#jewish torah portion of the week

[girlactionfigure]

[springstarfangirl]

hi spring! i'm writing an orthodox jewish character and had a few questions for you.

how does a synagogue work? as in. what does a service look like, and is it possible to visit a synagogue outside of set "service" hours? is the rabbi available for discussion etc outside of those hours?

my character's dad died when he was very young, so his (jewish) mother would take him to the synagogue. would he have to sit on the male side of the synagogue as a child? or would that start after his bar mitzvah?

thank you so much!

Thank you for trusting me with these questions!

Now, a large portion of these questions might be highly dependent on where the characters live, since Israeli shuls tend to be rather different than ones in America, but I'll answer what I know and tag some other people here to offer a more diasporic perspective.

So, Orthodox Jewish prayer service happens three times a day. Morning, afternoon, and night. The morning service is the longest of the three in general, and the special additional Shabbat service is generally hooked on to the end of the morning service, making it quite long depending on the length of the Torah portion that week and how fluently the members of the shul speak Hebrew.

A service will generally be entirely in Hebrew with snippets of Aramaic, though there are places in between the prayers (mainly Shabbat night and morning) where people will sometimes stop and give a dvar Torah, which will usually be in the local language. Shabbat morning service in Israel can be as fast as an hour and a half and I've heard tell of diaspora services that take three or four hours. The length also depends on how much singing you do, and this is a different type of singing than you'd see in a Christian house of worship- we prefer to avoid choirs in our worship (I think it stinks too much of Christianity) and so singing is generally all melodic, involving everyone in the shul.

Whether you can visit a shul outside of service hours depends on the shul. Most community shuls will be locked up, but there are shuls meant to service workers in various jobs, and those will often remain open all day. The rabbi should be available outside of prayer hours for questions and advice, since as the Jewish law expert, that's what he's there for.

Specific people acting as a paid cantor isn't something I've experienced in Israel, since most people are somewhat fluent in Hebrew and the position of cantor will get passed around from week to week, but I've heard it's a thing outside of here.

Children do not have to sit on the appropriate side of the mechitza until they come of age (13 for boys, 12 for girls) but most communities will prefer having them start around the age of 10, with exceptions made depending on the situation. Depending on the style of mechitza, your character could still sit next to his mother then- if they're mobile wooden barriers or curtains, then there will be seating either side of them, and your character and his mother could sit next to each other either side of the mechitza. If the women's section is an elevated section accessed separately, then that's rough on the kid, but the mom might ask a friend to help him get used to it.

Tagging @slyandthefamilybook @daughterofstories @resplendent-ragamuffin @theskyvoid for more specific diasporic stuff.

[eretzyisrael]

MRS. COHEN'S COOKIES 

This week’s double Torah portion Matot-Masei contains instructions for the Israelites after they enter the Promised Land. They are commanded to create six cities of refuge, where someone who accidentally kills another can be safe from vengeful relatives of the deceased. The killer must stay in the city of refuge until the death of the current Kohen Gadol (High Priest) serving in the Holy Temple. The Mishna (core of the Oral Law) adds a fascinating detail: “The Kohen Gadol’s mother would bring gifts of food and clothing to the accidental killers living in the refuge cities, so they would not pray that her son should die.”

This seems odd. Inadvertent killers praying to return home can be bought off with cookies? As Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky asks, “Were the Kohen Gadol’s mother’s cookies really worth exile in the refuge city?” Of course, there’s more to it than that. Rabbi Kamenetzky explains that the cities of refuge were not jails or detention centers where people just marked time until they could go home. They were places where people who had been reckless could improve their character under the tutelage of the Levites, who had no tribal land of their own but instead were tasked with teaching Torah to the other tribes. Just as the Levites’ elevated spiritual standing inspired the sinners, so too did the loving mother who traveled far from home to provide goodies to strangers who were likely praying for the demise of her son. This Jewish mother led by example, teaching the lesson that all of Israel is responsible for one another, and we cannot be reckless with the life of our fellow.

The Torah doesn’t punish for the sake of punishment. It rehabilitates the offender by teaching him to be more kind, compassionate, and most of all careful.

Image: "Fleeing to the City of Refuge (Num. 35:11-28)" by Charles Foster, 1884

[mariacallous]

(JTA) — When I was 18 years old, like many American Jews, I spent a gap year in Israel. At a right-wing army-prep program called Mechinat Yeud, located in the illegal settlement of Efrat, I learned Torah, went on hikes and practiced krav maga. I fondly look back at this year as a positive experience and a time when I matured as a young adult.

I also saw the daily mechanisms of the occupation, though I didn’t have the vocabulary to articulate this.

Over that year, I saw Palestinians whose cars bore different license plates than those driven by Jews. I saw a checkpoint between Israel and the West Bank that was a formality to Jews like my friends and me but very real to the Palestinians living right next to us. Though I finished my year in Yeud with a strong desire to live in Israel, I also knew that I couldn’t be complicit in Palestinian oppression. 

I eventually moved to Israel and threw myself into anti-occupation activism, spending weeks and months at a time in Palestinian communities in the West Bank. In addition to the bureaucratic oppression that Palestinians face on a daily basis, I saw — and sometimes was a victim of — the settler violence that plagues the West Bank.

During the American civil rights movement, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel famously referred to his protesting as “praying with his feet.” This past Yom Kippur, when the rabbis of the Talmud tell us to fully prostrate ourselves during prayer, I asked for forgiveness with my whole body by spending the Day of Atonement in Ein Rashash, a Palestinian Bedouin shepherding community located 22 miles northeast of Ramallah. Its residents had requested a 24/7 presence from solidarity activists due to threats from the nearby Israeli outpost of Malachi Hashalom.

According to a United Nations report released on Sept. 21, 1,105 Palestinians fled their homes and villages in 2022 and 2023. The report stated that settler violence is at a record high since the U.N. began documenting the trend in 2006. 

This report includes the villages of Ein-Samia, Al-Qabun, al-Baqa and Ras al-Tin. All of these villages were located near Ein Rashash, and like Ein Rashash, the communities all relied on shepherding for their livelihood. Settler attacks in the Palestinian towns of Huwara and Turmus Aya, frequently described as pogroms, have received attention within Israel and internationally.

Ein Rashash has faced similar settler violence and harassment. Shortly upon entering the village, one can see where settlers shattered the windows of homes and destroyed an outhouse in an attack in June. The community is considering leaving their land just like the community of Ein-Samia and many others have done. 

In response to this violence, a group of activists, most notably Rabbi Arik Ascherman, is spending long periods of time in Ein Rashash — located north of the ruins of Ein-Samia — to use our privilege as a de-escalating presence. When non-Palestinian activists are around, settler violence is less likely. Ein Rashash and the nearby villages are all located in Area C, the portion of the West Bank under full Israeli control as per the Oslo Accords. The Palestinian residents do not have Israeli citizenship, and they are subject to military law as opposed to the civil courts through which Israeli settlers are tried. “Protective Presence” activism is utilized in other communities in Area C that face regular threats of settler violence and home evictions, such as Masafer Yatta. I have done several shifts already, and I volunteered for the Yom Kippur shift.

I was accompanied by five other activists. The first thing we did was assign roles in case settlers came. Who would call the police or other activists? Who would film? Who would stand in front of a settler’s car if he tried to enter the village or drive through a flock of sheep? These are normal conversations in this line of work. 

There is no break during Protective Presence activism. Either there’s an immediate incident, or you’re waiting for the next one. Every unfamiliar car or person in the distance can be a settler coming to attack or harass or bringing soldiers to force Palestinians off their land. A drone from the nearby outpost hovered overhead for around 30 seconds, and I was on edge for the next hour. You sleep with one eye open. Jewish holidays often bring with them right-wing violence in Israel and the West Bank. Hate crimes were carried out in Bat Yam this year and last year, and in 2021 there was a settler pogrom in the Palestinian village of Mufagara.

This is exhausting and emotionally draining. Unlike many other Protective Presence shifts I have participated in, Yom Kippur ended without incident. 

After 25 hours, I had the privilege of going home to Jerusalem. Palestinians do not have this option. This is their life. 

According to Torah, on Yom Kippur the Israelites are told to “afflict themselves.” The rabbis concluded that self-affliction must refer to fasting, reasoning that “affliction” refers to something that, when taken to a certain extent, can lead to death. 

Life under occupation can, and does, lead to death. One look at the statistics makes that all too clear. Since 2000, 10,667 Palestinians in the occupied territories have been killed by Israeli soldiers or civilians.

Protective Presence is my self-affliction. And yet, in homage to Yom Kippur’s imagery of being sealed in the Book of Life, life goes on. Activists laughed with and got to know each other and our Palestinian hosts. We read and we ate delicious homemade food. We didn’t embrace misery as a form of repentance. We embraced the full spectrum of life. 

I believe fasting is mentally, physically and spiritually unhealthy. The only self-affliction I find meaningful is in sharing the pain — and the joy — of my fellow human beings, particularly in a way that lightens their pain and suffering. The people of Ein Rashash have told us that our presence is making their lives easier and helping them stay on their land. The children are laughing and playing in a way that they were not when we first started these shifts. This has been the most meaningful Yom Kippur I’ve ever had.

In Mishnah Yoma 8:9, we learn that repentance on Yom Kippur only allows us to atone for the sins between ourselves and God. For a sin against another person, one must “satisfy their fellow.” We don’t need to ask God for forgiveness. We must stand with the Palestinians suffering under Israeli rule, until they’re satisfied. 

I know that it’s not a matter of if the settlers will be back, but when. For as long as that’s the case, I will continue to pray with my body and sometimes “self-afflict” in the name of justice and equality. The Talmud states self-affliction does not absolve one from their sins towards other people, only those towards God. And yet, our sins towards other people are the ones for which we direly need to repent.

[todaysjewishholiday]

13 Menachem Av 5784 (16-17 August 2024)

Shabbat shalom! Gutt shabbes! Sabado bueno!

Shabbat is the most significant and joyful Jewish holiday, and this Shabbat is the most joyful of them all, because it is the consolation after our deepest collective grief. The Hebrew year has a few special shabbatot, associated with specific anniversaries, Torah portions, or haftarah of special significance. This Shabbat, the one which follows Tisha b’Av, our day of mourning for the destruction of both Batei HaMikdash and for all that is broken in the world we inhabit, is called Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of Comfort, and has been celebrated by generations of Jews as the combination of all that is most enjoyable about Shabbat and Yom Tov. Truly, this is a day that we accept in all its splendor as an everlasting reminder of HaShem’s loving promises to us. The contrast with the deep heartwrenching grief of Tisha b’Av can allow us to see in this Shabbat in particular all that Shabbat is meant to be for us each and every week. Contrast can teach us many wonderful things.

The parashat hashavua of Shabbat Nachamu is Vaetchanan, “I Pleaded”, the second portion in Devarim, Moshe’s final address to the Israelite people. This parsha includes three of the most important texts of Judaism: the Shma, our most foundational prayer, the v’Ahavta which we repeat alongside it, and the Asheret haDevarim, or Ten Commandments, the first mitzvot given to the Israelite people at Mount Sinai, which are repeated here by Moshe as a reminder of the vows binding the Israelite people and our God. Taken together these three are a powerful reminder of truths that no catastrophe can alter.

The haftarah is from Sefer Yeshayahu, Chapter 40, and its opening words “Nachamu Nachamu Ammi” (Comfort, o comfort my people) give the Shabbat its special name. It was deliberately chosen to follow Tisha b’Av, and is the first of seven passages of comfort from Yeshayahu read between Tisha b’Av and Rosh HaShana. Please accept the comfort and consolation of this particular Shabbat. We live in a difficult world, and we need the peace and rest and joy and change of perspective that Shabbat offers. As the saying goes “the Jews observe Shabbat and Shabbat preserves the Jews”— this Shabbat is a testament to how true that is, even in the face of all the calamities of our community’s history. We can face the challenges of our times, so long as we willingly accept the comfort HaShem offers us in the way of Torah.

[hypogryffin]

genuinely curious by what you mean by "jewish (factual)" in your tier list. i can assume for a couple what you mean (sophia as an example) but i dont see how the others could be like jewish-coded! interested in hearing your thoughts

link to the first post for claritys sake, but this is the tier in question:

ok so for clarification: i made the tier list a little while ago and then scheduled it for later to keep uploads consistent, something i usually do all the time but am not for this discussion for now. this means that by the day the tier list posted, i was already a few weeks or so divorced from the actual creation of it, so some of my opinions have changed (as i said in the og post, i was unsure on a good portion of the characters even when i first queued the list), and some of my reasonings behind placements have been lost to time and my silly little goldfish memory.

bc of this, as of now as im trying to find a distinct line between "jewish (factual)" and "jewish (based on vibes)", the criteria for "factual" is sort of murky. some placements in the category were serious, but a lot of them were also entirely for joking reasons, and i had moved on as soon as i was done laughing to myself without coming back to it.

all this is to say, i have no idea how to summarise it, so im going to explain everything i can remember about my thought process at the time so you can see where i was coming from.

SOPHIA:

yup 👍.

ok so for the uninformed, sophia is the name of a gnostic figure and the specifics change depending on the context of which ur referring to her in, but in judaism specifically sophia was given as a translated name for chokmah which is like a being thats like really important in kabbalah and considered like. this sort of i guess personification of divine wisdom?

anyways this is a concept that i doubt im anywhere near the first person to bring up, so im not gonna spend a lot of time on it like i will the things i havent heard other people talk about. like the whole "good friend of humanity" thing! judaism puts a lot of emphasis on kindness and care for other people and i think its important that thats so big for her character and for how jewish she can be read as. she is also jewish because i like her :^).

TATSUYA:

suffers endlessly because g-d hates *him*, specifically, and he hates g-d right back. jewish.

that was a joke. ok so right out the gate i think the whole "fighting hitler" aspect of IS should count for something during the discussion of which characters are jewish. like just putting that out there. anyways tatsuya is jewish because of eternal punishment. specifically, you know how hes like super into "atonement" and repentance? bro would really have benefited from going to a high holidays service lemme tell you. and he does it in a specific way thats like. his atonement is actively trying to repair what hes fixed right like hes not doing what hes doing to be redeemed, hes doing it because its his responsibility to fix whats been broken. i just idk how to explain it properly but thats a thought process your rabbi talks you through in jew school yknow?

also theres this thing called tikkun olam, which literally translates as "repairing the world". so it means more like. doing ur best as a citizen to improve community and country, or general social work. but just considering it as taking the literal translation, then its just like... yep. that sure is what hes doing isnt it

also, killed hitler. hashtag work

KATSUYA:

placed here mostly because being tatsuyas brother, theyd probably be at a similar "level" of religiosity. however there are some unique things i want to point out here;

katsuya like embodies the idea of "tzedek tzedek tirdof" like. its unfortunate hes a cop but for a cop hes a pretty good person? hes pretty uncompromising on right and wrong, and in a way that totally lines up w tzedek tzedek tirdof as its described in the torah.

extra emphasis on his compassion, as in theres like that core facet of judaism, the tikkun olam, where people have a moral obligation to help others; not just do good as oneself, but also stop other people from doing bad. that last bit doesnt really matter, cuz im bringing it up so i can talk about katsuya as a police officer to clear his dads name and try and ensure a better future for his brother. he gave up his dreams for them.

i mean, when i say "giving up his dreams", im kinda laughing to myself bc theres no way he ran it past his parents bc if he looked his jewish mother in the eye and said "i want to be a pastry chef" he would not make it out of the room alive. hed go "my dream is to become a pâtissier" and his mom would immediately be like "no its not its to be an accountant" and that would be the end of the discussion

also, i think he would make some of the best fucking challah in the world. hed make matzo ball soup that could make you jizz your pants just looking at it. look me in the eyes and tell me that he doesnt actually go nuts at rosh hashana when he gets to make the round challah with the raisins in it and stuff or whatever else. there is such a crystal clear vision in my mind of him rocking this apron my dad used to have that says "real men make latkes". it was pink and ugly as sin and i think it would be katsuyas most prized possession.

LABRYS:

her name is fucking labrys obviously shes a jewish lesbian. next.

/j i will actually talk about this. like not mentioning the only survivor of her upbringing, which isnt a one to one considering the death match portion of her backstory but still close enough to feel um. relavant to jewish culture. she acts very...stereotypically jewish?

its not entirely the accent, but it is...part of it. so like i know its like a new jersey accent and that the stereotype is new york, i guess? but im not american and i dont rlly know the difference. they look close enough to each other on a map tho so i think it counts

but also shes like kinda confrontational in a way i specifically associate with jewish people or jewish characters? like not really bitchy but argumentative right, shes got this really sarcastic or mocking sense of humour. and girl kvetches with the best of them.

(also, side note: since i made the original list, i found out that the voice actress for aegis in p3 reload, dawn m bennett, is actually jewish! if i were to remake the tier list, aegis would be moved up from "vibes" to "factual" because of this. mentioning that here because of the sister thing :).)

JOKER:

kills g-d which is the jewish dream. this is a another joke.

someone in the replies of the tier list said something abt a possible reason being that he has an "abrahamic figure" as his ult. persona, which could be a good point if satanael was actually an abrahamic figure! but it is not. like ok im not a history guy but satanael is a name used in the 2nd book of enoch, which arguably could be part of jewish "canon" (i know this is actually the term for it but fandom has rotted my brain and it sounds terminally online to use it in terms of real life religiosity) but most rabbis agree it like is not, and theyre kind of who im listening to on this, and quick google search says even in christianity, enoch is debatable? idk

so like satanael isnt in the torah. and if anyone says "oh its just like another name for satan so technically--" shut up i know. satan isnt real in the torah either. ok like "satan" is used as a term, but not as like the specific dude that like rules hell. hes just like at most a specific dude who is not a devil/cast from heaven or whatever, but instead is a lawyer. more often its a concept, something representative of like the urge to go against g-ds will or a kosher life, this "evil inclination" which everyone is born possessing and grapples with when trying to be a good person. NOT THE SAME AS THE CHRISTIAN SATAN. WHICH IS WHAT P5 WAS GOING FOR. SATAN IN JUDAISM IS NOT A "super demon lord" or whatever they call it in the text of the game

satanael isnt an abrahamic figure and i dont think satan is either cuz its so different between religions and honestly i think calling things abrahamic religions, at least w the context i hear of it, is like kind of a misnomer or just kind of generally misleading cuz judaism christianity and islam are all so different and if were talking about this i think whoever invented the term judeochristian should eat a sheet of glass for it because whenever i hear those terms its very clear the person saying it means just christianity but theyre trying to be inclusive without actually putting the work in and thats not the point of this.

ok if im honest, as i think abt it joker isnt like. really... super jewish, in a way that you can point out? its just like... this overall vibe im having trouble explaining which is probably also like super influenced by how much i like him. i want to say that this strict sense of right and wrong that remains uninfluenced by the rest of society is something that clearly creates or maybe just intensifies this like. empathy for other people that reminds me of this concept in judaism which i cant remember the hebrew name of rn but i think its most commonly translated to english as "lovingkindness", one word? or that the whole idea of the phantom thieves can be contributed to tikkun olam. but, on the other hand, even if lovingkindness is what i personally consider one of jokers core character traits, the other one is pure, blinding rage.

im not going to go super into it, because im a few years rusty of torah study bc its only really consistently done in my community for kids preparing for bnai mitzvah cuz of how few people we have in our congregation. but from what i remember, my interpretation of the exact limit between righteous and sinful anger is a bit more... lax than the average jew's, or at least the average rabbi's, meaning mine, lol. either way anger is almost always seen as sinful because its an emotion that can like. turn you from g-d, its the same thing that invokes that "evil inclination" we just talked abt. so, joker textually feels this rage that arsene, his other self, literally refers to as "sacrilegious", something that very clearly states that he is willing to *knowingly* commit sins for this rage and is perfectly capable of causing undue harm to others for it, which is exactly the reason why judaism warns of anger. this means jokers anger is distinctly against jewish teachings.

again, im really lax, my familys reform (/lh) and i think there are some parts of this characterisation that make me feel this rage is overall constructive, especially considering that is what feeds his constant practice of lovingkindness and tikkun olam, but it being such a huge facet of his personality (made worse bc as a silent protagonist, you really have to search to get away from this trait) brings him down on the Jew Scale(tm).

in short, now that im really discussing this id probably move him to incredibly jewish based on vibes or even to just "jewish" no further classification. but even w the undying sinful anger thing i cant not think of him as jewish and i dont think its just bc hes one of my favourite characters of all time.

also that hair texture looking really familiar is all🤔🤔. all im saying that is in the tutorial, instead of "frizzy hair", morgana deffo should have been calling them blondie and jewfro /j /j /j

EDIT AND JOKERS KITCHEN!! JOKERS KITCHEN!! FOOD AS A LOVE LANGUAGE!! IN P5 YOU MAKE FOOD FOR YOUR FRIENDS AND YOU PUT LOVE INTO IT

MORGANA:

i know i put morgana before joker in the tier but i think in order to rlly discuss morgana we needed joker first bc part of my reason for putting them in the same tier is because they really are a pair, do not separate.

anyways, morgana does have a lot of the same problems as joker when it comes to being difficult to pin down. his inclination to tikkun olam is similar, sort of even greater than jokers depending on personal characterisation of joker, but instead of this discrepancy of his jewishness being anger, the ethical conundrum with morgana is sort of. arrogance? like, i have trouble figuring out how to really put into words how i feel abt morganas "lovingkindness", because it is so hard to understand where hes at in terms of empathy?? like. fucking. idk hes definitely a very caring person but its not exactly like

ok i cant figure out how to say it moving on. i used the word arrogance even though i dont really think thats right, because morgana has never seemed haughty. his "arrogance" is really just him making up for an inferiority complex caused by the amnesia thing, its not as if he genuinely totally believes himself to be above the others. but like no matter what it stems from, the way he behaves and his personal pride hurts people. ie the okumura arc, or his entire relationship w ryuuji. he speaks ill of others, belittles them to bring himself up, etc. arrogance and excess pride is as condemned as anger in judaism if not moreso, since its even less useful/constructive to be "arrogant" than it is to be angry. OH ok so what i meant with the hard to figure out his empathy thing is this actually!! hes very caring and has a really notable respect for human life but its always at war with his need to prove himself, so even if when you think about it its like Oh Morgana Is A Really Caring Person, which makes sense because he was created from human desire and as such is really in touch with what people need, the desperation he has to be seen as "worthy" comes off as wanting to be seen as "above", even if it means trying to get the people around him as being considered "below" him.

tldr so if it was just those two traits i think id have to move morgana lower on the list, alongside joker.

HOWEVER. speaking directly to the other jews in the crowd, but morgana is totally textually a golem, right? like not exactly, obviously, but think about it. morganas a being of the velvet room because he was created from "the dregs of human hope" (canonical line from yaldaboath that i think about more than what can be considered healthy tbh), whose job is was and always will be to protect and guide the trickster and his community, the phantom thieves. hes a golem right? am i insane? am i seeing things? i dont care, im not giving up on this interpretation, so morgana is factually and canonically jewish cuz of it.

ZEN:

i do not remember.

as of today id probably move him to either jewish no other classification or not jewish. my b guys. anyways

JUN:

life is indescribable torment, and then hes also got additional, mostly unrelated, mommy issues. judaism 101.

also his suspenders when he was a kid are the most young jewish lad shit in the history of ever like i have seen that exact outfit on a young boy every time i go to temple, and each time it is a different kid

ok more seriously, i really do think juns story-- specifically his relationship with memory-- can easily be extracted into a jewish narrative. like nyarlathotep messed with his memories and convinced him that the other members of the masked circle killed maya right. and so the way he fanatically reminded himself of the past was a mix of trauma and active manipulation. but if i think abt it a certain way i also can see it as like. ok so in judaism memory is really important and like a lot of the time during for example passover, youre meant to refer to yourself as being a jew in egypt, saying "we" instead of "them" and such. but im specifically meaning how important memory/remembrance is in grieving. jun in his grief for mayas perceived death "kept her alive" in a way. she was never forgotten, and so she never died. even though the entire masked circle forgot, from trauma or fear or guilt or whatever, jun held on, remembering her, and so she survived. joker took peoples dreams but his actions also caused them to be completely be forgotten. they were alive, but they were robbed of their ability to be remembered at all, and so they were as good as dead even still breathing and talking.

retroactively, this idea enforces tatsuyas jewishness, considering the entire story of eternal punishment. he refused to forget the masked circle, even though it hurts.

anyways back to jun, i also think the whole repentance thing is important too. he hurt people in his anger and sorrow and spends the rest of his life (until the world is reset at least lol) atoning for his wrongdoings.

also, i know i said kid him is super jewish looking, but he has not gotten better as hes grown up. 17y.o him is exactly the guy your bubbe will pull up on facebook and be like "this is the grandson of my friend or whoever! you should go on a date with him, hes your age! he looks a bit gay but hes a very successful doctor! ...and hes JEWISH YAKNOW...." and ur like "ok bubbe"

ERIKO:

i actually do not recall exactly why she is in this tier specifically. the only thing i for sure remember was that i at least partially placed her here bc of her fascination with the occult.

HIKARI:

ok this one was kinda me goofing. its the whole extended family thing like whats more jewish than being actively discouraged from a creative career for something "safe" and "normal?" bro the aunt might as well have dropped the "being a doctor is very respectable" line in the song.

but like even without that, wanting to be a director or associated with film? hitting her with the jew beam. mazel tov babygirl.

[shalom-iamcominghome]

I missed hebrew class because of an appointment and last shabbos service because I fell asleep at 04:00 and couldn't get up as early as I needed for, and this week, I'm so much more optimistic I can make it to both.

I guess, also, what made me freeze up going to shabbos service is partially because I was a little disheartened by the phone call I had before with a rabbi. It's not frustrating because I get where he's coming from, but he said someone at [my adult age, young] is still exploring themself and what they want, that desires are permanent, which is exactly what I was told when coming out as trans.

I have felt the happiness I get from judaism before, it's the same happiness I got when I transitioned. Genuinely, the happiness I got from transition was life-saving - going from suicidality 24/7 to happiness was such a stark and shocking thing, and it's that same happiness that I get from judaism. I feel I'm unique in being able to identify when something just Works.

I've worried that my desire for judaism was a passing interest, but it's the opposite; I was really angsty when I woke up hours late for the service I couldn't attend. A big part of that angst came from the fact that I adore my offline jewish community and I love to be around them, but the other part came from being disappointed that I wasn't going to be learning from the torah portion, unable to have that community reading and me following along.

I guess missing both class and service was a blessing in disguise. My hurt about missing them is how I know I'm doing the right thing. And it's nice to know that maybe in my case, the rabbi I spoke to isn't going to be right about me.

[we-met-at-mount-sinai]

I went with my girlfriend again to services yesterday! It was really nice, and at the point when the rabbi was asking about people's interpretations of the Torah portion, she gave what I thought was quite an interesting interpretation (usually no-one speaks at that point and it gets quite awkward so having someone speak was seen as quite welcome).

Also one of the other members came up to us and interrogated us slightly (apparently he does that a lot) because it was odd for him to see so many young people at the synagogue on a typical Shabbat morning. My girlfriend told him that she was "exploring her options" because she doesn't know yet if Judaism is right for her, but she enjoys being at the synagogue and participating in services, so she's trying to determine if it's the right path.

Anyway. On this Shabbat evening she wrote a poem about the Shabbat candles, she's been doing Shabbat and learning Hebrew with me for a few weeks, and she's also been very invested in discussion about helping me to keep a Jewish home when we live together. So even if she doesn't end up converting, she's definitely being very supportive and participative of my conversion and our future of keeping a Jewish home together.

[religion-in-humanity]

I am from a very odd religious background. I was raised culturally Christian, in the sense that my family celebrated Christmas and Easter, but my family wasn't religiously Christian in any way.

My mom was neo-pagan (until she became baptist well into my late teens) and my dad is a die-hard atheist; I can count all the times I went to a church on one hand and that was always with extended family (and they were all deeply unpleasant experiences), I never prayed or said grace (I held my cousins' hands awkwardly and stared ahead in silence), and my only religious education was Veggie Tales but I was so disconnected from Christianity that I didn't even realize it was a religious show.

(My great-grandma was sent to a Catholic boarding school as a little NDN girl. I grew up seeing her little figurines of the Virgin Mary and the crucifix hanging above her bedroom door, but she never told me about religion. She didn't raise me, or my brother or cousins or her own children, with the fear of hell that was beaten into her.)

I don't know the things that even other culturally Christian people seem to know about Christianity. I don't know Jesus's apostles, I don't know the story of the last supper, I don't know anything about his crucification or whatever it's called. My knowledge of the Christmas story is based on that one vine ("I brought you myrrh." "Thank you." "Myrrh-der!" "Judas, no!" Idk who Judas is either). I can't tell you what that thing priests stand at is called. I don't know the difference between a priest, a chaplain, and all those other people. I can't recognize biblical references.

Which is a very long way of saying that I don't have the same background that a lot of other converts and potential converts are coming into Judaism with. I don't have the deeply ingrained antisemitism that Christians are raised with; I'm sure I heard some iteration of "Jews killed Jesus" as a child but it never registered to me until I started hanging out with Jewish people. I definitely still hold antisemitic beliefs, because I was raised in a society, but I don't have the black and white thinking that ex-Christians bring to the table, where you're either perfect or damned and there is no in-between.

So it's been odd to me, realizing how many other potential converts don't see Judaism as its own religion and culture but as a saving grace, a way of being redeemed from the sins of Christianity and colonialism and whatever else. And then they're forced to realize that Jews, like everyone else in this world, are human beings who are complicated and messy and often selfish and cruel and all their faith in the ways that Judaism can "save" them is shattered by reality.

I have been over here furiously studying, highlighting half of my books and listening to audiobooks while I do dishes and waiting on a holding list for weeks to check out this one book that several Jewish friends recommended and signing up for all of MJL's email lists and even reading the weekly Torah and Midrash portions and their commentaries even though I have no biblical experience, along with talking to people and asking questions and researching synagogues and making a list of questions for a rabbi. And it is so so clear that these people treating Judaism like their spiritual saviors, literally replacing Jesus in their lives with Jewishness, have no actual attachment to Judaism itself and no interest in it beyond the benefits they think it will give to them. They aren't interested in the religion or the meaning or the history, because if they were, then they'd already know how important Israel is to Jewish communities and how prominent Zionism is in all its forms.

They want the culture and the holidays and the bragging rights without any of the weight and history that makes Judaism what it is. As a Native person, I see that so much in people who are trying to connect to distant Native ancestry or pluck at our cultures for themselves; they want all the fun parts without the work and pain and misery and trauma.

Idk. It's just such a depressing realization. I'm not longer part of any actual convert groups and I'm glad for that because I don't know how I'd react to people just. Discarding all this work and passion and love as if it's nothing.

[2q5b]

VAYECHI

By Ezra

December 26th, 2023

I am a diaspora Jew. This is partly by accident and partly by choice. I was born in the U.S. My Jewish grandparents came to Boston from Poland and Germany after the Nazis made them into child refugees. My mother, raised Catholic, chose Judaism, married my father and converted.

As for me, I could move to Israel, the Promised Land, anytime I want. Many people I know have done this. But I don’t want to.

How can this be? I am a religious person. My prayerbook is dripping with longing for this land, full of texts written by people who couldn’t get there. The Torah that I study week after week is in large part a chronicle of my people inhabiting that land and then trying to return to it. And even if I prefer to stay in the US, how is it that millions of traditional religious Jews are happy to live all over the world, when they could easily relocate to their beloved spiritual homeland?

Today, that land has descended into hell. The IDF perpetrates mass murder, Hamas insists on acts of war, prisoners suffer in desperate conditions, Palestinians starve en masse in a Gaza that has become a ghetto.

It is more obvious than ever that Jewish statehood in the Holy Land has not ended our spiritual exile. A Jewish state may be a political reality, but it is not a spiritual solution. It cannot satisfy our longing. We yearn for something far, far deeper. We yearn for the repair of the world, the end of falsehood and bloodshed, the reign of peace and justice.

I think this deeper yearning, not satisfied by land acquisition, goes way back, back before the Exodus, back to the late chapters of the book of Breishit.

In this week’s Torah portion, Jacob and his children are living happily in Egypt. Before Jacob dies, he asks that they bury him in Canaan. After his death, the Jewish people travel together to the Promised Land for his burial and funeral. It’s not that big a deal. It doesn’t take forty years. They just ask the Pharaoh, he says yes, and they go. And then they come back to their homes in Egypt.

These are, maybe, the first diaspora Jews, and their exile seems voluntary. They could move to Israel, but that’s not where they live, that’s not where they’re raising their children and involved in government and generally thriving. And more: there is a deep purpose, perhaps one they’re not even aware of, for their exile in Egypt.

Jacob’s death ends the period of the patriarchs and matriarchs, the avot and imahot. These iconic three generations of ancestors–Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel and Leah–are credited as the originators of our spiritual tradition. Genesis has been largely a book not so much about a community as about these towering individuals, whose personalities and accomplishments still reverberate in our liturgy, our mythology, our souls. 

And from the beginning there is this strange pressure for each of these generations to have one single spiritual inheritor. A chosen child to continue the mission, to receive messages from God, never mind the familial discord this may create. It’s Isaac, not Ishmael. It’s Jacob, not Eisav. And Jacob seems poised to father the next great inheritor.

But something changes in Jacob’s generation. His plan to marry Rachel goes awry when he is tricked into marrying Leah first, and he eventually also marries two of their servants for a total of four wives, with whom he fathers thirteen children. Rachel is the last one to give birth, and her firstborn son Joseph seems, early on, to be that special chosen one, the one Jacob favors. But that plan, too, goes awry. Joseph has ten older brothers who are not happy about this favoritism, ten Eisavs to worry about compared to his father, who had a hard enough time fending off just one. And the old model, of one saint passing the torch to the inheriting saint, finally breaks. The brothers turn on Joseph and sell him into slavery in Egypt.

Joseph, like the three patriarchs, is a singular personality. His individual story is dramatic and righteous. But what he’s not is the next Isaac, the next Jacob. There is no next Jacob. A new era has begun: the era of B’nei Yisrael, the children of Israel (Jacob’s alternate name). This becomes the name of the nation which will be used throughout the Bible. The dynasty is no longer a dynasty, but an expanded family in which all are equal inheritors of the tradition, with no single clear leader. A large group in solidarity and spiritual alignment.

Simultaneous with this shift is the movement from Canaan to Egypt. Our parasha is the end of Breishit and the beginning of Shmot, the second book of the Torah, which will be radically different than the first. Jacob gives his parting blessings to his children at the dawn of the exile and transmits a crucial message: “God will be with you and will bring you back to the land of your ancestors.”

They could return right now. The text makes sure we know that they are able, shows us how easy it is. But they don’t. Instead they allow their holy land to exist as a horizon of spiritual possibility. Here the Promised Land becomes what it remains for the rest of the five books of Moses: an ever-receding myth, somewhere we approach, but never fully reach.

And this is how the Jewish people as we know it is born.

Exile is dangerous, make no mistake. Though Joseph wants his family to live with him in Egypt and share in the power and abundance he has attained there, Jacob needs explicit encouragement from God before going. “Have no fear of descending to Egypt,” God told him in last week’s parasha, “for I shall establish you as a great nation there. I myself shall descend with you to Egypt and I myself will also surely bring you up.” Jacob is right to be afraid: in Egypt, his descendants will face mass enslavement and murder. And yet there is something about exile that is necessary to the Jewish mission in the world, that both expands and deepens it. As Joseph tells his brothers when they are first reunited, “Don’t be distressed…God has sent me ahead of you to ensure your survival in the land and to sustain you for a momentous deliverance.”

Exile is not all bad, the Torah tells us. In fact it is indispensable. It has a very real purpose. It widens the capacity of the Jewish people. It allows us to grow beyond a closed-off little family that talks to God. It allows our spirituality to impact history.

The late 19th-century Polish hasidic thinker known as the Sfat Emet is one of my personal favorite Torah commentators. I doubt my love for his teachings can be separated from my love for my own Polish grandfather, z”l. Living amidst rampant and institutionalized anti-Semitism, the Sfat Emet taught, “This is the purpose of exile: that Israel make visible God’s kingdom, which is indeed everywhere. The true meaning of the word galut (exile) is hitgalut (revealing), that the glory of God’s kingdom be revealed in every place.” 

These two Hebrew words share a root for a good reason. Exile is dangerous, one is uncovered. Without protection, vulnerable. Showing oneself, speaking truth, can be dangerous in the same way. The faith of the Jewish diaspora is that this kind of vulnerability can be worth it. If you stay in your fortress, you are safe but you are cut off, you cannot communicate. If you grab your flashlight and walk into a dark, uncertain world, you light up the road on which you walk.

The transformation of the patriarch era into an era of communal expansion in Egypt has a similar kind of opening quality, an uncovering that also entails a loss. The patriarchal intimacy with God, a clarity and protection, give way to an imperfect but much more widely shared relationship with God.

Jacob himself feels this loss as it happens. His blessing of his twelve sons in this week’s parsha begins with a mysterious introduction. “Assemble yourselves,” he announces, “and I will tell you what will befall you in the latter days.” B’acharit ha-yamim. But he never seems to get to that information, nor does he specify what days he means. What follows instead is an oblique poem containing cryptic blessings for his children. An old midrash sheds light: “He wanted to reveal the end of the exile, but the Shchinah (the Presence of God) departed him, so he began to speak of other things.” 

This failure to communicate is connected to exile. Far from home under foreign rule, Jacob is in some way blocked from prophecy. A kind of perfect awareness has been lost to him, signaling the end of his era of patriarchal perfection and the beginning of something else, something larger and deeper.

When the Sfat Emet, a wise man living in the exile of his own time, tries to teach about this midrash, he too is partly blocked, his memory fails him. He teaches, “I believe my grandfather quoted the Rabbi of Pr-shiss-cha (Przysucha) as wondering why Jacob wanted to reveal the end. His answer was that when the end is known, exile is made easier. That’s all I remember, but it seems to mean the same: revealing the end means knowing there is an end to exile, and that shows it to be but a matter of hiding, not a force of its own… Jacob our Father just wanted there to be no mistake about this, that it all be obvious, but that goal eluded him. You need to struggle to find truth.” 

The contemporary spiritual exile, the one you and I are living through, is not easy, at times it is horrific. How it will end, how a better world could be revealed, is not yet clear. But if we are struggling to find the truth, struggling to uncover it, then we will not have wasted our time. Wherever we are in the world, it is our task right here and now to reveal and enact the good and the holy, the better world that is possible, hiding in plain sight.

Chazak Chazak v’Nitchazeik.

[nach-yomish]

Welcome to Nach Yomi!

This is a blog devoted to the project of studying and discussing the later books of the Tanakh: the Prophets (Nevi'im) and the Writings (Ketuvim). We will be reading one chapter (perek) a day, except for on Yom Tov and Shabbat. Most discussions will be happening on our new discord server, send an ask for an invite! Most posts will be by @etz-ashashiyot, whose idea it was, with assistance from @resplendent-ragamuffin.

Anyone is allowed to participate by reading the text from Sefaria or their copy of the Tanakh and listening to the lecture (shiur) linked in each post.

I am Jewish and will be leading this discussion using Jewish methods of text study, but non-Jews are welcome here.

This is a sideblog of @etz-ashashiyot and @resplendent-ragamuffin, and so post replies will come from there.

Please add your thoughts in reblogs to help keep the discussion in one place.

I'd love to participate but am feeling in over my head due to all the Hebrew and background Jewish context. What should I do?

Totally understandable! I would suggest doing some background reading to get up to speed. I am also happy to answer questions to the best of my ability if you're still feeling lost after reviewing these resources.

Resources for Jewish Background Context and Judaism:

What is the Tanakh?

Why not just study Torah/the full Tanakh?

Jews study a portion of the Torah each week and traditionally chant it aloud at Shabbat morning services. This is called the weekly Torah portion or Parsha.

Therefore, most religiously involved Jews are already familiar with the Torah, but often less familiar with the later books of the Tanakh.

Some portions of the Nach also get read weekly as part of the Torah reading. This is called the Haftarah. However, these are just excerpts and do not cover the full Tanakh.

That sounds interesting! Where can I find a schedule for the parsha and haftarah? Hebcal, Chabad, Sefaria and other major Jewish websites list them up to date and for the future.

Isn't the Tanakh the same as the Christian Old Testament? Not exactly. There are many similarities and overlap, but the translations are different (different histories and theological motivations) and the books are ordered differently in the Old Testament in order to better set up the Jesus narrative.

This involves a lot of history that I wasn't taught. Not to worry! There's an app for that.

I'm struggling to follow the Hebrish (English with lots of Hebrew words and phrases) used by the podcast instructors. Here is a resource for looking up some of these. If you're still lost, please feel free to ask, although there's a chance I don't know either. Edit: @resplendent-ragamuffin has graciously been detailing them on each post and honestly, I've learned a lot from reading them, too!

Okay that's great, but why do some of these words seem to exchange the "T" sound for an "S" sound? That's a quirk of Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation; one explanation here.

I have some other question about Judaism that you didn't address here. Understandable! There's a lot to learn if you are from (for example) a Christian background and don't know much about Judaism, Jewish history, or Jewish culture. Jew FAQ is an excellent website for newcomers, as well as Essential Judaism by George Robinson (my favorite introductory book to recommend to people.)

[girlactionfigure]

This is true bravery! 

When everyone else at Drexel University was supporting evil, one student still showed up for Israel!  

This lone ranger, Jay, left class clutching his Israeli flag and waved it in the air walking towards Students for Justice in Palestine, where students were chanting “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” as well as other anti-Israel and anti-Semitic chants.

 Jay’s proud sister videoed him marching into the belly of the beast, where he proudly waved his Israeli flag.

 Jay staged a one-man counter-protest, and when the hostage-deniers asked him for proof of the hostages and the massacre, he pulled out his phone and showed them footage, silencing the crowd. 

* The timing of this event could not be more fitting! In this week’s parsha (Torah portion), Avraham embarks on his Lech Lecha journey into the unknown.

Avraham was called the “ish ivri” because all the masses walked on one side of the river, and he walked on the other. (Ivri comes from the Hebrew word “ever” (the other side), as in “the other side of the river.” Ideologically, Avraham walked on “the other side.”) He walked alone, choosing to live a life of truth rather than a life of social acceptance.

A true leader must always be willing to commit to the right path, even if he or she is the only one doing so. * The lonely path can also be the very means of self-discovery and self-transformation. Sometimes one can see most clearly once they have distanced themselves from their current surroundings, as this gives them the ability to rethink, redirect, and then return with newfound purpose and meaning. Avraham completely removed himself from his idolatrous culture. Moshe spent many decades alone in the desert and on the run from Pharaoh, building his clarity and understanding of life before returning to lead the Jewish People.  David HaMelech grew up as an outcast before being appointed as king by Shmuel.  This is not always necessary, but often, a step back leads to a giant step forward. This is why teenagers who leave their homes in chutz la’aretz (outside Israel) and spend time learning Torah in Israel often find it immensely transformative for their spiritual development. * These are definitely lonely times; but with that comes incredible opportunities. May we all be inspired to embark on our own Lech Lecha journey; as individuals, there is always a certain existential loneliness in seeking the ultimate truth; but at the heart of our individual Lech Lecha journey is the realization that we’re part of something infinitely greater than ourselves; and it’s in that realization that we find a deep sense of connection, togetherness, and purpose!

Video Link

@ReichmanShmuel

H/T scartale-an-undertale-au

[batboyblog]

For bar/bat mitzvahs, do they start at a synagogue and the child reads something from the Torah and then everyone goes to the child’s house afterwards for the birthday party portion? Are outsiders like non Jewish family or friends allowed to attend the religious aspect and sit in on the synagogue reading or is it a more private affair? I guess I have a lot of questions about the religious aspect. I’m trying to include Jewish representation in a story and I don’t want to portray it as just some big birthday when it’s more significant than that. I’ve also heard that sometime instead of reading from the Torah they recite a prayer instead? What are some common prayers or passages from the Torah that are read in your opinion?

I should state I'm not a Rabbi nor a particularly religious person.

If someone is writing a Jewish character or Jewish scene it's first important to understand what kind of Jew are you writing? the mood vibe and style of Orthodox, Conservative and Reform (the big 3) are different and thats before you get into like Hassidic or Reconstructionist. And of course Ashkenazi and Sephardi are different liturgical traditions

So speaking as a not very observant Reformnik, the way it was for me, generally speaking its fine for non-Jewish friends to come to Synagogue, that said it was like, you invited your *real* friends to the service and like all the people you want at your party can come to the party.

any ways yes it generally starts at synagogue, I had to read from the Torah, and then give whats called a D'var Torah, which basically is explaining what it is you read and what it means and you're trying to make an original point (rather hard to do with a 3,000 year old document) and a "lesson" to the congregation. This I believe is usual, but I hear some kids don't have to read from the Torah and only have to do the blessings, lucky them. You don't get to pick, Jews read a Torah portion same day every year, we have a holiday when we've finished (And start again) so the Bar mitzvah kid is assigned that week's reading

oh reading the Torah is called Aliyah, means "going up".

and then yes you go to the party after Synagogue, some kids like have a party RIGHT after, some its like you do the synagogue thing in the morning and the party is at night, you know generally there's not a birthday cake as a rule lol and all the food is kosher

[eretzyisrael]

A NEW DAY

In this week’s Torah portion, “Va’etchanan” ("I entreated”), Moses continues his “recap" of the Torah, describing in his own words the Exodus and the revelation at Mount Sinai. He implores the Israelites to follow God’s laws and treasure the Torah, and “you shall not add anything to what I command you or take anything away from it….” (Deut. 4:2) Va’etchanan contains a repetition of the Ten Commandments and the Shema, the essential statement of Jewish monotheism: “Hear O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.” The Shema commands us to love God with all our heart, our soul, and our might, and continues, “And these words I command you today shall be upon your heart.” (Deut. 6:6) The Torah is famously terse, with not a single extraneous word (or letter.) Why is it necessary to say “today” I command you? Wouldn’t the verse’s meaning be the same if it simply said “And these words I command you shall be…”? According to medieval commentator Rashi (1040-1105), “today” means that we should not see the commandments as antiquated royal edicts that nobody pays attention to anymore. Rather we should consider God’s laws to be newly-given and exciting, the kind of words that a person would run to hear. Rav Chaim of Brisk (1853-1918) explains that a person’s situation and responsibilities vary from day to day. Our mission today is not the same as yesterday’s or tomorrow’s. We must begin each day anew, reflecting on our current position and and asking God, “What is my mission today?”  May we serve the Holy One with renewed enthusiasm each and every day!   Image: Shema inscription on the Knesset Menorah in Jerusalem

[mariacallous]

(JTA) — Less than a week after the United Nations secretary general urged an investigation into reported sexual violence by Hamas, the Israeli U.N. mission held a conference on the allegations and pressed the international community to speak out more forcefully against them.

“We have come so far in believing survivors of sexual assault in so many situations. That’s why the silence on these war crimes is dangerous,” said former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg, the event’s keynote speaker. “The world has to decide who to believe. Do we believe the Hamas spokesperson who said that rape is forbidden, therefore it couldn’t have possibly happened on October 7th? Or do we believe the women whose bodies tell us how they spent the last few minutes of their lives?”

A CNN op-ed by Sandberg, and an accompanying Instagram post, have been at the center of a growing protest by Israeli and Jewish women who charge that the U.N. and other international bodies have dismissed or downplayed reports of sexual violence during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. The protest has spread via the hashtag #Me_Too_UNless_UR_a_Jew and found its real-life expression in Monday’s event, which drew 700 people to U.N. headquarters on Manhattan’s East Side.

Israeli U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan took aim in particular at U.N. Women — the organization’s arm for promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment — which caught flak for posting and then deleting a statement condemning the Hamas attack.

“Sadly, the very international bodies that are supposedly the defenders of all women show that when it comes to Israelis, indifference is acceptable,” Erdan said in his opening remarks.

“U.N. Women ignored all of the proof and were blind to all the evidence, including video footage of testimonies of sexual crimes,” he said. “Instead of immediately supporting the victims, U.N. Women brazenly suggested that Hamas’ gender-based violence be investigated by a blatantly antisemitic U.N. body.”

The condemnation of the U.N. is the latest in a long line of complaints Israel has had about the body both before and during its ongoing war with Hamas. In late October, Erdan called on Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to resign after he said the Oct. 7 attack “did not happen in a vacuum.”

The United Nations General Assembly has yet to condemn Hamas and has called for a cessation of the conflict, which restarted last week after a seven-day pause in which Hamas released more than 100 hostages and Israel released hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners.

Last week, Guterres called for an investigation into sexual violence by Hamas. But speakers at Monday’s event pushed for more from world leaders. Sandberg called for “the entire U.N. to formally condemn, investigate, hold the terrorists accountable.” Erdan, to loud applause, called for an “investigation of U.N. Women’s indifference to the heinous crimes against Israeli women.”

In the nearly two months since the Hamas attack in Israel on Oct. 7, Israeli law enforcement, search and rescue groups, and the country’s recently formed Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children have collected evidence and testimony regarding Hamas’ sexual violence on Oct. 7. Over the weekend, The Sunday Times reported testimony from survivors of the Nova music festival recalling women being gang raped and beheaded.

Sheila Katz, the CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women, which organized the event along with other women’s rights groups, drew a parallel between last week’s Torah portion, which includes the Biblical story of the rape of Dinah, and the experiences of the victims of Oct. 7. Katz noted that Dinah’s voice is notably missing from the Biblical narrative.

“For generations, survivors of sexual assaults have looked to Dina’s story because it speaks so powerfully to the secondary trauma of being unheard, ignored and reduced to mere objects for debate,” said Katz, who invited people to step out of the room if they felt the need, given the graphic nature of the event. “And we heard this with new significance this year, because Israeli women and girls were recently tortured, raped, and killed, forever silenced by Hamas.”

Before the gathering, protesters and prominent women’s rights advocates demonstrated outside the U.N., accusing the world body of betraying Israeli women and the feminist movement by staying largely silent about Hamas’ crimes. Organizers estimated 1,000 participants attended the protest, with the crowd chanting, “Rape is rape,” “Shame on the U.N.,” and holding signs that said, “Believe Jewish women.”

“Israeli women are the subject of a collective international denial, the same one inflicted on individual sexual violence victims, questioning and delegitimizing their experiences,” said Cochav Elkayam Levy, the head of an Israeli commission investigating crimes against women on Oct. 7. “When the institutions that are globally mandated to protect women stay silent, not only international law loses meaning, humanity’s sacred values lose meaning.”

Several actors attended the event, including Tovah Feldshuh, Julianna Margulies, Emmy Rossum and Debra Messing, all of whom have spoken out against antisemitism or Hamas’ attack. (Margulies was also fresh off an apology after making disparaging comments about Black Americans who have not supported Jews after Oct. 7.)

The event also featured people who tended to victims of the event, including representatives from ZAKA, the Orthodox Israeli first-responder organization, and the Israeli police, who have been collecting and documenting evidence from victims of sexual violence and people who witnessed the violence. They recounted graphic stories, to which the crowd responded vocally with murmurs, gasps and tears. Some in the audience exchanged tissues, hugs and pats on the back for extra support.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, a Democrat, also came and discussed seeing a compilation of footage of the attack that a group of senators recently viewed.

“I’ve seen much of the raw footage. It takes your breath away,” she said. “You can’t unsee it.”

Speaking to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency after the event, Sandberg said silence surrounding sexual violence is connected to a dearth of female representation on the world stage.

“You look in that hall at those flags — those are countries run by men, very few are run by women. I really wanted that to change in my lifetime. It’s not going to happen, not going to be close,” she said. “But that means the progress we fought for to get women’s women’s rights and protection of our bodies, protection of who we are, protection against systematic, sexualized violence — can’t be lost. And that is why anyone can speak out. And when they speak out, we have to all unite together as quickly as possible.”

[boreal-sea]

Sharing the Burden

So for anyone subscribed to the My Jewish Learning newsletter, they send out short little articles every Saturday related to this week's Torah portion. I don't always agree with the interpretations, but that's why they're often so interesting to read! I like how often the authors attempt to link the Torah portion to current events, and this week is no different. I really like it and found it through-provoking, so I'm linking to the article on the site, and I'm going to post some excerpts here, with bolded emphasis being mine:

But as Americans celebrated Independence Day this week, democracy is top of mind for many of them, and especially American Jews. In the United States, we’re facing a looming presidential election amid contested interpretations of the last one and ongoing debates about voting access. In Israel, there are high levels of mistrust in elected officials after more than a year of massive weekly protests — first over the judicial overhaul and then about hostages and the current government.

We know that Judaism shaped the early development of democratic ideas. Historians have argued that democracies draw many of their distinctive features from the Jewish tradition. One scholar’s list included consent of the governed, the presumption of innocence, the exclusion of self-incrimination from court proceedings, and a commitment to the sanctity of life and the inestimable preciousness of each unique individual. Can Jewish tradition still offer insight today when democracies are under threat? 

When the Israelites’ complaining reaches a fever pitch, Moses throws his hands up and tells God he can’t take it anymore. God’s response is to instruct Moses to gather 70 leaders who “shall share the burden of the people with you.” This is a core democratic move: When the stakes are high, and crisis is imminent, we do not put all of the burden on a single charismatic leader. Instead, individuals are selected to share the burden of the people. What is the difference between the 70 elders and the 250 chieftains? Perhaps it was their tone and intent: The chieftains wanted to replace Moses’ leadership, while the elders said, “We’re here to help carry the burden.” For those of us who are concerned about the future of democracy, whether in the U.S. or in Israel, this is our only real option: To get involved and take on some of the burden of the people. If you aren’t already doing so, perhaps this is your moment to carve out a portion of your time and energy and dedicate it to the democratic process.

Read the full article on MyJewishLearning.com