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How are you Jewish?

pearl

Well-Known Member
We used to have a favorite neighborhood eatery, we would often visit on Sunday morning, small, 4 tables and counter, 'Beagles and Friends.' Also a favorite for neighborhood Jews. everything was served on paper goods, plastic silverware etc. But the eggs and ham were cooked on the same grill, the bacon and lox kept in the same refrigerator etc. Yet my Jewish friend was very strict on keeping a 'kosher' home, 2 refrigerators etc. Does ones home take precedence in satisfying kosher regulations?
 

rosends

Well-Known Member
2 refrigerators? I mean, I have 2 but that's because I keep one in the garage for extra stuff.

As a boy (back when I was a boy) there were stories about people who ate to a lesser level of stringency out of their houses. My parents even allowed it once or twice but it didn't stick. If one eats conforming to kosher laws, one does that no matter where one is. If someone keeps a strictly kosher home, I can't imagine that person eating non-kosher food out of the house. HOWEVER -- if the local bagel place had supervised bagels (uncut) as the place near me does, then one might find a religious Jew getting uncut bagels from there even though they have other non-kosher products.
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
What a shame. It seems to me there is no harm in Joe Jew having a Christmas tree in his living room. Joe Jew does not have to give up his religion, so there's no reason for any perceived idolatry to be involved. He just needs to be tolerant towards his wife's religion. I think it could be fun to live in a household in which two sets of religious feasts were celebrated. But a lot less fun, of course, if you had to cut out a lot of good things to eat for religious reasons.
Assimilation is the greatest threat to the existence of the Jewish people. That is the message of Hanukkah.
 
I always try to separate milk and meat so the milk doesn't go around the rest of the food and make it indigestable.

Sometimes I keep a Jewish commandment because it's just so hard not to... not to be superstitious... to carry your brother's load.

Also, I think it is very universal.

I read the Torah.
Yes, but do you "engage in the Torah" as the Jewish rabbis advize? Reading is good, very good, but engaging, that is, really digging, reading it in the Hebrew, learning the Jewish exegetical means and ways, getting beneath the surface..... that's where the good stuff is, yes?

Now since I am finding myself in the Zohar because they have published it and opened it up to the world, even though we really do need our fellow Jews to help us out (though I hear they are forbidden from doing so, dang it) one thing the rabbis in Zohar say many times throughout (I am in volume 4 of the 12 volume set of Daniel Matt, Pritzker edition) is "Blessed are those who engage in Torah!" And then you read some umpteen 20 pages, 20 full pages of just one sentence!, and it completely blows your mind how good these fellow brothers are. I have just never read anything so thorough, so delightful, so puzzling, so obvious which I had missed before, and so mysterious, all in one! It's the most delightful thing I have ever done for myself at this stage get into the Zohar, engage, cross check, get into their own cross references trying to figure out why in the middle of talking about Adam all the sudden we are whisked away to Isaiah, and then back over to Psalms, and then out into the universe! Some of the most amazing stuff I have ever found.

So, yes, by all means keep reading, but engaging is the next higher step, and ....not trying to make it complicated, but....... one really does need to read Torah in the Hebrew, it's an entire new and expansive dimension the likes of which I have never before realized was so valuable! The Septuagint Greek is pure bonus also if you are really going to "engage."
 
Assimilation is the greatest threat to the existence of the Jewish people. That is the message of Hanukkah.
And yet Jews have assimilated in every nation which ever ruled over them in antiquity and into the Middle Ages, yet survived. Look, eventually, none of us are gonna have much of a choice, we will have to assimilate into the One. After all, that is where we come from, and all the many here is just that One manifesting Oneself in truly astonishing, delightful, and amazing ways.
 

robocop (actually)

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Yes, but do you "engage in the Torah" as the Jewish rabbis advize? Reading is good, very good, but engaging, that is, really digging, reading it in the Hebrew, learning the Jewish exegetical means and ways, getting beneath the surface..... that's where the good stuff is, yes?

Now since I am finding myself in the Zohar because they have published it and opened it up to the world, even though we really do need our fellow Jews to help us out (though I hear they are forbidden from doing so, dang it) one thing the rabbis in Zohar say many times throughout (I am in volume 4 of the 12 volume set of Daniel Matt, Pritzker edition) is "Blessed are those who engage in Torah!" And then you read some umpteen 20 pages, 20 full pages of just one sentence!, and it completely blows your mind how good these fellow brothers are. I have just never read anything so thorough, so delightful, so puzzling, so obvious which I had missed before, and so mysterious, all in one! It's the most delightful thing I have ever done for myself at this stage get into the Zohar, engage, cross check, get into their own cross references trying to figure out why in the middle of talking about Adam all the sudden we are whisked away to Isaiah, and then back over to Psalms, and then out into the universe! Some of the most amazing stuff I have ever found.

So, yes, by all means keep reading, but engaging is the next higher step, and ....not trying to make it complicated, but....... one really does need to read Torah in the Hebrew, it's an entire new and expansive dimension the likes of which I have never before realized was so valuable! The Septuagint Greek is pure bonus also if you are really going to "engage."
Thanks. I try to live a lot of different scripture I read. In some ways the Torah has no competition.

Torah Geometry for Hanukkah night 1

Also see the other 6 nights and I've improved/fixed some of these patterns.
 

Saint Frankenstein

Wanderer From Afar
Premium Member
Actually I was taught that this was the most likely reason. Shared food is the foundation of social interaction, and from social interaction comes intermarriage. Intermarriage brings idolatry with it. Think of Joe Jew going down to the local pizza place and meeting Betty Baptist. They are attracted to each other, and end up marrying. Next thing Joe knows, he has a christmas tree in his living room.
Wow, it's the end of the world. :rolleyes:
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
And yet Jews have assimilated in every nation which ever ruled over them in antiquity and into the Middle Ages, yet survived. Look, eventually, none of us are gonna have much of a choice, we will have to assimilate into the One. After all, that is where we come from, and all the many here is just that One manifesting Oneself in truly astonishing, delightful, and amazing ways.
No, not assimilated. If we assimilated, there would no longer be jews.
 
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