This week in synagogue we read Parsha Mishpatim, Exodus 21:1 – 24:18. God dit not just provide the Ten Commandments, but also a large number of more detailed laws. A number of these laws are… Abortion and An Eye for an Eye
This week, we celebrated Rosh Hashanah, which is sort of the Jewish New Year, though to me at least is more significant as it begins a ten day period of reflection. This period culminates with Yom Kippur, where we ask God to forgive us for our sins (past for some Jews, future for others) and hope for a happy and healthy coming year.
Part of Ellen’s rules for attending services is that it is okay for at least parts of the service to read a book brought with us, as long as the book has a Jewish theme. This year I have decided to reread Genesis, a relatively new translation of Genesis by Robert Alter, http://www.amazon.com/Genesis-Translation-Commentary-Robert-Alter/dp/039331670X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1378560203&sr=8-1&keywords=genesis+alter.
As I mentioned in my entry yesterday, each year at our Passover Seder we put together a series of readings and activities focused on a theme (or set of themes).
We pull the readings from an Haggadah named A Different Night.
In addition to going around the table asking people to read selections from the Haggadah we also pass around 3 x 5 cards with quotes on them that I have selected and Ellen has approved which each person reads and is encouraged to comment on.
The themes this year start with the broad issue of freedom from slavery which is the foundational message associated with Passover. We include some thoughts on the revolutionary activities going on in the Middle-East. We also will touch on the issue of how the Bible and the Exodus story deals with how Jews were dealt with as strangers in a strange land and the general issue of the ‘other’ in society. Finally we will talk a bit about the issue of the role of women in society. It remains my contention that how women are treated is a societal “canary in the coal mine”. That is, how well societies deal with women tell one a lot about the society in general.
The quotes we will be using follow:
For a number of years now we have a Passover Seder at our house on the first night of Passover.
We have between 15 and 25 people (I recognize that is a bit of a range) including family, friends, guests from various sources, Jews and non-Jews.
Each year we try and focus on a few themes to focus the more general topic of the Exodus and its implications to us today.
The following is what we are sending out to the participants this year. In addition to the readings we do, we put quotes that at least loosely tie to the themes we are focusing on, on 3 x 5 cards. During the course of the Seder we ask participants to read the quotes and comment on them. Tomorrow, if I remember, I’ll post the quotes we are using.
Ancient books were often were named by their first word. Thus, the book many call Genesis, is called in Hebrew, Bereshit, ‘In the Beginning’, after the first word in Genesis. For those who like to measure… If We Were to Focus Solely on God We Could Be Ignoring Those in Need
As those who know me know, I have become very interested in the archaeology of the Bible. By Bible, I mean the Hebrew Bible.
My personal opinion is that faith is just that, faith. To me, faith does not have to be ‘proven’ by the historicity of religious texts or disproven by the lack of same. My interest has pretty much nothing to do with my Jewish beliefs, but rather curiosity as to whether the historic record is consistent or inconsistent, or has any evidence at all, related to the Bible as history. There has been a lot of new information collected over the last twenty years and the ability to interpret the material already collected has increased enormously. Thus there is lots to read and think about.
Over time, my interests stray a bit from that original focus and have moved to early Christianity and on to the middle ages and Islam, covering what I call the three major Abrahamic religions. When I talk about, and I guess write about, these thoughts I do find myself more cautious when discussing Christianity or Islam, since as a Jew I sometimes feel how my thoughts will be taken, which I try to always disassociate with faith and belief, may be misinterpreted.
A discussion about the Edict of Milan after the jump …