Many Musers have first-hand knowledge of this faith. Even so, let’s at least start the discussion by reviewing what Huston Smith says about it in his book The World’s Religions (known in earlier editions as The Religions of Man) before starting in on our personal experiences.
Continued from Part 3: Buddhism and Part 2: Hinduism.
Yes!! Judaism rox.
pagan religions rock even more.
I’ve been waiting for this discussion. It should be interesting.
all I know is that I could never survive on a jewish diet.
i’m jewish but very unobservant
4- Some of my best friends are very religous Jews. They still eat pretty normal stuff, just no cheese burgers…although maybe thats what you can’t survive without
what DOES huston smith say about it?
yeah, i guess you could consider me partly jewish cause i was at a jewish preschool for, like, all of my preschool years. this is going to be an interesting conversation. also , my dad came from a jewish family. well, i’m more jewish then anything, but no i don’t observe the holidays.
4- you don’t have to be kosher to be jewish.. I’m reconstructonist, and I eat pork!
I still haven’t read the book *is ashamed* but the place where i live is hugely jewish. Most of my friends are jewish actually. Or “honorarily jewish” like yaakov (jacob) and monica.
I have a q for you people-what’s Shakkot? It’s near/possibly on (i’ll have to check calandar again…) my b-day. But we don’t get skool off for it *sobs* lol that’s one of the great things about living here (besides learning more about the religion and all) is you get way more holidays than other skools. XD
4- yes, if you couldn’t survive without cheeseburgers that is true. Also if you couldn’t survive without pork chops.
Sukkot(meaning “booths” in hebrew)is the jewish holiday of the harvest. Before Sukkut, you build a sukkah, a small hut made of certain kinds of plants. (don’t ask me which, I’m not sure myself ’cause I’m not very religious.) You decorate the sukkah with fruits,veggies, and paper chains, and sit in it all day and some people even sleep in theirs. During Sukkot, you wave around a collection of fronds, for lack of a better word, called a lulav and something that looks like a lemon called an etrog and say a special prayer. I have no idea why, probably for a good harvest or something. Then you basically sit around, talk to people and have a good time, like a little party. Ok, I don’t really think I can contribute more to the subject, but I hope this helps.
*rushes to read chapter* I haven’t read this chapter yet. I wish we could have talked more about Buddhism. I’ll read it, though.
The Buddhism thread is still open, but no one had posted on it for a while, so I decided that people wanted to move on. You’re also allowed to talk about Buddhism on this thread, in comparison with Judaism.
Once you finish the chapter, please summarize it for us.
12- so fun!! the etrog smmels good.. I think they should make a perfume out of it.
the high holidays (rosh hashana (sp?) and yom kippur) are coming up. i like them okay… last year it was a fiasco..
1. i had to wear TIGHTS!!!!!
2. it was 90 degrees out
3. the services were held in a sweltering hot CHURCH (we didnt have enuff room in our synagogue)
4. none of my frends were there
5. i had to sit through the WHOLE SHEEPING 2-HOUR LONG THING!!!!
still, tashlich is really fun!! so is apples and honey.
What I don’t understand is why the Jewish have been persecuted by Christians. Christ was Jewish. So why…?
There IS no reason.
My whole city is Jewish. almost.
16: because the bible portrays his death as being the jews fault and because christian priests throughout the ages have been preaching as if it were the jews fault.
16- I KNOW!! pleez. let us jews have peace!! flee to the pieceful pie planet!!
18: uh… The bible doesn’t say that… I’m a Protestant, and I’ve read the whole thing. While it has some pretty nasty biases, that is not one of the accusations.
people forget that jesus was jewish.
what i find amusing are the people who say if you’re not christian you’re going to hell…and yet jesus and mary and joseph and all them are, of course, in heaven.
I heard this somewhere, I don’t remember where exactly, Because there are multiple religions that say if your not one of them your going to hell, everyones going to hell and we might as well give up trying to change that. But Jews don’t believe in hell, so I don’t think it matters to us. I just reread that and realized it was a little bit confusing. Oh well.
22- yeah, i’m sorta confused by this. If you don’t believe in hell, do you think everyone goes to heaven?
There is no set theory of what happens after you die for Jews.My hebrew school tutor told me there’s this way that after you die, your spirit (nishana) first has to overcome being seperated by your body, then goes up to heaven, does up to 11 months of some sort of work to repent depending on how bad your life was, then rejoins god. I don’t know if this is currently the accepted theory for most jewish people, but it’s the one I know.
This thread got derailed. I’ve deleted some posts to put it back on track.
Today I had sunday school. Ani yaldah chachamah!!
from FrigidSymphony’s posts here and on the P&S thread, I’m beginning to get the idea that s/he doesn’t like Christians much…
Most religions I don’t understand but the one thing that I realy don’t lik is when people try to convert others, including me.
28- I agree. If someone is going to convert, they decide to themselves. I dislike it when people try to force their opinions/religions down other’s throats.
This thread is drifting off into generalities again. I’m closing it to comments until someone volunteers to tell us at least some of what Huston Smith says about Judaism. Meanwhile, you may discuss religions in general on MBers’ Religions, v. 2006.2.
I started to read the chapter on judaism! Was it the first monotheistic religion?
ya…we’re talking about it in world history…the idea was first spread by Moses (i think…gotta study alittle more i guess)
32- no, it was abraham…..
33-r u sure…i went back and looked in my text and it said moses (with the 10 commandments) but im not saying that’s neccissarily right…id love to know more!
Judaism was the first monotheistic religion, according to Mr. Smith. Next was Christianity, I think. Rosh Hashanah is on Saturday. Jewish New Year.
34- abraham is considered the first jew. He was born into a poltheistic idol worshiping society but he made a covenent with god or something and became the founder of the first monotheistic religion. Moses recieved the ten commandments, and after that I think the actual term “jew” started. (don’t ask me how) before that they were called isrealites. The three “founding fathers” of judaism are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but moses is the closest thing we have to a messiah.(he isn’t who jews consider the messiah though.) Anyone have any comments on how their going to celebrat Rosh Hashana?
12- its interesting that so few people know about Sukkot and Shavuot when they, and Pasach (Passover) are the three major holidays.
15- your service was ONLY two hours?!?!?! how the —- did you manage that? my normal saturday service is longer then that at 2.5 hours (on a good day). also, tel your mother that tights are totally optional unless your chasidic or black hat- which if you are you you a) have never stepped into the church and b) had an 8 hour service
16- i know. it has been said by various people that if Jesus walked into a modern church he would die of shame (not cause there is any thing bad about Christianity, its just that he was an observant Jew) and if he had walked into a 15th century church he would have been burned as a heretic.
26- kol hakavod!!!!!!!!!!!!!
35- the other main monotheistic religions, Christianity and Islam, are spin offs of Judaism. which is why its so — stupid that they persecute(d) Jews
36- Abraham is considered the first Jew. the term Jew is actually much later then Moshe (Moses). the term started when the kingdom was split into Yisrael (Israel)-the northern kingdom- and Yehudah (Judea)-the southern kingdom- right after Solomon’s death. the north was conquered and the people were never heard form again- though there are a lot of theories about the ten lost tribes and who they are today. the people of the southern kingdom are the ancestors of modern Jews and because their homeland was called Judea, after Judah- the dominant tribe there- the people were called Jews.
for Rosh Hashanah I plan to eat eat and eat some more. my shul’s service tends to run around six hours, and there are two days of Rosh Hashanah- so i get to go twice. its not so bad actually. if it gets boring you can bring a book (either one of jewish content or a hardcover with the cover of a jewish book) and read. I’m really looking forward to the eating part. I LOVE APPLE PIE!!!!
this is something that ive been looking for. my dad is a rabbi. so he and my mom are both freaking out right now because of rosh hashanah, so i get to be in services for 2 days straight. but the food is good, very good.
im wondering does anyone else keep strictly kosher? no one else whos jewish seems to.
37- our service is about 4 to 5 and a half hours.
I have to go to the begining of rosh hashanah in about 2 hours. then in the morning i get up to go to services again.
it seems like the only holiday any one knows about is hanukah even though traditionally its a just a minor winter holiday
Happy new year, everybody!
37- I know about Sukkot and Shavout. AND I’m not technically Jewish.
Also to 37, I agree with your point that you were saying in response to #35. Why do people whose religions came from Judaism persecute Jews?
37- not all muslims pesecute jews. it just that withcertain current events, the relationship is probably more than a bit …strained. and i wouldnt say that islam is a spinoff of judaiasm. the common belief among muslims that judaiasm, christianity and islam are all sort of related, because they were all sent by the same God. The earliest christians and jews were cosidered muslims, even if they didnt use that term. I mean, except for a few very important differences, these three religions are extremely alike.
38- nah! I at least know that other ones besides channukah exist, even if i don’t know what theyr’e all for. It’s cool. There are a ton of jewish kids at my school so we get off for Yom Kippur.
Oy Gotenyu! I have an aunt who is Jewish. She works as a nurse at a hospital in Virginia, and is a vegetarian. But she says that that’s only because meat grosses her out.
A lot of my family’s cultural heritage comes from the Austro-German region, so at least one of my ancestors was probably Jewish.
And yes, that’s basically the only phrase I know in Yiddish.
HAPPY JEWISH NEW YEAR!
37- Maybe a bit longer, but I think we came late and left early, because as I said it was a fiasco.
16 – There is a big reason that I don’t really understand. If you would read the chapter, you would find out a whole lot. Christ was Jewish. Sort of. There wasn’t Christian yet. (I think.) The Jewish people who thought that Christ was the Messiah became Christians. The people who didn’t stayed Jewish. Generally. There’s a lot more to it. I think.
37 – I would totally do the hardcover-Jewish covering thingy. Even though it’s dishonest. But that’s hilarious. Or pretty funny, at least.
38 – Yeah. It’s a very minor holiday, and everyone (not everyone, but you know what I mean) celebrates it like it’s the most important holiday because it’s close to Christmas. In fact, Christmas is only the second most important holiday in that religion (there are a few, so I’m not specifying), because Easter is a fair amount more important.
Just wanted to post this, even though technically the sun has set here, but Shana Tovah everyone!
hello! its still rosh hashannah in a few time zones, but in mine it ended an hour ago.
i keep kosher. and so does phoenix. and there are other musebloggers who have since departed such as mrs. Lucifer (and all her other names) and sphinx who kept kosher.
40- modern islam and modern judeism bear little relation to each other. originally they were very similar but when many jews refused to convert, it changed radically and became more anti-semetic. and i didn’t mean to imply that all muslims were anti-semetic. they’re not. sorry if it came out that way. And while the three religions share similar elements (which makes alot of sence when you consider that two were originally based off of one, even if after the did change radically) they are very different now.
44- i went in an 1 1/2 to 2 hours late on sunday and saturday respectivly, and we were there for over three hours. and saturady was boring cause they couldn’t even blow the shofar cause it was shabbat. bleh.
45- jesus was jewish. h disagreed with some of the current (then) practices, and he was right that there was some corruption. but he was still a devout jew. for example, the “last supper” was actually a seder, the ritual passover meal. (see #37, responce to 16.0
for people’s general information, tomorrow is a minor fast called tzom gedalya. (9the fast of gedalya), gedalya was a jewish offical of ancient times who was assisinated by other jews. the fast is from sunrise to sunset.
Oops, it’s L’shana tovah, not shana tovah. Oh well.
We’re studying pre-christ jewish history in history class right now… Pretty tough time.
1: Nomadic tribe settles in Palestine (I’d have stayed nomad)
2: Move to Egypt and live happily for a short while until Pharaohs start to feel a need to persecute them.
3: Leaves Egypt (wether under an actual person named Moses or not is unclear)
4: Babylonians invade. Jews are deported to Babylon.
5: Persian intervention. Jews allowed to return to Palestine.
6: Rome conquers the region.
7: Zealots unhappy. Decide to kill romans
8: Current emperor unhappy with jewish Zealots. Decides to destroy Jerusalem.
9: Destruction of Jerusalem scatters jews throughout the world.
Good summary! Numbers 8 and 9 are post-Christ, however. Care to affix dates to some of those events?
Q.for jews : do you think that there are jews who are like fundekmentilest cristan .
wow this is the longest therd for religons
51-what do you mean? like jews for jesus?
51- There are some hassidic groups that have very set beliefs, if that’s what you mean. But I don’t think they do a lot of advertising their views, like fundementalist’s pro-life or anything. They mostly keep to themselves. Occasionally you’ll hear that they complain about isreal being a country before the messiah comes, etc., but where else would they be able to live like they are? So you don’t really hear them complaining that much. Mostly, like my second cousin once removed, who’s a yeshiva booker, meaning he spends his days studying torah and all the associated texts, they get married by 21 and spend the rest of their lives studying while their wives support their 7 kids. (he comes from a family of 12, and he’s getting married this december, finally his granmother is relieved. 23, late to be married for these people. The couple has been on like, 6 dates; 4 with parent chaperones.) Ok, enough ranting about my crazy extended family.
51-sry, was too hungry before to figure out that fundekmentilest was fundamentalists. but i have to agre that the closest would be chassidim.
In some ways it seems like judaism is the opposite of christianity and Islam, because while they try and convert people, judaism is all like yeah, we’re jews, so what? leave us alone and its all good. also, they have a more demanding coversion process which almost dicourages people from joining.
I think you’ve put your finger on a major difference: Jews are not interested in converting others to Judaism, and they don’t think Gentiles (non-Jews) will be punished for not being Jewish.
Yeah, there’s a very big importance on being born Jewish. My parent’s friend converted from catholisism to jewdaism, it took him like, 3 yrs. Also, if your mom’s not jewish, your not jewish, even if your dad is like, a rabbi or something. Religion goes through the maternal line, so there is no such thing as “half jewish.” You either are, or you aren’t, whether you practice judaism or not.
50: yeah, go ahead and do it. Forgot momentarily… and that’s only 45 minutes of lesson.
and isn’t the entire Zealot sect sort of like fundamentalists? (of course, to me fundamentalist means extremist fanatic wacko)
The Zealots were anti-Roman rebels 2,000 years ago. Are they the ones you have in mind?
57- there are seven laws that jews believe even non jews should follow. i don’t remember them off hand (i should look them up but i’m toolazy)that are like don’t eat a limb from a living animal 9whihc is gross andinhumane anyway.
but the jewish religion doesn’t have hell. hell only began to apear in stories and such after chriostianity thought it up. (or borrowed it from another religion i don’t remember) see post 24 for a rough aprx. of the jewish “hell”
I keep kosher… and I do a lot of other Jewish stuff
60: yeah, that’s the sect.
Although the term ‘Zealot’ is used today to define an extremist of any religion.
First monotheistic religion – don’t forget Akhenaten’s imposition on Egypt of the worship of Ra. It might just predate Judaism. You’d need to check the dates.
64: Yeah, but people kept on worshipping all the other gods. So it wasn’t really a monotheistic religion, just an attempt to impose a personal whim on a country. And he wasn’t liked for it. In fact, Nile have a pretty cool song about it. It’s called “Cast Down The Heretic”, and it’s basically a series of ancient egyptian curses uttered by the priests on to Akhenaten.
can we get christianity therd ?
64/65- there are various theories, but i think most put moses as before then. i remember reading about archioligical stuff in israel that was from the 12th century b.c. and i think Akhenaten was like 1350 b.c. so i think moses came first- according to my calculations casue the stuff discovered would have been from David or something arounf then. nad moses predated david by a couple hundred years.
posting now cause i can’t later- Chag Soma’ach and a Merry Sukkot to one and all! (sukkot begins tonight at sundown)
Oooooh, Judaism discussion. been there, done that.
One hundred percent orthodox Jew here. I keep kosher, don’t work or do forbidden things on shabbos, etc. And it’s really not as bad as people make it out to be. It’s not like I have this internal cravingto eat pork that I must struggle against every waking moment. Who wants dead pig?
(53) Jews for Jesus aren’t Jews. they’re Christians pretending to be Jews. At least, that’s what I feel, and very strongly. Orthodox Jews for the most part are extremely opposed to Jews for Jesus.
(64) Avraham was the first to believe in one god. He died in the year 1948 B.C.E. (Jews don’t believe in coincidence). I don’t know how long he lived. But that was definitely before Akhenaton.
Also, Judaism is the only ancient religion still around. It is, for the most part, unchanged.
Uff… bring the old religions back! I’m gonna go worship Thor now..
70- i beg to differ on that. judaism- even orthadox- has changed quite a bit.
72: yeâh, they don’t kill italians now.
(70) Millions of Hindus and about 100,000 Zoroastrians would argue that their ancient religions are still around.
70: and i argue as well. Thanks to my private worship, norse viking religion is still alive and kickinnnngggg!!!
73- what? i’m confused.
76: Extremist jews don’t kill people native to the italian peninsula anymore.
Zyviva (76),
FS is talking about the Zealots who fought the Roman occupation of Palestine about 2000 years ago.
ah. fs had made it sound like they picked up their axes and pitchforks to find itlians to burn at the stake.
if the italians took over switzerland, FS, you would kill them too.
In was being sarcastic. If you can’t figure that out, you need to watch more Daily Show.
And I’d kill italians anyway.
thats the thing anout typing, alot of sarcasm is shown through tone of voice. but whatever.
and a mi alking to the right FS, the one so proud of the fact that his country managed to stay out of wars for so many years?
mi alking? wth?
anyway, almost all the italians I know are annoying arrogant bastards. Think they’re the hippest fashionable morons on earth. Just like the Fonz.
And they all come here to work, making loads of money by italians standards just working the lowest factory shifts. They clog up the traffic and drive like… well, italians. God, I love stereotypes… XD
stereotypes are evil.
Hey! I’m Italian! *grumbles*
Well, 1/8 Italian, I think. My biological great-grandfather was Italian.
I’m also Jewish.
I am also, like Sphinx, 100 percent Jewish Orthodox. The Jewish diet is easy! Keeping the Sabbath is also easy, and the holidays as well. It really isn’t as hard as everyone makes it out to be.
This is, by the way, the third day of the Jewish harvest festival, Sukkot.
Do you want to know summat sad I learned over the holiday?
When the Israeli government evacuated the Etheopian Jews from Etheopia, they got to Tel Aviv and started to yell and freak out. So the authorities asked what was wrong, and the translator told them that the Etheopians wanted to know why they were being kept in Tel Aviv. Why weren’t they being taken to the Temple to preform the holy services?
They had been so isolated from the rest of the world that they were completely unaware that the Temple is no longer there–they thought the Messiah had come (there is an ancient Jewish prophecy that in the times of the Messiah, the exiles will be carried to Israel on the wings of eagles. The Etheopians thought the planes were the eagles, fullfilling the prophecy. Can you imagine how they felt when they heard the Temple had been destroyed 2000 years before?
My mother was at the Wailing Wall when the Etheopians came, and she said they were crying and sobbing like you would expect a person who had just discoved one of the centerpoints of thier faith had been destroyed.
Aw, now I’m all depressed.
Italy is known for 2 things: A massive cultural heritage, and a government that can’t keep a republic, let alone a good one, for more than 50 years.
84- A lot of the isrealies complain about the etheopians b/c almost all are on welfare. Did you know there’s this woman who comes to the wall everyday and just sobs and yells until someone gives her money to leave? It’s like, wow, this is how people make money here. Also, there are a lot of beggars. Nicely clothed, hassidic beggers. It’s really weird. By the way, FS, you are a bigoted pigheaded moron who I bet has never even been to Italy. You stereotype people without any consideration of what your saying. Italy has some of the most important cultural history in the world, while, I might add, switzerlands major contribution is tiny folding knives. Watch what you say. It will come back to bite you.
whoa- we are all musers here. but julieb is right, FS, the Italian stereotypes are offensive and weren’t even funny the first time.
86, 87: Shut the hell up. I live right above Italy and have been there countless times. Every italian I meet and everytime I go to italy it just enforces the stereotypes. I know stereotypes aren’t fair, but there usually is truth behind them. And as for Switzerlands cultural offerings, hey, we invented the internet, so jusr shuddup.
Wasn’t there this famous movie where a character says “Italy has a long history of violence and war, and they produced a wonderful rennaissance culture. Switzerland has had centuries of brotherly love and freedom and they produced the cuckoo clock”
I don’t know about you, but I personally prefer cuckoo clocks to violence and bloodshed. But that might only be the liberal in me talking.
Hey! Frigid Symphony, Julieb, Zyviva. WE ARE ALL MUSERS HERE. I am an Italian. I am also American. I ALSO have roots in Switzerland. So I can fairly say that the topic of Italy is officially dead and buried. Please, no more references to it from here on in, period, or the GAPA will probably bury this thread.
Anyway.
I’m trying to be cival, but how exactly do you justify “we created the internet?”
I just want to point out that i’m white male and every single friend i know from school is Aisan.
88- for the record- you invented the web, but americans invened the intenet.
Hey, what’s the big deal with countries? They’ll all be gone once we musers take over the world anyway. Why does it matter?
90: Someone at CERN designed it and it was first used for communications between offices at CERN (I looked this up after I read about it in Dan Brown’s book. It seemed credible, and it’s true. It’s also true that CERN did in fact develop antimatter)
Excuse me. This regionalistically, nationalistically dicussion is over. Every country in the world, at some period in history, offered some important discovery to the world. Switzerland did, in fact, develop the internet. The U.S. did, in fact, develop the nuclear bomb. The internet was made to communicate in case of a nuclear strike. The two countries worked together in this project.
Please, please stop talking about this.
95- the us developed the internet, i looked it up dfors ss, remember? it was designed as a defensive comp network that would still function no matter which comp blew up.
CERN develo0ped the WWW to allow its various scientists easy access to info.
gapas-this is no longer a jewish therd. please please make a cristian one!
gapas srart up the next therd