jewish dopers: Need some info

Factual Questions
21

Like so much else in Judaism, that’s going to vary from person to person, and among individual observances for one person.

Some people observe some mitzvot (basically, rules) because that’s just how they’re used to doing things. They don’t eat cheeseburgers because they never ate them before and don’t find them terribly appealing, just like my parents don’t find sushi appealing or most Americans wouldn’t eat bugs given the opportunity. They go to a Passover seder because they remember going to them when they were younger and would feel they had missed out on something if they didn’t (like how some ex-Christians do with observances associated with Christmas this time of year). They wear yarmulkes to synagogue because they’d feel incompletely dressed if they didn’t.

Some people do observe some mitzvot because of family or social pressure. Some people start observing some mitzvot they didn’t observe previously when they become parents, as a way of setting a good example for the kids. This kind of thing is hardly unique to Jews. There will probably be a fair number of people going to Christmas services tomorrow night for the exact same reason.

Some people observe some mitzvot because they like to. Frankly, I like having an excuse to not do errands, chores, or work brought home from the office on Saturday. Things like lighting Hanukkah candles are fun.

Some people believe that God will punish them, either before (sort of like karma) or after they die, if they don’t observe certain mitzvot. There’s no official Jewish dogma or universal belief on this kind of thing. But it’s human enough to think you might be punished for breaking the rules.

Some people believe that observing the mitzvot makes the world a better place, and makes the world more like God wants it to be.

People being the complex beings we are, the same person might have different motives for observing two different mitzvot. Or someone might have more than one motivation for observing one mitzvah.

In Judaism, it doesn’t matter why you observe a mitzvah, just that you do. If you rest on Shabbat because you’re lazy, that’s just as good as resting on Shabbat to make the world more like God wants it to be. The doing is the important thing, not the reason why you’re doing it.

If you sin in a way that harms another person, you are supposed to apologize to that person and try to make restitution. For sins that don’t harm another person (things like not keeping kosher), fasting and praying on Yom Kippur atones for them. It doesn’t atone for sins that harm others, unless you’ve tried to make things right with the other person before. Of course, you’re also supposed to try not to commit the same sin again. We’re not expected to confess our sins to anyone else, and we don’t have anything like the Catholic distinction between mortal and venial sins, though most Jews would probably agree that some sins are worse than others.

22

Note that with regard to Jewish people as a group, there are numerous ethnic and cultural subdivisions. This is something that confused me for a long time because I assumed that anytime somebody referred to a “[insert modified] Jew” (like Hasidic or Ashkenazi) they were always talking about philosophical distinctions.

Some of these are used by the groups to self-identify, like Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi, Romaniote (Greek-speaking), Italki (Italian-speaking and performing ceremonies in Italian), Bukharan (Persian/Farsi speaking Jews), or Beta Israel (Ethiopian).

Then there are simpler regional identifiers, like Georgian, Yemeni, Chinese, African and Indian, and so on.

Then there are two special groups: the Samaritans and Crypto-Jews.

Samaritans are ethnically and religiously Jewish, but believe that their interpretation of the Torah, Talmud, etc. is the correct one, while mainstream Judaism is a sort of interloper faith. Think of it like the Catholic/Protestant schism, only older.

Crypto-Jews are Jews who pretend not to be, mostly to avoid persecution. Generally this is a temporary thing, but there are groups (mostly in Catholic and Muslim countries) who make something of a tradition out of it.

I think we decided in the “are you offended by the word ‘Jew’” thread that there’s no proper word for ethnically Jewish people who are not adherents of Judaism. I guess Jewish Gentiles would work, though.

23

Except it would probably offend a lot of them.

Also, there’s a continuum of observance among Jews. Some Jews keep kosher, some keep kosher only at home or except when in Chinese restaurants, some just don’t eat pork, and so on. Where do you draw the line between adherents and non-adherents there? Or how often do you have to go to synagogue to be considered an adherent? Every day, every week, on Yom Kippur?

There are some mitzvot that nobody observes now, because they have to do with the Temple and the Temple isn’t there any more. Nobody brings sacrifices to the Temple now- does that mean that nobody is an adherent of Judaism?

Worse yet, anywhere you draw such a line is going to upset somebody. Some very observant Jews are going to be offended that people less observant than them are considered good enough. “Everybody more religious than you is a fanatic, everyone less religious than you is a heretic.”

24

The Samaritans were, as a matter of fact, not originally ethnically Jewish – the Assyrians had a habit of dispersing the elite of the people the conquered; they took the top crust from the kingdom of Israel and settled them who knows where (and the rest fell apart, as expected) – and they settled some people from another part of their empire in Samaria. These people, used to following the Local Gods of wherever they lived (as was customary at the time) took up the local religion, as they saw it.

I prefer “Jewish Atheist.” Or “An Atheist Jew”… :smiley:

25

Wikipedia says they are, though probably interbred with Assyrian females.

26

To quote Tevye: “Tradition.”

Yom Kippur, the “Day of Atonement.” When I was a kid I asked my father what if someone hadn’t done anything wrong during the year? Could he just stay home? I got hit for that.

It’s pretty much assumed that everyone has something to atone for . . . sort of the Jewish version of Original Sin.

27

No, “Jewish Gentile” would be a contradiction, since “Gentile” is as much cultural as religious. I just call myself an Atheist, since my beliefs are, to me, much more relevant than my heritage.

28

Hello Again:

I dare say that you’ll find few Orthodox Jews who do not believe there is a punishment side to the afterlife, and probably a decent percentage of non-Orthodox who lean traditional believe in it as well. Gehinnom is mentioned all over the Talmud and Midrash.

29

I was under the impression that a punishing afterlife – in terms of literal lakes of fire and specific retributive punishments (as opposed to being separated from G-D) was not a universal belief or particularly common even among the Orthodox; and that the self-identifying-as-Orthodox are only about 10% of American Jews. Even so, I should have said American Jews.

At the least, my friends who are Orthodox would definitely laugh at the idea of Dante’s hell.

30

Add to the above - even if you consider a Dante-type punishing hell as a possibility, I believe there is little support for the idea that it could last for all eternity.

31

Hello Again:

That’s quite different from what you said at first. I’d agree that “Hell-as-a-place” would be an extreme minority (if even that) belief amongst Jews, and ditto for the notion of eternal damnation but a “punishing afterlife” (which was your earlier phrasing) i.e., some form of suffering as a result of a life not well lived, is certainly mainstream Jewish belief.

32

In fact, the assumption is that most people will have some period after death of working out their sins (whatever that means), lasting around a year. Jewish tradition is to say a special prayer for mourning for eleven months for near relatives, signifying the hope that they were good enough people to only have to work out their sins for eleven months, not twelve.

Exactly what that means is disputed by different sects, rabbis, etc. However, there is certainly no lilterature of hell in Judaism (unlike Dante, Milton, etc for Christianity, and Ovid etc for Greek/Roman myths)

33

Sorry if this is a hijack, but what are these ‘mystical’ aspects (like in Kabbalah) that Jews study? Is it similiar to charismatic Christianity in the gifts of the Holy Spirit?

Or nothing really ‘magical’ like that? What does the ‘mystical’ part really mean?

34

As has been pointed out before, “Jewish” can mean both an ethnicity and “devotee of the Jewish religion.” Most but not all practitioners of Judaism are ethnic Jews; ethnic Jews may be Jewish or any other faith, or agnostic, atheist, humanist, etc. Sammy Davis Jr., who was Black, was famously a convert to Jidaism. Longtimers here will remember threads, rants, etc., about the Khazars, one of the many Central Asian nomadic hordes to come west with the Volkerwanderung, which converted en masse to Judaism; I believe it is the Falasha people of Ethiopia, ‘Hamite’ by ethnicity, who practice a variant on Judaism.

People above have discussed Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform, and the various groups of Hasidim – these are ‘sects’ for lack of a better word of Judaism the religion. The Ashkenazim and Sephardim are the two major groups (there are also minor ones) of the ethnicity – and many synagogues are not merely Orthodox but Ashkenazi Orthodox or Sephardi Orthodox, the language dialect and customs being different.

35

All,

Thanks for the answers. Very enlightening. Obviously, this is a complicated question, but now if I hear someone is “Jewish”, I won’t immediately think that this refers to their religion. Many point out that it is more of a cultural distinction than anything.

Which brings up another question. If many of you who are atheists and identify yourself as Jewish, then why can’t Jewish be another category on, say, an application to a university? If you are an atheist, you clearly don’t believe in the OT, or any god for that matter… so if it’s a cultural distinction, why isn’t it as valid as calling someone black, white, native american, or whatever. Jewish describes a person as much as calling someone native american, doesn’t it? White people don’t all have the same religion… it’s a skin color, true… but there are many shades of white. It’s more of a cultural description, isn’t it? No religious context is implied by being white. So why can’t “Jewish” be a check mark on any designations identifying a cultural group?

36

Because universities don’t ask what culture you are a part of, except in the case of Hispanics, who are far and away the second-largest cultural grouping in the US (after Western Europeans).

37

When I was in college in the late seventies they asked me my race on forms. I wrote in “Irish”. :slight_smile:

38

The proper answer is that despite what you’re hearing here, Judaism is a religion. People are using terms like “culture” and “ethnicity” as if they were interchangeable - they’re not - and without any definition whatsoever. For anyone official to treat Judaism as anything other than a religion would involve definition. I’d personally like to see that because I love seeing people trying to twist themselves into knots, but it would create hysteria, both within and without the Jewish “culture.”

39

Although the skullcap is more traditional, would a Gentile be stared at for wearing (say) a fedora at a Jewish wedding? In other words- is any sort of decent hat OK?

40

Any sort of hat or cap will meet the religious aspect of having one’s head covered. Beyond that, it’s all style and personal preference.

Among many of the more traditional (some would say “ultra-orthodox”) fedoras and similar hats are the preferred covering!