#Judaism is a closed practice

[screamingfromuz]

Listen. LISTEN, the longer I spend in the academic world, I am more convinced that describing Judaism and Jews as a religion/ethnic grope/ethnoreligion is unhelpful outside of Academic circles.

The best way to explain Judaism is using the tribe model. A lot of times Judaism is a community first and a religion second, i.e., your level of religiousness is rarely a thing that alienate you from the community.

Think of other tribes, like the Sámi, Aboriginal Australians, Māori, Yurok, Inuit ect. Each have their own unique religion, but we do not think of them as a religious group, because the tribal identity is more important, and the religion is considered part of the culture, not the opposite.

IMORTANT SIDENOTE: I am aware that many of those tribes, and other tribes have a big chunk of Christians in them, usually more Christians than those who follow the indigenous religion of the tribe. BUT for the sake of discussion, I am equating Judaism to the section that does follow the indigenous religion of the tribe.

So, despite the fact that the religious structures of Judaism is very integral to Judaism, it is partly because of the community based focus of Judaism. The most basic example is the Minyan, the fact that prayer is preferred to be done in a group. Or the fact that the Sader is meant to be a celebrated in a group. and so on.

SO, ethnoreligion is a great academic term, but for outside that world? A tribe is a much better term to explain Judaism.

[gay-jewish-bucky]

goyim will spell 'kabalah' wrong and think they know enough about this closed practice to educate others on how to steal from it

[amaditalks]

It’s still three weeks until Pesach and the goyim have already started holding their goyische Jesus Seders. It’s insufferable.

[hailruth]

medieval jewish amulet texts from the sefer raziel. the top, "for grace and favor." the bottom, "to safeguard a man against all weapons."

[elder-millennial-of-zion]

The “teacup mikveh” sounds like something that was told to non-Jewish JVP members in order to troll them.

“You fill a teacup, and you sing to it. And, uh, you dance around it, flapping your arms. And then……then you tell the teacup a story of your most embarrassing moment. Yeah. Oh, and the most important part - do all this in public, where people can see you. You know, to signify that the whole world is witnessing your conversion.”

Regarding the Israeli court's decision to grant lgbtq+ Palestinians asylum, I really can't wait to see JVP's response that will be queerphobic.

[crazycatsiren]

I'm blocking all non Jewish "Lilith worshippers" from now on.

Y'all are antisemitic as fuck.

Lilith is Jewish. Anything that says she's from anything/anywhere else is misinformation. Lilith is from Judaism, the end. But of course, expecting y'all to listen to and respect what Jews have to say is just asking too much.

[oheziraphael]

There has been such an unbelieveable amount of antisemitism on Tumblr, so, I'll just say this.

Lilith is closed.

The Kabbalah is not an occult-y thing you can just use, It is closed to Judaism, always has been, always will be.

The Jewish G-d is not just every other abrahamic deity, they are not the same.

Abrahamic religions are not evil, stop generalizing, if you had a bad experience with Christianity or Judaism or Islam, that is not the whole religion, do not put others down because of it.

and i'll just ask this; why are goyim so, so, interested in jews? why? why does it matter to you? If you aren't trying to learn and be respectful, why are you so interested in telling them why something is closed or open?

[magnetothemagnificent]

Hi, sorry this might be a very dumb question but.. I saw your post about heritage and all that and you said that if you convert to Judaism you are then 100% Jewish. But I've seen over and over people saying that Judaism is a closed practice and you can not convert into it? I'm not Jewish myself and where I live I have no points of contact with any Jewish people so all my information is from the internet and this part really confuses me? (I know this sounds ignorant and stupid, I'm not trying to invalidate anyones statements or mean any harm or disruption, I'm genuinely confused about this)

Judaism *is* a closed practice, but conversion is possible, it's just a long and intense process and we don't go out encouraging people to convert (proselytizing is forbidden).

I use this metaphor a lot when explaining Judaism:

Imagine a house surrounded by a courtyard with a gate. Both the door to the house and the outer gate have a lock and key. Sometimes, the outer gate is unlocked and opened, and anyone is allowed into the courtyard if they're invited.

This represents religious events gentiles can participate in, as long as they were invited to do so. Think things like public menorah lightings, going to a Jewish friend's house for Shabbat dinner, attending a Jewish friend's B' Mitzvah in synagogue, etc.

Then there's the house itself. Only people with a key can get in and are allowed in. Most people inherent their key from their parent/s, but some people work really hard to earn their key. Only people with a key are allowed inside the house.

This is Jewish identity. Only people who were born Jewish or who went through the rigorous process of conversion are Jewish, and only Jews are allowed to partake in certain rituals and practices. Only Jews can make up a Minyan (group of ten or more Jews for prayer), only Jews can get an Aliyah (get called up to the Torah), only Jews can keep Shabbat to its fullest (this is why a lot of people in the process of conversion who have taken on every other commandment in Judaism will do a symbolic action to violate the Shabbat until they actually become Jewish (and then their first Shabbat as Jew is so special)).

You can convert to Judaism, but it's not as easy as waking up one day and deciding to be Jewish. It's a long process and must be done with the sponsorship and support of a Rabbi and Jewish community. It often takes years from when a person begins the process to when they dunk in the Mikvah (ritual bath) and are officially declared Jewish. A person must dunk in a ritual bath and have a Beit Din (court of Jewish judges) witness. People with penises usually have to be circumcised, or if they were already circumcised, have a Hatafat Dam Brit, a symbolic pinprick of blood. Once someone becomes Jewish, they are given a new Jewish name.

So, Judaism is closed to anyone without a key, and you must be born with a key or earn the key.

[thornsent]

I'm so tired of "actually, having any sense of spirituality or belief in the spiritual makes you unintelligent" rhetoric. like are you my evangelical father? because you sound just like him

[piedoesnotequalpi]

I have more followers than I did this time last year, so a seasonal reminder from your slightly curmudgeonly neighborhood Jew that Christian "seders" are cultural appropriation and entirely inappropriate to put on

(if you're not Jewish and your Jewish friend invites you to their seder, that's fine and I hope you have a good time! Fresh fruit is usually a safe bet re: contributing food)

[sag-dab-sar]

Sorry i blocked u i was very upset at the hatred(miso) of synchretism i see on here. i’m jewish i don’t need their or anyone elses opinion on Open vs Closed. i don’t think nonjews need their opinions either. though you are keen to summon them. as a sumerian polytheist i disagree that Lilith has no place to be deified up from her demonic origins. I believe Inanna may forgive her for shitting up in that tree. I agree that pseudohistorical declarations are laughable but i dont think theyre harmful in religious context. We don’t go after the exodus lie, and shouldnt! Why any modern mythologies about lilith? Fraudulent behavior! Recreating christian persecution in a way.

I love lilith and to me lilith is as free as the chill of the swift starkissed winds! Despite our differences I pray may Peace be upon you :3

I have no problems with you blocking me, please block people like me if we upset you. My unease was being blocked after someone asked an open ended accusatory question—which I now realize you didn't do. I didn't realize that you used the word misosyncretism, I have dyslexia and misunderstood and thought you were saying I was a misogynist so I am sorry for that misunderstanding and will erase those tags.

🔹Not Needing Opinions🔹

If you don't need anyone's opinion on whether or not something is closed don't reblog a post saying a particular thing is open. You are inviting dissenting opinions— whether its from Jews or non-Jews— when you reblog someone else's post with your own opinion. If you don't want to discuss open vs closed then simply ignore posts that say Lilith is closed, block people who say she is closed, do whatever, but don't engage if it makes you upset.

People are going to have opinions and, again, my opinion is that Lilith is closed based on numerous Jewish voices I have listened to. I recognize not every person in a group is going to agree with each other because no group is a monolith, but I do my best to listen to the voices of a paticular culture and come to a conclusion.

🔹My Opinion🔹

Yes, I am "very keen to summon" my own opinions because its my blog. If I reblog and add to a post I'm giving an opinion... thats kind of the point of blogging.

My conclusion is that non-Jews worship Lilith as a part of cultural Christianity, an ahistorical mythology they refuse to admit is modern, ignore all open entities that still fit the bill, and I see a lot of antisemitism among them. As well as a lot of Islamaphobia & Chrsitophobia. It is a form of cultural appropriation for their own comfort because they cannot be bothered to learn actual history.

My observation is that the majority of Lilith worshippers don't actually care about Lil-demons, they use the demons as a tool to try and validate their worship as something rooted in a non-Jewish historical tradition, when it is not. Lil demons are a convenient excuse. In reality they cling to her because they see her as a feminist icon who stood up the the Big Bad Misogynistic Abrahamic God™.

There is no need for non-Jews to worship a Jewish figure ahistorically when there are plenty of actual Ancient Near Eastern Goddesses who are open.

Thats my opinion. Its what I'm standing by.

🔹Pseudo-history🔹

Now again, I'm not going to try and argue from the Jewish side it is not my place. But I can and will argue from a Sumerian Polytheism and accuracy in history side.

Lilith is not a member of the Lil demons, she is not Ardat-Lilî even if there are some similarities. I show information about Lil-demons here and they are not Lilith. Syncretism is not the problem that was common in the Ancient Near East— Inana, Nanaya, Ištar, Šaušga— as one example. There may be some connection between Lilith and Ardat Lilî: mainly influencing the characterization of the Hebrew Lilith in the Book of Isaiah, but there is no evidence they are one in the same. There is no evidence they were ever considered one in the same by any ancient people or traditions. The issue isn't syncretism its pseudo-history.

They were not syncretic in history. Lil demons come from Mesopotamian tradition which spans the 4th millennium BCE to the 1st millennium BCE; while the Sumerian language continued as a liturgical language for quite some time the Sumerian Civilization ended circa 2000-1700 BCE. Aside from the extremely minor mention in Isiah 34:14, the story most Lilith worshippers base her on comes from a midrash written at some point during the 1st millennium CE. This is a significant time difference and people just seem to wipe away time differences as if they don't matter, or they simply can't wrap their head around them.

Pseudo-history absolutely can be harmful and I absolutely abhor pseudo history and always will. I literally have an entire tag, #letsdebunk , for it and its been apart of my blogging since I started in 2017.

"We don't go after the Exodus lie"

Plenty do, plenty of Jews debate the historicity of stories in Jewish literature including the Tanakh, as do many Christians when reading the 'Old Testament'. (Also I would call it a myth not a lie). But whether or not Exodus actually happened in history is very different than making things up and claiming that it was a real religion and real mythology people once believed. Saying "Exodus is a story in the Tanakh and Old Testament and it says [insert story]," is different than saying "Lilith was originally a Sumerian Goddess of love and war," when she wasn't.

You are comparing apple to oranges. The fake history around Lilith is more akin to saying something like "Exodus is a story about how an ancient Egyptian God punished Egyptians for there bad deeds and Jewish slaves escaped while their was chaos and then they found a tribe worshiping a God named YHWH and adopted the religion of that tribe" <- that is not the story of Exodus its abunch of made up bullshit. Made up bullshit is what I consider most modern neo-pagan/left hand path/witch claims about Lilith.

Pseudo-history is used to culturally appropriate many things not just Lilith. It has many problems:

It's used to make bigoted claims against Jews, such as "the Jews killed Jesus" which is historically factually wrong and one of the most damaging sources of antisemitism in history.

Bigotry against Christians, by claiming their only role in history is oppression and the silencing of any Christian voices including POC the world over. Like the dumb St Patrick pagan persecution story which is listed as a false meme by Snopes but shows up as a real belief among neo-pagans. This is also extremely dangerous towards African Diaspora Religions that are syncretized with Christianity, as just one example of how Christophobia is dangerous.

Bigotry against Muslims, by claiming they have solely been a patriarchal oppressor that made no advancements to humanity and only offer "violent jihadism." Which is false and ignores actual Islamic history because real history is very inconvenient for the narrative

Its used to validate bullshit like the Burning Times, blood based witchcraft lineage, and a false sense of persecution among modern neo-pagans. A completely toxic belief.

Its used by feminists who claim a unsubstantiated matriarchal pre-historic religion destroyed by evil patriarchy. They use it to deny anyone who isn't a cis-woman from Goddess worship, witchcraft, and other neo-pagan traditions and claim transwomen and transfemmes are just another iteration of the evil patriarchy trying to taint there ancient Goddess faith. A faith that never existed. Pseudo-history as a tool of transphobia.

Its used by Wiccans and neo-pagans to ignore real Irish history. And add things like Ostara a made up holiday based on the Goddess "Ēsotre" of dubious historicity according to medieval historian Bede & Mabon's fabrication by Aiden Kelly based on the name of a Welsh folk hero.

Its used to fabricate stories about deities that may or may not be real, like Ēsotre mentioned above, and then connect her to the holiday of Easter, and then make a huge leap and connect that to real historical deities like Ištar. Which is also used as a false sense of persecution among neo-pagans.

It can be a weapon for racial/ethnic supremacists. For example, the idea that Hellenic Polytheism was a national religion unique to the Hellenes is pseudo-history used by the boarding on ethnic supremacist YSEE organization.

Not to mention all the horrific pseudo-history of the extremely antisemitic Satanism group that I won't name. That constantly claims Lucifer is a Sumerian God or whatever and spams the inboxes of neo-pagans/witches/polytheists.

Its used by new agers to validate their appropriation of traditions from Dharmic religions for their own inaccurate purposes.

Its used to support, often very racist, "ancient alien" claims.

I could keep going and going and going with fake history touted among neo-pagans, witches, polytheists, left hand path folk, occultists, and new agers that is dangerous but hopefully I've gotten my point across.

"Recreating Christian persecution in a way"

If its not abundantly clear from my above examples pseudo-history is used to fabricate a lot of Christian persecution claims that have serious negative impacts. I don't even know what you mean by this so honestly I'm not going to try arguing against it.

Bottom line: pseudo-history absolutely is harmful in a religious context.

🔹Sumerian Polytheism🔹

As for "deifying" her up in Sumerian Polytheism. No I am 100% against that. Don't deify up demons and claim its still Sumerian polytheism because it isn't— its modern demonolatry.

First, Lilith isn't Sumerian.

Second, demons have their place in Sumerian cosmology and I'm not going to deify them. If a demon was honored, such as Pazuzu, then I many honor them. But I will not view Sumerian/Mesopotamian demons as Diĝir.

Third, I am a revivalist with a heavy reconstructionist approach, I value the real history of Ancient Near Eastern religions, cosmologies, and mythologies with a particular focus on Sumerian times (Ur III and prior) for my own faith.

This means I will always stand against pseudo-history, debunk claims, and defend actual ANE & Sumerian history. Ancient cultures deserve to be respected and not lied about. Pseudo-history is a lie.

🔹Last Thoughts🔹

Please do not pray to Lilith for me the mention in the ask made me feel uncomfortable.

Just like the "recreating Christian persecution" sentence in your ask I don't understand the "fraudulent behavior" statement so I can't really address it.

Tone clarification: The tone of this post is meant to be informative and explanatory not hostile and argumentative.

---

TL;DR Lil demons are not Lilith. Lilith is Jewish and I stand by my opinion that she is apart of a closed tradition. Pseudo-history is dangerous and I will always reject it.

EDIT: After reading their tags on this (x) and their rhetoric in the first reply to this post I think its better for me to not interact with this person. So I've decided to block. They've stated their stance and its literally just strawman arguments, many false equivalences, and whataboutisms; I have no time or patience for that. But this post is still useful as a rebuke against pseudo- history in our communities so I'll leave it up, I worked hard on it. I also deleted the original response post since it's redundant now. [Edit 2] The person has been extremely ableist towards me more than once, threatened me, tried to bypass my blocks, wished violent death on me more than once. I did report them and tumblr took one of their posts down... which is not enough but I won't waste my time trying to get tumblr moderators to do their job.

-not audio proof read-

[shame-kink]

one of the most important aspects to be learnt of being a political thinker online, a passive or active viewer of sociopolitical discourses and marginalization, is that just because you find someone to be “wrong” on a subject, have a bad take on a words definition or have shitty political/strategic takes, or just be fucking annoying to you personally, doesn’t make them stop being from the same marginalized group or group-of-groups as yourself. tragically sometimes a comrade-in-arms also just fucking sucks without it being a cishetero bourgeois psyop or a more-particularly-advantaged-yet-still-marginalized-group punching down. like there can be “self-hating” people from demographics actively trying to oppress said demographics but 9 times out of 10 Kaleb from My Discourses isn’t a Dennis Prager rubbing elbows with literal nazis he’s just that dipshit who thinks Judaism as a social category necessitates matrilineal affiliation (even though the people that actively hate Judaism as a social category don’t conceive of it as such). For example I mean.

this should really go without saying but good fucking god my own time in the ‘strangers with a word or two in common trying to kill each other online’ trenches neeeeded

[sixty-silver-wishes]

tired of going on the news to see conservatives saying that criticizing israel's government is antisemitic, while also ranting about "soros-backed globalist woke elites etc etc" like. they. they know what they're doing. right

[satanourunholylord]

Hello pardon my lack of knowledge/ignorance but does one has to be of a specific race or ancestry to worship a certain deity? Since I've seen many people say that Lilith worshipers must be jewish. Thanks in advance and have a good day :)

Depends on the religion. Some are closed practice, some aren't. You're correct that Lilith is off limits because Judaism is a closed religion that requires initiation to join. I can't speak for every religion, but Norse paganism and Satanism aren't closed practice, meaning anyone is welcome.

It'll become apparent after taking some time to research a specific religion. You might hear people mentioning the keyword "appropriation" or talking about how a practice is race or region locked. Santeria, hoodoo, vodou, and brujeria are a few closed practices that I can think of off the top of my head. The best thing to do is research, ask around, and be prepared to respectfully apologise if needed and drop the idea of pursuing a path rather than arguing with current members about their own cultures and religions.

[julictcapulet]

🔥women and lesbians in religion. go.

Send me a “ 🔥 “ for an unpopular opinion.

OH i have many thoughts. i'm not a lesbian, i'm a small bi mess but i do have many thoughts on women and sexuality in relation to religion. i have seen a lot of people denounce religion and those who practice it as automatically misogynistic/homophobic/whatever and while i do understand the hesitation (god do i understand it) i also feel like religion is such a.......personal thing to so many people? like okay i'm jewish and i think it's unfair to assume those who are jewish are just like....in agreement with everything the torah says.

essentially, my own personal experience with religion/my thoughts on god/my relationship to judaism come from a more introspective lens rather than listening to what a rabbi told me to think and i think it's actually really disrespectful to insult someone for believing in a religion just because the institution that was born from it is fucked. at the same time, i completely understand the reasons why so many women and members of the lgbt+ community have turned away from religion—i guess the unpopular opinion is that i think it's kind of a dick move to ridicule why a woman, specifically a woman who is in the community, would still practice religion.

[mieczyhale]

i typed out these tags in my last reblog but it didn’t / doesn’t feel right to attach my personal... not opinion really, but also kinda?? i guess?? to it. so a sc of the tags are going under the read more