Ask a Jew! What the Heck, why not....?

So, it's Purim. And, I'm busy wishing my friends and other folk a freilichin Purim.
And then, I realize that this would be pretty much a null on this Religion Forum of this Political Forum.com...
So, I start this thread because no one else has.
I am a Torah observant Jew (read "ultra" Orthodox Jew) who has a long history of communication in many different areas of religion and history.
Seriously - if y'all have questions about Judaism, this might be a place where I could endeavor to answer them.... or seek help trying.
If not - have a Purim Sameach and You figure out what that means...
Happy Days.

 

Why the long face?

 

I wish you and everyone you know good a freilichin purim. freilichin = freundlich = friendly I guess. Unfortunatelly lots of antisemites are in this forum here. Whatever. May the Lord prepare always a table before his friends in the presence of their enemies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjUX3CeRUZI

 

Friendly indeed!
Although, the spirit of the word is more like "friendly in an animated happy fashion..." Joyous, as it were...
And, there have been antisemites around for 3,000 years.
As a matter of fact - that is what Purim is all about!

The Annotated Story of Purim:
The story of Purim, the Megillah of Esther, occurred around 2,500 years ago.
The story begins with King Achashverosh, the king of Persia, married to Vashti, his queen.
He throws a big party. Everybody, including all of the Jews, get to come.
After some drunken carousing and revelry, the king orders his queen to come before him and his guests, naked, wearing nothing besides her royal crown. She refuses to come and, as all good Persian despots do, he has her executed (an action that is recognizable today in the Arab and Persian Middle East).
Queen-less, the king calls out and sequesters all of the eligible women in the land.
Esther, a Jew, gets herded in with the rest of them. No one knows she is Jewish and her uncle Mordechai tells her to keep her identity secret. And, of course, from among all the women taken to the palace, the king falls in love with her and Esther becomes Queen.
The Plot thickens....
King Achashverosh's Top Minister is a man named Ahmanutjob; oops, I mean Haman. a descendant of the wicked Amalekites.
Haman becomes pathologically obsessed with Mordechai, the Jew, whom Haman believes is royally dissing him.
So, Haman gets King Achashverosh to agree to issue a secret decree to annihilate all of the Jews of Persia on the 13th day of the Hebrew month of Adar. (This idea of killing one Jew... killing all the Jews... what’s the difference? still prevails in the Middle East...) He decides on the best date for genocide by leaving it up to chance, by throwing lots which are called "purim."
Haman believes that everything that happens on Earth is a random occurrence.
He believes that everything happens by chance.
But, by casting lots; by creating Purim, Haman, who believes in the transcendent power of Chance, suddenly becomes the model of the fact that Nothing happens by chance.
Because, from the moment that Haman shakes the dice, everything begins to change. Everything becomes “topsy – turvy.”
Things begin to go very bad for Haman.
Haman gets called to King Achashverosh and is asked how to honor someone whom the King wishes to honor. Expecting that these honors will be for himself, he lays out a fine set of accolades and laurels only to find he, himself, is forced to bestow these honors on his arch-enemy Mordechai.
Then, Haman is overjoyed to be invited along with the King to a feast given by Queen Esther, believing that he is once more being honored above all others, only to discover at the feast that the Queen is Jewish!
Oops!
Big, big Oops for Haman!
Suddenly, Haman finds himself accused by the Queen of plotting to murder her along with her people.
Oops! Ouch!
Haman begs for mercy and throws himself onto the queen's bed only to be caught by the king in this rather precarious position.
Oops! Double Ouch!
Haman is accused of attempted rape. Oh my goodness gracious!
How could things have possibly gotten this turned upside down, wonders Haman?
But, wait, there’s more!
Haman erected a giant gallows to hang Mordechai, whom he was just itching to kill. Unfortunately for Haman, King Achashverosh sentences Haman to die on this same gallows. (The origin of gallows humor – oops.)
And, as for Queen Esther, Mordechai, and the Jews, whom Haman wanted to annihilate; to wipe off the face earth? Well, rather than being annihilated, they are given the king's permission to annihilate their enemies. And Mordechai is given Haman’s place as Prime Minister.
“The Jews had light and gladness, and joy and honor.” (Megillah, The Book of Esther, VIII, 16)
Throughout the entire Book of Esther, the name of G-d is never mentioned.
The Hebrew word that best describes Purim is venahafoch hu, meaning "flipped over story."
The things that look bad in the Purim story; that seemed to be happening by chance were, in fact, intricately planned by G-d for the Good. The lesson is that Nothing happens by accident. Nothing happens by chance.
G-d conceals His presence in the world, but we see G-d’s actions in real life history.
G-d is the Hidden Master who puts everything into place.
Because everything is not what it seems.

 

Over the years, Jews have been hated in almost every country they've lived in.
The Romans had their fun, 1066 saw the Muslims of Granada kill loads, as did the people of York in 1190, the police led attacks in New York (1850 C.E.) and not to forget Mr. Hitler in the late 1930 and early 1940s.
As the link shows, most places Jews went, they were either expelled, arrested, massacred or forced to convert to whatever other religion, mostly Christianity.

Why is this?

I know I'll be immediately jumped on as a Jew hater for mentioning these historical facts but the facts remain, as does my question.

Why do so many people hate Jews?

 

Good question.

The simplest explanation is because G-d said so….
The Jews agreed to accept the Torah and become G-d’s People. And, G-d Chose the Jews to be His. However – He also promised that when the Jews obeyed G-d’s Commandments and Laws, that G-d would make the Jews a Great Nation. But…. If the Jews disobeyed G-d and His Laws and Commandments, that the Jewish Nation would be despised; dispersed; and almost destroyed….
That was the bargain we made with G-d 3,000 years ago.

And, as far as history goes, that is how it has turned out.
However, I would not mistake ordinary nation building; conquests and wars for Jew hatred.
The Romans were not anti-Semitic. They took over Israel during a period of Jewish Civil War and hatred towards other Jews. They were invited in by one faction and, as the Romans were wont to do, they stayed and tried to keep the Jews from killing each other. Judaism was actually admired by many Romans and many converted to Judaism. But, the Jews kept on killing each other and attacked Rome and, the Romans went Full Roman on them and destroyed Israel. Even then, there was no overt anti-Semitism , the Jews who lived the in rest of the Empire went unmolested and maintained their lifestyle, properties, and status.

What happened next was that Christianity came along…
From the earliest days of the Constantine and the Christian Roman Empire, Christians learned about the Jews in the context of how their god, Jesus, was killed by wicked Jews. In Christianity, Jews were always synonymous with Christ-killers – they were the Race of Deicides.
It begins with Book of Matthew 27:20 “And the whole people answering said: ‘His blood be upon us and our children.’”
The Book of John puts the proverbial nails in the crucifixion of the Jews when he relates the various evils that “the Jews” performed.
“… therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus because he did these things on the Sabbath.” (John 5:16)
“… The Jews then took up stones to stone him…” (John 10:31)
“We are not stoning you for any of these,” replied the Jews, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.” (John 10:33)
“The Jews insisted, “We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.’” (John 19:7)
“’Here is your king,’ Pilate said to the Jews.
But they shouted, ‘Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!’” (John 19:14,15)

Apparently the early Christian theologians believed that these passages specifically meant that the Jews first rejected, and then killed Jesus. And, that the Jews were therefore cursed.
Origen, one of the most distinguished writers of the early Christian Church, wrote: “The Jews nailed Christ to the Cross.”
Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, took time to detail the crimes of the Jews in his “Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews.”
Augustine argued that Jews should be left alive and suffering as “a perpetual reminder of their murder of Christ.”
Gregory of Nyssa named the Jews “Slayers of the Lord, murderers of the prophets, adversaries of G-d, haters of G-d … advocates of the devil, brood of vipers, slanderers… assemblies of demon… and haters of righteousness.”
John Chrysostom (347-407), flatly stated (contradicting Peter who claimed the Jews acted without knowledge) “the Jews erred, not ignorantly, but with full knowledge.”
Chrysostom’s virulent hatred of the Jews, as the Archbishop of Constantinople, along with these other Church Fathers, forever influenced the theology that became Law under the Eastern Orthodox Empire, and he, like the rest of these early Church Fathers, became a “saint.”
Amongst his many sermons castigating, excoriating, and cursing the Jews, he called them “the assassins of Christ” and named their synagogues “the refuge of devils and abyss of perdition.”

Ultimately, the “Holy Roman Emperor,” Constantine, began what became a perpetual theological condemnation of Jews and Judaism in his:

Laws of Constantinus Regarding the Jews
(It is worthwhile to state the first Law in full as this enjoyed the full Ecclesiastical weight of the Holy Roman Church and was not merely a “civil law,” but Christian doctrine.)
I. Laws of Constantine the Great, October 18, 315: Concerning Jews, Heaven-Worshippers, And Samaritans We wish to make it known to the Jews and their elders and their patriarchs that if, after the enactment of this law, any one of them dares to attack with stones or some other manifestation of anger another who has fled their dangerous sect and attached himself to the worship of God [Christianity], he must speedily be given to the flames and burn together with all his accomplices. Moreover, if any one of the population should join their abominable sect and attend their meetings, he will bear with them the deserved penalties.

Holy Roman Emperors, Theodosius II and Justinian, continued making specific Laws restricting and condemning Jews and Judaism, as did nearly every Holy Roman Emperor and later, Popes, that followed in the footsteps of these Christian “saints” who urged that Jews be scourged and hated for killing their god.

This theology was passed on to all of Christendom well into the 20[SUP]th[/SUP] Century.
All Christians “knew” that Jews were “cursed” by G-d and it was the theological duty of greater Christendom to see that they suffered.
And, greater Christendom did exactly that.
The first recorded mob violence that I know of was in 388 CE when Christians burnt down a synagogue in Syria.
From the 5[SUP]th[/SUP] Century onwards - Jews were regularly killed; forced to convert; their synagogues and homes burned and looted; forced to pay a “dhimmi tax” to Christians in order to both practice Judaism and/or simply not be killed; prohibited from certain occupations; not allowed to marry Christians; their books burned; expelled from various Christian kingdoms; and simply persecuted unendingly by Christians for the crime of being Jewish.
At any time, in any country, for any reason, Jews could be and were ruthlessly sought out for torture and death.
Millions of Jews died at the hands of Christians over the last 1500 years for the supposed theological crime of being Christ Killers.
With the conclusion of the Holocaust in the 20[SUP]th[/SUP] Century, most of Christianity officially changed their theology and no longer claimed that the Jews killed their god.

Now, the Islamist Loony Tunes have picked up on Christian Hate-the-Jews theology with their own passages from their scriptures and are carrying the torch of persecuting Jews and defaming Judaism.
This was not a natural development but is descended directly from the hatreds of Naziism and Stalinism.
Before the 20[SUP]th[/SUP] Century, the pertinent “pig” and “monkey” passages in the Koran were an embarrassment to Muslims who preferred to gloss over these issues and the famous slaughter by Mohammad of the Jews.
With the rise of both Israel and the successful Jihad of the Wahhabist Saudi Arabians, these obscure anti-Jewish passages became key quotes in Islamist and Arabist hatreds.

Those who wish to differentiate between Christianity and Judaism will surely point out that Jesus never told Christians to kill the Jews and Mohammad did, indeed, tells his followers to kill the Jews.
Despite these apparent contradictions, Jews found refuge from mass murder and persecution by Christians in Muslim and Arab lands for over 1,000 years.
Again, the persecutions and killing of Jews by Muslims during that time was not Jew specific. Various Muslim rulers killed Muslims; Jews; Christians; and others with impunity as the nations were at war or theological crises came about.
It is only since the rise of Islamic fascist death cultism that the shoe is now on the other foot.
Christians, particularly American Christians, are today the best friends Jews could possibly have.
Muslims are not.
Nonetheless, for over a thousand years, all of Christianity firmly believed that their god had condemned and cursed the Jews as Christ Killers and deicides and, it is that heritage, which influenced all of Christianity which became the Western World, which influenced the entire planet with its theology up until today…

 

Moishe: I'll tell you upfront I'm (for lack of a better description) a Deist.

I believe God created our universe(s), and all life within, and took special pains in creating us ---with LOVE.

I also believe part of God's gift to us was freedom to choose how much God we wanted in our lives---AND--freedom to resolve our own problems (or not) as an evolutionary means of sharpening our already magnificent intelligence.

I don't believe in a God of hate or anger, or insecurity, or who needs to be addressed in certain ways, offered sacrifices of varied sorts, etc.(Such a deity would, I think, be puerile and limited in power.)

I write : "May He walk with you always !", knowing He understood my wish long before my aged fingers tapped it out.

 

Thank you.
And - the Torah teaches us that the whole idea of addressing G-d in a certain manner and "sacrifices" etc. - is all for Learning.
We are enjoined to be a Holy People and all of the various rituals and history of Judaism is directed towards that end.

 

I could quarrel with the Torah,and say it is a codified version of grandmotherly fables, but why should I ?

I try to respect the beliefs of all - as much as practical.

(Obviously, if you were a devotee to a creed that called for the sacrifice of infants to appease Who Did It And Ran,I would have to make an exception to that statement.)

 

And That is the beauty of Torah. Hashem (G-d) declared that "the sacrifice of infants to appease Who Did It And Ran" was an abomination and Not from G-d.

 

Do you take issue with how Americans "dress their women"? Or is that more of a hard core Islamist thing?

- - - Updated - - -

Oh, here's a good one - why try to remove the vowel from an English word that is definitely not the proper name of the Judaic deity? It made sense with YHWH if that was considered that god's proper name, and if according to the mythology knowing a name gave one some kind of power over the bearer of the name, but mutilating the English word "God" like that doesn't make sense..

 

Eh? There are Laws according to the Torah how women ought to present themselves but - quite frankly, even the "hard core" ostensibly Muslim thing is NOT from Islam. It is all tribal and has nothing to do with religion.
On the other hand - how Jewish women are supposed to dress and behave has a lot to do with religion. It's called "modesty," which encompasses quite a bit.
But - for instance... Torah observant Jewish women cover their hair. Which means that any Orthodox Jewish woman you might talk to is wearing a wig (or something more obvious that is covering her hair)! That is a Commandment. I do not believe that this "Islamic Law" according to Islam. The "burkah," etc., is pretty much a tribal custom.

This is a vanity on my part.
It is not required to do so.
However, as most people consider "G-d", the Name of G-d, there is a tradition in Judaism to NOT write out the Name of G-d. Strictly speaking, this is not a problem as "G-d" is not really the Name of G-d.
However, I enjoy going a little bit beyond and accepting the Tradition that hyphenates the Name of G-d as G-d.

 

Now THAT'S ultra Orthodox. Six hundred and some odd rules weren't enough, I guess.

Okay, here's another one. How does one actually follow Judaism in an "orthodox" fashion today? Don't many of the rules require a temple that no longer exists? And do you still kill people for working on the Sabbath? If not, why? At what point did the rules change?

 

It all comes down to tradition That is what organised religion seems to be about, by and large, and perhaps this is especially true of Judaism.

 

The (VERY; Extremely; not complicated and confused by a tremendous amount of Torah and discussion) simple answer is that after the 2nd Temple was destroyed, many of the Laws and Commandments (Mitzvos) that apply specifically to the Temple, cannot be done.
One major change is that we cannot enact Jewish Law regarding death penalties without a Great Sandhedrin. The Great Sandhedrin does not presently exist and, therefore, there are NO death penalty cases that can be tried according to Jewish Law.

 

And why killed the crusader Bernhard of Clairvaux Jews although they were roman citizens since the second century?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--1m-DPfsEc

 

In addition to Christians historically blaming Jews for killing Jesus, what other reasons do you believe were the cause of anti-semitism?

As usury was banned among Christians in England up until the mid-1500s or so, and I would imagine the same would be true in other Christian countries; in addition to Jews being banned from many trades and professions, it seems that Jews were used by Christians for lending money - hence the association between Jews and moneylenders.

In addition to this, as far as I understand, Judaism teaches Jews to try their hardest at whatever it is they do. Whether at the top levels of government, business, the arts, world chess championships etc, there are always a disproportionate number of Jews. While trying hard at whatever you do is of course something to be admired, success is also resented by some people, and this would reflect disproportionately on Jews.

Do you believe these are also significant factors in causing anti-semitism?

As far as anti-semitism in Muslim countries is concerned, it's blatantly obvious that this increased massively when Zionist Jews colonised Palestine, and kicked most of the Palestinians out. Can you cite the verse(s) in the Quran where you claim Muhammed instructed Muslims to kill Jews?

As far as I am aware, the Quran says something along the lines of saving a life is like saving 100 lives, and killing someone is like killing 100 people - in other words, killing is bad, excepting in self-defence. I am not aware of any verse instructing Muslims to kill Jews.

Dusty

 

If I understand your question - you want to know why St. Bernard killed Jews? I don't believe he did. However, he did encourage others to do so. Then again, he also considered the Crusaders the scum of the Earth and said so.

 

Sure. Why not? It's a funny question though....
"Let's see... The Jews are an evil race of god killers who the Church has taught me to hate and despise.... But, y'know, that's probably not enough reason to hate Jews! The fact that they lend me money and charge interest really ticks me off! Plus, those Jews are so damn smart and successful! Sure, that's ticket...."
Quite frankly, I think the whole god killing business as taught to every man woman and child of Christianity for over 1,000 years, was probably enough... Don't you think?

Oy. You seem to miss the point of my brief gloss into Islam - Islam has NO tradition of Antisemitism.
And, my bad in terms of reference points - as far as I know "pig and monkey" (or Squirrel and Moose) are from Hadith. I would humbly suggest that a Muslim would better know whether Muslims are enjoined to kill Jews or not in their scriptures... Not I.
(However, if you would care to cite your verses vis a vis "100 lives," I'd be very interested. I've never heard that before about the Koran.)

My point was political, not theological.
Specific Jew hatred was incorporated into the Muslim and Arab worlds after the Ottoman Empire dissolved. The various, now disparate, tribes and clans and factions and movements of the Middle East inherited this disdain for Jews from their former colonial overlords - specifically the English and the French with a bit of Germany thrown in for good measure.
For instance, the English appointed Haj Mohammed Effendi Amin el-Husseini as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Husseini was violently Antisemitic and had previously been sentenced to ten years of prison by the British for inciting anti Jewish riots. However, shortly afterwards, he was appointed Grand Mufti by the British. It was asserted, but never proved, that he was actually put up to inciting the riots by the British themselves...
Most Arabs were semi indifferent to Jews settling in the Middle East except for trying to take advantage of the new economic opportunities this presented for what was formerly a fairly blighted and ignored portion of the former Ottoman Empire.
However, as Jews succeeded in settling and prospering, first in Greater Syria of the Ottoman Empire and then in the British Mandate for Palestine - as you noted above, they were resented by their Arab neighbors.
Arabs easily adopted the Christian cultural condemnation of Jews from the Europeans and then, later on, as the virulently Antisemitic philosophies of Naziism and Stalinism came into effect, they easily incorporated those philosophies into their culture until today, formerly obscure religious passages denigrating Jews are taught in madrases all over the world as authoritative scripture.

 

In your words, or scriptural equivalent, what is a "Great Sandhedrin"?

Also, are their complete online Jewish Scriptures in english? Ones that have NOT been doctors by Jew Haters? Because I have found that if I try to look up something Jewish, I am confronted with the tedious task of sifting through garbage to get to substance.

Are their online cannon Jewish Scriptures that non-jews can read and learn from? Also are there the equivalent of different versions? Like KJV to the Bible or other translations?

Which versions are viewed as the most authoritative/factual that exist in english?

 

Moishe, do you believe that the person Jesus lived at all? I'm of the opinion that he was a fictional character based in part on certain historical figures of the period, e.g. Eleazar ben Simon, and in part on solar allegory much the way Mithra and certain other mytho-historical characters of antiquity were. Given the scriptural and ancillary evidence in favour of this view (which can be found at www.usbible.com and elsewhere), and the lack of evidence from non-religious sources for the existence of Jesus or his family, I think it's safe to conclude that he is essentially a 2,000 year old hoax.

 

Sure he did not - he was a friend of the Jews.

He encouraged others not to kill Jews. Some Jews named their children even "Bernhard" because of Bernhard of Clairvaux.

He called crusaders the scum of the Earth? The nobles maybe - but he defended the templars. Whatever - this age was very complex. A short time ago the Normans had conquered England - and the Seljuks had conquered Jerusalem and Mekka. But that's not important and not the reason why I asked. I wanted to know wether you are really a Jew and I liked to show to you how easy it is to produce stereotypes and prejudices. If you think about Christians - and how Jews had to suffer under Christians - then you should maybe not forget the paradoxon of the good deed: If someoen took care and prevented a war then we don't know anything about this war. If we take a look at history then we see often the catastrophes - and not the good parts.

By the way: Do you know what this is?



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYinmUHWAkI

 

The Great Sanhedrin was the Jewish Court of Law - the "Supreme Court," as it were, of the Kingdom of Israel.
It was composed of 71 members who had to be Torah scholars. Other Jewish Courts of Law could judge certain cases but, only the Great Sanhedrin could judge capital (death penalty) cases.
There were many rules and laws regarding the Sanhedrin. One was that the Great Sandhedrin could only judge when the Bais Hamikdosh (G-d's Holy Temple) was extant.
There were other restrictions and rules which meant that there were other periods of time before the destruction of the Second Temple where the Sandhedrin could not judge.

There will be minor variations in translation but there are several sources to read Torah and Tanach (the "old testatment").
For Educational purposes, I really like Torah.org, which is not strictly a translation site but goes through the entire Torah and its commentaries - that is to say - what the Torah means.
Another educational site for all things Jewish which is a little more fun and geared towards all sorts of people is: Aish.com Aish also has accurate translations of each week's Torah reading.
For a line by line translation of Torah and Tanach, Chabad.org is a good site. But, as with those I cited above, it also has a plethora of other Jewish information.
For straight translation, I am told that Mechon Mamra is accurate. It is widely used for those learning online.
I'd start out with this stuff and then - ask if you have any more questions.

 

Yes, I think Jesus existed.
However, Jewish history is different from Christian history.
After a couple thousand years, "Western Man" now wants to apply "science" as to whether or not Jesus actually existed.
To Jews, it's a null question. We know that he wasn't the "Jewish Messiah" (which doesn't even mean the same thing to Jews as it does to Christians); we know he sure as heck ain't a god; and we know that the Christian Church took his life and teachings and used it to defame and persecute Jews for a very long time.
We don't care if he "really" did or didn't exist. We're just glad the Christians are blaming Jews anymore for his death.

 

Science applies (or at least can apply) to all questions, since it is a method of investigation and inquiry as much as a body of knowledge. I worry for you if you consider it a "null question," as it shows a failure to apply scepticism and critical thinking, and perhaps a habit of ignoring evidence and avoiding certain ways of thinking as well. After all, the existence of a character like Moses can equally be called into question, and it would upset Judaism more than a little if the evidence finally indicated that was also fiction (which it does, actually). Better to ignore that tough stuff, right?

How can you know that demigod character was not a god? How can you even define what a god is?