<p>As a parent of a ten year old, I would explain that this girl is an Orthodox Jew and as part of her belief system and laws of her religion, on a Jewish holiday (which this date was), she is to put aside electronics, machinery, cars, etc. I would explain that there are many religions in the world that hold various beliefs and customs and obviously our family did not follow this religion or custom. This discussion would be no different than explaining other cultures or races my kid may come across and the traditions of such cultures, not religious ones. For example, my kid may ask why a woman from India is wearing a sari or why a Muslim women is wearing a burkha. No different. I would want my kid exposed to the fact that the world is made up of various religious beliefs and customs, various cultures, and races and it didn’t mean we had to agree with their practices but I would explain how they differ. </p>
<p>I have no idea how you conclude that the school was “taken hostage.” How? Everyone attended the graduation as planned and listened to a recorded speech instead of a live one. Huh???</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, POIH, there are a helluva lot of uneducated people in the world with advanced degrees who also happen to belong to a religious group! Your D attends MIT with people of many religions. Are they all also “uneducated??” Wow. I understand that you yourself don’t abide by any religion and respect that. I don’t find that in itself uneducated. For you to attack those who belong to a religion and assert that they are therefore, uneducated, makes YOU sound uneducated, non-liberal, and intolerant. There is nothing wrong with your stance that you don’t wish to follow any religion and do not believe as others do but to take it further and call those who don’t believe or think as you do “uneducated,” is simply unbelievable!!! In fact, it is even un-American.</p>
<p>POIH, it might surprise you to learn that I don’t believe in God, I just respect those who do. I wasn’t brought up with any religion either and lived most of my childhood overseas in Asia and Africa and learned about many different beliefs.</p>
<p>Guess what? The beauty of this thread is the fact that all these parents from all around the country who belong to many different religions and races and so forth, are flocking together. They share liberal thought and tolerance. They come across as educated. They are Americans. They ALL differ in beliefs and yet are flocking together on this issue. Imagine that.</p>
<p>I would have asked why don’t they use electronics, machinery, cars? Do they consider it as evil? What will happen if the girl uses the microphone? Will she die or be cursed?
What’s the reason for such a belief? Why do we have such belief?</p>
<p>I certainly don’t interfere with anyone beliefs unless they force it opon others. I certainly don’t call people making fool of themselves if they are asking genuinly reasonable questions.</p>
<p>I don’t have any problem with the girl observing any custom, belief as long as she didn’t involve the whole school and all the parent now have to explain to their children why this girl didn’t speak at the graduation being in good health.</p>
<p>*Really? Because the Mormons I know here have said they avoid caffeine because it’s considered a stimulant. *</p>
<p>I thought the same thing. Our Mormon friends said that they shouldn’t consume caffeine because it’s a drug. Instead, they drank Postum…an alternative hot beverage. </p>
<p>They did eat chocolate, but they may not have known/thought about the caffeine aspects.</p>
<p>From wikipedia (I know, not perfect) Postum was popular among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was part of Mormon culture for many years.[6][7]</p>
<p>As a fellow Jew (not orthodox, but conservative) I find everything that you have said POIH so offensive. What she is doing is not because of some superstition, not because she is afraid something will happen if she doesn’t, but to respect god. Nobody can truly understand all of the words of god, but people dedicate their lives to something that has a culture behind it, which has lasted for thousands of years including oppression from many different peoples. There is an old story of a Rabbi who had a wife who always wanted him to bring her freshly cut flowers for shabbat, but he never really understood why; he still did it anyway because he loves his wife. We welcome God in the same way. Though we may not understand all 613 commandments, we still do what we can for god. If a shop is closed on a Sunday do you say anything, that it is just silly and that they shouldn’t be going to church? Probably not. This is just ignorant antisemitism, and I can’t stand it. Blind hatred for how other people act is just stupid. The first amendment says freedom of religion, or should we change that? Maybe only freedom of religion if it’s in the confines of your home? Maybe then Jews should have their own little sector of each village, so nobody else is offended by their religion. Well maybe then we could use these Jews at a labor camp. Then maybe we could start a genocide to get rid of these superstitious people. If we don’t learn from history, it is bound to repeat itself.
The reason that she didn’t use electricity was because God created the earth in 6 days, and on the 7th day he rested. He commanded that we too shall rest on the 7th day and certain holidays do no work. The rabbis interpreted using electricity as work and therefore there would be no electricity on these days. Even if the Torah wasn’t true (I do believe in the Torah) why take away something so beautiful from somebody else. It’s not as if they’re forcing you to not electricity, only they willingly give up electricity to please God. Don’t forget that Christianity and Islam all have the “old testament”. Though it may not be a part of christian practice, it is a part of let’s say 85% of the country’s faith, so bashing it here doesn’t make sense.</p>
<p>Here again, you assume that beliefs are superstitions. It was explained to you before that these customs and laws do not imply that if the girl doesn’t follow them, something bad will come her way. Rather, the laws of her bible establish that on holidays and on the Sabbath, they she observes the holiday with a respite from driving and using electronics and use the day to observe, pray, go to shul, be with her family, and so on. It has nothing to do with some evil that may happen if she doesn’t abide by these laws. No, she will not die or be cursed. </p>
<p>This is no different than my explaining to my Jewish kid why some celebrate XMas and what the manger represents even though we don’t believe in any of that.</p>
<p>*
I don’t have any problem with the girl observing any custom, belief as long as she didn’t involve the whole school and all the parent now have to explain to their children why this girl didn’t speak at the graduation being in good health. *</p>
<p>so??? What’s the harm/trouble with parents explaining to their kids? Don’t we have to explain all kinds of things to our kids when they see different things?</p>
<p>See how offensive it is becoming to you when some one is just asking question bending of school rules to accomodate superstitions but you don’t think it is offensive to all the parent of those small children who have to now spend days trying to explain this bizzare superstition.</p>
<p>But this girl’s observance of her custom didn’t involve the whole school or interfere with the graduation event. If it caused children to ask questions, that is a positive thing. How’s that different than children meeting others at school who celebrate Easter or are Jehovah’s Witnesses and knock on their door, or Muslims in head scarves or why some kids are absent on Passover holiday. It is a great opportunity to educate children about different religions and cultures in the world and in their community. If you are against such questions and teachings (which is indeed part of a liberal education and you did not send your kids to a parochial school with ONE teaching), then what did your D do all these years in school when learning about other religions and cultures, which comes up in classrooms all the time and on college campuses such as MIT??? My D, as you know, went to grad school at MIT and in her class in her department, she was one of the only Caucasian American women, let alone Jew. She had to mix with a wide variety of religions, races and cultures. Asking questions is part of an education. Learning about others is part of liberal thought.</p>
<p>My parents had to explain to me lent, they had to explain to me Easter which I still respect even though to me it makes no sense. I educate myself in all religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Atheism, etc. Just because these parents have to explain this to their kids, I don’t think that the kids will mind much. It’s a speech, it’s no the whole day. If kids won’t be able to grasp a small talk with their parents about how different people have different beliefs, I’m worried for how they will be able to get through the rest of their lives.</p>
<p>Poster after poster including you on this thread have told that it’s offensive for me to raise this question but you don’t think it will be offensive to all those parent who have to deal with the similar questions.</p>
<p>There are two books that come together as a set. Many children used to receive them at their Bar/Bat Mitzvahs. It explains basic Jewish beliefs.</p>
<p>The Jewish Book of Why and The Second Jewish Book of Why by Alfred J. Kolatch</p>
<p>What you have done, POIH, is to alienate a whole group of people by your words and ignorance. Jewish and Not Jewish are offended. It’s one thing not to know. It’s another thing to delibertly antagonize a group of people without finding out the facts yourself. It seems much easier for you to just write posts on cc that demonstrate your opinion than to go out and seek the reason yourself.</p>
<p>I’m not jewish but I’ve had jewish friends. I can’t think of another religious group who is more committed to their traditions. From my vantage point it has always seemed that these traditions involved a fair amount of inconvenience and discomfort and I rarely heard my jewish friends complain about it.</p>
<p>I think what happened at this commencement would have been educational for the other people there. This kind of commitment to a belief is rare to see. For some people a microphone is just a microphone and they are unable or unwilling to wonder where this commitment comes from or to give this remarkable young woman credit for being so committed to her religion.</p>
<p>Forgive me for typing too quickly and I can see how my statement would be misinterpreted the way I wrote it. What I meant was that if you are opposed to OTHERS for holding religious beliefs, that is un-American. I didn’t mean that YOU needed to belong to some religion yourself to be American. I respect those who follow NO religion and who do not believe in God and so forth.</p>
RobD - Yeah - that’s why I made the reference to drugs. I’ve known a lot of Mormons and they said it was due to the caffeine. Apparently the caffeine-free Coke is okay (but I don’t think the Coke came in a caffeine-free version during the timeframe I was referring to). It’s an example of a rule adopted by a religion based in what the leaders believed was a sound practice - that of avoiding unnecessary drugs. It wasn’t based on any superstition. Nowadays most health professionals recommend avoiding too much caffeine and it’s a big issue with some of the ultra-caffeine ‘energy’ drinks so I think the Mormons got this one right.</p>