself into quite the statesman (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_A._Arthur).
These (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1070-1976381,00.html & http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/14/AR2006011400004.html) are the best op-ed/analysis pieces I've seen on the whole thing.
Loser party? The latest crop of polls show Kadima getting an average of 42 seats (in the 120-seat Knesset) to Labor's 17 & Likud's 14.
Not to be curt or smart-alecky, but who cares what the Native Americans do? Why should we change traditions which have helped preserve us as a people merely because some other group has done so? Judaism is not a supermarket faith. Rather than mold the faith to fit the believer, it is the believer who must mold him/herself to fit the faith.
There is no such thing as a "cultural Jew". Either one is a Jew or one is not. Neither culture nor beliefs have anything to do with it.
Howzat?
Be well!
ssv
I 'pologize for not posting yesterday; I got swamped at work & then spent my evening http://www.christianforums.com/t2487806-nfl-playoffs-afc.html&page=4#post21438684.
JosephStalin, my first question is, why did you choose a such a username? He was as big a mass-murderer as Hitler & Mao.
The quote in my signature is from "The Lion in Winter"; see http://tinyurl.com/bvskq (turn your speakers on!).
JosephStalin said:
It's not that we orthodox wouldn't consider you Jewish, it's that you're not a Jew, simple as that.
JosephStalin said:
Good in & of itself but normative, traditional, historic (i.e. orthodox) Judaism has never been an everyone-for-him/herself religion.
Well, sorry to disappoint you but DW & I will probably vote for Sharon's new party. There is nobody else who can lead the country. Labor's Amir Peretz, tho' he'll make things much more exciting than they've been in years, is a Bolshevik in social democratic clothing. I voted for the late Yitzhak Rabin & Labor in 1992 and then for Labor's Ehud Barak in 1999 and I'm not about to touch that hot stove a third time (my fingers still hurt). And the Likud, or rather I should say, the truncated vestige of what used to be the Likud, has veered sharply to the right & has chosen Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu (whom I heartily despise) to lead the party. The images that spring to mind is that of a dog returning to its vomit and a rabbit to its excrement, and lemmings going off a cliff.
About Netanyahu. He was a good enough Finance Minister & was great as our UN Ambassador way back but as Prime Minister, he was a disaster (he made the cover of The Economist under the headline "Israel's Serial Bungler") and neatly proved the Peter Principle. People voted for Ehud Barak & Labor in 1999 not because they loved Barak & Labor so much as they were disgusted by Bibi (as he is universally called). I, like many of my fellow Israelis, find him insufferably arrogant & smarmy. As PM, as head of the Likud, he preferred to surround himself with yes-men, non-entites or political newcomers, i.e. nobody who could possibly threaten him. Any senior Likud figure who was not a yes-man, a nonentity or a newbie, he either marginalized or drove out of the party (many of these latter formed the ill-fated and long since defunct Center Party). And the Likud paid a terrible price for the havoc that Bibi wrought, being left with a mere 19 seats in the 1999 drubbing. In fact, the only senior national Likud figure who was not a yes-man, a nonentity or a newbie that Bibi didn't alienate & drive away was Ariel Sharon (Ehud Olmert was Mayor of Jerusalem at the time). Bibi didn't get rid of him because everybody had written him off for politically dead (and buried & decomposed!). When Sharon was elected Likud Chairman after the 1999 shellacking, everybody saw him as a neutral, over-the-hill has-been who would merely be a caretaker until someone else (Olmert maybe) could take over. Nobody could ever have predicted in a million, billion, gazillion years that Ehud Barak would implode so spectacularly, that Sharon would not only actually lead the Likud (as opposed to being a mere caretaker), but would resurrect both it and himself, would crush Barak in the 2001 special election (for Prime Minister only; we experimented with a hybrid electoral system for a few years), would the Likud to a whopping victory in the 2003 general elections (see http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Modern+History/Historic+Events/Elections+in+Israel+March+2006.htm for a nice read on how our electoral system works) in which it doubled its Knesset representation from (Bibi's 1999) 19 to 38 (!) and would reinvent himself as a centrist/moderate.
Even if PM Sharon survives, he'll never recoverm, at least not well enough to return to active politics & leadership. Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is it. By default, he will be the one to lead Kadima in the March 28 elections, for good or ill. Kadima barely exists and can ill afford a leadership contest (bruising or otherwise) right now. Under Sharon, Kadima would've been a benevolent dictatorship. Olmert does/will not have that kind of gravitas and status. At best, he will be primus inter pares. The collection of (mainly, but not exclusively, ex-Likud) cast-offs & refugees known as Kadima will now have to put together a platform and a list of candidates from scratch, among themselves, in a collective effort (instead of accepting Sharon's fiat), without letting their egos get in the way. I think (I'm hoping!) that they'll be able to pull it off because these people have just been thrown headlong into the deep water. They've got to learn to swim (and fast) or drown. They've long since crossed their political Rubicons & there's no going back (to Likud, Labor, wherever) for them. They've got to get organized as Kadima, make Kadima work and move forward because the alternative is political oblivion & I think that the prospect of political oblivion can be a powerful kick-in-the-backside. Likud has veered to the right. Labor is led by a non-entity & is spouting the dead platitudes of Oslo as if the past 5 years of violence never happened. There is/was a large potential constituency for Kadima. Olmert & Co. will have to capture as much of the tremendous confidence that this constituency had in Sharon as they can & hope that the people who were prepared to follow Sharon will be willing to give them a try. Personally, I've never liked Olmert much. I thought he was a lousy mayor of Jerusalem. But I've got nowhere else to go & to quote Messrs. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, "If you can't be with the one you love, then love the one you're with." Olmert's it. I just hope & pray that he and his Kadima colleagues can rise to the occasion. Here's some American history for you. I'm hoping that Ehud Olmert will show himself to be something like US Pres. Chester Arthur, i.e. a political hack who became leader by default & transformed himself into quite the statesman (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_A._Arthur).
These (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1070-1976381,00.html & http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/14/AR2006011400004.html) are the best op-ed/analysis pieces I've seen on the whole thing.
Loser party? The latest crop of polls show Kadima getting an average of 42 seats (in the 120-seat Knesset) to Labor's 17 & Likud's 14.
JosephStalin said:
Not to be curt or smart-alecky, but who cares what the Native Americans do? Why should we change traditions which have helped preserve us as a people merely because some other group has done so? Judaism is not a supermarket faith. Rather than mold the faith to fit the believer, it is the believer who must mold him/herself to fit the faith.
alerj123 said:
There is no such thing as a "cultural Jew". Either one is a Jew or one is not. Neither culture nor beliefs have anything to do with it.
Howzat?
Be well!
ssv
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Talmidah
היום כולם יודעים - הרב כהנא צדק
JosephStalin said:
ssv gave you a good response. But I just reiterate what he said about you not being Jewish. Its not just the Orthodox who wouldn't consider you Jewish. Neither the Conservatives nor Reform would either. Conservatives follow matrilinear descent and, while the Reform do consider patrilinear descent, they consider someone Jewish who has either a Jewish father or mother AND has been raised as a Jew.
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arunma
Flaming Calvinist
AlexandraB said:How very kind....!
I'm getting lots of Reps...
you don't know how much this means to me....!
No, really, you don't!!
It means I am finally 'younger' in years than my Reps!!
yay me!!!
Not enough reps? I just gave you some more.
Ivy said:By the way, Happy Martin Luther King Day, everybody!
Thank you! It's one of my favorite holidays, actually. I'm just annoyed that I wasn't able to hear my pastor's racial harmony sermon (being out of town, and all).
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BlandOatmeal
Regular Member
Shalom ssm.
I'll forgive you if you forgive me. I'm totally erratic at following posts. You may see me again in a few minutes, or a few months or years.
Concerning your "Stalin" question, I used it on another forum, because it was the first handle that popped into my head that wasn't already in their registry. I would have use "Adolf Hitler", but I've seen so many Jews calling one another "Nazis" the past year, I'm sick of it. Stalin's OK -- He was an "equal opportunity" murderer; He didn't just pick on Jews.
You make me laugh, voice. You said this like a typical religious Jew. No, you're wrong. I am quite Jewish. I'm just not part of the ever-shrinking universe of people who think their little group has the right to define everyone else as this or that. But I accept you as Jewish, in spite of yourself. You're my kinsman, whether either of us likes it or not.
Here we go with definitions again. Apparently, you and yours are the judges of what is "normative, traditional & historic (i.e. one of you -- 5% of Jews today). True -- If someone doesn't agree with you, he's considered to be "not a Jew". Of course then, everyone you consider to be "Jewish" is higly conforming and non-individualistic. But if you were to consider Jews who really ARE Jews, you would find we are the most individualistic people on earth.
...so you're voting for Shimon Peres??? Oh well. If you really want a good laugh, I voted for George W. Bush. I was ready to vote for Kerry, but then Arafat and Bin Laden endorsed Kerry, so I had no choice
. I voted for the "Brown Shirt" Buchannan in the primary, because he and Nader were the only ones advocating tarriffs. I called Kadima the "Loser" party, because it's a haven for everyone who couldn't make it in his/her own party. Sharon lost to Netanyahu, Perres to Perez, and Lapid's men to that guy from Tel Aviv. Time will tell, whether they are "winners" or not at the elections. Whoever wins, I would gladly trade "W" for any of them... but wait! The Democrats have just had a breakout from the looney house! I'd better stick with "W".
C'mon, voice! please don't make me the only smart alec around here! I'll feel hurt!
Put it this way: You are clinging to traditions, rather than the Bible. Some of these were traditions my ancestors kept, but others were added on even since their day. Mishnah, Gemarah, the Gaon, Maimonides, Shulchan Aruch, Rebbe so-and-so... It never ends. You (and granted, my ancestors as well) keep adding tradition upon tradition because you're not stisfied with the Word of God in its wonderful simplicity. You Orthodox are the ones who keep changing traditions! I would that you would go back to Torah, and chuck the rest out the window! Do you want to have four sets of china? Fine! But don't go trying to stuff them down my throat. Why are there so many Israeli Jews who aren't Orthodox? Is it because they've been seduced by Christians? No -- There are hardly any Christians in Israel. If they were being seduced, it would be to become Moslems; but this isn't happening. No, the aren't being seduced to join some other religion. They're Jews,and many of them are Cohanim and Leviim -- the people God entrusted His law to (rather than to the rabbis, in His infinite wisdom). I think most of them would love to serve God, if it didn't mean having their lives micro-managed to the point that they are told whether they should sleep East-to-West or North-to-South!
Traditions?? Oh, would that we HAD the traditions of our forefathers, instead of all the changes the Orthodox have added on! But do I complain? No! Right? Right!
"Be well" to you too, good buddy. It's wonderful to have someone to talk to.
Shalom shalom
I'll forgive you if you forgive me. I'm totally erratic at following posts. You may see me again in a few minutes, or a few months or years.
Concerning your "Stalin" question, I used it on another forum, because it was the first handle that popped into my head that wasn't already in their registry. I would have use "Adolf Hitler", but I've seen so many Jews calling one another "Nazis" the past year, I'm sick of it. Stalin's OK -- He was an "equal opportunity" murderer; He didn't just pick on Jews.
It's not that we orthodox wouldn't consider you Jewish, it's that you're not a Jew, simple as that.
You make me laugh, voice. You said this like a typical religious Jew. No, you're wrong. I am quite Jewish. I'm just not part of the ever-shrinking universe of people who think their little group has the right to define everyone else as this or that. But I accept you as Jewish, in spite of yourself.
You're my kinsman, whether either of us likes it or not.Here we go with definitions again. Apparently, you and yours are the judges of what is "normative, traditional & historic (i.e. one of you -- 5% of Jews today). True -- If someone doesn't agree with you, he's considered to be "not a Jew". Of course then, everyone you consider to be "Jewish" is higly conforming and non-individualistic. But if you were to consider Jews who really ARE Jews, you would find we are the most individualistic people on earth.
...so you're voting for Shimon Peres??? Oh well. If you really want a good laugh, I voted for George W. Bush. I was ready to vote for Kerry, but then Arafat and Bin Laden endorsed Kerry, so I had no choice
. I voted for the "Brown Shirt" Buchannan in the primary, because he and Nader were the only ones advocating tarriffs. I called Kadima the "Loser" party, because it's a haven for everyone who couldn't make it in his/her own party. Sharon lost to Netanyahu, Perres to Perez, and Lapid's men to that guy from Tel Aviv. Time will tell, whether they are "winners" or not at the elections. Whoever wins, I would gladly trade "W" for any of them... but wait! The Democrats have just had a breakout from the looney house! I'd better stick with "W".C'mon, voice! please don't make me the only smart alec around here! I'll feel hurt!
Put it this way: You are clinging to traditions, rather than the Bible. Some of these were traditions my ancestors kept, but others were added on even since their day. Mishnah, Gemarah, the Gaon, Maimonides, Shulchan Aruch, Rebbe so-and-so... It never ends. You (and granted, my ancestors as well) keep adding tradition upon tradition because you're not stisfied with the Word of God in its wonderful simplicity. You Orthodox are the ones who keep changing traditions! I would that you would go back to Torah, and chuck the rest out the window! Do you want to have four sets of china? Fine! But don't go trying to stuff them down my throat. Why are there so many Israeli Jews who aren't Orthodox? Is it because they've been seduced by Christians? No -- There are hardly any Christians in Israel. If they were being seduced, it would be to become Moslems; but this isn't happening. No, the aren't being seduced to join some other religion. They're Jews,and many of them are Cohanim and Leviim -- the people God entrusted His law to (rather than to the rabbis, in His infinite wisdom). I think most of them would love to serve God, if it didn't mean having their lives micro-managed to the point that they are told whether they should sleep East-to-West or North-to-South!
Traditions?? Oh, would that we HAD the traditions of our forefathers, instead of all the changes the Orthodox have added on! But do I complain? No! Right? Right!
"Be well" to you too, good buddy. It's wonderful to have someone to talk to.
Shalom shalom
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stillsmallvoice
The Narn rule!
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Hi all!
Deal!
I think that we differ about a great many things. I think that we'll have to (amicably, I hope!) file alot of stuff under the heading "Agree-to-disagree" and leave it at that. One thing though:
No, and that's the beauty/wonder/glory of it! As the Mishnah says: "You are not called upon to complete the work but neither are you free to desist from it."
Thankee!
Even the real Stalin wasn't all bad. I heard that at Yalta, Stalin observed that Churchill liked the Georgian (as in Tbiliisi, not Atlanta) brandy that was served. So, later, on Churchill's 71st birthday, Stalin sent him 71 bottles.
Be well!
ssv
JosephStalin said:
Deal!
I think that we differ about a great many things. I think that we'll have to (amicably, I hope!) file alot of stuff under the heading "Agree-to-disagree" and leave it at that. One thing though:
JosephStalin said:
No, and that's the beauty/wonder/glory of it!
As the Mishnah says: "You are not called upon to complete the work but neither are you free to desist from it."JosephStalin said:
Thankee!
Even the real Stalin wasn't all bad. I heard that at Yalta, Stalin observed that Churchill liked the Georgian (as in Tbiliisi, not Atlanta) brandy that was served. So, later, on Churchill's 71st birthday, Stalin sent him 71 bottles.
Be well!
ssv
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BlandOatmeal
Regular Member
Shalom Talmidah
Thanks for posting. Yes, of course I know that neither the Orthodox, Conservative nor Reform people consider me Jewish. You might as well throw in the Reconstructionists, the various Hassidic groups, the Karaites, Samaritans, Mormons, Jehovahs Witnesses, Baptists, Hindus and Jains. The sad fact is that NO religion in the world has much tolerance for anyone else. Nevertheless, I am a descendant, by blood, of my ancestors Avraham, Yitz'chak and Ya'akov -- as far as I know, and as far as anyone (including you) can know about these things. And whether you, or the Orthodox or anyone else thinks I'm this or thinks I'm that, I am obligated by God's covenant with the Fathers to separate myself from the nations in holiness. I am not obligated in any way to any religious group, but I am obligated to God, to do what is pleasing to Him.
Shalom stillsmallvoice
I love it. I've been picking up little bits and pieces about Judaism over the years. Having been raised as a Christian, I got precious little education in these matters. When Christianity and Judaism made their great split (it came to a head between 70 CE and 135 CE), they took on two very different ways of looking at their common heritage. The Christian NT largely follows the literary tradition of TaNaKh, with its history, prophecy and writings. Christian writers were either accepted as the direct mouthpieces of God, or rejected as Satanic heretics.
The Jews, on the other hand, took off in a new direction and a completely different literary style. The compiled Mishnah, which ought to be called "The Book of Many Opinions". As one commentator noted, (I paraphrase) "It's like sitting in an airport, and overhearing an ongoing conversation between rabbis". Every side of the argument is recorded, and the reader is left hanging as to which one the compiler himself held to. This is left up to later commentaries -- Gemara and what-have-you, and the readers of these are themselves tacitly invited to jump into the discussion. You might enlighten me on this, but I've even read that in some yeshivas, students are encouraged to shout at one another while discussing the commentaries.
If this is so, you can see how a Christian, who is taught to always "humble himself" and "take the lower seat", can get thoroughly bewildered when two Jews "have at it". Of course, Christians generally aren't very humble, and most of them -- led by their church leaders -- are continually seeking out the best seats. But the more religious of the try to be discrete about such things. Jews, on the other hand, have been forced to act humbly and take the lower seat for a couple thousand years, and they seem to make up for it when they get together.
Concerning seats, have you heard this joke? An MK (Member of Knesset, for the uninitiated) went to London to visit one of his British counterparts. They walked into Parliament, and saw the MP's (Ministers of Parliament, not Military Police) throwing chairs at one another. The MK asked the MP what was going on, and the MP said,
"This is how we debate things here."
The MK answered,
"This would never happen in Israel. There, once we get a seat in the Knesset, we never let go of it!"
Anyhow, Shalom to you and Talmidah.
Shalom AlHannah.
I knew you posted to me somewhere, but I had to dig back a little to find it. You acknowleged my posting about the state of Judaism in Israel, noting that you didn't understand some of the terms. If you go to the original article, the author defined the terms. Unfortunately, Christian Forums won't let me tell you the URL because I'm not talkative enough. So you just need to cut/paste part of the article and Google it. You're probably caught up on the terms dati (fully observant Jew), masorti ("traditional" Jew, i.e. partly observant) and hiloni (secular Jew). Ashkenazi Jews come from ancestors who wandered in Northern Europe, and Sephardi Jews refer specifically to those whose ancestors used to live in Spain, but in this article and many other places, they generally include Jews whose forefathers sojourned in Moslem countries. Ashkenazic Jews use a vastly larger version of the Gemara (a commentary on the Mishnah, which is a commentary on the Bible) than the Sephardis, and they have a history of being much more inclined towards arguments and divisions. The Conservative and Reform movements are splinter groups from the Ashkenazis. Most US Jews are Ashkenaziim, and Israeli Jews are divided between the two groups.
You mentioned the "Ten Lost Tribes". Usually, this becomes a discussion group in itself. I have heard so much of this, and so, probably, have you. The "Ten Tribes" refer to the northern Kingdom of Israel, which was contemporary with the southern Kingdom of Judah from about 900-600 BCE. TaNaKh tells us that they were "swallowed up" by the nations in one place; yet in other places, it says they will return from exile! Now, think about it: If they were truly "swallowed up" or "assimilated", as I would understand that to mean, then those claims of various people that they've found one of the Ten Tribes here or there are all bogus. So how, then, can they return, as tribes, to the land of Israel?
The answer to this, I believe, is in Ezekiel 47. I won't quote it here, because if you're really interested, you'll look it up and see it in context (which I want you to do). Ezekiel speaks of a yet-to-come division of Eretz Israel (which includes Lebanon and Southern Syria, by the way) into tribal areas -- not according to the lines of the original allotments, but by lines of lattitude. If you would see them on the map, they would resemble counties in many US states, with straight-line boundaries. Ezekiel further says that there would be "non-Jews" living in Israel in these times, who would submit to regulations such as the Sabbath Laws. These, along with the Jews, would be counted as members of the tribes according to the tribal area they lived in. The exceptions would be the House of David and the House of Aharon, which would be given special areas.
It's interesting that even Jews today cannot prove their lineage, unless they are of either the House of David or the House of Aharon. Of all the children of Ya'aqov (Jacob), Aharon seems to have had a unique mutation of the y-chromosome, called the Cohen haGadol Haplotype. This occurs in about half of Jews claiming to be Kohanim (i.e. descendants of Aharon), and occurs much more infrequently in non-Cohanim and others. Jews descended of Aharon generally know who they are, because during the Jewish synagogue service, there is a custom of these individuals rising and being given the first opportunity to chant Torah. (I am told they are expected to decline, and let someone sing the verses who knows how to do it well). I have read that descendants of David also have kept good genealogical records over the millenia, because Moshiach (Messiah) is to come from the seed of David.
That leaves everyone else out: Jews today are descended from the sons of Ya'aqov, from the Edomites, Ammonites and Moabites (all of whom were forcibly converted by the Hasmoneans), of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin (some of whom returned from the first Babylonian captivity, though most stayed in Babylon), temple servanst descended from the Gibeonites, descendants from refugees from the northern Kingdom who settled in Judah, Khazars and Yemenis who converted en masse to Judaism, and Pergamenes, Cappadocians, Romans, French, Spanish, Germans, Poles and many more who converted to Judaism somewhere during the Diaspora.
So most Jews today can't prove conclusively that they belong to ANY tribe, putting them in the same boat as the "Ten Lost Tribes" that were "swallowed up". The arrangement of Ezekiel 47 addresses all these problems.
How's that for being wordy?
Love youse
. Shalom shalom
Thanks for posting. Yes, of course I know that neither the Orthodox, Conservative nor Reform people consider me Jewish. You might as well throw in the Reconstructionists, the various Hassidic groups, the Karaites, Samaritans, Mormons, Jehovahs Witnesses, Baptists, Hindus and Jains. The sad fact is that NO religion in the world has much tolerance for anyone else. Nevertheless, I am a descendant, by blood, of my ancestors Avraham, Yitz'chak and Ya'akov -- as far as I know, and as far as anyone (including you) can know about these things. And whether you, or the Orthodox or anyone else thinks I'm this or thinks I'm that, I am obligated by God's covenant with the Fathers to separate myself from the nations in holiness. I am not obligated in any way to any religious group, but I am obligated to God, to do what is pleasing to Him.
Shalom stillsmallvoice
I love it. I've been picking up little bits and pieces about Judaism over the years. Having been raised as a Christian, I got precious little education in these matters. When Christianity and Judaism made their great split (it came to a head between 70 CE and 135 CE), they took on two very different ways of looking at their common heritage. The Christian NT largely follows the literary tradition of TaNaKh, with its history, prophecy and writings. Christian writers were either accepted as the direct mouthpieces of God, or rejected as Satanic heretics.
The Jews, on the other hand, took off in a new direction and a completely different literary style. The compiled Mishnah, which ought to be called "The Book of Many Opinions". As one commentator noted, (I paraphrase) "It's like sitting in an airport, and overhearing an ongoing conversation between rabbis". Every side of the argument is recorded, and the reader is left hanging as to which one the compiler himself held to. This is left up to later commentaries -- Gemara and what-have-you, and the readers of these are themselves tacitly invited to jump into the discussion. You might enlighten me on this, but I've even read that in some yeshivas, students are encouraged to shout at one another while discussing the commentaries.
If this is so, you can see how a Christian, who is taught to always "humble himself" and "take the lower seat", can get thoroughly bewildered when two Jews "have at it". Of course, Christians generally aren't very humble, and most of them -- led by their church leaders -- are continually seeking out the best seats. But the more religious of the try to be discrete about such things. Jews, on the other hand, have been forced to act humbly and take the lower seat for a couple thousand years, and they seem to make up for it when they get together.
Concerning seats, have you heard this joke? An MK (Member of Knesset, for the uninitiated) went to London to visit one of his British counterparts. They walked into Parliament, and saw the MP's (Ministers of Parliament, not Military Police) throwing chairs at one another
. The MK asked the MP what was going on, and the MP said, "This is how we debate things here."
The MK answered,
"This would never happen in Israel. There, once we get a seat in the Knesset, we never let go of it!"
Anyhow, Shalom to you and Talmidah.
Shalom AlHannah.
I knew you posted to me somewhere, but I had to dig back a little to find it. You acknowleged my posting about the state of Judaism in Israel, noting that you didn't understand some of the terms. If you go to the original article, the author defined the terms. Unfortunately, Christian Forums won't let me tell you the URL because I'm not talkative enough. So you just need to cut/paste part of the article and Google it. You're probably caught up on the terms dati (fully observant Jew), masorti ("traditional" Jew, i.e. partly observant) and hiloni (secular Jew). Ashkenazi Jews come from ancestors who wandered in Northern Europe, and Sephardi Jews refer specifically to those whose ancestors used to live in Spain, but in this article and many other places, they generally include Jews whose forefathers sojourned in Moslem countries. Ashkenazic Jews use a vastly larger version of the Gemara (a commentary on the Mishnah, which is a commentary on the Bible) than the Sephardis, and they have a history of being much more inclined towards arguments and divisions. The Conservative and Reform movements are splinter groups from the Ashkenazis. Most US Jews are Ashkenaziim, and Israeli Jews are divided between the two groups.
You mentioned the "Ten Lost Tribes". Usually, this becomes a discussion group in itself. I have heard so much of this, and so, probably, have you. The "Ten Tribes" refer to the northern Kingdom of Israel, which was contemporary with the southern Kingdom of Judah from about 900-600 BCE. TaNaKh tells us that they were "swallowed up" by the nations in one place; yet in other places, it says they will return from exile! Now, think about it: If they were truly "swallowed up" or "assimilated", as I would understand that to mean, then those claims of various people that they've found one of the Ten Tribes here or there are all bogus. So how, then, can they return, as tribes, to the land of Israel?
The answer to this, I believe, is in Ezekiel 47. I won't quote it here, because if you're really interested, you'll look it up and see it in context (which I want you to do). Ezekiel speaks of a yet-to-come division of Eretz Israel (which includes Lebanon and Southern Syria, by the way) into tribal areas -- not according to the lines of the original allotments, but by lines of lattitude. If you would see them on the map, they would resemble counties in many US states, with straight-line boundaries. Ezekiel further says that there would be "non-Jews" living in Israel in these times, who would submit to regulations such as the Sabbath Laws. These, along with the Jews, would be counted as members of the tribes according to the tribal area they lived in. The exceptions would be the House of David and the House of Aharon, which would be given special areas.
It's interesting that even Jews today cannot prove their lineage, unless they are of either the House of David or the House of Aharon. Of all the children of Ya'aqov (Jacob), Aharon seems to have had a unique mutation of the y-chromosome, called the Cohen haGadol Haplotype. This occurs in about half of Jews claiming to be Kohanim (i.e. descendants of Aharon), and occurs much more infrequently in non-Cohanim and others. Jews descended of Aharon generally know who they are, because during the Jewish synagogue service, there is a custom of these individuals rising and being given the first opportunity to chant Torah. (I am told they are expected to decline, and let someone sing the verses who knows how to do it well). I have read that descendants of David also have kept good genealogical records over the millenia, because Moshiach (Messiah) is to come from the seed of David.
That leaves everyone else out: Jews today are descended from the sons of Ya'aqov, from the Edomites, Ammonites and Moabites (all of whom were forcibly converted by the Hasmoneans), of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin (some of whom returned from the first Babylonian captivity, though most stayed in Babylon), temple servanst descended from the Gibeonites, descendants from refugees from the northern Kingdom who settled in Judah, Khazars and Yemenis who converted en masse to Judaism, and Pergamenes, Cappadocians, Romans, French, Spanish, Germans, Poles and many more who converted to Judaism somewhere during the Diaspora.
So most Jews today can't prove conclusively that they belong to ANY tribe, putting them in the same boat as the "Ten Lost Tribes" that were "swallowed up". The arrangement of Ezekiel 47 addresses all these problems.
How's that for being wordy?
Love youse
. Shalom shalom
Upvote
0
BlandOatmeal
Regular Member
Shalom AlHannah.
I am really upset with Christian Forums. I was well into composing a response to you, when a pop-up window erased all my work. So now I am composing this on Notepad, and plan to cut/paste it into the Forum at the last minute.
I will be more terse here than I had intended, because my chain of thought has been broken. You said,
No. Since the days of Ezra, the "Jewish" returnees from Babylon to Palestine were referred to as "Israel". Even though most of those returnees were from Judah, Benjamin, Levi and the Canaanites (the "Temple Servants", descended from the Gideonites), Ezra stressed that this was the remnant of all Israel, and the legitimate inheritor, as a nation, of the covenants God made with the fathers. If you read the New Testament, you will see that Hannah, the woman who lived day and night in the Temple, waiting for the coming of Messiah, was of the northern tribe of Asher. That's because some of the returnees, even though they were listed as having come from towns in Judah and Benjamin, were descended from refugees from the North who had sought shelter in Judah and Benjamin in the days before the Northern Kingdom ("Israel") went into captivity.
So Jesus wasn't talking about the "Ten Lost Tribes" when he spoke of the "lost sheep of Israel". He was talking about Jews -- in Judea, Galilee, Babylon, Cappadocia and throughout the world, who had "lost" their connection with God. It's reasonable that he also included members of the "Lost Tribes", actual or spiritual, who had by then become completely assimilated by the non-Jews, but when he spoke of "Israel" there should be no doubt that he was at the very least including the Jews of Judea and Galilee. Remember that all his disciples were Jews, not "Lost Tribe" people. At some time after his death, his disciples also reached out to non-Jews who were associated with the Jews through the synagogues, and later Paul even preached to the Greeks in the Agora, who knew virtually nothing of Judaism. So the Jews were preached to first, and these were considered people of Israel. Then the non-Jews were preached to.
Concerning those non-Jews, there are some peculiar parts of the New Testament than make me believe the writers also considered them to be at least spiritual descendants of the Northern Tribes who had been "swallowed up" and lost their Jewsish identity. The best example I can think of is in some of the epistles. Peter opened his first epistle thusly:
"I Peter, and apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers (prob. Hebrew geyrim, translated as "strangers" in most Christian works, but as "converts" in Jewish translations) throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia."
James said, in his epistle,
"James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad."
Both these men were apparently addressing the whole church, which was primarily located in what is now Turkey (It may be, that these letters were written before Paul had made his missionary journeys to Greece). Peter used language which put the gentile believers in the same category as the "strangers in your land" spoken of by Moses (which modern Jews take to strictly refer to "converts to Judaism", a position I do not agree with). The "God-fearers" of the New Testament, such as Cornelius the Centurion, were almost certainly in this group. There seems to have been some disagreement as to how these folks were to relate to the Jewish believers: Some felt they should keep all the commandments of the Jews, like Jewish "converts" today. Others felt they should keep the "seven Noahide laws", which Jews today consider binding on all non-Jews. James, Peter and the others endorsed the latter view in their letter, after Paul and Silas went there to have the matter arbitrated.
The important thing to notice in Peter's opening, is that he looked upon the Jewish believers as "Jews", and the gentile believers as "geyrim" or "strangers connected with the Jews", for lack of a better description. James, on the other hand, who had actually authored the Jerusalem decision mentioned above, referred to all believers, Jewish and non-Jewish, as part of "The Twelve Tribes of Israel". I think James believed, as I do, that gentiles who turn to the God of Israel are the spiritual "Northern Tribes".
You might think that's what James meant, or you might not. In any case, I don't think Jesus nor any of his followers thought of "The lost sheep of Israel" as referring only to non-Jews.
Shalom shalom
P.S. What on earth does "IMHO" mean?
I am really upset with Christian Forums. I was well into composing a response to you, when a pop-up window erased all my work. So now I am composing this on Notepad, and plan to cut/paste it into the Forum at the last minute.
I will be more terse here than I had intended, because my chain of thought has been broken. You said,
No. Since the days of Ezra, the "Jewish" returnees from Babylon to Palestine were referred to as "Israel". Even though most of those returnees were from Judah, Benjamin, Levi and the Canaanites (the "Temple Servants", descended from the Gideonites), Ezra stressed that this was the remnant of all Israel, and the legitimate inheritor, as a nation, of the covenants God made with the fathers. If you read the New Testament, you will see that Hannah, the woman who lived day and night in the Temple, waiting for the coming of Messiah, was of the northern tribe of Asher. That's because some of the returnees, even though they were listed as having come from towns in Judah and Benjamin, were descended from refugees from the North who had sought shelter in Judah and Benjamin in the days before the Northern Kingdom ("Israel") went into captivity.
So Jesus wasn't talking about the "Ten Lost Tribes" when he spoke of the "lost sheep of Israel". He was talking about Jews -- in Judea, Galilee, Babylon, Cappadocia and throughout the world, who had "lost" their connection with God. It's reasonable that he also included members of the "Lost Tribes", actual or spiritual, who had by then become completely assimilated by the non-Jews, but when he spoke of "Israel" there should be no doubt that he was at the very least including the Jews of Judea and Galilee. Remember that all his disciples were Jews, not "Lost Tribe" people. At some time after his death, his disciples also reached out to non-Jews who were associated with the Jews through the synagogues, and later Paul even preached to the Greeks in the Agora, who knew virtually nothing of Judaism. So the Jews were preached to first, and these were considered people of Israel. Then the non-Jews were preached to.
Concerning those non-Jews, there are some peculiar parts of the New Testament than make me believe the writers also considered them to be at least spiritual descendants of the Northern Tribes who had been "swallowed up" and lost their Jewsish identity. The best example I can think of is in some of the epistles. Peter opened his first epistle thusly:
"I Peter, and apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers (prob. Hebrew geyrim, translated as "strangers" in most Christian works, but as "converts" in Jewish translations) throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia."
James said, in his epistle,
"James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad."
Both these men were apparently addressing the whole church, which was primarily located in what is now Turkey (It may be, that these letters were written before Paul had made his missionary journeys to Greece). Peter used language which put the gentile believers in the same category as the "strangers in your land" spoken of by Moses (which modern Jews take to strictly refer to "converts to Judaism", a position I do not agree with). The "God-fearers" of the New Testament, such as Cornelius the Centurion, were almost certainly in this group. There seems to have been some disagreement as to how these folks were to relate to the Jewish believers: Some felt they should keep all the commandments of the Jews, like Jewish "converts" today. Others felt they should keep the "seven Noahide laws", which Jews today consider binding on all non-Jews. James, Peter and the others endorsed the latter view in their letter, after Paul and Silas went there to have the matter arbitrated.
The important thing to notice in Peter's opening, is that he looked upon the Jewish believers as "Jews", and the gentile believers as "geyrim" or "strangers connected with the Jews", for lack of a better description. James, on the other hand, who had actually authored the Jerusalem decision mentioned above, referred to all believers, Jewish and non-Jewish, as part of "The Twelve Tribes of Israel". I think James believed, as I do, that gentiles who turn to the God of Israel are the spiritual "Northern Tribes".
You might think that's what James meant, or you might not. In any case, I don't think Jesus nor any of his followers thought of "The lost sheep of Israel" as referring only to non-Jews.
Shalom shalom
P.S. What on earth does "IMHO" mean?
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C
chokmah
Guest
Joseph:
You consider yourself "Jewish", but you don't follow Oral Torah? Are you Karaite or something entirely different?
You consider yourself "Jewish", but you don't follow Oral Torah? Are you Karaite or something entirely different?
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arunma
Flaming Calvinist
sethad said:
Can anyone say "ignorant"?
No source, no facts, know nothing.
Not to mention that the behavior of Jews in the last century, modern Jewish literature, and even the Jews on this forum, testify to the contrary of what he has said. This is not ignorance about the Jewish people; it is outright lying.
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BlandOatmeal
Regular Member
Shalom chokmah.
You said,
I'm glad that you at least recognize that the Karaites consider themselves Jewish. Orthodox Jews won't even go that far. You are correct, to the extent that I do not believe "Oral Torah" -- namely, Mishnah, either one of the Gemaras, Maimonides, Shulchan Aruch and subsequent rabbinical opinions -- to be the absolute Word of God. It's wrong to say that I don't "follow" Oral Torah, though. I just don't follow it to the satisfaction of purists like the Orthodox, and when I perform certain parts of it, like wearing kippah and talith while doing b'rachot, I don't do so under any sense of compulsion. There is nothing wrong in wearing kippot and tsitsit, bowing and rising at certain times while davening, nor any of the customs the Orthodox do. I am simply saying that these things were not commanded by Hashem in the way they are carried out, and the emphasis the Orthodox put on these things is entirely out of line.
So you see, I "follow Oral Torah" in about the same way as a typical hiloni or masorti Israeli Jew does. One doesn't have to exactly follow Oral Torah to be called a Jew, and it isn't in this regard that stillsmallvoice doesn't consider me Jewish. He doesn't consider me Jewish, simply because (1) I cannot show that somewhere in my strictly maternal line I had a Jewess, and (2) I haven't converted to Orthodoxy. The vast, vast majority of Israeli Jews are not considered "Jewish" because of any of their practices: They are counted as Jews, simply because they had a Jewess in their maternal line. My mother's mother's FATHER was of Jewish descent. Her mother was a Catholic, and I don't know if there were Jews in her line or not.
I am not a Karaite. They have their own set of traditions; and though they don't accept "Oral Torah" to have come from Moses any more than I do, it would be wrong for someone to call himself a Karaite if he didn't keep their traditions. But being a "Jew" is not the private property of the Orthodox, the Reform nor any other sect, any more than being a "Christian" is the private property of the Roman Catholics. Both the Orthodox and the Catholics believe they're th only "true believers" in the world, but that's their problem. I call myself a Jew, and live as a Jew, because this honors the God who covenanted with my ancestor Jacob. Saying I am NOT a Jew dishonors God, because it says God's covenant has become null and void because of some tradition.
You might also note that Maimonides didn't follow Shulchan Aruch. Did that make him not a Jew? The Gaon didn't follow Maimonides. Did that make him not a Jew? Gamaliel and Hillel didn't follow the Gemara. Did that make them not Jews? The whole Orthodox pretension is nonesense -- They only boast the way they do, because they are the only recognized sect in Medinat Israel. But God knows those who are His.
I hope that clears it up.
Shalom shalom
You said,
I'm glad that you at least recognize that the Karaites consider themselves Jewish. Orthodox Jews won't even go that far. You are correct, to the extent that I do not believe "Oral Torah" -- namely, Mishnah, either one of the Gemaras, Maimonides, Shulchan Aruch and subsequent rabbinical opinions -- to be the absolute Word of God. It's wrong to say that I don't "follow" Oral Torah, though. I just don't follow it to the satisfaction of purists like the Orthodox, and when I perform certain parts of it, like wearing kippah and talith while doing b'rachot, I don't do so under any sense of compulsion. There is nothing wrong in wearing kippot and tsitsit, bowing and rising at certain times while davening, nor any of the customs the Orthodox do. I am simply saying that these things were not commanded by Hashem in the way they are carried out, and the emphasis the Orthodox put on these things is entirely out of line.
So you see, I "follow Oral Torah" in about the same way as a typical hiloni or masorti Israeli Jew does. One doesn't have to exactly follow Oral Torah to be called a Jew, and it isn't in this regard that stillsmallvoice doesn't consider me Jewish. He doesn't consider me Jewish, simply because (1) I cannot show that somewhere in my strictly maternal line I had a Jewess, and (2) I haven't converted to Orthodoxy. The vast, vast majority of Israeli Jews are not considered "Jewish" because of any of their practices: They are counted as Jews, simply because they had a Jewess in their maternal line. My mother's mother's FATHER was of Jewish descent. Her mother was a Catholic, and I don't know if there were Jews in her line or not.
I am not a Karaite. They have their own set of traditions; and though they don't accept "Oral Torah" to have come from Moses any more than I do, it would be wrong for someone to call himself a Karaite if he didn't keep their traditions. But being a "Jew" is not the private property of the Orthodox, the Reform nor any other sect, any more than being a "Christian" is the private property of the Roman Catholics. Both the Orthodox and the Catholics believe they're th only "true believers" in the world, but that's their problem. I call myself a Jew, and live as a Jew, because this honors the God who covenanted with my ancestor Jacob. Saying I am NOT a Jew dishonors God, because it says God's covenant has become null and void because of some tradition.
You might also note that Maimonides didn't follow Shulchan Aruch. Did that make him not a Jew? The Gaon didn't follow Maimonides. Did that make him not a Jew? Gamaliel and Hillel didn't follow the Gemara. Did that make them not Jews? The whole Orthodox pretension is nonesense -- They only boast the way they do, because they are the only recognized sect in Medinat Israel. But God knows those who are His.
I hope that clears it up.
Shalom shalom
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BlandOatmeal
Regular Member
Shalom chokmah, my friend and neighbor!
I don't believe that stuff about the mountain even though, as you say, it is part of my Jewish tradition -- at least since the time of that rabbi you quote, namely Mordechai Paldiel (whom I haven't read). The Jews have many such traditions, some so recent that I can't even say that my ancestors even heard of them, much less followed them. I heard (on Arutz7, the same program where one of your own was talking to Tamar Yonah) that this came from reading that Moses received the commandments "at the foot of the mountain" as "underneath the mountain", accompanied by the assertion (not anywhere in scripture) that God held the mountain over Moses' head, threatening to crush him is he didn't obey.
Please forgive me for thinking this is completely comical. To his credit, Mordechai does seem to bring up a valid point, namely, that God did threaten at one point to destroy all the Israelites, and to make a great nation from Moses instead. Moses inteceded with God not to do this, explaining to Him that if He did, the nations round about would mock God and say that He was not able to bring the Israelites into Canaan Land as He had promised. Just as an aside, Israel's neighbors even today are trying to do just that -- claiming Israel as their own, and defying God to stand behind his word. God wasn't stupid and in need of instruction from Moses, of course. It's just that Moses was God's friend, and God even made a point of saying as much in the Bible: He wanted Moses to know what an awful thing my forefathers had done, and how highly He regarded his special friend. He knew Moses would reply as he did, because He knew how zealous Moses was for His name.
As for obeying God's commandments to the Jews or to anyone else, this can't be too hard. After all, the Jews have been adding restriction upon restriction for centuries. The forefathers just had to avoid boiling a kid in its mother's milk. Religious Jews today need to keep four sets of china, and wait three hours between eating chicken and eating cheese -- all in response to the same commandments. This is called "hedging in" Torah to protect it from abuse. They've hedged it in, all right -- so much, that you have to study in yeshiva for decades to even know what the commandments ARE, much less obey them! But that's not because the commandments of God are burdensome: It's the traditions of men that make those commandments so onerous. But religious Jews like these things. Unfortunately, we see that more and more Jews are becoming irreligious because of them.
If you're in Jim Long's faction of B'nei Noachim, this must sound downright awful to you, seeing that he just finished pledging allegience to the religious Jews. Jim was just trying to get along, and now he's entangled in all sorts of quarrels -- because if you get close to a Jew, an argument isn't long in coming. But I don't want to discourage anyone from trying. We really are one big family, if we trust in the God of Israel; but we also really are made in the image of God, and everyone seems to be testing the limits of what that means. Children are that way, and we are His.
Shalom shalom, good buddy
I don't believe that stuff about the mountain even though, as you say, it is part of my Jewish tradition -- at least since the time of that rabbi you quote, namely Mordechai Paldiel (whom I haven't read). The Jews have many such traditions, some so recent that I can't even say that my ancestors even heard of them, much less followed them. I heard (on Arutz7, the same program where one of your own was talking to Tamar Yonah) that this came from reading that Moses received the commandments "at the foot of the mountain" as "underneath the mountain", accompanied by the assertion (not anywhere in scripture) that God held the mountain over Moses' head, threatening to crush him is he didn't obey.
Please forgive me for thinking this is completely comical. To his credit, Mordechai does seem to bring up a valid point, namely, that God did threaten at one point to destroy all the Israelites, and to make a great nation from Moses instead. Moses inteceded with God not to do this, explaining to Him that if He did, the nations round about would mock God and say that He was not able to bring the Israelites into Canaan Land as He had promised. Just as an aside, Israel's neighbors even today are trying to do just that -- claiming Israel as their own, and defying God to stand behind his word. God wasn't stupid and in need of instruction from Moses, of course. It's just that Moses was God's friend, and God even made a point of saying as much in the Bible: He wanted Moses to know what an awful thing my forefathers had done, and how highly He regarded his special friend. He knew Moses would reply as he did, because He knew how zealous Moses was for His name.
As for obeying God's commandments to the Jews or to anyone else, this can't be too hard. After all, the Jews have been adding restriction upon restriction for centuries. The forefathers just had to avoid boiling a kid in its mother's milk. Religious Jews today need to keep four sets of china, and wait three hours between eating chicken and eating cheese -- all in response to the same commandments. This is called "hedging in" Torah to protect it from abuse. They've hedged it in, all right -- so much, that you have to study in yeshiva for decades to even know what the commandments ARE, much less obey them! But that's not because the commandments of God are burdensome: It's the traditions of men that make those commandments so onerous. But religious Jews like these things. Unfortunately, we see that more and more Jews are becoming irreligious because of them.
If you're in Jim Long's faction of B'nei Noachim, this must sound downright awful to you, seeing that he just finished pledging allegience to the religious Jews. Jim was just trying to get along, and now he's entangled in all sorts of quarrels -- because if you get close to a Jew, an argument isn't long in coming. But I don't want to discourage anyone from trying. We really are one big family, if we trust in the God of Israel; but we also really are made in the image of God, and everyone seems to be testing the limits of what that means. Children are that way, and we are His.
Shalom shalom, good buddy
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C
chokmah
Guest
Evening Josesph:
I think the quote that I have is also rather humorous. I've heard numerous renderings of regarding the mountain: some deal with the marriage ceremony, some deal with death, and some deal with threats. Very interesting considerations all.
Truth be told, I'm not familiar with any major names in the Noachide movement. Jim Long is not a name I had even heard nor read about until your post and subsequent surfing.
The only site that I spend a great deal of time reading is www.asknoah.org. I am also going through the book that my sig comes from. I can say with honesty that at this point in time in my life I don't really care what someone else does as far as their beliefs. I move cautiously and one step at a time as I attempt to let G-d show me what He would like for me to do. I have many friends who are Jews. Some are argumentative, some are peaceful at all times, some are happy, some are sad... in essence, Jews are people just like me. Therefore, I don't attempt to put any one, in particular, in a box.
I find honor, scholarship, dedication, and integrity to be integral parts of Orthodox Judaism. I also find valuable traits within some Conservative congregations. But my leaning on those matters has stymied since I am not a Jew; nor am I called to be one. I am proud to affiliate with the G-d of Israel as a Gentile, and I love my Jewish friends. I just understand that there are different callings.
Talk with you later.
c
I think the quote that I have is also rather humorous. I've heard numerous renderings of regarding the mountain: some deal with the marriage ceremony, some deal with death, and some deal with threats. Very interesting considerations all.
Truth be told, I'm not familiar with any major names in the Noachide movement. Jim Long is not a name I had even heard nor read about until your post and subsequent surfing.
The only site that I spend a great deal of time reading is www.asknoah.org. I am also going through the book that my sig comes from. I can say with honesty that at this point in time in my life I don't really care what someone else does as far as their beliefs. I move cautiously and one step at a time as I attempt to let G-d show me what He would like for me to do. I have many friends who are Jews. Some are argumentative, some are peaceful at all times, some are happy, some are sad... in essence, Jews are people just like me. Therefore, I don't attempt to put any one, in particular, in a box.
I find honor, scholarship, dedication, and integrity to be integral parts of Orthodox Judaism. I also find valuable traits within some Conservative congregations. But my leaning on those matters has stymied since I am not a Jew; nor am I called to be one. I am proud to affiliate with the G-d of Israel as a Gentile, and I love my Jewish friends. I just understand that there are different callings.
Talk with you later.
c
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BlandOatmeal
Regular Member
Shalom chokmah.
I think I agree with everything you say. You have my email address. I'd love to get together with youse sometime. If our daughter visits us from overseas in the near future, we're thinking of going to Silver Falls. But you needn't wait until then -- just get in touch, and we'll set a time and place.
Shalom shalom
I think I agree with everything you say. You have my email address. I'd love to get together with youse sometime. If our daughter visits us from overseas in the near future, we're thinking of going to Silver Falls. But you needn't wait until then -- just get in touch, and we'll set a time and place.
Shalom shalom
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