#In love with Judaism

[geulahgal710]

Message to Mom (that she'll never see)

Mom, I get it. You love me. You care. You're worried about me. You're scared to death that I've forfeited salvation because I don't think I need to go through Jesus to have a relationship with G-d. It grieves your soul to think I might be destroyed in hellfire because I reject the trinity.

I wish I could ease your mind, remove your pain. I wish I could help you see what I see and hear what I hear. But I can't. Because you can't. You just can't. I understand that.

You're 85. You spent around 75 of those years completely immersed in the 7th Day Adventist church. You attended their schools from your first year of grade school thru at least 2 years of college. It's all you know. And unfortunately for me, it's all you can know.

Fortunately for me, though I know you have your regrets and so have I, you married a man who couldn't be brainwashed. In spite of his despicable fatal flaws, one of the few important contributions he made towards my upbringing was critical thinking.

Yes you taught me more ethics and morality. You gave me the example of love and loyalty to G-d and family. You showed what grit and determination looked like. You stressed the importance of kindness and understanding. Dad was the source for me to learn keen, sharp judgement.

But as fatal as his flaws were, I really think, if he were alive today, he would get it. He wasn't unafraid of new ideas. He was always searching for something, looking for truth in between adventures and escapades. It was that strong feeling that there's more out there, that I inherited from him. He gave me what makes a person feel alive. And that much I'm truly grateful for.

Mom, I love you. You're a wonderful, kind, thoughtful, giving person. You're a tremendously beautiful example of the heart of a servant. I know you can't help that you are mentally blind and deaf in some areas.

Maybe dad couldn't help that he was morally crippled in some ways. You were both products of your incredibly stunted upbringing in different ways, as am I. You both did the best you could.

But I really wish you could credit me with some intelligence. Beyond just the simple, mundane things of life. Understand that I have been thru a lot. I've seen and heard and learned a few things in the past 57 years.

So no, I don't need to see anymore testimonials of people who converted from Islam or Judaism to Christianity. I don't need to see videos of people who saw a vision of Jesus when they were in a desperate situation. I don't need to read books about people who were miraculously rescued because they were wearing a cross or something like that.

My G-d is bigger than that. He doesn't need help. He doesn't need any other reason to help me than I'm His child. And because I'm His child, He's not going to throw me in some ginormous incinerator and burn me alive because I don't think I need Jesus to get to Him. Seriously. I've done worse things in my life. That's not one of them.

And no, Jews don't need to accept Jesus. Just stop, Mom. Just effing everybody STOP! STOP!!! For the love of G-d and all that's holy... Just stop. Stop shoving your beliefs down everyone's throats! Stop shoving them down MY throat. Don't you know I have already heard it all for 57 years? It isn't new information. I don't have dementia. I didn't forget it. My ever loving G-d!

Do you know how hard this is? Doing this completely alone? Nobody around me, and I mean NOBODY, who has the least interest. I would love it, if you, mom, could at least try to fathom the logic. Try to at least understand... You can't. Nobody here can. It's d*mned infuriating!

I want to scream! I want to pound my fists. My only connection to sanity is online. At least there's that, Thank G-d. I feel like Chief in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I feel like a starving rabbit in a cage with a picture of a carrot on the wall across the room.

Do you know how that feels, Mom? Of course you don't. Not one clue. Because even though the 7th Day Adventist church was often looked at as a weird cult of Christians who were trying to act like Jews, they still have Jesus and, oddly, the same insane distaste for Jews and Judaism other Christians have.

Why? WHY??!! What the h*ll did they ever do to you? They don't believe Jesus was/is G-d or even messiah. So the eff what?! All the texts you believe are talking about Jesus and saying that he is G-d, actually, CAN be read and interpreted differently.

And seriously, you don't KNOW. You've been up to G-d's place in heaven? You met Him? He told you Himself that's how it is? No, of course not. You're reading Hebrew texts written by ancient Israelites, who would have laughed you right out of the country if you would have approached them with the modern Christian English interpretation and understanding of THEIR OWN writings. Sorry, mom, but they would. But you can't get that. You won't.

Your understanding of the Hebrew Bible, mom, is like the adult animated TV series King of the Hill character, Peggy's understanding of Spanish. You can't see that and you won't see it until you're in a similar situation as she was, in a court in Mexico being tried for kidnapping. Because she thought as a Spanish teacher, she knew Spanish backwards and forwards. She didn't.

We know the Hebrew Bible like Peggy Hill knew Spanish. But I care enough to learn, to go to the source as much as possible. I'm going to the descendants of the people who wrote it. Getting our information from modern Western Christians is like going to a Chinese laundry owner to learn how to be a French chef. I wish you could see that. But you can't. And you won't.

I'm in this alone for the foreseeable future. Probably until the day I die, unless my Creator sees fit to send more Jews to the area or He opens y'all's hearts and minds. It's just sad. So sad that y'all assume, at best, that I'm mistaken, and at worst that I'm being misled or even deluded. Not once considering that you might be.

So here I am. Trapped in my cage. Waiting for G-d to let me out.

[adriles]

when we’re done with our overwhelming grief we’ll eat i guess

[edenfenixblogs]

Ummmmm I just came home from a Filipino Jewish bakery and y’all…

Filipino Jews have won Purim and maybe the entire baked goods category.

I don’t wanna brag but I’ve acquired an ube challah and an ube hamantaschen and that doesn’t even touch the variety of pandan offerings they had. Omg. This is easily the best discovery I’ve made in my city.

And yes, they ship nationally so I will be ordering from them when I move away.

[moonmoonthecrabking]

happy pride month to religious queer people, who feel like they’re contradictions, or told that they’re contradictions, but stay true to these important parts of themselves anyway. happy pride to the queer religious people who have to explain their identities, and who have to defend their faith or their queerness in either circle.

i love you, i am one of you, thank you for being in this community with me.

[jewelleria]

“But there are nuances to sadistic barbarity against Jews, we are told, and sometimes gang-raping Jewish women is actually a movement for human rights. It hardly seems fair to call people anti-Semitic if they want only half of the world’s Jews to die. The phrase “Globalize the Intifada,” currently chanted at universities across America, perhaps widens the net a tiny bit—but really, who can say? Even the phrase “Gas the Jews,” chanted at a rally organized by NYU students and faculty, is so very ambiguous. How dare those whiny Jews presume to know what’s in other people’s hearts? It remains unclear why anti-Semitism should matter only when it is lethal, or if so, how many unambiguously anti-Semitic murders would be necessary for anti-Semitism to be happening outside whiny Jews’ heads. A realistic estimate might be 6 million. Even then, Jews have had to spend the past 80 years collecting documentation to prove it.”

— Dara Horn, Why the Most Educated People in America Fall For Anti-Semitic Lies

[chanaleah]

my impressions of israeli cities as someone who's never been to israel

[skydaemon]

so we (and by we, i mean the very specific overlap of jews and nerds among whom i make my home) talk a lot about how tolkien's dwarves, in both the books and movies, were likely influenced by certain jewish stereotypes. obsessed with gold/wealth, secretive (especially about their language and religion), refugees from their ancestral home, portrayed with big, sometimes hooked, noses and interesting facial hair, and most specifically: the favourite little meow meows of one particular god, causing them to be shunned and persecuted by other races and creeds. this is likely unintentional, coming from the subconscious of tolkien in the same way orcs were "based on mongols" (ew colonialism) and activating subconscious biases/stereotypes in the people who designed the dwarves for the movies. it's subtext, albeit subtext that influenced the next eighty years of fantasy.

but what i don't see much discussion of is the fact that in terry pratchett's discworld, it's intentional. terry pratchett's dwarves are, more or less, jews.

carrot is a human adopted by dwarves, based on human standards. but within dwarf culture, he IS a dwarf. specifically, he has undergone specific rituals and memorised certain passages, making him LEGALLY a dwarf. this is basically how conversion works in judaism. indeed, as in judaism, it's considered rude to even mention that carrot is six feet tall and obviously wasn't born into the culture he has adopted.

the dwarves also have internal rifts - there are a group of 'orthodox' dwarves who consider the dwarves in ankh-morpork (who have adopted other customs and don't follow traditional roles) not to be dwarves at all, and don't recognise carrot as a dwarf for the same reason. they believe that the way to be a dwarf is to live in an all-dwarf community and follow their traditional rules, while other dwarves believe they need to change with the times and integrate (at least somewhat) with larger society. jewish as fuck.

there's also the interaction of dwarves with gender. when cherie comes out as female (which isn't a recognised gender by dwarvish society) she is ostracised for taking on the feminine roles common to other discworld races. however, she could never THINK of cutting off her beard, because she is still a dwarf. i see parallels with women in judaism taking on roles traditionally considered 'masculine' (e.g., as rabbis, wearing tallit and kippot) and the acceptance of queer people into jewish communities. there's lots of great discussion about cherie as a trans character on tumblr, btw.

finally, something that particularly strikes me is the line from carrot in tfe, where he says that the biggest dwarf city on the disc is ankh-morpork. obviously all diaspora communities can relate, but it's really something to know that new york is the city with the most jews in the world (960k to jerusalem's 570k. btw, 3rd is LA!).

i just love that, again, consciously or unconsciously, pratchett incorporated more positive elements of jewish culture into his portrayal of the dwarves.

[mylight-png]

If you read nothing else on my blog at least read this:

Jewish survival is beautiful, and amazing.

I know times right now are absolutely awful, and it can feel like the world is against us. We're seeing the Nazi marches, the targeting of Jewish businesses, harassment of religious Jews, and so much more at a much more severe rate than many of us have seen within our lifetimes.

But we've survived this before.

The most dangerous thing right now is to lose hope. To lose hope of a better future, to lose hope of any future. We have survived the pogroms, the Holocaust, the Inquisition, the many Middle Eastern anti-Jewish genocides and attacks, various expulsions and so much more.

I've reblogged someone else's post saying this before but I'm going to say it here again: every single Jew alive right now is a miracle.

So here's one thing I want to ask of you: Live.

Do it out of love for your fellow Jews, do it out of spite towards our enemies, do it so that there will be more miracles in the future.

Living is the greatest form of Jewish rebellion.

Living a proud Jewish life is even more so, but at the very least, please live.

Please please please don't give up on life right now. If you feel alone, reach out. Reach out to your fellow Jews, find non-Jewish allies to stand by your side, seek out supportive communities.

As a Jew, you are never truly alone. You have people who will love you like family if you just reach out, because we are one. One family, one nation, one soul. And we all care for each other.

Am Yisrael Chai 💕

[baroque-hashem]

Whenever I see Jews on my dash arguing about interpretations of the Talmud I just chuckle and I'm like...Nothing's changed. Nothing has changed in over 3,000 years. We're still the same Jews. Our clothes, hairstyles, slang may be a bit more modern, but we're still the same Jews. And I love us.

[worfsbarmitzvah]

there’s such an attitude among ex-christian atheists that religions just spring up out of the void with no cultural context behind them. like ive heard people say shit like “those (((zionists))) think they own a piece of land bc their book of fairy tales told them so!!!” and they refuse to understand that no, we don’t belong there because of the torah, it’s in the torah because we belong there. because we’re from there. the torah (from a reform perspective) was written by ancient jews in and about the land that they were actively living on at the time. the torah contains instructions for agriculture because the people who lived in the land needed a way to teach their children how to care for it. it contains laws of jurisprudence because those are pretty important to have when you’re trying to run a society. same for the parts that talk about city planning. it contains our national origin story for the same reason that american schools teach kids about the boston tea party. it’s an extremely complex and fascinating text that is the furthest thing from just a “book of fairy tales”

[girlwithsword]

I'm going to keep being SO JEWISH, and SO QUEER, and SO SO KIND and I'm going to do that /loudly/ for the rest of my life.

[matan4il]

I love you, Jews whose Jewishness comes from conversion.

I love you, Jews whose Jewishness comes from their dads.

I love you, Jews whose Jewishness comes from being adopted by a Jewish family.

I love you, Jews whose Jewishness comes from choosing it, from embracing it even when halacha doesn't make it easy or automatic, comes from connecting to its teachings and meaning whether religiously or culturally, from exploring it even when you were born into it through your mom so you seemingly don't have to, from holding it up as something beautiful and worthy whether as a secular or religious Jew, from being proud of your Jewish ness even when the world tries to make you feel ashamed of it, from looking at the world being hateful to Jews and deciding their hate is only going to fuel your love for your Jewishness and your fellow Jews that much more.

Despite all the persecution, hatred and violence turned against us, we've survived for thousands of years because somehow, we never let them convince us there was anything wrong with what we are, even when what we are was The Ultimate Other, and therefore had to be rejected. You all are this generation's reincarnation of this Jewish certainty, that there is nothing wrong with us, no matter what they say about us. That we are not lesser just because we're different and misunderstood. That we are worthy of the same rights, even when they vilify the term we use for that.

I love you all, I'm so glad you exist.

[my-jewish-life]

[veryintricaterituals]

Something about Good Omens from a Jewish perspective, something about Crowley, about questions, something about how we are not in heaven, about how we get to decide the rules here on Earth, something about discussion, about wrestling with G-d, and something about how G-d is outnumbered and doesn't get a say, something about how "heaven" and "hell" don't really matter, about trying to make things better from the context of our lives, something about leaving the world a better place than you found it, something about drinking and enjoying life right here and now, something about "they tried to kill us and failed, let's eat".

[sova-dozhd]

The idea of being asked to worship G-d, as someone who doesn't believe in G-d as a "figure" but more as the nature of the universe (to put it simply), is to be present in the moment, and see the inherent beauty in all things.

I originally had colored the wings a light yellow, but found this story about black birds, and thought it was fairly fitting for the theme of this piece!

[ofshivelight]

i love judaism. i love the jewish people. it's a love that's lived inside me, quietly, my entire life, and now i can recognize it and carry it in my heart. baruch hashem i am so grateful to have been set on this path where i belong