HEY JEWS

I def prefer our instrumental and audience-participatory set-up to the organ + cantor routine I grew up with. the cellos bring a bit of classical chamber music to it, the clarinet and guitar bring the klezmer/folk side, and then we have a choir. Plus the Rabbi + percussionist hand drumming which adds a sort of Israeli/north african feel to things. idk I guess that's pretty hippy but I like it.

There's also a couple classically trained vocal soloists, one handled Kol Nidre etc

A friend had a great facebook debate going on his wall about some nu-YK prayer where you congratulate yourself for your good deeds in addition to confessing your sins. It turned out it was created by the founder of "open orthodox" judaism, which was weird because it seemed at least as hippy-dippy and revisionist as anything you find in the reconstructionist movement.

Jewish pluralism is a beautiful and nonlinear thing

...take a sad song, and make it bubbe.

We didn't even have an organ, just a solo acapella cantor (which could be very haunting)

Our Reform temple is pretty reform, with choir, piano, guitar at times, social justice issues at the fore, etc. But last year I went to a bar mitzvah at a Reconstructionist synagogue in Oakland and boy, did it make our temple look stodgy.

There is a lot of singing and dancing

I was in Costco today and waiting in line I heard the (really friendly!) person working the register ask each customer if they were interested in buying any "holiday stamps." Being a smartass, when she asked me I just very dryly asked her "which holiday?" And she kind of paused and said, "well, they've got Santa on them, so ..." And then she realized I was just teasing, because of course it was just Santa. I do think it's kind of lame to bother calling them "holiday stamps" if it's only one holiday represented and how it's represented isn't fooling anyone.

Anyway: hey Jews! Do any of you have a good comparative Judeo-Christian religion book recommendation? I realized only recently that I know next to nothing about Christianity, and not much more about Islam, but they all share so much with Judaism there's got to be a good book about their relationships, textual, historical, etc.

might xpost this to outernational later but figure despite this not being an ilm thread it might be a good place to share this:
https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/the-hidden-world-of-psychedelic-jewish-folk

what the hell?

that Shmulik Kraus track sounds like a post-Tropicalia Caetano Veloso outtake

To offer a disrespectful I Love Comics answer to Josh’s question from November, I found Larry Gonick’s Cartoon History of the Universe books to be (in)decent on that front.

You could also go crazy and try the MacCulloch route: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126226424

Josh - I asked a friend who teaches Judaism, Christianity, Islam and she recommended this text:

https://www.amazon.com/Jews-Christians-Muslims-Introduction-Monotheistic/dp/0205018254

lol at textbook pricing tho

true, might be able to grab a copy through the library? tho $40 for a used textbook isn't a terrible price.

it's on the grimly tolerable end certainly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkQATH3O1H8

p sure Jews and their cultural/media outlets aren't the source of anti-semitism but ok

New York is combatting anti-Semitism with a new ad campaign featured in Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish print and digital outlets, in addition to social media.

The New York City Commission on Human Rights launched a campaign to fight religious harassment and discrimination and to emphasize the city’s support for its Jewish population. The commission said in a release that the campaign was in response to rising anti-Semitic incidents in the city, the surrounding area and the country.

One of the new ads reads, “Jewish New Yorkers belong here. Anti-Semitism does not.”

The advertisements will be featured in Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish print outlets such as Hamodia, Jewish Press and Mishpacha, as well as online at The Jewish Week and in the NYC Human Rights Commission’s social media.

¿?

Kinda like someone wants to be seen doing something more than they want to do something

run those ads in the Stormfront newsletter, I hear they need the money

maybe the ads are more to make the jewish community feel safe and supported rather than convince antisemites to stop hating jews?

that was the only rationale I could come up with

idk how comforting a bunch of dumb ads are when people are getting randomly murderedq

A friend just had to cancel their daughter's bat mitzvah, which is in less than a month. Rescheduled date tbh. So ... will she have to learn an entirely new torah portion? I assume so!

our community's largest synagogue is not holding services this shabbat for the first time ever

we're still having small gathering stuff but I expect the kids' shul activities to shut down shortly. They were bummed about the purim megillah getting cancelled, and a shabbat thing we were gonna do next week is also not happening now.

(lol not rescheduled date tbh, tbd)

We got a generic warning for those at risk to take extra precautions, but also assurances that our synagogue will absolute abide by any recommendations and will be changing things as needed, either moving them to where there is more space or cancelling them outright.

My wife is the executive director of a synagogue. They're suspending all programs and operations as of today, including Shabbat services. We're in Western Mass. I know some places are going to be livestreaming services to an empty sanctuary.

Services are still going on here with distancing measures & no kiddush lunch, who knows for how long. We are organizing to shop for older congregants and leave groceries outside their doors.

A lot of older parents gonna be having seder alone this year. Ours are. I just see no way of traveling to their house and staying with them that doesn't involve a real risk of us bringing them virus.

So, um, what's the plan, everybody? A friend of mine joked that we're going to see more articles about Zoom seders than actual Zoom seders. The paltry Passover supplies around here get picked over pretty quickly in the best of times, so I hope no one is hoarding the matzoh.

On a slightly different note, current events will certainly lend an awkward vibe to tales of plague, first born and inviting in strangers. Keep your distance, Elijah.

Don’t have the heart to lead a zoom seder but I’m gonna make the dang brisket.

making my first seder without my parents :/ feels sad man

Zoom seder with mother-in-law, brisket

I was out walking the dog this week and noticed for the first time that, a few houses down from, they have a minivan with the license plate KOL TOOV.

we will have our regular family seder with my mom on Zoom, most likely. I bought all the necessary supplies over the weekend.

Free Passover crossword puzzle incoming:

This week's crossword is a meta by @AimeeLucido + avcx forever-friend @metabymatt.

It comes with an original drawing by New Yorker cartoonist Robert Leighton, which figures into the meta.

If your family can't be together on Passover, try solving this together remotely!

— American Values Club (@AVCXWord) April 6, 2020

Huh, so I guess it turns out we *are* doing a Zoom seder with our temple. Let's see how that turns out, but it could be worth it for the novelty alone.

Speaking of how things turn out, my younger daughter's bat mitzvah is (still, at least for now) scheduled for September. A lot of her friends had been teasing her for being on the young end, and the last of the bunch to be a bat mitzvah, but in an ironic twist all of their April and May and June services have been rescheduled for October, November, December. So she may end up being among the first!

lovely thought about korach that i just saw from Yeshayahu Leibowitz

"The Judaism of Moses is arduous. It means knowing that we are NOT a holy people. The Judaism of Korah is very comforting. It allows every Jew to be proud and boast that he is a member of the holy people, which is holy by its very nature. This obligates him to nothing. There is no greater opposition than between the conception of Am Segulah (a chosen people) as implying subjection to an obligation and Am Segulah as purely a privilege. He who empties the concept of the Jewish people of its religious content ... and still describes it as Am Segulah turns this concept into an expression of racist chauvinism.

The uniqueness of the Jewish people is not a fact; it is an endeavor. The holiness of Israel is not a reality but a task. "Holy" is an attribute that applies exclusively to God. It is therefore inapplicable to anything in the natural or historical domain. He who does so apply it is guilty of idolatry. He exalts something natural or human to the level of the divine."

remarkable

Interesting. Maybe related (my theology is half-assed and rusty at best), my younger daughter has been working on her torah portion, which is right when Moses finally reaches the promised land and God more or less reiterates the key tenets of nascent Judaism while threatening those who deviate or fall off. And my daughter was a little annoyed, reading it as more or less extortion: you better do this, or else. And even though this is nothing I really think about, it did make me try to find a way to describe to her what could be going on there, namely that God is giving his followers his blessing but also a choice, but that choice requires work, and in return for doing that work God promises to be forgiving and let you try again, even if that work is not done right, or quickly, or consistently. It's less extortion and more God imparting the wise notion that putting in the effort, even failing, is better than just getting the holy imprimatur and coasting on his support. At least that's how I read it. Yes, you are chosen, but it is kind of a two way street, so don't get complacent.

god is all about continual improvement per ISO 9000

It makes a lot of sense that moses judaism would be sisyphean tbf

My daughter was all, wait a minute, if Moses did all this stuff for God, and brought the Jews to the promised land, then ... why doesn't he get to go into the promised land? (The reason given is clearly total BS.) Or poor Abraham, who is prepared to murder his son until a last minute reprieve, ha ha, all is good, except he and Isaac never see each other again, whoops. The pious can't win for losing.

here is my stance on God and the Jews:

you do what God tells you not for prudential reasons but because God tells you to

I usually try to read the torah with the understanding that the most extreme punishments are likely reserved for the things about wish the drafters intended to send the strongest message/the ideas that were held most sacred. Of course, this is circular to an extent, but I prefer to try to read the Torah by its own internal logic--to the extent that such logic is consistent--rather than according to my own independent moral values.

IIRC, Moses loses his privilege to enter the promised land because he not only disobeys God, but does so in a way that makes him, rather than God, appear to be the one with the power to bring forth water. By punishing Moses so severely, God sends a message that is directly related to the "crime," i.e. even Moses, the great leader, is not exempt from obedience to God.

An episode that always bothered me more was the smiting of Aaron's sons. I mean, obviously the fact that they die for not following the proper ritual practice emphasizes that said ritual practice must be really, really important, but it's hard for me to accept.

or, more succinctly, xpost

if it were merely prudent to observe the laws and customs of the Torah it wouldn't be holy