Polerius, it is a contract. A deal’s a deal. God did God’s part now we have to live up to our end. Sure prophets have berated the people for not living up to their end and in theory God could renege if we break our end, but the point really is not the quid pro quo. The point is the doing for the sake of the doing. That much is true to the Orthodox and their following of the laws in their ways, and to more secular Jews who emphasize the social action and ethical doing as that which is vital. The doing is the point in and of itself, and maybe by doing the right things you will know God.
Of note the punishment, such threat as there is, is to the people as a whole more than to individuals. Even Yom Kippur, The Day of Atonement, is more concerned with recieving forgiveness from other people than from God: only after one has atoned to other people can one ask for God’s forgiveness as well.
I, in my personal way, always thought of as Judaism’s position is that this world is enough to deal with without having to worry about a life after this as well.
I agree - the point is that the evil inclination is internal, unlike an external ‘Satan’ who tries to lead us down the wrong path. As you say, the evil inclination (and that’s not my translation - it’s the one I’ve always heard used) is also necessary to make us human, unlike angels, who are like a hardwired computer that can only act in a particular way. There are fables of the disaster wrought when particular people have managed to remove their yetzer hora.
I can’t believe I missed this thread for a few days.
To say it does not “require the religion” misunderstands what the religion is. The Jewish religion is a covenant that, once entered into (with G-d), binds the person and all his descendants. It is a set of mutual obligations: man to G-d and G-d to man. If descendants do not obey, or even do not profess a belief in the covenant, that does not mean that they are not in fact obligated by it (this statement obviously being in the eyes of those who do consider the covenant to be a fact). Being a party to the covenant is “requiring the religion.”
Well, Zev addressed the specific issue of the Eruv quite well. However, allow me to explain the nature of Jewish belief in the Torah, and the “loopholes” therein: THE LETTER IS THE LAW. G-d’s will can only be discerned through revelation, and the revelation we have is the Torah that was communicated, letter-for-letter, to Moses. If one thinks he understands the “spirit of the law” but does not account for the exceptions (or, in common parlance, “loopholes” - though the Eruv is a Rabbinic one, not a Biblical one), he does not truly understand the spirit of the law after all. One’s understanding must be consistent with everything that is written - hence the importance of nuanced legalisms - and only then, one is acting as G-d directed.
Because the purpose of the laws outlines in the Torah are to sensitize one’s soul, and thereby approach a state of G-dliness. This principle is best expressed in Leviticus 19:1: “You shall be holy, for I, your G-d, am holy.” It is by working to approach G-dly attributes in this world that we both improve the world by our example, and attune our soul to be close to G-d - both in this life and, eventually (but not exclusively, hence the lack of emphasis thereon), in the afterlife.
Sorry for the hijack from the OP, but how does not eating shrimp make you more Godly?
I don’t doubt that the ‘big’ commandments (don’t murder, don’t steal, honor the old and the wise, etc) make a person more Godly, but I don’t see how the not-so-profound ones (don’t eat specific categories of food, don’t push the elevator button on Saturday, etc) can make you more Godly.
From the 613 commandments that Anne Neville cited, it seems that a lot of them are just a ‘desert survival guide’ (To have a place outside the camp for sanitary purposes , That the procedure of cleansing leprosy, whether of a man or of a house, takes place with cedar-wood, hyssop, scarlet thread, two birds, and running water, Not to pluck out the marks of leprosy, That the King shall not acquire an excessive number of horses, etc) and have nothing to do with getting closer to God.
BTW, from the same site, I noticed that the commandments are contradictory
Under “Love and Brotherhood”, it says
Not to cherish hatred in one’s heart (Lev. 19:17) (CCN78). See Love and Brotherhood.
Not to take revenge (Lev. 19:18) (CCN80).
Not to bear a grudge (Lev. 19:18) (CCN81).
Then, under “Wars”, it says
Always to remember what Amalek did (Deut. 25:17) (CCA76).
That the evil done to us by Amalek shall not be forgotten (Deut. 25:19) (CCN194).
To destroy the seed of Amalek (Deut. 25:19) (CCA77).
I think the latter counts as “bearing a grudge” and “taking revenge”, which the former section forbids.
Regardless whether it was a 3200+ year old instruction to an itenerant people lacking in refrigeration to avoid food poisoning or a quirky rule designed to see whether a people would follow odd rules or for some other, more profound, reason, once the rule is set forth and the Covenant accepted, then the holiness proceeds from each party continuing to hold to their side of the bagain, regardless how any particular rule made it into the Covenant.
It is a natural reaction for persons who are not following that covenenat pick apart individual rules or to try to establish the reasons for any specific line in the code. However, it is really irrelevantbut for those who have chosen to follow code; it is outside the point of that pact and any specualtion is idle.
I was being rhetorical, noting that neither the Micah requirements nor the Noahic Laws responded to the OP about the point of Judaism. For that matter, neither are the Big Ten or the 613 the actual point. Tikkun olam may be the best answer.
As to how the details of “the Holiness Code” make people Godlier, that might not be the purpose so much. The purpose is to distinquish this people as special servants of The Lord, distinct from the nations of the world (hence the dietary
laws, the laws against mixing crops & fabrics, etc.).
Well, I can give three answers to this, and the “right” answer might be a combination of all of them:
By limiting our physical needs based on G-d’s requirements, we are exercising a of self-control over our more “animalistic” selves, thus emphasizing the soul (G-dly nature) rather than the body
Certain animals are of a more violent or filthy nature than others, and by limiting ourselves to eating only the ones G-d tells us are more gentle or more clean, we are symbolically identifying ourselves with certain animals and the attributes they represent, and alienating ourselves from others and the attributes they represent
Obeying the irrational commandments demonstrates that in following G-d’s laws, we are demonstrating loyalty to/love for G-d rather than merely doing what WE think makes sense, and would have even if G-d had said nothing
No doubt much of the Torah promotes survival rather than inhibits it. Still, there’s much that does not make sense from a survival standpoint - e.g., letting the land lie fallow every seventh year? Yes, I understand crop rotation, but it’s non-sensical to have all farmers lay down their plows at the same time for a year - a sensible “survival guide” would have mandated different tribes to rotate years, or at least stockpiling of grain for seventh-year use. Instead, this “survival guide” just says, “Don’t worry, G-d will make extra in the sixth year.”
Nonetheless, this thread is not about debating the divine or non-divine origins of the Bible - it’s about understanding Judaism from the adherent’s point of view.
How about checking the source verses?
Obviously, those first three commandments you list do not apply to non-Israelites. (There is a general commandment to be kind to strangers/foreigners, but nations that had dealings with the first generation of Israelites are subject to certain treatment on a national level, based on how they treated the Israelites.)
I would advise against turning this thread into a “Biblical contradiction” lists. Such lists are tedious, they are off-topic, they are usually embarrassingly superficial, and even amongst the sharper ones, there are none that Jewish commentators have not explained/resolved millenia ago.
That hasn’t stopped Jews from thinking and speculating about the purposes of individual rules over the past few thousand years. There is a long tradition of such speculation.
You can argue that those things can make you more spiritual.
I converted to Judaism, so I haven’t kept kosher all my life. I can say that I have a very different approach to food now that I do.
Before I kept kosher, I ate pretty much anything, without really thinking about what was in it- meat, plant products, what have you. Now that I do keep kosher, if I want to eat meat, I have to think about it. I have to make sure the meat is kosher, and that I’m not mixing it with dairy products. If I want to eat fish, I have to make sure it’s not a non-kosher species of fish. I’m more aware of when I’m eating meat and when I’m not.
Keeping kosher can also keep someone from eating animals that were killed in inhumane ways. We don’t eat shellfish, some of which are boiled alive before eating them. The dietary laws also prohibit eating a limb taken from a living animal. They also prescribe a method of killing animals that is intended to reduce the animal’s suffering.
Keeping the Sabbath can make you more godly by reminding you that you are not your work- the purpose of your life is something other than making and spending money or doing chores.
There is another way to read those commandments than as a literal encouragement to kill people because of their ancestry. It can be read as “don’t act like Amalek (don’t attack the weak and vulnerable), and do everything you can to stop other people from acting like Amalek”.
This brings up another point- Judaism does not read the Torah literally. There is a sect related to Judaism, the Karaites, that does, but Judaism doesn’t. We say that just reading the Bible isn’t enough to understand what you should and shouldn’t do- you also have to look at rabbinical interpretations and commentaries that have been made over the ages.
As far as i know, the OT, which is mostly, but not complelely the torah,(specificallly the first five books, called the patriarch) says that adulterers, those who have sexual relations who are not married, are to be condemned to death. So much for no hostility against sex for the jews. I dont think that i even need to get into their laws against homosexuality
That’s not hostility against sex. That’s hostility against non-sanctified sex. Btw, adulterers are married people who have sex with people other than their spouses.
Men who slept with other men’s wives and wives who slept with other men were eligible for execution. As married men who slept with unmarried women could marry those women, I don’t think the death penalty applied there but I could be wrong.
Simple fornicators were eligible for certain penalties, but usually not death.
Also, the first five books are called the Pentateuch. The Patriarchs were the founding fathers of Judaism- notably but not exclusively Abraham, Isaac & Jacob.
Well hostility may be too strong a word, but the impression I get as an outsider is that sex with in marriage is tolerated for the sake of reproduction in Catholicism anyway. In Judaism that sex is a positive commandment, a mitzvah.
Hopefully this won’t turn into a hijacking, but I have to admit that when dualistic spirit vs. matter Greeks converted to Christianity, they brought that anti-physical bias with them, creating an anti-sex meme within Christianity.
But ours is different from the Catholic hostility against sex, in that we’re OK with pretty much anything spouses care to get up to between each other…
If we were talking about Christianity then yes. I doubt that Judaism calls it the Pentateuch though. I’m not even sure if that portion is divided the same.