rosends
Well-Known Member
Warning -- early morning thoughts...always dangerous.
Another thread asked "where did your belief come from" and, if I'm being honest, the answer is from my parents, my schooling, my community and my socialization. I'm me because of everything that came before me. Note that word "because" -- it will be important in a second.
I was thinking about how (male) converts take a Hebrew name as "ben Avraham" when they convert. And I wondered, in what sense are they the sons of Abe? If they become Jews, then maybe they are sons of Jacob, or Moses. If this is about getting circumcised, maybe they are sons of Yitzchak.
Why Abraham.
The thing I learned about Avraham is that he wasn't the first monotheist, or even the first monotheist with an awareness of God/Hashem as we understand the idea of the divine. He was the first to come up with that idea on his own, without having a personal interction with the divine (like Noach) or even having contact with someone who had a first person contact with the divine (like Shem). I'd have to check my timeline, but if the medrash is true, then even if their lifespans overlapped, Avraham probably didn't hang out with Noach before the age of 3 (when one version of teh events has him come to his monotheistic revelation).
Avraham, surrounded by non-monotheists came to his understanding not because of his upbraning, but despite it -- because he was driven by some force to connect. In a similar sense a convert is often someone who is brought up NOT in a Jewish system/environment, but finds that path on his own. (yes, there are exceptions, like a child who is raised from infancy by Jews, or people who find out that they are not Jewish after having lived as Jews since childhood and "re"convert, but I'm talking in a more generic sense)
So to celebrate a special membership, not just in the family of "Jew" but the even more select group of "those who came to it on their own" converts get to associate with the progenitor not of Judaism per se, but of self-driven adherence to an idea of God DESPITE, not because, of their surroundings, and that's pretty awesome.
Just a thought -- no doubt, a theory with holes large enough to drive a bus, but something off the top of my head early on Friday morning.
Yes, this leaves the problem of "Ben Sarah" for women because I don't know the medrashim about her source of religious inspiration, and I don;t know if anyone has ever come up with anything like this but I had to set down what popped into my head. So there.
Another thread asked "where did your belief come from" and, if I'm being honest, the answer is from my parents, my schooling, my community and my socialization. I'm me because of everything that came before me. Note that word "because" -- it will be important in a second.
I was thinking about how (male) converts take a Hebrew name as "ben Avraham" when they convert. And I wondered, in what sense are they the sons of Abe? If they become Jews, then maybe they are sons of Jacob, or Moses. If this is about getting circumcised, maybe they are sons of Yitzchak.
Why Abraham.
The thing I learned about Avraham is that he wasn't the first monotheist, or even the first monotheist with an awareness of God/Hashem as we understand the idea of the divine. He was the first to come up with that idea on his own, without having a personal interction with the divine (like Noach) or even having contact with someone who had a first person contact with the divine (like Shem). I'd have to check my timeline, but if the medrash is true, then even if their lifespans overlapped, Avraham probably didn't hang out with Noach before the age of 3 (when one version of teh events has him come to his monotheistic revelation).
Avraham, surrounded by non-monotheists came to his understanding not because of his upbraning, but despite it -- because he was driven by some force to connect. In a similar sense a convert is often someone who is brought up NOT in a Jewish system/environment, but finds that path on his own. (yes, there are exceptions, like a child who is raised from infancy by Jews, or people who find out that they are not Jewish after having lived as Jews since childhood and "re"convert, but I'm talking in a more generic sense)
So to celebrate a special membership, not just in the family of "Jew" but the even more select group of "those who came to it on their own" converts get to associate with the progenitor not of Judaism per se, but of self-driven adherence to an idea of God DESPITE, not because, of their surroundings, and that's pretty awesome.
Just a thought -- no doubt, a theory with holes large enough to drive a bus, but something off the top of my head early on Friday morning.
Yes, this leaves the problem of "Ben Sarah" for women because I don't know the medrashim about her source of religious inspiration, and I don;t know if anyone has ever come up with anything like this but I had to set down what popped into my head. So there.
