Very interesting post. I liked your post because you were telling me what you thought and felt as a Jew. tom’s post was interesting too but the information from him is filtered through his Christian mindset and values, which are fine and good, but not Jewish. If I want to know about Judaism I think it’s best to hear it from Jew.
I have a problem with the concept of Chosen not Chosen, extra burden, more privilege etc. We stand before GOD equally and GOD expects the same thing from all of us, that we be good people.
I must tell you. I do not believe in the Bible, OT & NT, literally. It is a nice book but it was written by men.
The truth is generally seen, rarely heard. Gracian.
I do not believe that, or agree with it. I realize we will never agree on some things and it is useless to try to change the other person’s mind. That we respect each other is enough. We are on separate paths to the same door. We will both get there if we are good and honest. Amen
We belive that we are all equally responsible to GOD and that actions speak louder than words. It is not enough to say good things and relish ceremony, you must do good works.
The truth is generally seen, rarely heard. Gracian.
Well, naturally, that’s your belief, since you don’t believe the Bible is a divine document. I, on the other hand, believe it is, so I believe G-d expects Jews to eat only Kosher, not work on Sabbath, etc, whereas non-Jews are not expected to do those things.
I know Christians and Jews that work on their Sabbath. I know Jews that eat pork and Christains that do not. I know Christians that are bad and Jews that are good. I know Jews that are bad and Christains that are good. It’s the person and NOT the ritual.
I doubt that GOD cares what you eat. HE is more interested in what you DO. I don’t think HE cares if you eat meat on Friday or how the goat was killed. GOD cares more about you being honest, than the things on your menu.
I realize we will differ on this.
The truth is generally seen, rarely heard. Gracian.
As I said, it all gets back to whether or not you believe the Torah was written by G-d, which I do and you don’t. I mean, if you believe it was written by G-d but don’t believe the rituals matter, it was pretty silly of G-d to mention the rituals, wasn’t it?
And of course, the Torah says behavior matters as well. It’s a total life system: rituals and ethics.
I believe that the major reasons for the persecution of Jews and their survival of it through the ages are difference and visibility, as suggested above. Jews have maintained practices that differ from those of the cultures around them, and in doing so have been readily distinguished from other members those cultures. Others have made these points, but there are some aspects that I’d like to make more explicit:
[list=1][li]Judaism emphasizes behavior over belief. If your religion insists that you perform certain actions and not perform others, leaving the issue of what you believe more or less up to you, it’s more difficult to remain inconspicuous than if your religion makes belief the essential component, with a certain latitude in whether you behave correctly (and with the promise of forgiveness if your behavior misses the mark). The more so when, as is the case with Judaism, many of the required or prohibited actions are contrary to the common practice of other groups around you.[/li][li]Judaism is at root a public, communal religion. Parts of the Shabbat service and certain prayers require the presence of a minyan (i.e., at least ten Jews – ten male Jews in Orthodox practice). A religion that mandates gathering in groups of at least ten people on a regular basis is unlikely to remain a secret for long among neighboring groups.[/li][li]Jewish religious practice and discourse, wherever Jews found themselves, was conducted primarily in a language that was incomprehensible to the host culture. This too was a readily visible sign of the distinction between Jews and others. The typically higher rate of literacy among Jews than among other groups was also a source of mistrust mixed with awe, resulting in a fear of Jews among the general populace that was sometimes shared by the rulers and sometimes merely manipulated by them, but with the same effect.[/list=1][/li]
However, I would posit that these same factors are at least partly responsible for the survival of Judaism in nearly every part of the world after thousands of years. If you’re able to practice your religion as an individual, in secret and separately from others of your faith when confronted by religious persecution, the temptation to do so must be quite strong. This is even truer when your religion expects only belief, with no specific mandatory practices. At some point the observance, and eventually the belief, may well taper off and perhaps cease altogether. Requiring public practice, on the other hand, while making adherents more conspicuous and potentially marking them as different from the mainstream culture, also allows them to draw support from one another and to develop a sense of obligation to others to remain steadfast, preserving the ritual, practice, and language l’dor v’dor (from generation to generation). Maintaining a common language despite wide geographical distribution allowed small groups far apart to support one another.
A think a lot of it does stem from Xenophobia and a lack of understanding of Jewish customs and rituals, as well as needing a scapegoat. From Guilty, Guilty, Guilty:
Also:
Pretty interesting stuff.
“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy
Your position, correct me if I’m wrong, is that man was inspired by GOD to write the Torah? Is it possible that man added a few goodies that are not, as you say, inspired, or inspired by another factor ie, civil obedience, a sense of community?
What is more important to a Jew, be a good person that does not read the Torah, or a so so person that reads it everyday? Will those Jews that do not follow the Torah to the lettter go to heaven?
The truth is generally seen, rarely heard. Gracian.
Well, we can start with “Love your neighbor as yourself,” which is in Leviticus (I think 19), or “From falsehood stay distant,” which is in Exodus. There are numerous other moral teachings in the Torah, and there’s a library full of books which compile the moral/ethical statements in the Torah and Talmud (which is based on the Torah) into practical formats for self-improvement purposes. Mesillat Yesharim (Way of the Just), Orchot Tzadikim (Paths of the Righteous) and Chovot Halevavot (Duties of the Heart) are three of the better-known ones.
No, my position is that the five books of Moses were dictated letter-for-letter from G-d to Moses, and that the other books of the Torah (the Prophets and the writings) were revealed to their authors as prophecy (although the prophet in question had a bit more leeway than Moses did).
Not according to the Orthodox Jewish beliefs.
If one reads it but does not put its teachings into practice, his reading is considered meaningless. On the other hand, one who remains ignorant of the Torah might think he’s doing the right thing, but actually, by its (and thus, G-d’s) definition, he’s not. Probably the non-reader would be considered better, but certainly the two (doing good deeds and reading the Torah) aren’t mutually exclusive.
Well, everyone sins; the balance of one’s deeds is what determines whether or not one makes it into heaven without some sort of cleansing period in the other place first.
Of course, one must make distinctions between those who make an honest effort to follow the Torah but merely have some lapses of will, those who know what it says but make no effort to follow it at all, and those who are ignorant of it entirely.
Dictated in person by GOD to Moses? Proof? GOD spoke Egyptian? -Moses did not speak Hebrew. What did Moses write on, and with? Why would GOD speak to a man that had killed another man? -Moses killed his slave owner. Who were Moses" parents? Were they Jewish? No one really knows for sure.
Why did Moses marry a non Jew? Wouldn’t that make all his children non Jewish? There is NO proof, at that time, that she converted. Why did it take Moses and the Jews 40 years to travel the short distance of New Jersey to Deleware? That trip could have been made in a week or two on foot. Why were a lot of those people still worshiping Baal?
All the same questions could be asked of Jesus, and have on these boards. What we are left with is what we beleive, very little fact.
The first book, EXODUS, was written during the Babylonian captivity and mirrors very closely the Babylonian story of creation, which was writetn first. Were the Hebrews influenced by the Babylonian story? Seems so.
Chaim, I realize that these are a lot of questions and some are really unanswerable. They are asked to illustrate that in the end we are really left with faith and what we CHOOSE to believe.
The truth is generally seen, rarely heard. Gracian.
tom, I know it’s tempting, but let Chaim answer the questions. He’s Jewish and you’re not. I would rather a first hand answer from a Jewish perspective than one filter through a Christian.
The truth is generally seen, rarely heard. Gracian.
For clarity sake, I’m sure you knew what I meant “same TYPE of questions could be asked about Jesus” and “a COMPARABLE trip in distance from NJ to Del.” Sorry if that was unclear.
The truth is generally seen, rarely heard. Gracian.
I could get into why I (and millions of other Orthodox Jews) believe that the Sinai event happened as described, but those reasons probably wouldn’t constitute absolute proof in the empirical sense. However, it’s from the Sinai event that our trust in Moses as the literal transmitter of G-d’s word derives.
You want the reasons, say so and I’ll supply them.
Why in the world do you think the Israelites in Egypt, didn’t speak Hebrew? They kept their own language in the way many immigrant communities do even today, as well as speaking the language of their host nation.
He wrote with a pen, on parchment. Of course, the ten commandments were carved in stone by G-d as well.
Not true. Moses himself never was a slave…he was raised in the palace by Pharaoh’s daughter. The man Moses killed was another slave owner, who was on the verge of beating his Israelite slave to death.
And that’s precisely the reason (or one of the reasons) why G-d found him worthy of being his trusted messenger. Moses cared about his fellow Israelites so much that he took the risk of sacrificing his privileged position in the palace in order to save the life of one of his brothers. One is allowed by Jewish law (in fact, commanded) to save a likely murder victim, even if it means killing the attempting murderer.
The Bible says outright that Moses’s father is Amram, grandson of Levi, and his mother is Yocheved, daughter of Levi. It’s in Exodus (Chapter 6 or 7, I think).
The Midrash says that Jethro and his entire family had in fact converted. It might not say explicitly in the Torah that he converted, but there are several allusions to it which the Midrashim are based on. I’ll try to look those up.
The 40-year journey was a punishment to the Insraelites for believing the bad reports of the spies rather than the explicit word of G-d that the land of Canaan was good. The journey was indeed originally supposed to take a much shorter time. This, too, is explicitly written in the Torah, in the book of Numbers (Chapter 14-15, I think).
Baal-worship didn’t take hold amongst the Israelites until after they settled in Canaan and began to be enticed by the interesting practices of their Canaanite neighbors. It did not exist amongst the Isralites who left Egypt.
First of all, Genesis is the first book. Second of all, even most secular scholars say that the Bible probably pre-dates the Babylonian exile; I don’t think there are any serious scholars, religious or secular, who place the dating of the Torah’s authoring as later than the reign of the Judean king Hezekiah. Third of all, perhaps both the ancient Babylonian story and the Biblical account, rather than one being based on the other, are both based on a common, earlier account…perhaps the truth?
Yeah, but some of them are very easily answerable, from the explicit words of the Torah.
I didn’t think either of us were arguing that fact.
John John, I’m quite willing to let cmkeller answer his own questions. (I would never presume to answer for him. For one thing, he and I disagree as to the origin and development of Scripture, so any answer I gave would not coincide with his answer, anyway.)
However, this is silly:
If you can’t keep Exodus and Genesis separate in your discussion, it’s going to be hard to even read your posts with a straight face.
(As to Moses speaking only Egyptian or the wife of Moses not explicitly converting, you are grasping at straws. None of the books of the bible were written as novels or biographies; they simply do not include that much detail on any points of history. An awful lot of Jews of the Diaspora still speak Hebrew. A hundred years after the largest Ashkenazi immigration to this country, many great-grandchildren of those immigrants still speak Yiddish. There could easily have been people to teach Moses the language once he reconnected with his culture.)
Stick to the questions. Expressing opinions, here, will likely just cause snickering in the crowd.
Hey, in a popularity contest, Satan wins hands down any time. Just ask John Milton! He started a propaganda piece for the other side, and ended up making him the hero. (Note that the same thing happened to Julian May.)
However, remember what Voltaire said about the job and its effect on the personality.
