HEY JEWS

Everyone have enough candles? I forgot that you're not supposed to put let them burn out every night, thus going through more than 9.

got one of the last 3 oil packs in town it seems like. everyone was sold out - called the judaica store on thursday and she was like "i just got a shipment in" - i ran over and by the time i got there they were almost all out of the brand new shipment!

You're not supposed to put them out, is what I meant to say.

For the second or third Christmas in a row I will be chilling at a data center while husband works in the cage. The data center is out in the exurbs of NoVa, the only redeeming feature of which is a truly excellent Taiwanese restaurant, so I will be doing the Jews-going-out-for-Chinese on Christmas thing.

Post your Hannukah plans here thusly, pls.

luckily not spending christmas at the data center we're working in - the contractor we're subbing for shuts down for all the holidays and won't let us work w/out them on site. will instead be watching the nfl games today and hoping i win my fantasy football superbowl. maybe i'll order chinese takeout tonight?

You'd think Jews would not be that novel in a big city in 2016, but it's been amusing today, listening to the kids of our awesome and generous neighbors as they stop by to deliver homemade treats, struggling with what to wish us. They're so wary, so compelled to wish us "Merry Christmas" but so careful (and considerate!) to avoid the phrase, like it would be the worst social blunder. A brother and sister just came by to deliver us a homemade dreidel pendant, which was so thoughtful. The brother made sure to say Happy Hanukkah, and then the older sister wished me a Merry Christmas, making the younger brother freak out. "No, you're not supposed to say that!!!" But jeez, if us Jews took it all that seriously we'd all be jumping off red and green lit bridges this time of year.

^^^this. I work at a large Jewish social services agency where the staff is about 50/50 Jewish/non-Jewish; without some context (pictures of a Torah scroll at a colleague's desk, for example), it's not always easy to hazard a guess as to who is what. There was a surprising amount of bet-hedging "Happy Holidays!" going around this week, which only really works when Christmas and Hanukkah actually coincide.

Which is, like, once every 45 years or something.

I happily accept all merry xmas wishes and have never met any jews who seriously feel otherwise

i would never be so churlish as to be literally offended when somebody tells me "merry christmas" but all the same i feel it as a small good thing when someone says "happy holidays," not a big deal, just a microgenerosity like holding a door open

i say "merry christmas" to people who i know to be christian and "happy hanukkah" to known jews and "happy holidays" or "have a good holiday" or "happy new year" to strangers

I want a new non-denominational thing to say to people. Happy Holidays is such weak sauce

"Congratulations!"

"You're Welcome!"

"Mary Poppins!"

Tomboto how much Jewish stuff is going down in casa de Tomboto these days

Like maybe you should come over next week for latkes and hot sauce, which is how we roll here

I dunno if I mentioned this already but I am back in Jew School. I love the rabbi, he is a really engaging teacher! Anyway I'm pretty sure that at some point itt Mordy or others recommended I give the shulchan aruch a go. I mentioned this to my Jew School rabbi his eyebrows knitted in a concerned manner and he said, haltingly, "I... don't actually suggest you embark on that. It's only laws!"

Anyway Jewish ethics is a main area of interest for me so I dunno what I should read.

i'm like 99% sure i never recommended you read the shulchan aruch! unless you were looking for a book of codified laws

like generally shulchan aruch is what students becoming rabbis study to become proficient in laws related to kashrut and family purity - ie very technical material mostly. when you got to an orthodox rabbi with your discolored chicken (or... underwear?) and expect an expert opinion, rabbi is likely using shulchan aruch as source for their ruling. even if you did want to just learn laws there are better works for laypeople including the kitzur shulchan aruch which is an abridged shulchan aruch and probably more relevant the chofetz chaim's work the mishna berura.

Yeah I went back and searched the thread and I have no idea where I got the shulchan aruch idea from!

I just gave myself a small coronary at the thought of going to this (or any other) rabbi with my underwear.

I wonder if the shulchan aruch addresses family purity for women like me who have evicted their uteruses (uteri?) from the premises.

not to be crude but afaik if you're menstruating it needs to be practiced and if you're not it's not (acc to the shulchan aruch making no normative judgements about what ritual practices people should or shouldn't incorporate into their personal lives)

Nah nothing crude about it, but women who have have hysterectomies but kept ovaries and are pre-menopausal obv still have "periods" i.e. menstrual cycles, but no "period" in the "show undies to rabbi" sense. Saves trips to the mikveh I guess?

afaik yes - it's all about the blood [or lack therefore]

I've taken to telling people Hail Yule

Anyway happy Chanukah!

was listening to a podcast and someone told the story of Hershel and the Goblins. it was very cool!

Happy Hanukkah!

this looks very cool:
https://shabb.es/product/ethics/

if you've never read pirkei avos before i highly recommend it (i've quoted it a number of times on ilx, it's where the quote "were it not for the fear government, man would swallow his fellow alive" comes from) and tho i haven't read this version it looks great.

more famously it's where "if i am not for myself, who will be for me?" comes from, as well as "who is wise? he who learns from everyone."

huh yeah that does look good

does look cool. Mordy do you know the ppl behind it?

i do not - i only know that friends on fb were sharing it. i've ordered a copy.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C4ty8T7XAAMBSy-.jpg:large

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C4tyaxiWcAEYsUN.jpg

a nice little lol there is that the highest rating is 91 - approval that Jews have for Jews. we love ourselves.

another fun graph that suggests that the older you get the more you like jews

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C4vf-BWWMAEs5wE.jpg

https://qz.com/915527/in-photos-bene-israelis-the-ancient-jewish-community-of-india/

whoah nice

yeah cool stuff - i'd love to see the exhibit but i do not plan to be in the new dehli area any time soon

delhi*

would love to see some of my jews (looking at you mordy) out at this downtown NYC show that I'm working with:
http://www.greenwichhouse.org/announcements/uncharted-innov

In addition to being the name of this trance-inducing musical style, the term gnawa also refers to the people originally from kingdoms spanning Mali to Ghana who were enslaved by the Moorish rulers and brought North to present-day Morocco. The Jewish presence in Morocco dates back to over 2,500 years ago and upon interaction with the gnawa community, a bond formed over appreciation for gnawa music and its healing powers. Gnawa music pre-dates Islam and originally centered around animistic, spiritual, mystical concepts sung in sub-Saharan languages such as Bambara, Fulani and Sudani. Upon embracing Islam, gnawa songs began to incorporate Arabic language and themes around the Muslim prophets. Sebitiyin, meaning The Saturdays in Moroccan Arabic, is the collection of songs that grew out of the gatherings hosted by the Jewish community for the revered gnawa maalems whom they deeply respected. Themes of these songs still include the original elements of spirits and the natural world, and later came to incorporate shared saints from their Abrahamic traditions. Today, it is still rare to find a maalem that knows this full repertoire so we are especially lucky to have Maalem (Master) Hassan Ben Jaafer, son of the late Abdallah Ben Jaafer, lead us through a powerful moment of unity in music.

wow that sounds fantastic - and on 4/20 no less. it'll be an ask for sure (late night show in the city) but maybe we can make a long weekend of it or something. i'll def see what i can swing.

please do, it should be rad. fifteen buck ticket! affordable! free beer and wine at the show!

the price is def not the problem. the two hour drive is the bigger obstacle. but we'll see. might be nice to get out of philly for a weekend. are hamilton tickets still impossible to get?

i'm gonna guess yes. and in any case, the price is def the problem there.

That show sounds fkin cool
Signed a goy

Goys welcome

this speech was given by one of my yeshiva rabbis last week. it's v much addressed to the orthodox community and some of the challenges facing it (particularly what is known as the "off the derech" or "off the road" aka "leaving Judaism" crisis and a related drug addiction and overdose crisis). because of that i'm not sure if the language will be a huge barrier to ilx posters (and some of the ways of speaking are not at the level of sophistication, particularly about non-orthodox communities, or sophistication of secular humanism, that ilxors might expect) but i thought it was beautiful and i cried multiple times watching it. the ideas being floated in it are not something that are super prevalent within the orthodox community yet but that's why i went to learn w/ him many years ago - bc i thought he was onto something new about the value and meaning of judaism to people's actual lived lives and relationships. at one pt during the speech there's a gasp bc some of the things he's saying are shocking to hegemonic orthodoxy and someone asks if they can record the lecture. from an anthro-social value alone i think it's worth checking out even if u get nothing else out of it: https://www.theyeshiva.net/item/4151

ive been reading Moses Maimonides "The Guide for the Perplexed" and 45 pages in i am quite enjoying it. how prevalent is the idea that God is incorporeal? it is a point he keeps returning to, indeed it is a major theme of the work, which so far has been tasked with introducing the concept of homonyms and words having multiple, contextual, meanings that tend to be reduced to a literalization.

lol and he keeps making fun of people who think the world is flat. this is in the 12th century!

God being incorporeal is broadly accepted in Judaism I can't think of any serious denomination that contradicts that tenet. Maimonides (aka the Rambam) is probably the most canonical figure in the Jewish world (particularly the Orthodox world) and penned the 13 principles of faith that essentially delineate the borders of traditional Judaism. Guide to the Perplexed is fantastic. You'd probably dig this as well - a letter he wrote about Jewish belief in the resurrection of the dead: http://rambam.merkaz.com/Class%2013%20-%20Letter%20on%20Resurrection.pdf

he was also a physician (and some say advisor) to Sultan Saladin. he lived in Cairo and signed all his letters as (paraphrasing), "The one who is sinning by living in Egypt."