#basic concepts of Judaism

[torais-life]

Our first Rambam(Maimonides) cames yesterdayyyy!!!

B'H for all the wisdom of the rabbis and tzaddikim of Am Israel 🇮🇱✨

[mossadspypigeon]

What I was saying is that ethnically, due to having a Jewish mother, people who are part of Neturei Karta are ethnically Jewish, even if their views are bad.

you don’t seem to understand that judaism is a tribe you can be removed from. or what a herem is.

also anyone with a jewish dad is ethnically jewish?? like wtf are you talking about? matrilineal line is religiously jewish per halacha.

are you a jew? because you don’t seem to get basic jewish concepts and if you’re a goy, you have no right to tell jews who is and isnt jewish.

the NK were removed from the tribe by our authorities. their ethnicity doesnt matter. they are not jews. their opinions dont matter. THEY WERE STRIPPED OF JEWISHNESS.

[short-wooloo]

Jedi Chanukah

An idea came to my mind

I've seen a number of posts which highlight parallels between the Jedi and Judaism, even beyond the more obvious

being that we are around the time of Chanukah, it got me thinking

as I understand the origins of Chanukah in its most basic sense, the Holiday came about from the Maccabean Revolt, where the Jewish rebels defeated the Seleucid Greek empire and kicked them out of Judea

what does this have to do with the Jedi?

well aside from the basic concept of Rebels defeated an empire, there is something else I have noticed

During the Seleucids occupation of Judea, they attempted to quash Judaism in the land, outlawing the faith and trying to enforce Hellenization by converting the Temple of Jerusalem into one for Zeus, while also having pigs be slaughtered for sacrifice there, all and all very petty and cruel attempts to hurt those of the Jewish faith

there are some interesting parallels to this in SW

Now obviously Emperor Palpatine and his Empire made the Jedi faith/culture illegal, murdering and persecuting the Jedi (with help from Jedi traitors Vader/the inquisitors, another parallel as the story goes there were Jews who collaborated with the Seleucids), but it doesn't stop there

in the disney eu canon, Palpatine takes a page right out of the Seleucid handbook in his defilement of the Jedi Temple, not only did his forces assault this sacred place and murder its inhabitants, Palpatine turned this temple-a place of faith, learning, and knowledge-and made it into his personal palace

revolting, and considering how the sith narcissistically see themselves as gods, it nicely lines up with how the Seleucids took the Jewish Temple and made it an alter to their gods, Palpatine made the Jedi Temple into a temple of his own self worship

now what has happened to Jedi temple after Palpatine's death and the empire's fall has not been revealed as of yet (here's hoping for the Rey Jedi Order movie), but I believe there is a chance to further mirror the story of Chanukah here

as the story goes, after the Seleucids were kicked out, the Maccabees went about with some house cleaning, liberating the Temple in Jerusalem, getting rid of all the greek god stuff and rededicating the Temple to its original purpose, and along the way experiencing a miracle which would birth a central part of Chanukah

What if we get something similar in SW with the Jedi? After Rise of Skywalker, Rey and her reestablished Jedi Order reclaim and return to the Jedi Temple of Coruscant, cleansing it of Palpatine's dark influence/stain and rededicating it to its purpose as the Jedi's home and center of learning

and maybe along the way a new tradition develops in the Jedi Order, a commemoration of their return to their ancient home

So in short

Lightsaber Menorah

[former-leftist-jew]

Of course I'm upset. I'm sick to death of Christians trying to take our shit and make it theirs, while giving us shit for not abandoning our shit for yours.

It's a Jewish movie, based on a Jewish story. Judaism exists just fine without Christianity, while Christianity can't exist without Judaism.

If you find meaning and fulfillment in a Jewish story it because Judaism preludes your Christianity: good for you. But stop trying to take our shit and make it yours.

Get your own shit.

Need this site to understand that "The Prince of Egypt" is BOTH a Jewish and Christian movie. Let no one rob it from the Jews, but us christians literally owe our faith to the same God who saw to and led the Exodus. The Ten Commandments are still in effect, Jesus did not abolish the law but fulfilled it, and to get to Jesus we needed Moses.

[slyandthefamilybook]

...And here we come upon a problem as basic as the nature of knowledge itself: all of our prodigious cognitive and computational abilities are inadequate to a full comprehension of our complex world. As humans, we remain heavily dependent on certain tools of perception and conception that our cultural and biological heritages have taught us are useful. These tools–such as language, causal logic, religion, mathematics–are indeed powerful, but they are powerful precisely because they reduce complexity to intelligibility by projecting our mental concepts onto the world. One consequence of this is that our recognition of significance is always what some philosophers call "theory laden," meaning that it is shaped by what our theoretical framework and cognitive tools encourage us to recognize as meaningful. Anti-Judaism, as I have argued throughout this book, is precisely this: a powerful theoretical framework for making sense of the world.

...

After all, no matter how overrepresented the Jews may have been among the European "bourgeoisie," they remained a tiny minority of that class. How could that tiny minority convincingly come to represent for so many the evolving evils of the capitalist world order? More broadly, how could untold millions of Europeans (and not only Germans) come to believe–or act as if they believed–the claims of the Nazis (and not only the Nazis) that Jews and their conspiracies so threatened the security of the world that they needed to be excluded, expelled, or exterminated? According to Horkheimer and Adorno, the liquidation of the Jews of Europe was not grounded in "reality." It took place in the vast gap between and explanatory framework ("anti-Semitism") that made satisfying sense of the world to a significant portion of its citizens, and the complexity of the world itself.

They set out to explore that gap in a philosophical history of modern thought they drafted in 1944 and later published as Dialectics of Enlightenment. Their final chapter, "Elements of Anti-Semitism: Limits of Enlightenment," suggested that what gave anti-Semitic ideas their power was not so much their relation to reality, but rather their exemption from reality checks–that is, from the critical testing to which so many other concepts were subjected. "What is pathological about anti-Semitism is not projective behavior as such, but the absence of reflection in it." In their terms, the problem is a heightened resistance to reflection about the gap between our ideas about Jews, Judaism, or Jewishness, and the complexity of the world. From their point of view, anti-Semitism provides adherents with a cognitive comfort: the fantasy that the gap between our understanding of the cosmos and its fearful complexity does not exist.

...

...[A]cross several thousand years, myriad lands, and many different spheres of human activity, people have used ideas about Jews and Judaism to fashion the tools with which they construct the reality of their world. The goal of my project, like Horkeheimer and Adorno's, is to encourage reflection about our "projective behavior," that is, about the ways in which our deployment of concepts into and onto the world might generate "pathological" fantasies of Judaism. And my choice of method owes something to Auerbach's conviction that the study of a given moment, problem, or even a single word in the distant past can teach us something about a much longer history, extending even to our own.

Selected excerpts from Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition (2013 Nirenberg, David)

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

Ever since October 7th, the amount of misinformation and disinformation about Jews, Israel, Judaism, and even just like, basic facts about reality have been so intense that it's really dredging up a lot of my gaslighting trauma.

(No, not in the memic sense that it's been distorted into, but the kind of gaslighting that leads you to detransition and think it was your choice despite drowning in dysphoria, the kind that warps and changes and erases memories, and makes it so that you dissociate for literal months at a time to escape the pain. That kind.)

And I recognized this because I keep finding myself arguing facts and trying to reason with people who say that they're part of the compassionate left and care about working on antisemitism but yet spew the kind of antisemitism that would be totally at home on Stormfront.

It's that first arguing stage of gaslighting, where the abuser keeps saying outrageous, untrue things and you're still fighting to try and get them to empathize with you and seek mutual understanding. This:

A gaslighter does not simply need to be right. He or she also needs for you to believe that they are right. In stage 1, you know that they are being ridiculous, but you argue anyways. You argue for hours, without resolution. You argue over things that shouldn’t be up for debate — your feelings, your opinions, your experience of the world. You argue because you need to be right, you need to be understood, or you need to get their approval. In stage 1, you still believe yourself, but you also unwittingly put that belief up for debate.

(bolding mine) (source)

This is a pattern I recognize in myself in personal relationships and even within communities, but what's happening right now is a lot bigger and more diffuse. It's not one abuser or even a shitty cohort of abusive people who are monopolizing a community space. This is being encouraged in a frighteningly large number of non-Jewish progressive spaces. In the same way that stochastic terrorism adds up very quickly, this type of cultural gaslighting and stochastic emotional abuse feels like a deluge.

But if you look at history, this is not new, for Jews. This is but the latest version of a very long game of Why Won't You Just Give Up and Assimilate or Die that Jews have thus far prevailed on at great cost to ourselves.

Anyway I'm done arguing with goyim about things that absolutely should not be up for debate: Jewish history, Jewish culture, what certain religious concepts in Judaism mean, Jewish lived experiences, what is and isn't antisemitism. If you aren't willing to engage in a genuine way that seeks mutual understanding, I'm not interested. I'm done.

You are engaging in violent behavior and lying to yourself about it and calling it activism. Well I am no longer going to participate. You can lie to yourself all you want, but you are a bad person and I don't forgive you, and you can do that alone.

You are acting from a mob mentality and a mob cannot be reasoned with. You are drunk on your tiny bit of power and social capital, and years down the line you'll lie to yourself and pretend that you cared about us.

You didn't. And deep down you know it, too.

Instead of arguing with people who refuse to see facts or reason and put our experiences up for debate, I am going to work on compiling a resource for people who want to actually learn.

Everyone else can fuck off.

[writingwithcolor]

Afro-Latine Jewish woman maintaining cultural connection in an isekai comic

Anonymous asked:

Hello! Mixed Latin American nonbinary Jew here. I'm working on a, relatively light-hearted, isekai-style fantasy comic concept of an afro-latine Jewish lady who gets sent through a portal to a colorful scifi/fantasy land, inhabitated by various imaginary creatures sorta like in Alice in Wonderland. She gains magic powers and goes on adventures, working as a scientist researching the land's magical energy. (some of the local creatures she befriends are entirely original species, and some are inspired by my local folklore, but otherwise I try to avoid culturally coding the creatures since they're mostly nonhuman looking). The story isn't supposed to touch any heavy topics like antisemitism or racism, but I've read about the cultural problems in ""normie protagonist finds a new home in a funky fantasy world"" stories, f.ex. how Harry Potter's narrative basically implies that Muggleborns have to abandon their original cultures in order to successfully integrate into the very prejudiced but ""cooler"" Wizarding World. My original goal was to break the mold that escapism fantasy usually revolves around white protagonists adventuring in heavily Western-inspired fantasy worlds, and poc-coded characters are usually nonhuman creatures or racial stereotypes. However the protagonist girl in my story comes from a loving, latine-jewish human family, and while she regularly visits them on Earth instead of just staying in the fantasy land 24/7, I'm afraid that making her story be about being happy adventuring in a separate imaginary land filled with nonhuman characters might turn into an ""abandon your family and culture"" narrative. Are there any ways how I could avoid this? Maybe making the fantasy land's worldbuilding and designs more Latin American or Jewish inspired and thus resonate more with her cultural background, or making it clear that the land is not ""perfect"" and she still loves her family?

One of the first things that stands out to me is that you haven’t set her up to need to abandon her culture in order to make a life in another place. She has the ability to go home and visit her family, but I also don’t see any reason why, if she lives primarily in the fantasy land, she couldn’t be portrayed as practicing Judaism actively in her new home. It’s true that Judaism isn’t solely defined by religious/cultural practices, but it’s also true that religious/cultural practices are one of the most recognizable and most uniting elements of Jewish identity.

I think it might help in this case to think about Jewish practices in terms of communal versus personal: that is, what are practices she would need to seek out a Jewish community for, and what are practices she can do independently?

Does she control when she is able to visit her family? If so, visiting for Jewish holidays so that she can be at a family meal or holiday services seems like a way to highlight that she is just as connected to her family as someone who moved to a different city might be. If she experiences/has experienced the death of a family member or partner, going home to be with a Jewish community for shiva or to say kaddish on a yahrzeit is another touch (for readers who may be unfamiliar, Jewish mourning practices are intensely communal and are intentional about bringing the mourner into an active support system and slowly reintroducing them to the world, and as such a mourner is likely to spend this time somewhere where they can access and be supported by a Jewish community).

As far as practices she can engage with on her own in the fantasy setting, it would be nice to see her observing Shabbat, either in a traditional way by refraining from adventuring and instead engaging in hospitality and prayer between dusk Friday and sundown Saturday, or in a less-halakhic way if she comes from a Reform or comparatively-assimilated background, by marking Friday sunset with candles, blessings, and a good meal, even if she is intending to continue her research through the next day. She would hardly be the first Jewish person to live in a place without an established Jewish community, and a festive meal can be shared just as happily with non-Jewish friends if they’re griffons and fauns as if they’re Christians and Muslims.

Here’s one idea that I think would be hugely meaningful as a way of establishing both that she intends to make her home long-term in Fantasy World and that she intends to carry Jewish traditions with her into her new life: hang a mezuzah.

Think about it: a mezuzah is the visual marker of a Jewish home, as much to the resident as to a guest. When she is home from her adventures, in her garden cottage or enchanted tower or wherever she returns to between adventures to record and categorize her research, simply showing a mezuzah in the background instantly makes the point both that she is intending to stay, and that this is a Jewish space. If as time goes on she adds other Judaica items to her space, it can add to the sense that her Jewishness is present and alive in this world, simply because she is present and alive in it.

If she doesn’t have a settled space or if you’re not planning on setting any scenes there, having Jewish visual markers on and around her can help, too. For low-hanging fruit, maybe she has a silver Jewish Star or chai necklace that catches the light now and then, but since you’re going for a light, fun vibe, maybe she’s packing her adventuring supplies in a bright-blue vinyl backpack emblazoned with “Temple Shaarei Tzedek Junior Youth Retreat 1998” (am I old? I’m pretty sure there are adults reading this who were in Junior Youth groups in 2003, but I’m willing to bet retreat swag hasn’t changed that much).

I do like the idea of including Latin American and Jewish elements in the worldbuilding, especially as an intentional way to combat the cultural dominance of Western European folklore over fantasy writing, but because your character is from and has access to our world, you have the beautiful opportunity to carry real-world markers of Jewishness with her as well.

-Meir

I adore Meir’s answer, but then, I’m the kind of person to whom “enchanted tower with a mezuzah” as an aesthetic is so near and dear to my heart that I wrote a whole fantasy series about it. Couple of random suggestions: one thing I really enjoy is exposing my gentile friends to Jewish food—I love watching the absolute shock of delirium hit someone’s face the first time they taste my charoseth. Imagine this little bowl of chopped apples and walnuts, looking vaguely dirty because they’re soaked in cinnamon-infused wine, so it’s basically dingy beige slop….so that first bite of sensuous, deep sweetness is a huge surprise. Pick your favorite equivalent and imagine the first time a centaur or a winged princess or whatever other fantasy character tries it at your MC’s behest! (Feeding brisket to dragons would make a great name for…something…)

I don’t think you’re likely to do this anyway but since these are public answers: “fantasy world fun, Jewish upbringing a chore” is a narrative I would not feel at home in or care to read. But that’s a rather predictable remark from me anyway ;)

And of course I support the “the secondary fantasy world is actually Jewish” solution too, having one of my own.

–Shira

[shu-of-the-wind]

rewatching eps 13 and 14 and there's something that i think hasn't really been gone into much yet with robby's panic attack and recitation of the sh'ma.

(converting to judaism and 3 years into the process here so i'm still learning.)

just as a reminder of the exchange between robby and jake at the end of 13:

any other day? what does that mean, you would have saved her life? yes. no. i don't know. i don't--i don't know. we're getting slammed up there. we've had dozens of shooting victims, you've seen it. the fact that we've saved as many people as we have is a fucking miracle. but you didn't save leah. no. no i didn't. and i don't know how many people i've helped today but i can tell you every other person who has died. there was a man named mr. spencer who died in front of his children, and an 18 year old who--who was brain dead from a fentanyl overdose, and a guy with a heart condition and a little girl who drowned trying to save her sister and i'm going to remember leah long after you've forgotten her--

the jewish concept of teshuvah, forgiveness, is something that i've posted about before, but it's something to note again here: basically, you have no obligation to forgive the people who have wronged you. it's the people who have done wrong, or who have failed, that need to make amends, ask for forgiveness, and if you choose not to forgive them, they must accept it. the way they make amends is through acknowledging the harm they caused, and changing the behavior that caused that harm. so if you don't do that, you haven't made amends properly. it is not contingent on the person you harmed forgiving you, and there is no obligation for them to forgive you.*

the thing that KILLS me about robby...blurting all that out, having a panic attack/PTSD flashback, and apologizing to an empty room before starting to recite the sh'ma (the most essential prayer in judaism, essentially THE prayer, the one you say every day, the one that affirms the covenant between the jewish people and g-d) is that he is...essentially...trying to do teshuvah here. he apologizes to jake for his perceived harm--not being able to save leah--and then is not forgiven. and he knows that there is no obligation for him to be forgiven. so he makes sure jake is removed from him, both to get him away from leah's body and his panic attack, and he falls into a spiral of all the people he's harmed through his inability to save them.

to be clear, i don't think robby is causing harm in the way that would require him to make amends thru teshuvah--it's caregiver's guilt, trauma medicine guilt, through and through. but i think teshuvah and making amends are mixed up in there too. robby blames himself for causing harm even if the harm was something he's been trying to mitigate all this time. he couldn't fix it, and because he couldn't fix it he caused harm. and he's trying to change and do things to make amends, but the fact of emergency medicine is that there are some people you just can't save.

i'm just,,,i'm CHEWING ON THIS SEQUENCE GUYS.

*obviously this varies depending on community and what source you're reading, maimonides has some stuff to say about it, but it wouldn't be a jewish concept if it wasn't a concept that was debated for centuries, so.

[jedi-enthusiast]

Genuine question as to why you feel so passionate about being pro-jedi? I definitely wouldn't say I'm anti-jedi, but I think there are some decent criticisms that can be made about them. But overall I'm just interested to understand the dedication to being pro-jedi, cause it is a fictional organisation at the end of the day. Isn't it more fulfilling to look at them from different perspectives so we can get the most out of the story as possible?

Before I answer, I'm going to ask you a question in turn, would you ever ask this question to someone who was anti-Jedi? Would you ever imply that they need to change their view on the Jedi because they're "not getting the most out of the story?"

Now, I'm going to preface this answer by saying that I'm not angry with you, I'm just very passionate about this topic---so don't take any of this personally. You seem like you're genuinely asking, and I appreciate that.

----------

Personally, for me, there aren't really any criticisms that can be made about the Jedi- (keep in mind, I primarily adhere to Lucas Canon, everything else is just an add on depending whether I like it or not). Everything that people criticize the Jedi for or accuse them of falls into one of three categories:

Not true- (the Jedi are a cult, the Jedi repress their emotions, the Jedi were mean to Anakin, etc.)

Done for a reason because the other option would be worse/it was their only real option in a bad situation- (the Jedi shouldn't have fought in the war, the Jedi should've defended Ahsoka, the Jedi are slavers because of the clones, etc.)

Or it's something that's an Eastern concept/practice but people refuse to look at it as such and instead project their Western viewpoint/religious trauma onto them- (literally the entire thing about attachment)

I've never seen any criticism of the Jedi that doesn't fall into one of these categories, so why should I be inclined to "hear people out" or "look at the Jedi from other perspectives" when there's...really nothing else to look at?

----------

Another thing to consider is that, while the Jedi are fictional characters, George Lucas based them heavily on very real religions and groups---particularly Jews and Buddhists.

So when people say things like- "the Jedi weren't allowed to care/love/have emotions because of Attachment™️" -they're spreading harmful misinformation and basically saying that Buddhists can't love/care/have emotions because of their rule against attachment, since the philosophy of non-attachment is literally taken verbatim from Buddhism.

And when people usually pair the above rhetoric with- "-and that's why the Jedi deserved what they got/caused their own downfall" -it's...a very concerning mindset for people to perpetuate---especially when George Lucas based the genocide of the Jedi and the rise of the Empire off of the Holocaust and Nazi Germany.

When you strip away the fictional aspects of it, a lot of what people say about the Jedi is literally Nazi/antisemitic/Holocaust denial rhetoric. To take an example of something that has actually been said on one of my posts:

"The destruction of the Jedi Order was less a genocide and more of a religious conflict that the Jedi lost. The Jedi Order is a sect of the collective religious culture of 'Force Users,' and their destruction cannot really be considered genocide as the cultural group of 'Force Users' still exists albeit heavily restricted and controlled by the Sith during the Empire Era." - @/ironwoodarl01

And, as @zarohk pointed out:

It’s depressing how so many “Jedi critical” talking points are pretty much antisemitism and Holocaust denial/justification: The destruction of the Jedi Order was less a genocide and more of a religious conflict that the Jedi lost. "The Jedi Order religion of Judaism is a sect of the collective religious culture of 'Force Users Abrahamic faiths, and their destruction cannot really be considered genocide as the cultural group of Force Users Abrahamic faiths still exists…" Similar thinly-veiled antisemitism in the Star Wars fandom also frequently includes supersessionism, the Christian idea that during the (Roman) Republic era, the Jedi Jews had become corrupt and lost their way, and and so finally a divinely created person was sent to show them new path. This is why attempts to read Star Wars where Anakin is a Christ figure or correct where the Jedi have failed (ignoring the fact that he wrecked the lives of most people he was involved with, including himself, and the Darth Vader was never happy) are not just incorrect, but generally have a thick underlayer of antisemitism.

So, while Star Wars is fictional, it's important for people to analyze why they feel the way they do about the Jedi and be critical of the ways in which they talk about/criticize the Jedi---because, like it or not, the Jedi and their genocide are based on real people/things and so your reaction to them/what happened to them can be very telling.

----------

Finally, being critical of the good guys or trying to view everything through a morally grey lens doesn't make the story inherently more interesting, nor does it inherently add anything to the story---so I'm not "missing" anything.

If believing that no one can actually just be good, and everyone has to have some agenda, and "the good guys were the REAL bad guys all along" adds something to Star Wars for you...by all means, go ahead and believe what you want.

But my view of Star Wars isn't "lesser" or "missing something" just because I don't share that view and actually like the good guys and believe in what they taught/did.

----------

I'm passionate about being pro-Jedi because of everything I outlined above and because they were truly good people who tried their best to help the galaxy---they were brought down, not because of anything they did, but because of one man's selfish stupid actions.

There might've been a time when I was willing to hear people out when they criticized the Jedi---because hey! maybe I was wrong---but that time has long passed because nothing anyone has ever criticized the Jedi for has held up to scrutiny, and anti-Jedi people won't just keep the fuck off my page and leave me alone.

So, frankly, this is my blog and I'm allowed to be as passionate as I want to be---and I'm not gonna stop, or start viewing the Jedi as "wrong" or "bad" or whatever, just because you- (and other people, I'm sure) -think I'm missing something by being strictly pro-Jedi

[jollmaster]

To be honest (no same anon of aristocracy and Ars Goetia) the Ars Goetia in HB neither are, well, aristocrats. Just... rich modern people.

As for some Ars Goetia being based on gods, well yes, that is true, but there are also others that are simply pulled out of thin air.

For example, Stolas is not based on any god. In fact, his name is just the plural of the Latin word stola, the female version of the toga in Ancient Rome.

But back to the aristocratic hierarchy of HH and HB, I've always felt it more like "wealthy American people" because aside from not being noble... it's not like it reflects the difference even wealthy people from different parts of the world either.

Idk, I feel that way, but maybe it's just me.

I might even say that Vivzie's idea is not bad, just misguided.

You can have this "mythological, magical and fantastic" status but also put this "very human" without it feeling like a copy and paste from the real world (in my opinion).

Mind you, in the universe I'm doing (it's not a rewrite, but it has HH and HB characters) is that the goetias are a native species of hell and they have different titles in their native language... until Lucifer came and started the war. While there were many Goetia left, they had to reunify and create new limits/borders and to repair the hierarchy by changing the 72 remaining nobles. (It doesn't make sense to me that they are fallen angels, and less so in the world I built which is basically "Hell is habitable, for native species. For fallen angels and sinners... it is a place of punishment").

The difference between a noble, a rich and a common Goetia is that in the Goetia culture they do not need a surname, each name is unique. The Goetian tradition is to combine the names of the parents.

Prince Stolas, son of Paimon and Svaitlas, The reader of the future, keeper of the ancient words, the master of astronomy, wizard of hierbalogy, gemologist of Infernus. A nobleman is introduced first by his parents, then his domain and (if he has) achievements and exploits and finally his lands.

Octavia from the kingdom of Irkalla.

A common one is only presented with his name (or a false name) and of the place of his birth/growth.

But, a rich one, and more those living near colonies of sinners or pits of punishment, gave themselves surnames:

Kaitan Ars Wicca (the stolas of HB). His parents are not important, so he cannot introduce himself by using them, but, he is not an ordinary person either.

That is why surnames were invented in the Goethean culture.

At least this way I see that both can be done.

Anyway, I really liked your character designs. Also that you included Naaamah, Agrat and Eishet (I'm using them too).

Do you plan to put djinns, or put some religious mythological creatures from the Abrahamic religions or even from other religions (Tulpas, for example)?

Sorry for the long message, have a nice day.

I like long messages tbh 🖤 your takes and variant with mane merging as a social differentiation sounds interesting! (as I said myself, I have no problem with concept of aristocracy, but in series it's underdrawn, and yes, Viv really doesn't seem interested in cultural diversity)

and thanks for kind words about my designs, I wanted them to look interesting, and these three women too 🖤

I don't plan to add jinns separately, because it's effectively about the same thing as spirits/shedim in judaism, according to myths they made of flame too and can be both kind and evil; I use this word as shedim's name in another region (after all, deities and spirits often have multiple names), what about another creatures, I think time and work will show

thank you again and sorry for late! have a nice day too

[heritageposts]

I also love & take much inspiration from Benjamin in times of intense danger & fear but I’m surprised that you do as well since you are so explicit about your disgust for zionism (I don’t think Israel should exist - I don’t think it’s possible for states to exist ethically, basically - but my relationship with Judaism & thus zionism seems a bit different from yours?). how do you manage his fraught relationship with cultural vs. political zionism in his work?

There isn't really much of a 'fraught' relationship to speak of; in short, Benjamin was never a Zionist. He repeatedly criticized Zionism, warning Scholem as early as 1916 that the whole Zionist movement was underpinned by a "racial ideology."

What I guess might lead to some confusion is Benjamin's concept of cultural Zionism, which he used early on to describe his own work. But this self-described 'Zionism' had nothing at all to do with Palestine; the aim was never to free Jewish culture from the European, but to rescue European culture through Jewish spirituality (and Marxism). Establishing a new center for Jewish culture in Palestine - the way Scholem wanted - never interested him, let alone the prospect of colonizing the land.

[velvetvexations]

jsyk antitheism is a word for a specific ideology thats not about religious discrimination, marginalization, & hatred (which is also an important concept i don't wanna take away from that!) which is basically a critique of organized power structures & religion as hierarchical systems of power with similar structures to states (theism as distinct from religion), and a lot of antitheists are religious ourselves. for example im a jewish antitheist, i believe that judaism should not be centered around a hierarchical power structure where individuals are given more power in their community and allowed to make decisions based on their religious position, and i organize to deconstruct power and control in judaism and create jewish spaces free of all hierarchy and detangle knowledge in religious practice from the ability or opportunity to control others. anyway i think your points are super important i just wanted to throw that in there bc theres a lot of misconceptions about what antitheism is out there bc a lot of people use the word on purpose to mean something its not, like how people use "anarchist" to mean "people who just want to go around murdering and hurting people and think nobody should ever have consequences for violence" when thats not what it means, if that comparison helps make the situation make sense!

ILU with all my heart anon, but that's not the original or primary meaning of the term, which traditionally has always referred to opposition to belief and/or worship in deities.

[fairuzfan]

“Temple denialism” as a concept, is made up anon and lacks any coherent internal logic. Why do you think the mosque was built there specifically? Randomly? Do you think the muslims who built it, muslims who acknowledge in their holiest book that their religion is a continuation of Judaism and Christianity, were simply unaware of its religious value? That they picked a spot by random? Absolutely 0 Palestinians meaningfully deny that the temple once stood there. What Palestinians deny and refute is the idea that because an ancient structure once stood there prior to al Aqsa, that it is justification enough for the demolition of their cultural heritage and the erosion of their rights that always follows, which is exactly what every Israeli politician who is rhetorically fixated on the Temple Mount explicitly intends to do.

‘Temple denialism’ is a buzzword intended to illicit the familiar emotional reaction one gets when they encounter atrocity denialism by using disingenuous framing to make them appear comparable. Just because you can google it and get results does not make it any less made up. ‘Temple denialism’ as a framework for discussing Palestinian resistance to cultural genocide is a product of the fact that the demolition of al-Aqsa is a cornerstone goal of right-wing Israeli politics and intends to smear Palestinians as bigots for resisting this. It does not describe a real phenomenon that exists.

As I was looking into denialism I realized they only cite like 2 Palestinians, Arafat and the current Palestinian president that no one likes.

Now I'm not sure islamically why they chose that site.... I can't speak to it. Prophet Muhammad is believed to have ascended up to heaven to speak to God from there actually, which is why it's the third holiest site in Islam. I believe that's the reason AlAqsa was built there... but I don't want to say for certain.

But yes you're completely right, it's intended to erode Palestinian nationhood and also militarize the rest of Palestine. For us, AlAqsa is the last symbol of nationhood and you can't deny that if Israelis were allowed in there, it would become a highly militarized zone.

People always bring up the ummayad dynasty as a way to deligitimize Palestinian ties — as if the concept of Palestine started then but that's completely ahistorical. Palestine was a thing BEFORE Islam and arabization even. Palestine has been a concept for millenia (if you read Palestine: a 4000 year history, this discusses this more) and its the intent to enact the final stages of settler colonialism by denying the concept of Palestine through the settlement of AlAqsa. I think it's a shallow analysis to say "what does the ibrahimi mosque have to do with anything" but Ibrahimi mosque is also one of the most important mosques in Islam and now Muslims are barely allowed there. Many believe it's the template for what they want to do in AlAqsa.

There's more but like, it does feel like saying "Well Muslims built AlAqsa on Temple Mount. It's their fault we want to demolish it." But then ignore the fact that most Islamic and Christian places of worship are essentially confiscated from Palestinians and their existence as Palestinians is criminalized even in their own homes, as theyre under threat of being arrested in the middle of the night. And there's not the same level of outrage for basic apartheid laws. In my opinion, you should be more concerned with that than the one place Israelis are not allowed.

[whencyclopedia]

Pharisees

The Pharisees were a Jewish sect that emerged c. 150 BCE and promoted the idea of priestly purity for all Jews, belief in providence or fate, and the concept of the resurrection of the dead, and taught that besides the commandments, Oral Law was also passed down by Moses. Early Rabbinical Judaism in the 2nd century CE claimed spiritual descent from the Pharisees.

Origins

After the conquests of Alexander the Great (r. 336-323 BCE) in 330 BCE, Greek government, language, philosophy, religion, and education, were adopted by the conquered people in the Mediterranean Basin. When Alexander died in 323 BCE, his empire was divided up among his generals during the Wars of the Diadochi. One of these generals, Seleucus I Nicator founded the Seleucid Empire in the region of Syria. In 167 BCE, the Seleucid Antiochus IV Epiphanes (r. 175-164 BCE), outlawed all Jewish customs, which resulted in the Maccabean Revolt led by the Hasmonean family, where the Jews were successful in repelling the Greeks and establishing their own kingdom.

However, not everyone was happy with Hasmonean rule, which combined the office of the king with the high priest of the Temple in Jerusalem. Kingship in Israel was to be held by a descendant of King David's tribe, Judah. During this period, the high priest had to derive from the descendants of Zadok, the last high priest under the reign of Solomon. The Hasmoneans could claim neither line.

This is the period when we find evidence of what scholars term 'Jewish sectarianism.' Various groups of Jews formed sects within the religious body. All agreed on the basics under the Law of Moses and the Books of the Prophets. One of the dominating issues was how to live in this now cosmopolitan Greek culture and yet retain the unique identity markers and traditions of the Jews. Among these sects, we see the emergence of a group known as Pharisees. Their name remains problematic; it may either mean "to be separated" or "smoothers of rough things" in Hebrew.

Continue reading...

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

Bunny’s Moral Crisis and Julian being Anti Judeo-Christian

I was positive I got the impression, during my first read of TSH, that Bunny was truly morally bothered by the farmer-killing. Then I started wondering, post-reading, if I was being too generous, and Bunny legit was just worried for his life and was angry that the group was keeping secrets from him (that second one is what Henry told Richard).

But I got to the part in my on-and-off listening to the audiobook where Julian tells Richard he’s wondering what’s going on with Bunny. Julian says Bunny keeps approaching him and asking to talk about morality (particularly sin and forgiveness). Julian says he’s getting concerned that Bunny may convert to Marion’s religion. He asks Richard what denomination she is, and Richard says he thinks she’s Presbyterian. Julian is disappointed and says the only Christian denomination he can gracefully accept losing a student to is Roman Catholic.

Now this scene is interesting to me for a couple reasons. Firstly, it does indicate there may be more going on with Bunny internally than the Greek class gives him credit for. If Bunny is trying to approach Julian privately to talk about ethical dilemmas, this shows some level of genuineness in his questions (Julian also believes it to be earnest questioning). But secondly, Julian’s comment about only finding the Roman rite to be a worthy foe is so, so interesting to me.

The scene shows that something more is going on with Bunny, but it also reveals that Julian hates Judaism and Christianity— making exceptions for people like Dante and Giotto. The thing that’s fascinating to me about this detail is that Julian’s statements show the central theme of the whole book: that beauty is worth something if it’s backed by things of substance (Georges Laforgue says this, and the same thing is said by Theo in The Goldfinch. This is a concept important to Tartt’s writing).

Julian has a basic respect for Catholics, because Catholicism traditionally also has emphasis on art, philosophy, and classical aesthetic beauty. And, perhaps most importantly, Roman Catholics have kept Latin as the language of the Church and Vatican. The medieval Catholic Church was perhaps the biggest patron and commissioner of artists, and from the Catholic Church came Notre Dame, Aquinas, Dante, etc. Here, Julian mentions that the Catholics make “worthy foes” for the pagans, and what he means is that there’s all this aesthetic beauty and classical study within the Catholic Church. But it’s key here that Julian hates other branches of Christianity. The scene emphasizes that the only thing he enjoys about Catholics is their specifically classical history.

The thing I like about this detail is that it is a really specific bit of characterization to show that Julian does not care about morality or the search for truth that’s at the heart of all religions and mythologies. He’s different from people like Aquinas because he does not see human art and language as a means to articulate and pay homage one’s moral beliefs. He sees art/language as the highest good in and of itself. Once you remove the classics aspects of Catholicism, Julian does not care. And we see this because of his apparent disdain for Protestants and Jews. This also reminds me of Bunny saying Henry thinks Jamaicans have no culture. Obviously, they do, but it’s not the particular kind of culture and expression Julian and Henry find legitimate.

I guess I like how Donna Tartt understands her own theme and can show how it’s applicable so naturally just in the way her characters talk. We get a lot of hints about how closed-minded and shallow Julian actually is before we get to the end of the book where it’s confirmed.

[lockandkeyblade]

Why do you think there are 13 Darknesses and 7 Lights ?

Like why those numbers? Why not 10 vs 10 ?

Perfectly balanced like all things should be

It's balanced in a different way, my friend. It's magic.

I'm not gonna do a huge research dump because honestly, there are probably a million people on this website more qualified to talk about the religious and cultural implications of the numbers 7 and 13, but just as a general overview:

The Number 7 -Has a lot of mystical and religious relevancy in Mesopotamian culture. One apparent reason is that when you're looking at some Sumeran number system, dividing by seven results in infinitely repeating fractions. -Tying into Mesopotamia, Judaism and Islam also have the "seven heavens" concept. -Ancient Greek astronomy and cosmology also has the seven classical planets. -Can't forget the Seven Virtues/Deadly Sins, either!

The Number 13 -Is the ideal number for a Wiccan coven. -In the Mayan calendar, 13th Baktun was basically synonymous with the world ending in 2012. -And of course, in a lot of Asian cultures the number 13 is synonymous with death, hence why you see this number purposefully being avoided (a hotel skips the 13th floor, a concert hall doesn't have a 13th row, etc) -While this one doesn't prove anything, it's just a side note, it is very amusing to me that the Death card in Tarot is generally about Change.