<p>ahhh, woman with a sense of humor,…that’s my religion!</p>
<p>‘all I knows of heaven and all i needs to know’
Popeye Keats</p>
<p>allmusic, I had the same thought when I read some of daddude’s posts. Has he aged as well as started proofreading his posts? :)</p>
<p>Mini, a non-observant, Jew, by his OWN admission, mentioned somethings thatdrew hm away not only from the religion but from the people as well. I asked him to elaborate and he instead has simply been elusive. </p>
<p>Ofcourse he does not have to answer personal questions, but he started this course by himself in broad terms saying why he left Judaism. Moreover, nowhere did he say he was uncomfortable answering the question especially since I afforded him that opportunity when I said that if he felt my questions were too personal or difficult he did not have to answer. Instead of saying yes they are too personal or No I will answer, Mini has been completely elusive, used rhetorical strategies to ask me questions. I have asked for hi to clear it up.</p>
<p>Mini by his own admission is not observant Jew</p>
<p>Mini by his own admission does not feel he belong to the Jewish people</p>
<p>Mini by his silence and elusiveness is uncomfortable with his Judaism.</p>
<p>So I asked him what he was ashamed of, yet instead of answering or even saying that he is not ashamed of anything he continued evading the question.</p>
<p>Furthermore, NO ONE trivialized the Shoah. I find it offensive that you would suggest that I do such a thing. I merely said that if there is ever, God forbid, another thing like the Shoah, Mini will go as fast as any Jew who is completely observant and who feels they belong to the Jewish people. This is the truth. It happened in every wave of genocide against Jews in history. From the Inquisition to the Shoah, observant and non observant Jews all went down together.</p>
<p>For some reason Mini felt that this condemns him to death. No it does not. It merely suggests that even if he himself has an identity problem with Judaism, outsiders will not see it the same way. To them he is a Jew and not a Quaker. It merely condemns him to the Jewish nation, and that is what he does not like.</p>
<p>daddude; What you are doing isn’t what this site is all about. This is not the place you come to attack people for religious beliefs or whattever your interpretation of them are. Let me tell you about Mini. He/She has been a great asset to this site. This is an articulate, helpful person. And Mini has great difficulties in the home right now. This is not the place to run someone down for religious or ANY OTHER purpose.Let it be. MAKE THIS WORLD A BETTER PLACE THROUGH YOUR EXAMPLE. There is no purpose to critisizing anyone here.</p>
<p>Not everyone wants to argue with others on a public forum about personal issues.</p>
<p>daddude; Believe me, I am not belittling your convictions. You have a right to them. But there comes a time when one must see the point to these forums. Capici?</p>
<p>Daddude–you admitted in a previous post you don’t have the “willpower” to become observant. One thing you could do would be to stay off this forum if you don’t have the willpower to avoid attacking other people and their beliefs or lack thereof. It’s a shanda and chillul HaShem and I am sure you will know what I mean.</p>
<p>If you want another kind of discussion, strictly based on religion, try beliefnet.com</p>
<p>I am not saying his beliefs are wrong or even attacking his beliefs. I asked him what led him to these beliefs, and through his own responses, it seems that it was discomfort and shame that led him to leave observance and the Jewish nation. He has rejected, by his own admission, his identity, and I just wanted to know why.</p>
<p>I am not asking him to change or I am not telling him to become an observant Jew. I am simply asking him why, and it is a very valid question. If it were too personal, he should have said so when I even asked him to let me know if it is too personal. Mini is simply evading the question because, in my opinion, it seems there is something he is hiding or something he is uncomfortable with.</p>
<p>I am not attacking Mini, I am questioning him to understad better what happens to certain people who leave not only the ‘religion’ but also the ‘nation’. I don’t see why its not a fair question to ask.</p>
<p>When Mini asked ME what part of my Judaism I was ashamed of, for some reason that was acceptable? Regardless, I answered him. And now I just want the same curteosy.</p>
<p>Daddude–looked like attacking to me, but even if just tactless, it’s enough already. Please go away.</p>
<p>ouch, mini, i think he’s on to the ‘circumcision’ episode!</p>
<p>Perhaps I am missing something and maybe I am wrong. Can someone please explain to me, in context, the things I said that were soo wrong and tactless etc. Seemse to me Mini and I asked eachother the same questions. The difference is that I responded and he did not.</p>
<p>From mini’s posts, I glean that he had a pretty extensive Jewish education, including training as a chazzan and preparation for rabinnical school. Therefore, he likely knows a good deal more about Jewish law and theology than you or I. Also, if he is a person who cares more than I do about religion, it may well matter more to him than it does to me that some central tenets of Jewish law and theology are inconsistent with what his own intellect and heart tell him is true. </p>
<p>I feel many of those contradictions, too. I choose to ignore them most of the time, and to regard them as simply part of being a modern, American, assimilated Jew – an experience common to most of the Jews I know. If I cared, really cared, about religious observance, rather than viewing it with some level of ironic detachment all the time, it would be a lot harder for me to ignore the contradictions.</p>
<p>For example, to cite a relatively trivial example – are we really supposed to be praying for a restoration of animal sacrifice in the Temple in Jerusalem? Even if there weren’t a serious contemporary geopolitical problem with making that happen (it would require demolishing or profaning the Dome of the Rock, one of Islam’s holiest sites), it still wouldn’t be on the list of things I want to see happen. It so happens that in MY Jewish community we DON’T pray for that: either we bowdlerize it out of the traditional prayers, or we metaphorize it. But if you take Jewish religious practice really seriously, and you don’t feel empowered simply to wish that aspect of it away, it’s a fundamental problem. I don’t know if it’s one of mini’s fundamental problems or not, but it’s not hard to find funky things in Jewish religious observance.</p>
<p>Mini does not in the least deny that he is an ethnic Jew, or that anti-Semites would regard him as Jewish. As far as I can tell, he openly embraces his Jewish cultural heritage, and regards his spirituality as part of that cultural heritage. I don’t know where you live, daddude, but here in Southeastern Pennsylvania you could find people like mini in any Friends Meeting or Unitarian church (or, for that matter, Buddhist whatever-they’re-called).</p>
<p>They, and he, aren’t hiding from anything. They aren’t denying their origins or claiming some kind of exemption. They are merely trying to keep their spiritual practice in line with their beliefs. It doesn’t bother me a bit, except that I wish more of them would choose to be part of one of the Jewish congregations that try to do that within a Jewish context (a category that, by the way, clearly includes David Mamet’s congregation in LA). But there aren’t that many places where such congregations exist, and not every Jew feels that that kind of reconfiguration of tradition actually has a place in Judaism.</p>
<p>Finally, I understood mini’s statement that he was not part of the Jewish People not as claiming an exemption from their fate, but as refusing to accept any benefit that accrues to the Jewish People in preference to any other people on Earth. That’s fine with me. If I were the kind of guy who took a lot of moral stands, and who really cared about this stuff, I might do that, too.</p>
<p>Thats all well and good, but I was curious as to why Mini decided to break from any observance of Judaism, by her own admission, and break from being a part of the Jewish nation, by her own admission.</p>
<p>“For example, to cite a relatively trivial example – are we really supposed to be praying for a restoration of animal sacrifice in the Temple in Jerusalem?”</p>
<p>An answer like that was all I was looking for. But I was attacked for asking the question.</p>
<p>So, if this is not too offensive or tactless, why do you feel it is wrong or why do you feel the way you do about animal sacrifice?</p>
<p>“So, if this is not too offensive or tactless, why do you feel it is wrong or why do you feel the way you do about animal sacrifice?”</p>
<p>OK, I’ll bite.</p>
<p>Daddude–why would you latch on to this topic? Do YOU feel we should return to animal sacrifices? Drop rabbinic Judaism for a return to Temple Judaism and massive barbeques, if you will, every day and twice on Saturdays? </p>
<p>I don’t know anyone who does. And what does it have to do with David Mamet?</p>
<p>I think we should, but only in the manner perscribed by Jewish law, when Moshiach comes, one of Maimondes 13 Principles of Judaism, and the temple is rebuilt it will again be possible and thus necessary to bring offerings in accordance with Jewish. The problem right now is that its very hard to comprehend what life will be like after Moshiach arrives. It will be so completely different that I feel most people will want to give offerings.</p>
<p>“Drop rabbinic Judaism for a return to Temple Judaism and massive barbeques”</p>
<p>We are not dropping rabbinic Judaism. The oral and written Torah work hand-in-hand. Simly the rebuilding of the temple will require offerings to be made. I see personally see nothing wrong in that.</p>
<p>“And what does it have to do with David Mamet?”</p>
<p>Not much other than when I tried to have a discussion with Mini about what turned her away from the Jewish nation, JHS offered some things which turn him away from certain levels of observance, not from the religion or people mind you. So I aksed him if he was willing to discuss it.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You’re ■■■■■■■■, daddude.</p></li>
<li><p>If you read my last post, you will see that it addresses both the potential invalidity of the distinction between “certain levels of observance” and “the religion”, and at least one potential reason to disassociate oneself from the Jewish People (as that concept is framed within Judaism).</p></li>
<li><p>David Mamet obviously feels great about associating himself with the Jewish People while rejecting fundamental principles of Jewish law and traditional Jewish religious practice and theology in his daily life and religious observance. So do I, and so, apparently, does daddude. But someone who actually cares about religion more than they or I – I won’t speak for daddude, but in my case and Mamet’s it wouldn’t be hard to clear that hurdle – might actually feel uncomfortable participating in Jewish rituals while objecting to a good deal of their core content. Such a person might also look for a context for religious observance in which one’s beliefs and one’s practices would be congruent. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>I’m not saying that’s mini; I have little or no idea. I’m just responding to daddude’s (and apparently Mamet’s) constant assumption that anyone who rejects Judaism is shameful and a deluded coward. Not that such people don’t exist, but not everyone by a long shot.</p>
<p>(Oh, and daddude: For people of our age, acting as a chazzan in your youth = male. With exceptions you could count on your fingers, probably not including mini. Just a hint.)</p>
<p>“I’m not saying that’s mini; I have little or no idea. I’m just responding to daddude’s (and apparently Mamet’s) constant assumption that anyone who rejects Judaism is shameful and a deluded coward. Not that such people don’t exist, but not everyone by a long shot”</p>
<p>No. My constant assumtion is that if someone rejects HIMSELF as a Jew then he is ‘ashamed’ ‘scared’ wants to ‘fit in’. Someone who rejects observing Shabbat is not self-hating Jew. Someone who rejects observing Shabbat because his Christian neighbors don’t do it or because he embarassed IS a self-hating Jew. Someone who, before the coming of Moshiach, is uncomfortable with animal sacrifices being done after Moshiach arrives is not a self-hating Jew, unless this discomfort arises from the fact that his neighbors might think he is weird.</p>
<p>Daddude, I can pretty confidently say that very few people become Quakers because they are ashamed, scared, or want to fit in. If that’s what you are about, there are many, many better ways to do it than jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.</p>
<p>JHS, I get the impression that you with confidence and pride can say “I am a Jew”. Am I right?</p>
<p>However, can Mini? Or does Mini accept Jesus as the son of God, the Gospel as the truth? I do not know and both of us cannot decide and speak for him. So leave your confidence to yourself because many Jews search for spirtuality in other places when it has been right under their nose for quite some time. Many Jews reject Judaism and reject themselves as part of the Jewish nation for other reasons, reasons that me and you may or may not know, and this was simply why I was asking Mini. I wanted to know what turns someone into a person like that.</p>
<p>Daddude: I say “I am a Jew” with confidence and with mixed feelings, among which are both pride and, honestly, some measure of shame. I do not believe I really have a choice in the matter. That is the community into which I was born, that is the spiritual context I inherited, and it has never made sense to me to explore my spirituality in some other context. The context I have has always been adequate to my needs. It has certainly never made sense to me to try to “pass” as something other than a Jew. In the community where I grew up, that would have been impossible in any event. </p>
<p>I think mini has answered the “son of God” question several times, and I refer you to his posts for his views. As for the Gospels, I’ll say for myself that I find them beautiful on the whole and, in many respects at least, “true”. They are not my sacred text, but they constitute quite an impressive and comprehensible interpretation of my sacred text – a text that, I might add, is in constant need of interpretation. As a Jew raised in a Christian culture, with a fair degree of education, I am well aware that there is a lot of blowback from the Gospels in my religion, and in that of many of my fellow Jews. While I try to be conscious of that, for the most part I don’t mind it.</p>
<p>““I am a Jew” with confidence and with mixed feelings, among which are both pride and, honestly, some measure of shame.” - What is this shame? </p>
<p>That is the community into which I was born, that is the spiritual context I inherited, and it has never made sense to me to explore my spirituality in some other context. - A paragraph later you mention ‘exploring’ the gospels. Seems to me that you have explored spirtuality in another context and have settled with Judaism?</p>
<p>I think one of the points Mamet makes, which may or may not apply to you, is that many Jews are willing to read and revere the texts of other religions without giving thought to the texts of their own. The Talmud, Mishnah, Midrashim, Pirkei Avot, Shulchan Aruch etc are all equally interesting and more important to the interpretation of our sacred text than the gospels. For only the reason that the Torah was originally intended to be interpreted with the Oral law.</p>
<p>Can you elaborate on what you mean by the Gospels being “true” other than a one line statement.</p>
<p>Mini’s answer to those questions were just as elusive and ambigious as her answers to my questions.</p>
<p>daddude, when is Moshiach coming because I am not going to live forever, and my grandparents on down missed him?</p>