#halachic hell

[jewishconvertthings]

Hi! So, I’m a fictive in a plural system. The body is halachally Jewish by reform standards (patrilinear) but in exomemories, my family was WASP-y as hell. I’m reasonably sure I need to go through the process to convert and I consider myself a Jew in progress, however, I’ve got absolutely no idea how to explain the situation to a rabbi. I actually tried reaching out over email to one at the shul we half heartedly attend, but I didn’t get an answer. I’m not sure if it ended up in spam somehow or if he did see it and thought I was fucking with him or crazy. Or both. I don’t have any guarantees I’ll be in the system forever, though I’ve been here for like three years now. Is it worth trying again? The shul is Reform and super chill with LGBT stuff, but I don’t know what that means for the scarier neurodivergences.

Hi there!

So you are definitely not the first (and I doubt you'll be the last) person to ask about plurality and conversion to Judaism here. Because of that, I am giving a much more extensive answer that may exceed the scope of your question, because I want to be able to hopefully assist others with similar questions. Thank you in advance for your patience!

Here's the thing about being plural and conversion - you convert as a unit. Once the body is halachicly Jewish, that's it, you all are. Judaism is interesting in that we already canonically believe in (at least Jews) having multiple souls. Additionally, there is the mystical idea that the soul of every convert was at Sinai and therefore that when someone is driven to convert it's because they already had a Jewish soul. However, they still need to convert.

Why? Because Judaism is an embodied religion. It is very much about taking things that exist in the animal world and elevating them to sanctity through mitzvot. Every human and animal pees, but Jews say a bracha afterwards because we are grateful that our body's innards are working correctly enough to make that possible. Every human and animal eats, but Jews keep kosher and say brachot to sanctify what goes into our bodies. Judaism even has mitzvot related to married couples' conduct with their spouse, especially in relationship to menstruation. For as much as Judaism believes in souls, it equally believes in grounding those souls in the earthly realm and therefore liberating the divine sparks of creation in the process.

Which is all to say: Judaism is also a group project. We are judged collectively as a nation on Rosh Hashana and repent as a nation on Yom Kippur. Even if you were a singlet, you would still need to consider carefully whether you were prepared to join in the collective project of mitzvot. People who have existing familial ties to others may find it more challenging to convert. What if your spouse or teenage children do not wish to convert with you? It is often still possible to convert (I did, and my spouse did not convert with me) but it requires at least some amount of buy-in support from those you live with and are permanently tied to, even if they are not directly joining you. My spouse, who again is not Jewish and did not convert with me, still knows at least as much about kashrut as I do because he does the vast majority of the cooking, he helps me clean and prep for Pesach every year, and he actually eats pesadik food with me every year so as not to bring chametz into the house. He helps me prepare the house for Shabbat and does not interfere with the setup, and works around my observance. It's a huge commitment from a gentile who does not believe in G-d and appreciates but does not wish to join the Jewish people.

Your system has to be on board. They just do. Because if/when you decide not to front or determine that it's time to move on or what-not, the body will still be halachicly Jewish and it will be up to those running it to determine how to act in light of that reality.

For what it's worth, I am very familiar with a system who converted, and I have learned about what their internal conversation was like beforehand. It was extensive! They operate like a family, and there are six of them. Two it was clear right away were dyed-in-the-wool Jewish and were they singlets, nothing could have stopped them from becoming observant Jews. (One probably would have tried to become a rebbetzin and the other would've become a gay yeshiva bochur. Alas ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.) Two of them were people who would make excellent Jews, but probably also could've stayed excellent pagans. The fifth is very much a skeptic and the sixth was very much a Witch. The middle two were easy to sway after being exposed to queer-friendly Judaism. The fifth only agreed after understanding enough about Yiddish socialism and the history of Jewish leftism and secular culture that he realized he could very much appreciate yiddishkeit even if he didn't really believe in G-d (or if G-d is real, didn't really trust or like G-d given the state of the world.) He basically agreed that as long as he never had to do the davening or ritual mitzvot, he was cool with it.

The sixth acquiesced to the majority. She was very uneasy about making an eternal vow of any kind to any being, but especially one as powerful as the Almighty, and especially with something as complicated to follow as the mitzvot. She was reassured by the process of Yom Kippur to annul vows (Kol Nidrei) and to reset the slate through teshuva and collective forgiveness. She was also very nervous about the concept of tying one's fate to the collective fate of the Jewish people in terms of said agreement to keep the mitzvot. Her position was basically: You Don't Make Deals With Things You Can't See, and YES That Absolutely Includes Hashem. But! If the rest were going to insist on doing that anyway, well. They'd better be willing to hold by that Forever, even after death. How frum were they willing to be? After some further discussion (fifth alter's reluctance notwithstanding) they collectively agreed that they would agree to the mitzvot on the terms of the Conservative movement. The fifth alter agreed that he would not do anything to disrupt the others' observance even if he personally might have done differently as a secular/atheist Jew, e.g. watched TV on Shabbat or driven somewhere besides shul.

It's worth noting that I got this story because we are friends and that once they had full system buy-in, they decided for safety reasons *not* to discuss this particular wrinkle of psychology with their rabbis. Now, part of that decision was that that are a healthy system that works well together, has had extensive post-trauma therapy that *did* work with each alter individually as well as the system collectively, and were totally functional (after therapy) without any sort of psychiatric intervention. They were unwilling to jeopardize the relative safety from mental health institutions and their professional career by "coming out" about their plurality to anyone of authority in person or online. (I have obtained their collective permission to share this story as anonymized through myself as a third party to help other systems who are considering giyur.)

So to be clear, this is the advice I would offer as a layperson and as an informed friend.

**Major important reminder that I am not a rabbi or a mental health professional.**

Now, your situation is somewhat different from theirs, in that any conversion you make is going to be to solidify your halachic status as someone who is already Jewish in a major way and probably considered Jewish by the Reform movement already. They did not have previously existing ties to Judaism, whereas even if you do nothing, you will still be Jewish (even if not halachicly so by the traditional movements.)

I would recommend having a full system discussion. You want to figure out what your system, as a collective unit, needs, wants, and is willing to go along with. You will want, as part of this discussion, to do a major mental health and system balance analysis as well. How stable is your system? How functional are you as a group in the broader world? How healthy are your relationships to one another? Do you have trauma to unpack first? Need some type of therapeutic intervention? Do it now; do it first.

Then, if everyone is on board (enough) and working well together as a system, I would approach a rabbi to convert as a unit. It's up to you to determine how much, if anything, to disclose about your plurality to the Rabbi, so long as you can honestly tell him that you are [all] mentally well and stable. It is very possible to be a healthy system and/or to have long-term chronic mental illnesses while still being relatively stable and mentally well. Lots of people with well-managed mood disorders, personality disorders, developmental disorders, and even reality and dissociation disorders can and have converted. Judaism can truly be a place of peace and a shelter for the troubled. However, you must know yourself(/ves) well and you must be willing to seek professional help first or along the way if needed.

All of the plural stuff aside, I would recommend reaching out again after the high holidays and/or considering reaching out to a Conservative rabbi. The Reform movement may already consider you Jewish and therefore may not want to do a giyur l'chumra. The Conservative movement (much as I might personally disagree with it on this point) would not consider you halachicly Jewish and would be delighted to help you solidify your Jewish identity. If you ultimately decide not to convert but rather to reclaim and learn through the Reform movement, please know that you still have a place here. It's labeled as a gerische space, but the same types of resources and communities tend to help both gerim and reclaimants. We would be delighted to help you connect to your heritage and people and to support you doing so in a way that feels the most correct and appropriate to you.

Wishing you all the best in your exploration, a shana tova, and a meaningful Yom Kippur if you are observing it!

[roboromantic]

5 6 7 am thoughts

why do I keep seeing posts on this website insist that evangelicals try to convert prople just to have a larger "number of souls savef" count than others. like maybe that's a thing in some groups but like................I've never heard of any kind of reward for converting more people or anything.

also I gotta say it's a tad frustrating seeing people talk about how Mormonism is a cult and these kids are brainwashed into believing the world's against them etc. and being sympathetic and sharing resources on how to leave, but posts on evangelicals just paint them as cartoonishly evil. sometimes I'll see something that says it's a cult but there's never anything on how to leave (though admitedly it's gonna generally be less legally complicated than it is for mormons) or talk about how evangelicals are also made to believe that the world is against them or how evangelicals try to convert you because they truely believe it would save you from eternal torture.

like now that I'm out I see how infuriating it is to be proselytized to, but growing up in it? I was a super lonely kid who tried to make people more christian according to CoC values bc I was terrified of losing the few friends I had. also there was literal animal abuse involved where we were told we were bad people if we were more likely to rush to help the goldfish they fucking threw on the pavement than to try and save people from hell

like. when you're fundamentalist there's really no room to respect other people's beliefs, because respecting their beliefs (and boundaries) would mean condemning them to eternal torture

so again I get why people hate it and I definitely understand now how it's used to eradicate cultures etc. but I find it hard to hate the individual who from their perspective is just trying to help me

ironically though the insistence on isolating me and saying that anyone who isn't CoC was probably one of the biggest reasons I ended up leaving. how could heaven be this perfect place if my friends weren't there

there was this post in r/judaism linking to an article talking abt svara's upcoming teshuvot for lgbt halacha and it's something I've been keeping an eye on for a while for obvious reasons, but while I don't want to make any judgements until the whole thing is actually released, I will say from the phrasing in the article it sounds like they're approaching it from a different angle than I would. like it seems to be "how can I affirm my gender in a Jewish way" and while I can 100000% understand that, I'm more interested in "what are the issues that arise when someone is (in my case) halachically female but looks male and is it possible to resolve these issues in a way that's respectful to everyone and if so, how?"

like. there was another post by a trans man wanting to figure out how to respectfully interact w/Chabad and someone else (I think) brought up this same idea of one's halachic gender vs I think they called it sociological gender and it was kinda weird to me seeing so many people talk about how that's not a thing, can never be a thing, halachic gender is the only important factor, etc. bc like. I highly doubt anyone would say my halachic gender is all that matters if my bearded, flat-chested, (sorta) deep-voiced ass went to sit on the women's side of a mechitza. hell, I KNOW that'd cause a problem, I've seen it happen.

like personally I'd be fine with a trichitza, I ain't trying to sit with men (though again I can understand why being able to sit with one's gender can be affirming for binary cis people) and I don't particularly want to sit with women either even if marit ayin wasn't an issue.

where was i going with this. idk it's like 2 hours after i started writing this and im tired and still don't have adhd meds, this was never gonna be coherent im gonna try to go back to sleep

[infiniteglitterfall]

um hell yes.

i am aroace but offering me some very very nice books would go a long way (TOO LONG) toward getting me to accept a marriage proposal. for sure.

also yes, according to judaism stackexchange, which I just realized I might think is my rabbi: all the specific customs around wedding rings are just safeguards to make sure the bride knows what they're getting.

(because if you give them what they think is a diamond and it's cubic zirconia or something, YOUR MARRIAGE IS VOID, YOU LIAR.)

OOOO here we GO: According to Torah Musings, "According to halacha, a groom may betroth his bride with anything of value, whether it is money or any other type of gift.[1]"

oh HELLO we're citing TALMUD are we. heck yeah bring it on.

"There is a dispute between tanna’im: Beit Shammai say that [the spouse-iness of your bride] can be acquired with one dinar or with anything that is worth one dinar. And Beit Hillel say: She can be acquired with one peruta, a small copper coin, or with anything that is worth one peruta. The mishna further clarifies: And how much is the value of one peruta, by the fixed value of silver? The mishna explains that it is one-eighth of the Italian issar, which is a small silver coin."

A peruta is the smallest coin that still has (inherent) value: 0.025 of a gram of silver.

As I write this, that's TWO AMERICAN PENNIES. And small copper coin is... well if pennies were still made of copper, that would also count, right?

So like. Doesn't even have to be nice books, halachically.

However, the entire thing reads to me more like, "don't give your bride something WORTHLESS. The idea is that you're offering an exchange. You have to offer something in an exchange."

"Okay, then what are we calling worthless versus not worthless?"

"Well, the very smallest coin is...."

i had a dream last night where a rabbi was explaining that it was valid to give your bride a sword in lieu of a wedding ring

[frownyalfred]

im all here for jewish bruce so please dont take this as me disagreeing with you or anything because canon doesnt even matter in the first place and mostly im just a little confused but if kate is bruce's cousin from his moms side and being jewish comes from your mom doesnt that mean kates mom is jewish and it doesnt have anything to do w. her dad who would be the kane part of the equation unlesd her dad is also jewish idk i dont really go here im just creeping on the sidelines rn yanno

Sure! Anon, this is a question that comes up a lot, and I’m not expert, but here’s what I know:

-Martha Kane and Jacob Kane were siblings

-The Kanes are established as Jewish in canon (including Jacob)

-Kate is Jewish, which, according to halachic interpretation, assumes that her mother was Jewish at the bare minimum (but that her father likely was Jewish as well)

-Martha, being Jacob’s sister, would also be Jewish (barring a weird half-brother situation, or that he converted at some point)

-The above exceptions would be unlikely considering the Jewishness of the Kane name, “Jacob”, etc. 

-At the bare minimum again, since Judaism is technically matrilineal (more about this later) and the Kane family line is Jewish, any of Martha’s children would also be Jewish

-Bruce Wayne would halachically be Jewish

Now, all of this hinges on Jacob Kane being Jewish by birth and the Kane family being Jewish overall. But there are also some additional clues:

-Kate’s family was intentionally made Jewish, in a nod to Jewish creator Bob Kane, whose family was also Jewish

-Martha and Jacob’s generation usually married within Judaism by tradition (this has changed a lot in the last few decades) and marriage into another faith was generally frowned upon. 

-The above makes it unlikely Jacob married into a Jewish family unintentionally (i.e., Kate’s mother being Jewish was important to Jacob as a Jewish man)

-Jacob is a commonly-given name to Jewish men

-Martha marrying outside the faith would explain why Bruce was not necessarily raised Jewish (in this retcon, at least)

Hey? Everyone keeps arguing about matrilineal Judaism. What does that even mean?

-This comes up a lot in Jewish Batman discourse. Matrilineal Judaism is a remnant of Biblical times, where Judaism could only be confirmed if the mother was Jewish (assuming the father was not present, etc)

-Certain sections of Judaism hold this strongly, including Conservative, Orthodox, Reform (to an extent) and some other traditions

-For a long time, and still somewhat to this day, it was frowned upon to marry a non-Jewish man (i.e., Jews tended to marry Jews)

-Patrilineal Judaism (Judaism passed down by the father)  is slowly being more accepted, as well as other discrepancies (adoption, Jewish grandparent, etc)

-Some traditions still don’t necessarily view someone as Jewish unless they practice Judaism (had a bar mitzvah, converted, etc) but this is rare, largely because of the “one drop” rule in the Holocaust, and modern aliyah standards of Israel. 

-When folks in the fandom talk about Batman in the context of matrilineal Judaism, they’re usually referring to the fact that, if Martha Kane was Jewish in any way when she had Bruce, he would technically be Jewish by birth in the eyes of many rabbis, regardless of his own practiced religion or atheism. 

-Like I said earlier, all of this hinges on if Jacob Kane was Jewish by birth. I.e., that Martha and Jacob’s mother was Jewish. 

I believe that canon has been established enough where we can assume that Jacob Kane was in fact Jewish by birth, that he married a Jewish woman, and had a Jewish child (Kate). 

I don’t believe this retcon intentionally made Bruce Jewish. Again, some would argue that he’s not really Jewish, as he’s never practiced or recognized the religion in canon. 

However, Judaism is tricky. It’s an ethnic group, a religion, and a cultural tradition, all amassed into one messy blob. It’s likely, if Martha was raised Jewish, that there were still some vestiges of Jewish cultural practices in how she raised Bruce (celebrating some holidays, traditions, or observances) unless she explicitly chose to ignore them. 

All in all, I would say it is very likely that Bruce is technically Jewish. More likely than not. An accident? Yes. But a good one for all of us Jewish fans. 

[docholligay]

A Moral Question

I was thinking about this today, and haven’t quite decided what I think, so I decided to pose it here for discussion*.  NO REBLOGGING . IF YOU HAVE AN OPINION THAT CAN’T BE GIVEN TO ME WITHOUT REBLOGGING THAN KEEP IT TO YOURSELF. I AM NOT LOOKING TO HAVE A DISCUSSION WITH ALL OF TUMBLR

So where I live, the situation is this: 

The mask mandate was rescinded

The vaccine is openly available and free, no lines no waiting, I shit you not. 

People are fucking morons, so it would seem, which is a large part of the reason we have no lines no waiting. 

So, I am fully vaccinated. But I am aware that I may or may not be able to spread covid, at least to the unvaccinated. 

The question is this: At what point do I no longer feel compelled to wear a mask in public? More largely, what responsibility do I have to people who are unwilling to protect themselves? If I go out and spread Covid to someone’s grandma who believed the vaccine would give her 5G and masks are for gay communists who hate Jesus, am I culpable? I’m a big believer in doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, but I ALSO believe deeply in ‘choose your life choose your choices’ and I’m not sure at what point I stop owing those who think preventative measures are some plot. 

If everyone in my community can be vaccinated by like...June, let’s say, when can I say fuck it? Or can I? 

I’m really curious about the responsibility we have, if any, to stop people from going to hell their own way. 

NO REBLOGGING . IF YOU HAVE AN OPINION THAT CAN’T BE GIVEN TO ME WITHOUT REBLOGGING THAN KEEP IT TO YOURSELF. I AM NOT LOOKING TO HAVE A DISCUSSION WITH ALL OF TUMBLR

*I am particularly interested in the opinions of my fellow Jews, and especially especially any that have some halachic reference or other sort of ‘proof’

[phoukanamedpookie]

I’m too Jewish for Word of God

As Ruby x Christina shippers are going through the latest round of Why Are Straight People Like This, it’s really becoming clear to me how much being Jewish informs my perspective when I engage with media, especially when it comes to canon, fanon, Word of God, and so on.

If I had to summarize it while standing on one foot, I’d say, “Yeah, I heard you. Fuck off.”

For you to understand the deep Jewish roots of this response, I need to tell you a story.

So, in the Talmud, there’s this argument between Rabbis (that’s capital-R Rabbis for the Talmudic Rabbis, not lowercase-r rabbis like today) about whether a certain setup for an oven is ritually impure or not. Just...go with it.

One of the Rabbis, Rabbi Eliezer says, “If halacha (Jewish law) is in accordance with my opinion, this carob tree will prove it.” 

The carob tree uproots and moves some hundred cubits. The other Rabbis say that halachic proof doesn’t come from the carob tree. Then Rabbi Eliezer gets the stream to flow backwards to prove he’s right. The other Rabbis say that halachic proof doesn’t come from the stream. Then Rabbi Eliezer tries to get the walls of the study hall to come down to prove that he’s right, and walls started to fall, but Rabbi Yehoshua scolded them for interfering, so they didn’t fall, but they didn’t straighten, either. So they leaned.

Finally, Rabbi Eliezer gets the big gun, “If halacha is in accordance with my opinion, heaven will prove it.”

God’s voice speaks from heaven and says, “Why are you arguing with Rabbi Eliezer? He’s right.”

Then Rabbi Yehoshua stands up and says, “You gave us the Torah and told us to abide by that. We don’t listen to heavenly voices in these matters. We go by majority rule, just as You wrote.”

And God smiles and says, “My children have triumphed over me! My children have triumped over me!”

Need I remind you that all this is over an oven? An oven. A fucking oven.

This story is connected to a saying that Jews have about the Torah, “The Torah is not in heaven.” 

It’s based on this passage in Devarim (Deuteronomy 30:12): “It [the Torah] is not in the heavens, that you should say, ‘Who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?’”

The Torah was created for and given to human beings (specifically, the Jewish people) on earth. What we do with it is up to us and no one else. The Torah is ours to interpret, observe, and wrestle with. Divine miracles, supernatural phenomena, and voices from heaven don’t mean shit.

If I am a member of a people willing to tell the creator of the universe to butt out and let us do our thing, a human artist involved with a television show isn’t gonna phase me much. Misha ‘nem can go, “No homo!” as much as they want, but what they filmed was queer as hell. It’s too late to try to take that back from us now.

[draconym]

In some communities, only men observe Ta'anit B'khorot. But many others consider all firstborn to be obligated to fast because all firstborn died in the tenth plague, regardless of gender.

Apparently there are some halachic authorities who do not think that firstborn children delivered via Caesarean section are required to observe this fast, and let me tell you that eleven year old me would have researched the hell out of this argument to defend my case. (I don't even dislike fasting, but my desire to start and win a debate over this would have been immense).

Chag pesach sameach everyone, I am thirty six and I have just learned today that contrary to what I have always believed, it is not mandatory for all Jews to fast on the first day of Passover. This is partly because I am not a particularly observant Jew, but it is mostly due to the way my family handles conflict, which is to say: deception.

Let me explain.

I have two half siblings who are not Jewish, and who are about ten years older than I am. Throughout my childhood, my mother in particular was very inconsistent about referring to them as her children or as my siblings--it largely depended on her mood and whether she was fighting with my dad at the time (they were alternately "your half-siblings" or "your father's spawn").

This struck Young Me as very unfair (and frankly just mean) and I responded by referring to my brother and my sister only as My Siblings and correcting anyone who tried to call them Half Siblings, or who referred to me as an Only Child. If asked, I was the youngest child, and in no way an only child, and my siblings were whole, entire people.

Enter Ta'anit B'khorot, the Fast of the Firstborn. This is a custom in which firstborn children fast on the eve of Passover to commemorate not being killed by the tenth plague. That is to say, it is not customary for people who are not the firstborn to fast on erev Pesach.

Now, I spent most of my childhood in my Jewish grandparents' home. My mother generally left very early in the morning and came back late at night, often after I was asleep. So before the Seder, both my grandparents (each of them a firstborn child) and I would be home and all of us would be fasting together. Literally until this evening, I was under the distinct impression we were fasting because it was something that everyone did all day before the Seder. Because it was mandatory. For everyone.

And today I find out that it's not and it's because OF COURSE my wack-ass family would have gone out of their way to obscure the fact that this fast is for FIRSTBORN CHILDREN ONLY!!!

Yes, according to Halachic law, a child who is a firstborn to their mother but not their father does qualify as someone who should fast on erev Pesach. But you try explaining this to an eleven year old who has decided to die on the hill of not being their mother's only child.

No wonder I always felt like I was the hungriest person at every Passover Seder??? Probably half of the other people there had just been eating all day as normal???

I can't even be mad about my family for doing this because the drama of it all is too funny to me.

[koshercosplay]

If there was a jew in the fellowship or of all of the fellowship was jewish, would they stop for shabbos? Would the fellowship activities as a whole (getting the ring to Mount Doom then destroying the ring) be considered pikuach nefesh even though no lives are directly involved (I think suspension of laws for pikuach nefesh requires the danger to be specific and to a specific person)? Would destroying the ring be murder (unlikely) or self defense (possible) or soldiers at war (possible, if this one the fellowship would be considered as such the whole time and might observe pesach sheni if applicable). Also necromancy is forbidden and thou shalt not suffer a witch/necromancer/other translation here to live so would this add an extra obligation to the destruction of Sauron? Would middle earth have the equivalent of a sanhedrin able to judge such a case? Was he judged in previous age and people are still trying to fill his death sentence?

If halachic questions arose during the journey who would answer them? It is a mix of race and so traditions so would each act according to his custom and not agree that the others customs might be legitimate and an appropriate way to determine what they should do if they dont know for a specific case?

damn anon you have clearly thought about this a hell of a lot more than I have. I love it.

I think they would rest on shabbat unless there was a clear and direct threat on people's lives (i.e. being chased by orcs, or rushing to help Minas Tirith)

I think that when halachic questions arise and their traditions diverge, they'd have to try and find a common thread between their traditions. Seeing as Gandalf was the most ancient as well as the most knowledgeable among them, he might have to make the final call if they can't come to an agreement among themselves.

I don't think the "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" would add to this more than Sauron's own awful actions necessitating his defeat. That translation isn't necessarily accurate anyway, seeing as we don't actually know for sure what the original word there meant at the time. It could be "witch", it could mean "one who poisons", it could be "evildoer", etc.

Happens to be all of those descriptors do apply to Sauron lmao however I don't think that would make it more important to defeat him than it already was.

[fandom-pardes]

Too Jewish for Word of God

Reposted from my personal Tumblr.

As Ruby x Christina shippers are going through the latest round of Why Are Straight People Like This, it’s really becoming clear to me how much being Jewish informs my perspective when I engage with media, especially when it comes to canon, fanon, Word of God, and so on.

If I had to summarize it while standing on one foot, I’d say, “Yeah, I heard you. Fuck off.”

For you to understand the deep Jewish roots of this response, I need to tell you a story.

So, in the Talmud, there’s this argument between Rabbis (that’s capital-R Rabbis for the Talmudic Rabbis, not lowercase-r rabbis like today) about whether a certain setup for an oven is ritually impure or not. Just…go with it.

One of the Rabbis, Rabbi Eliezer says, “If halacha (Jewish law) is in accordance with my opinion, this carob tree will prove it.”

The carob tree uproots and moves some hundred cubits. The other Rabbis say that halachic proof doesn’t come from the carob tree. Then Rabbi Eliezer gets the stream to flow backwards to prove he’s right. The other Rabbis say that halachic proof doesn’t come from the stream. Then Rabbi Eliezer tries to get the walls of the study hall to come down to prove that he’s right, and walls started to fall, but Rabbi Yehoshua scolded them for interfering, so they didn’t fall, but they didn’t straighten, either. So they leaned.

Finally, Rabbi Eliezer gets the big gun, “If halacha is in accordance with my opinion, heaven will prove it.”

God’s voice speaks from heaven and says, “Why are you arguing with Rabbi Eliezer? He’s right.”

Then Rabbi Yehoshua stands up and says, “You gave us the Torah and told us to abide by that. We don’t listen to heavenly voices in these matters. We go by majority rule, just as You wrote.”

And God smiles and says, “My children have triumphed over me! My children have triumped over me!”

Need I remind you that all this is over an oven? An oven. A fucking oven.

This story is connected to a saying that Jews have about the Torah, “The Torah is not in heaven.”

It’s based on this passage in Devarim (Deuteronomy 30:12): “It [the Torah] is not in the heavens, that you should say, ‘Who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?’”

The Torah was created for and given to human beings (specifically, the Jewish people) on earth. What we do with it is up to us and no one else. The Torah is ours to interpret, observe, and wrestle with. Divine miracles, supernatural phenomena, and voices from heaven don’t mean shit.

If I am a member of a people willing to tell the creator of the universe to butt out and let us do our thing, a human artist involved with a television show isn’t gonna phase me much. Misha ‘nem can go, “No homo!” as much as they want, but what they filmed was queer as hell. It’s too late to try to take that back from us now.

[tzipporahssong]

so I'm planning on converting but I still really like the fun party side of halloween, especially since it's also my friends birthday, we still celebrate. is that something that would be okay?

I have never heard of Halloween being in conflict with the practice of Judaism, at least not in the secular “dress up and party or watch movies” sense. It may just be that I’m reform and I’m glaringly ignorant of a more halachic restriction but as far as I know hell yeah throw up some spider webs and party (as long as you’re doing so safely in accordance to social distancing and social bubble measures)

[separateentity]

As an Orthodox Jew I would like to clarify that this rabbi is very much in the minority and that the majority of halachic (Jewish-law) authorities are saying that you should absolutely get vaccinated. As a queer person, this is funny as hell.

Lil Nas X stays based, a precious national treasure indeed (x)

[know4life]

RT @HoffmanMichaelA: Louis #Farrakhan’s quote from BT Gittin 57a about the #Talmud teaching that Jesus is in hell boiling in feces, is accurate and is derived from the following halachic principle: “Anyone who mocks the words of the sages will be sentenced to boiling excrement (צוֹאָה רוֹתֵחַת).”

[artconnaisseurdetectiveus-e]

The ruins of Tulum - trip to Mexico, Yucatan

Following my expedition to the east coast of Quintana Roo, also known as the Riviera Maya, I came across the fortified city of Tulum. This last one in one of the most attractive tourist destinations in the region and it is located on the Caribbean seaside  The Tulum site is based in the park with the same name, a protected natural area between the Cancun and Tulum, a paradise where nature and history have merged. With an extension of 664 hectares, Tulum National Park is distributed throughout the coastal area called Casa Zenote. A coveted place for both its excellent environmental conditions and its location, it is one of the few natural areas protected from tourist accommodation. Thus, the decree creating the Tulum National Park underlines the importance of maintaining this park for public use as it houses several freshwater cenotes like Yolkoba Yuc, linked to the legends of the Maya people.

The city used to have two names, one of them being Zama whose meaning was “dawn” and the other Tulum meaning "wall". The archaeological site of Tulum was an important center of worship for the so-called "descending god", as many wall paintings testify and other inscriptions found on the buildings of the city. Most of the buildings were built in the post-classical period of the Mayan civilization, between 1200 and 1450, although they found inscriptions dating from 564. The city was completely abandoned at the end of the 16th century, after the first years of the Spanish colony. In addition, Tulum was one of the most important Mayan cities of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, being an indispensable point of passage in the maritime and land routes on the coast of Quintana Roo. The discovery of objects from Central America indicates the enormous importance of this site for the Mexican trade.

In the same way as the pyramid of Chichen Iza, the city of Tulum was built on the principle of "four corners", with reference to the four cardinal points following the principles of cosmology. The quadrilateral symbolized a rational and orderly world worthy of housing the presence of the gods. Within this complex to the deities, the buildings are numerous as the Temple of Frescoes, the Temple of the Descending God, the Temple of the initial series, the castle, the temple of the god of the wind or the halach uinik house. One of the most impressive buildings is called the castle sitting on a cliff, presenting elements that refer to the Sun and Venus. One of the peculiarities of this monument is the lower part where there is a cave, clearly representing the universe where the lower part embodies the underground world of hell. Nevertheless the future of this paradise for the biosphere does not remain vague, the governor of Quintana Roo Carlos Joaquin Gonzalez affirms it showing the 17 protected areas of federal character covering an area of ​​nearly seven million hectares of marine ecosystems and lands. In addition, on November 7, the governor led the reopening of the Caapechen Center within the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve, whose goal is to protect the nature of Quintana Roo. "We are proud of our sea, our beaches, our jungles, our cenotes and our underground rivers, we know that we live these wonders and we will do our best to protect them, so that they are sustainable" Carlos Joaquin had testified in front of the National Commissioner of Areas Naturales Protegidas - CONANP - news like this shows the awareness of keeping the archaeological centers in the Caribbean.

[anyroads]

Yeah, I mean, you can be halachically Jewish and still not know what the hell you’re doing. Remember in Holy Rollers when Jesse Eisenberg came from a Satmar family in Williamsburg but his mom wore a Chabad Sheitl and basically every scene that took place in the shtetl reeked of how obviously whoever was hired to do cultural advising was Lubavitch and was only given the info that this was a chassid family? I could be remembering wrong, but I swear there was a picture of the Lubavitcher Rebbe on the living room wall in this apartment that was supposed to be around the corner from Division Ave, but anyway. Even Jews who OP deigns to accept as part of the tribe are out of their depth in Orthodox films, so maybe let’s not go down that road and keep to the derekh of not being an exclusionist waffleturd instead.