Posts by Rabbi Midge

63

2018 Convention movie: Jonah.... oh my god it's bad......!

by stuckinarut2 in

so, once again the society has produced a cringe-worthy, spew-inducing piece of "cinema".. i don't recognise this religion anymore...... enjoy this review:.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f0tovqkfem.

Rabbi Midge

I answered a private request made by phone from someone who has kept up with me since I last posted. Several people have as a matter of fact.

I am leaving.

But I do want to point out that you act just like your Jehovah's Witness counterparts.

The first page on this site promises that you and this community will:

provide a friendly, tolerant and informative environment where you can ask questions, share information and make new friends.

There was nothing but intolerance and bullying from the beginning. You and a few folks like you are too happy to excommunicate from this site people you don't like who don't share your views. You are no different than the Witnesses you criticize.

63

2018 Convention movie: Jonah.... oh my god it's bad......!

by stuckinarut2 in

so, once again the society has produced a cringe-worthy, spew-inducing piece of "cinema".. i don't recognise this religion anymore...... enjoy this review:.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f0tovqkfem.

Rabbi Midge

All you had to do was trust your gut, Sparrowdown. Too bad the Witnesses didn't appreciate your insight and humor.

The idea that it was not a literal tale is quite ancient too. Jonah is read on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) where the Jews see themselves as the people of Nineveh, repenting and fasting for their sins. This identification with a Gentile people on the holiest day of the Jewish year shows how the intent of the book's lesson was not lost on the Jews.

Except for the Hasidic, the idea that the Jews are specifically chosen by God and thus unique above and at the expense of all other peoples has long been rejected.

63

2018 Convention movie: Jonah.... oh my god it's bad......!

by stuckinarut2 in

so, once again the society has produced a cringe-worthy, spew-inducing piece of "cinema".. i don't recognise this religion anymore...... enjoy this review:.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f0tovqkfem.

Rabbi Midge

At the private request from a forum member I am providing the following Jewish perspective to the question:

Does anyone know or does the Bible state when the Jonah story supposedly happen?

While the prophet Jonah is believed to be a historical person, the Biblical account is understood to be a satire.

The details are purposefully written to be either funny, preposterous, impossible or even outright silly to produce either:

1. A moral lesson for Jews to make them rethink their theology on being the only "chosen people" of God and the prejudices this produces as a result

2. A guide for prophets, teaching them how to do their job by teaching them how not to act and what attitudes not to have

3. Or a combination of the above.

Most Jewish scholars tend to favor the third view.

While Jonah is believed to be the historical author, it is impossible for him to have done any of the things mentioned in the book. Why?

1. Tarshish is a mythical place, and in the book of Jonah is merely a literary device meaning "a far away place." There was a pseudo-mythical harbor in Iberia that was washed away and became popular in Greek and Roman mythology, but it wasn't Spain which is mentioned by the reviewer (which I assume he got from the Watchtower).

2. Nineveh did not exist at the time of the book's composition. God's "sparing" it in Jonah's story is thus useless as it was eventually totally wiped away.

3. Jonah is the only prophet in the history of the Jews who is 100% successful in his assignment (at least in this written story) and over this Jonah pouts.

4. The book ends leaving the reader to question their views and beliefs, providing no answers nor the means to get them.

The story is basically a parable asking the Jews to reconsider their own views of uniqueness. Were we truly chosen by God to be his only people? Or were we just like every other ancient people who thought the same thing about their deity and place in the universe? When it came to bringing mercy to people of other nations, people who were not Jews, were they not just as deserving to the same? If God is truly the God of all, is not God's prophet the servant of all? Shouldn't we rejoice in the redemption of all instead of the condemnation of those who believe and worship differently?

Despite how you answer the narrative is not historical, at least not from a Jewish prospective.

60

Nephew’s JW Fiancée Begins Conversion to Judaism Due to Passover Date

by Rabbi Midge in

it’s been a while since i posted, but for those who remember, i came on here to get some information about jehovah’s witnesses because i have a nephew who was getting engaged to a girl who was a jehovah’s witness and, along with some other sites, i was recommended this one.. since then we’ve been busy with passover and jehovah’s witnesses have had something they call the memorial of christ’s death (i believe i have that right).

this clashing of the two observances apparently did more for this girl than anything else i ever saw in our months of conversations with her.. respectfully, jews do not proselytize.

these are people who, of their own desire, “join the tribe” after some years of study and practice--something this girl has just begun to do.

Rabbi Midge

Dubstepped:

I've decided to answer one more question, yours.

The young woman did not make an emotional jump on merely one issue, the date of Passover, but awoke to the fact that what she was being taught about Jews by her religion was wrong.

She has been in a relationship with my nephew for some time and the issue about religion has been a hot issue as I posted before several months ago on this site (if you read that thread). She has been trying to convert my nephew to be a Witness but he hasn't been able to be convinced. In the meantime he has been talking to her about Judaism and raising any future kids as Jews. This has not been instantaneous therefore as you suggest. They are in a relationship and have been preparing for marriage, and this has been part of an ongoing process.

What I added in the original post about Reconstructing Judaism is about how far she has been traveling on her journeying and what she is facing. Remember, I got the bolded parts from her and so these statements involve what she is presently learning and coming to terms with on her own, in her own way.

They are not an advertisement as they are not concepts universally held by all Reconstructionist Jews, so they cannot be considered an attempt to proselytize. I know you feel that way, but those statements would have to encompass the official views of all members in the movement, and again they don't --only hers. Even mine differ somewhat on several points.

She did not do this as quickly as you are imagining, nor did she threaten anyone when they said they would shun her. She bravely stood up for herself and no one in her family has shunned her and no excommunication has occurred. You were not there, but have passed judgment on this situation with an interpretation as if you were and as if things happened far differently.

If you are really against shunning as you state, shouldn't you applaud someone who is bravely standing up against it? She is fighting to keep it from happening at all. It may not happen that way, but would you rather her just take it?

And she is making this decision to investigate Judaism and possibly join because she is marrying a Jew. She wants to be part of him, his family and his culture. The date was just the wake up point for her.

And now, for those others who have been most unkind:

I have shut off my email connection with this site. I cannot read your further replies to me, nor will I. I am not coming back to post ever again or read any further replies because you people are not tolerant and some are just having sport with my words. You judge all religion by your limited experience with the Jehovah's Witnesses, and so Jews get the same treatment too.

I am sure ego will keep some of you answering back to me in further replies, but I won't be reading. That will show how badly and ridiculously ego has overtaken some of you. Who are you replying to? Not me. I am leaving, not in a huff, but because apparently some Jehovah's Witnesses are just as hard to deal with in and outside their religion. And the world doesn't like Jehovah's Witnesses, whether in or out of the Watchtower.

60

Nephew’s JW Fiancée Begins Conversion to Judaism Due to Passover Date

by Rabbi Midge in

it’s been a while since i posted, but for those who remember, i came on here to get some information about jehovah’s witnesses because i have a nephew who was getting engaged to a girl who was a jehovah’s witness and, along with some other sites, i was recommended this one.. since then we’ve been busy with passover and jehovah’s witnesses have had something they call the memorial of christ’s death (i believe i have that right).

this clashing of the two observances apparently did more for this girl than anything else i ever saw in our months of conversations with her.. respectfully, jews do not proselytize.

these are people who, of their own desire, “join the tribe” after some years of study and practice--something this girl has just begun to do.

Rabbi Midge

Well, since apparently it will make most feel better if I don't speak further a word of religion, especially Jewish religion, I will not post further.

60

Nephew’s JW Fiancée Begins Conversion to Judaism Due to Passover Date

by Rabbi Midge in

it’s been a while since i posted, but for those who remember, i came on here to get some information about jehovah’s witnesses because i have a nephew who was getting engaged to a girl who was a jehovah’s witness and, along with some other sites, i was recommended this one.. since then we’ve been busy with passover and jehovah’s witnesses have had something they call the memorial of christ’s death (i believe i have that right).

this clashing of the two observances apparently did more for this girl than anything else i ever saw in our months of conversations with her.. respectfully, jews do not proselytize.

these are people who, of their own desire, “join the tribe” after some years of study and practice--something this girl has just begun to do.

Rabbi Midge

Listener:

You are not correct.

You can't just become a Jew without having some level of belief, ideas or customs, otherwise I could call myself a Jew. All I was saying is that she may find she does not want to believe in some aspect and choose not to be Jewish.

Judaism is not like this at all. Judaism is not based on what you believe but on who you are and what you do.

It is based on lineage and what you do. Not what you believe.

Her husband to be, my nephew, is Israeli like me. He is of Hebrew lineage, like myself. We are thus Jews, regardless of what we believe. We are keeping our culture alive because many people have tried to destroy it.

It is a rich culture based, not on the Bible or on the God of Abraham, but on much, much more. You're just talking religion. Judaism is much more than a religion. It is art, it is culture, it is food, it is secular, it is Zionism, it is humanism, it is literature, it is gay right marches, and yes, there is an ancient and very, very old religion that is also a part of it that we still practice and keep alive.

But despite the fact that the stories of the religious part of the Jews (again this is just a part of who we are) aren't history in the genuine sense, we aren't letting it die. It's still a part of us. You may come from a different world where religion is not tied to your lineage and culture. Your people may not have fought to keep it alive during the Spanish Inquisition and the Holocaust like we have. My people have struggled through pogroms and mob violence and generations of anti-Semitism and today posts of Internet hatred against our culture, people, and religion--and we are not going to let go of any of it.

We have something very ancient that you don't possess that we do that we feel is worth fighting for, holding on to, and passing down.

It's not religion like Christianity, and Jehovah's Witnesses, and Mormonism. It's something we are born into. It's a culture, it's a people, it's a tribe, it's a nation. If you think you can minimize the Jews to just a religion, then think again. We are so much more.

60

Nephew’s JW Fiancée Begins Conversion to Judaism Due to Passover Date

by Rabbi Midge in

it’s been a while since i posted, but for those who remember, i came on here to get some information about jehovah’s witnesses because i have a nephew who was getting engaged to a girl who was a jehovah’s witness and, along with some other sites, i was recommended this one.. since then we’ve been busy with passover and jehovah’s witnesses have had something they call the memorial of christ’s death (i believe i have that right).

this clashing of the two observances apparently did more for this girl than anything else i ever saw in our months of conversations with her.. respectfully, jews do not proselytize.

these are people who, of their own desire, “join the tribe” after some years of study and practice--something this girl has just begun to do.

Rabbi Midge

Some people may well benefit from the community and structure that your sect of the jewish cult provides.

Morpheus:

If Judaism is truly a cult as you write, then I would worry more about the person who writes that people may well benefit from cults than people who are born into them through no fault of their own like myself.

60

Nephew’s JW Fiancée Begins Conversion to Judaism Due to Passover Date

by Rabbi Midge in

it’s been a while since i posted, but for those who remember, i came on here to get some information about jehovah’s witnesses because i have a nephew who was getting engaged to a girl who was a jehovah’s witness and, along with some other sites, i was recommended this one.. since then we’ve been busy with passover and jehovah’s witnesses have had something they call the memorial of christ’s death (i believe i have that right).

this clashing of the two observances apparently did more for this girl than anything else i ever saw in our months of conversations with her.. respectfully, jews do not proselytize.

these are people who, of their own desire, “join the tribe” after some years of study and practice--something this girl has just begun to do.

Rabbi Midge

For all the talk about Jews not proselytizing I can't help but feel like this thread is an effort to do just that. It feels very preachy to me.

Dubstepped:

Proselytizing is an effort not to inform another person, but tell them that they are wrong with God and they they need to change their current ways, including their observances and way of life in order to gain God's favor (usually salvation).

The one who proselytizes also generally believes they belong to a group or organization that is chosen by God to do this work, unique, exclusive, and that if people do not join the group they will perish.

Proselytizing destroys cultures because it also destroys the way people dress, observe their holy days, worship, their art, culture, music, food, etc. which is often tied in with these very same things.

Most people from Western/Christian culture don't recognize proselytizing because they have engaged in it or are engaged in it and don't know it. Every time you tell a person to stop engaging in their religious culture, you are destroying their culture. This is why Jews are against proselytization.

Now I am not telling you that I have the true religion because I don't believe that anyone has the true religion. I don't believe Jews are the chosen people of God.

I don't believe that God is a spirit person in heaven that listens to prayers and grants them and that if you don't join the Jews that you will be destroyed.

And I don't have any views on the afterlife that I can share with you because I don't know if there is an afterlife.

I have nothing to offer you.

If you can tell me what you think proselytizing is, perhaps I can better understand where you are coming from, but I am not trying to get you to join my culture. Why would you want to be a Jew? What benefit do I have in trying to make you one? We have no teaching on salvation. We are not told that we must go out and make disciples.

I find this interesting. Why do you feel like you are being proselytized?

60

Nephew’s JW Fiancée Begins Conversion to Judaism Due to Passover Date

by Rabbi Midge in

it’s been a while since i posted, but for those who remember, i came on here to get some information about jehovah’s witnesses because i have a nephew who was getting engaged to a girl who was a jehovah’s witness and, along with some other sites, i was recommended this one.. since then we’ve been busy with passover and jehovah’s witnesses have had something they call the memorial of christ’s death (i believe i have that right).

this clashing of the two observances apparently did more for this girl than anything else i ever saw in our months of conversations with her.. respectfully, jews do not proselytize.

these are people who, of their own desire, “join the tribe” after some years of study and practice--something this girl has just begun to do.

Rabbi Midge

His fiancee, I believe, has never really thought for herself. This is common amongst JWs. The poor thing... she must be devastated.

Whynot:

On the contrary, of all the people in her family, she is the most outspoken, deep thinker, and independent of the bunch. As I mentioned, she seems to run the family, and she is the youngest. What she says, goes.

"The elders will throw you out if you this!" the wife of one of her brothers said to her about her studying.

"I'm not afraid of that!" she replied.

But I do admit she was devastated for that moment--and I do emphasize the word "moment" that she learned about the date. It was a great shock.

And then she shook it off and went forward.

She is now moving forward and not sad at all. "If I have to make your family my family and replace all of you for them, I will," she has said. And she has plenty of us now to do that very thing. I do believe the elders of her congregation have tried to meet with her but she has told them she will only do that if they meet her on the grounds of the synagogue with two rabbis and several members of the Jewish community present and will only receive further calls from them over speaker with other temple congregants listening in and recording everything. They have left alone ever since.

Her family still talks to her. She still visits them. "They bring up religion, I start talking to them in the little Hebrew I know and they shut up."

So you judge for yourself on what kind of devastation that is or how little she can think for herself. But I don't think she is the type of person you think she is.

60

Nephew’s JW Fiancée Begins Conversion to Judaism Due to Passover Date

by Rabbi Midge in

it’s been a while since i posted, but for those who remember, i came on here to get some information about jehovah’s witnesses because i have a nephew who was getting engaged to a girl who was a jehovah’s witness and, along with some other sites, i was recommended this one.. since then we’ve been busy with passover and jehovah’s witnesses have had something they call the memorial of christ’s death (i believe i have that right).

this clashing of the two observances apparently did more for this girl than anything else i ever saw in our months of conversations with her.. respectfully, jews do not proselytize.

these are people who, of their own desire, “join the tribe” after some years of study and practice--something this girl has just begun to do.

Rabbi Midge

JWs count the days from the observable new moon not from the astronomical new moon that modern Passover is based off.

AbusedandPissed:

I have heard this fable before. There is no such thing as a "modern" way of observing Passover.

The Jews have never, ever had a set calendar.

First, the Jews just watched the moon and the high priest in Jerusalem decided when the New Moon could be seen and thus declared that the New Month began. A runner would then be sent off to tell others the news that the official beginning of a month had begun.

But this didn't always work, and sometimes political intrigue got in the way and this kept the Jews from keeping good historical dating records during the first Temple period for a time. So they started a method using torch lighting. Once the high priest decided the New Moon could be seen, a light was lit and torches were set aflame on high points throughout the land.

But again this was untrustworthy. Political enemies would sometimes light competing torches and the system never worked. When the the First Temple fell, the Jews eventually lost count of the days and there is no way to know exactly when according to Jewish accounts certain things happened. We must rely on secular history and astronomical calendars from this point onward to set things straight.

After the exile, the Jews tried it again, but other enemies, especially the Greeks disturbed the Jewish time counting. They were never able to keep an accurate count of time on their own until the Hasmoneans began to rule and eventually the Sanhedrin took over the job. From that point on the Jewish high court decided when the month officially began.

But that didn't last long either. That ended when the Second Temple fell in 70 C.E. So the Jewish calendar never ran continuously on its own and was never something that ran all the time by an observable new moon.

It was only after the fall of the Second Temple that the Jews developed a lunar calendar based on the solar calendar. This is the only one that has been permanent in the history of the Jews. The idea that there was ever an ongoing ancient one is a fabrication made by Fundamentalist Christianity. Passover has never been on any certain "ancient date" either as the Exodus account is mostly dramatized legend.