I reiterate what cmkeller said. Orthodox Jews do not believe in “chance” or “random” evolution, but (similar to traditionalist Christians) there is a wide range of beliefs individuals hold. Certainly the more right-wing tend to disbelieve in evolution at all; but modern Orthodox tend to believe that evolution was one of the mechanisms used by God to create life.
Orthodox Judaism does not reject science. Far from it.
[Disclaimer: I’m a non-Jew who’s been heavily involved in a Reform Synagogue for several years – it’s a long story]
As a Reform Jewish sympathizer, I take exception to cmkeller’s statement:
I always thought that Reform was the “most purely distilled form or the religion”. I realize them’s fighting words, and someone’s going to say something to the effect of “You just don’t understand, it’s a [real] Jewish thing.” This “my kind of Judaism is the only real one” attitude is what’s tearing up Jewish solidarity in Israel right now.
Joltsucker, if you’d like to discuss this, I suggest moving the conversation to a more Jewish area. I suggest http://www.vjbb.com/cgi-bin/Ultimate.cgi which is a bulletin board run by Virtual Jerusalem. It uses an older version of the same UBB program that we have here.
Akiva Miller
Joltsucker:
Allow me to restate what I have said in non-fighting, inarguable words:
Orthodox Judaism is the form of the religion that has been practiced throughout history. Every law or custom that an Orthodox Jew follows can be pointed to, directly or indirectly, in the Talmud, giving that brand of Judaism an age of at least 1500 years. Since the Talmudic statements point to Biblical verses to back themselves up, Talmudic/Orthodox Judaismcan be said to be as old as the Bible itself…3300 years old according to Orthodox Jews themselves (ourselves), no less than 2500 according to anybody.
The various non-Orthodox forms of Judaism have made breaks with historical Jewish practice.
I’m not looking to start a fight with any non-Orthodox Jews or sympathizers with non-Orthodox Jewish movements. However, I will say that anyone who describes Orthodox Judaism as a “bastardized” form of Judaism (which is what I was responding to in the first place) is so far off the mark that to describe him as “wrong” would be to greatly underestimate his wrongess.
I’m not here to bash anyone else’s beliefs, but I’m not going to sit by quietly when I see my own being bashed.
Chaim Mattis Keller
I’m only a goy, but I tend to agree. The Qaraites, or perhaps even the Samaritans might have some right to call Orthodoxy “bastardized” from their point of view, but coming from the direction of Reform, calling Orthodoxy “bastardized” just doesn’t fit the historic facts, the sectarian cladistics, if you will. It’s as confused as the traditional lay Christian notion of Pharisees-‘n’-Sadducees. Reform is, historically, watered-down Orthodoxy, not the other way around.
Whether Reform was right to have watered down Orthodoxy is, of course, a separate issue. For myself, I feel most comfortable among the Conservative (for the uninformed, the Conservative are the right wing of Reform, which separated some generations ago, so going by order of doctrine from right to left, it’s Orthodox -> Conservative -> Reform -> Reconstructionist), but perhaps that’s partially because I’m an Episcopalian, which is more or less the Christian Conservative analog.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
A quick clarification. I have no interest in debating the validity or absurdity of any religion at the moment. Quite frankly, I don’t really care what religion some stranger on a bulletin board observes (I mean, why should I?)
All I’m trying to get is actual quotes from the Torah (or wherever) that the Orthodox Jews use to validate certain customs. I’m pretty sure it never says “Girls can’t wear shorts, and you’re going to Hell if you get into a car on the Sabbath…and, you…yea you! Where’s your skull cap?!?”
As people have pointed out, the Orthodox Jews are using rules written out 2,000 years ago. My problem is not with the rules, it’s with the interpretations. I have no interest in imposing my views on my sister (ok, well maybe just a little bit…) But I DO want to give her enough facts so she can make the decision on her own (and not just use the information this guy’s family is spoon-feeding her)
John W. Kennedy, it’s a common misperception that Reform is “Judaism-lite”. The way I see it, the differences between Orthodox, Conservative and Reform is really about interpretation of the Torah. Orthodox accepts the Talmudic interpretation as immutable, Conservative accepts re-interpretation by the consensus of the movement (hence the move to gender-inclusion, for example), and Reform allows for individual re-interpretation.
That said, Jews who are looking for Judaism-lite often find Reform to be a hospitable place, and so Reform congregations are a mix of the pious and the spiritually lax.
Prufrock:
Girls wearing shorts – I’ll try to remember to look this one up when I get home.
Cars on the Sabbath – Exodus 35:3: “Do not light a fire anywhere on the Sabbath day.” We can discuss electric cars if you want, but anything that uses gasoline runs on fire.
Skull caps – No one ever claimed this to be from the Toreh. If your sister did, she is mistaken. Head coverings for men are a custom that has developed since Talmudic times.
Joltsucker, I’ll agree that it is wrong to refer to Reform as “Judaism-Lite”. There are a lot of sincere and dedicated people there, and in the Conservative movement as well.
But let’s refocus on Prufrock’s comment that
Everyone will agree that much of the Torah is very vague. The whole purpose of the Talmud was to clarify those vague points. The rabbis did not do it arbitrarily by guesswork, but by comparing this vague verse with that vague verse and thus clarifying both of them. This is what CMKeller meant that <<< Orthodox Judaism … is the most purely distilled form of the religion. >>>
Distilled, because every single idea is documented and referenced. This is not to say that there are no disagreements among the sages throughout the generations. But those disputes were always backed up with sources and explanations. Compare that with your accurate comparison:
Individual reinterpretation is a nice sounding phrase but we both know that what you mean is that uneducated laypeople get to decide what the Torah means without referring to prior debate about the same topic. To me, that’s bastardizing the religion.
Would anyone here support individual reinterpretation of the U.S. Constitution?
correction to my next-to-last paragraph: I do not mean the phrase “uneducated laypeople” to refer to the entire membership of such movements. There are indeed many people among them with appreciable levels of Torah knowledge. My point was that they, and the less-educated ones as well, share in the decision-making process, and that should not be.
For what it’s worth, I am similarly bothered when I see protest marches on the evening news, and someone says “I’m a good Christian. I go to church every Sunday. And what my church says on this issue is wrong!” No sir, you can start your own church if you want, but if you don’t occupy a high position in your chuch, then you are not qualified to say what the church does or doesn’t stand for.
I can interpret US Law may own way if I want, but I’d be a fool to claim to be an authority on it.
Also, Pruf, Orthodox Jews generally do not go straight back to the Torah for justification. There are a number of laws in the Torah that were meant for the Israelites at that time, and that have since been changed or outmoded by the rabbis – for instance, having more than one wife is clearly permitted in the Torah, but is outlawed by the rabbis later. Similarly some of the laws about wiping out the conquered population of a city; the rabbis decided those applied only to those particular conquests (in the time of Joshua, Samuel, etc) and not to all conquests. That’s rabbinic.
Lighting candles to usher in the Sabbath and holidays is also rabbinic.
To the Orthodox and Conservative, rabbinic tradition is as binding (arguably more binding) than the Torah read straight.
Prufrock:
Girls wearing shorts: “Revealing one’s nakedness” is a commonly used term in the Torah to describe illicit sexual relations. Showing too much flesh is considered a sub-sin of that (although only genuine illicit sex is punishable in the way the Torah says). The various parts of one’s body that are included in that are derived from Biblical verses. The thigh, specifically, is mentioned in Isaiah 47:2, “Expose a thigh and cross rivers, your nakedness will be exposed.” Thus, the thigh is compared to “nakedness,” the implications of which I mentioned above.
Car on Shabbos was covered by Keeves.
The skull cap: The Talmud learns from the verse in Isaiah 6:3 “The whole world is filled with his (G-d’s) glory” that one must not walk in a haughty manner (which implies lordship, and no man has that even over parcels of land he owns…only G-d). After making this statement, it mentions one Rabbi Huna, son of Rabbi Joshua, who never walked with his head uncovered, as an indication that G-d is always above him. This practice (which is not an end in and of itself, but was adopted as a means to avoid walking haughtily) was adopted by the Jewish communities at large. Some Sepahrdic (Middle Eastern-descended) Jews never did adopt the custom.
Chaim Mattis Keller
“I want to present her with actual passages (or whatever) from these texts to show her that much of what these right-wing fanatics do (I think of the orthodox Jews much in the same way as the right-wing Christians, or, for that matter, the Koresh-type cults) are just interpretations of vague text or silly traditions that some rabbi thought up some 2,000 years ago.”
LOL, I can’t stop laughing!!! Can anyone quote me some sections of the Consitution that show why democracy is a vague concept that could never work? hehe.
i never thought i’d see someone against modesty??? i was raised in an orthodox home and might not agree with everything i was taught but i don’t think of modern orthodxy as wrong or the farthest of what judaism was meant to be. also there is a big difference between unobservance and being of the reform movement. i think an enormous amount of jews are not classified correctly, any thoughts on that?
Quick update on my sister…
I was speaking to her yesterday, and she was telling me about why women are supposed to wear a head-covering. It has something to do w/ some guy who suspected his wife of cheating on him. He takes her to the head rabbi, who, for some reason, starts inspecting her skull and messes up her hair. I don’t think I really got the whole point of the story, but somehow the Orthodox and Hassidic Jews interpreted this to mean that all women had to wear a head-covering. So, my sister tells me that she has decided to not wear the head-covering because she doen’t agree w/ the interpretation. Wow! She is trying to think for herself!
Oh, and as for the “I don’t believe in modesty” remark, where the heck did you get that from? Are you saying that wearing shorts somehow makes a person an exhibitionist? I’m not talking about daisy-duke, ass-hanging-out shorts either…just regular shorts that the Orthodox Jews forbid women (and, men too, I think) from wearing.
Pruf, be aware that for most of these rituals or traditions, there is usually one origin or explanation… but traditions that date back centuries (or millenia) have gathered their own sets of stories and quaint tales and interesting legends and interpretations around them. So there are several tales about head-coverings.
It sounds like your fears are unwarranted (which is what most of us said) – she is exploring a very interesting realm, and she will make up her own mind, and that’s how it should be. L’shana tova.
Pruf, I don’t know you, and I don’t know your sister. But if thought so little of her that you’re surprised that she’s thinking for herself, then perhaps you owe her an apology. Or a compliment. Or something.
Numbers 5:18. Check it out yourself.
If a wife is suspected of cheating on her husband, there is a ritual potion she must drink; this is designed to either induce her to admit her guilt, or vindicate her if guilty. Prior to that, her hair is uncovered to shame her for getting into this compromising situation to begin with. From the way the verse tells us that her hair is to be uncovered, it is understood that standard practice for married Jewish women is to cover their hair.
I add the footnote that the trial by ordeal (drink a magic potion and it reveals your guilt) mentioned by Keeves has not been used for over 2,000 years.
Prufrock, your situation remind me a little bit of the one I had with my dad when I was growing up, so I’ll share that long story that I’ve mentioned before.
My dad was the son of a Methodist preacher, and like a lot of preacher’s sons, got disillusioned. He eventually rolled his own version of Pantheism. I was brought up Presbyterian, not because I needed to be a Christian but because I needed to “have the influence of the Western European Judeo-Christian tradition” (my dad is a full-of-it intellectual).
At 18, I became a born-again Christian. A year later, I became a “Charismatic” (aka “Holy Roller”) Christian. My dad was apoplectic. To him, Christianity in and of itself was meaningless, and I was under the influence of mob mentality. We had more unpleasant mealtime religious debates than I can remember. We eventually had to declare an uneasy truce.
As a fairly intelligent, critical-thinking person with left-leaning politics, I never fit in easily with Christian faith-before-intellect right-wingers, but I was able tolerate the pig-headed ignoramouses (that wanted to run other people’s lives) that I went to church with.
Eventually I got involved in a Christian cult (part of the “Sheparding” movement) that was into controlling people’s personal lives (although I didn’t know it at the time). That’s where I met my wife. As things got wierder and wierder, we made the decision to get out. We engaged and married not long after that, and lived for many years without any kind of religious observance (we had such a sour taste in our mouths from the situation).
Now my wife came from a non-observant Jewish family who occasionally went to a Conservative congregation. My father-in-law once commented to my sister-in-law (upon her becoming a “Messianic Jew” (don’t yell at me, her term)) “Christianity! Judaism! It’s all crap! But Judaism is our crap!” When she became a Christian, it was always felt unnatural for her, and she was constantly struggling with doubt and very unhappy with it.
So after my wife and I had been married and not observing any kind of religion she was glad to not be going to church, and I still had such a sour taste in my mouth that I didn’t press the issue. Eventually she was drawn back to Judaism, began counselling with a Reform rabbi, and took a “Basic Judaism” class with a Conservative rabbi.
She decided to return to Judaism, and we decided to bring our children up as Jews, while I continue to remain Christian. By the way, coming from a Protestant heritage, I am quite comfortable with the concept of personal interpretation, hence that’s why Reform is the best fit for me culturally.
My children are being brought up in a strongly Jewish household, and so my parents have had to reconcile themselves with the fact that we don’t celebrate Christmas or Easter with them. My dad has attended Selichot service with me, and sends up holiday greetings on the various Jewish Holidays.
My point in this long story is that both my wife and I took a long, convoluted journey, but turned out OK. It may not have been what our families thought they wanted, but we’re OK nonetheless. All the yelling and consternation of our families didn’t factor into this result, it was us using our own good minds, our sense of self-esteem, and the guiding hand of G-d that got us here. If your sister has those things, she’ll do fine in the long run.
Oops, you got me 100%. It was done only in the Temple in Jerusalem. Thanks, Dex.