Why Do Some Rabbis Claim To Know The Reason For Suffering?
Dear Jew in the City,A terrible tragedy befell the Jewish people this week when seven innocent children were killed in a fire in Brooklyn. As we mourn and attempt to comfort each other through this great sorrow I have heard that there are rabbis who claim to “know” the reason these precious souls were taken from us. From time to time you’ll hear that a rabbi or leader in the Jewish community publicly assigns blame to certain groups or actions after a tragedy occurs. Is this an appropriate way to think and talk in terms of Torah philosophy?-Troubled
Dear Troubled-Thanks for your question. I too am troubled by the people who claim to know the workings of God (as are the several rabbis and rebbetzins I consulted with about this topic), especially since prophecy ended two thousand years ago.
There is an example from Tanach (the Jewish Bible) of people who claim to know why suffering occurs: In the book of Job, when Job loses his family, his property and becomes sick, his friends come over to tell him he is to blame.
When Do You Mention Shabbos Observance in A Job Interview?
Dear Jew in the City,When during an interview/hiring process should you bring up keeping Shabbos/Jewish holiday absence questions? At the time of offer? At the initial interview? What would a good response be to the question, “Are you available nights and weekends if we need you to come in?” Wondering how people handle this.– J
Dear J,Your question couldn’t be more timely as the U.S. Supreme Court just heard a case a couple weeks ago directly on this topic. Unfortunately, if the case comes out the wrong way, religious job applicants will be put in an incredibly difficult position with no good options, and the door to discrimination against religious job applicants—and in particular observant Jews—could be flung wide open.
But before I get to the legal issue, I’m going to first address your questions from a practical perspective…
Breaking News: Halachic Prenup Backed By Major Haredi Rabbis
Jew in the City was founded in order to break down stereotypes about the Orthodox community and publicize all the positive news about religious Jews that rarely makes the news. But about a year ago I realized that some of the negative ideas people have about our community aren’t based on “bad apples” or misconceptions. They’re based on real problems which WE need to fix. We can’t just make the Orthodox world LOOK good, we have to make sure the Orthodox world IS good.
Now it’s kind of hard to tackle communal-wide problems (especially when you’re trying to run and grow an organization!), but then I heard that for one of the issues which has gotten worse in the last year, there is a (nearly) foolproof solution! I am speaking about the agunah crisis…
The New York Times magazine recently published an article about an Orthodox Jewish sex therapist who helps women in the Orthodox community (they spoke mostly of her Haredi clientele) with intimacy issues. Besides the troubling word choices used by the author, like “tainted” to describe how Orthodox Jews consider a woman who’s in niddahand“semi-quarantine,” to describe the period where a husband and wife are separated, the article also gave the impression that many Orthodox Jews have repressed sex lives. While it was clear from the piece that sex between a husband and wife (in the proper time) is considered something positive, it spoke of the Orthodox approach to sex — across the gamut, from Modern Orthodox to Hasidic — in a way that made it seem as though it was very restrictive, when the basic halacha (Jewish law) on the subject is anything but, as long as we’re talking about a married couple.
So for my next few recipes, I’m wide open in April. What kind of food would people be interested in seeing? Breads? Breakfast foods? More veggies? What am I thinking of for passover? Lemme know in the comments or send me a question!
Also, tomorrow, I’ll be starting my series on Jewish Candy! That means a lot of things and I’m just gonna look into what sparks joy to me to talk about. I hope you enjoy the sweets on your dash when you see them ^>^
Finally, friendly reminder this all comes out of my pocket. Nobody is obligated to pay anything, but if you’d like to help me pay for some ingredients, my venmo is @ jewliejewlia
today (27 Jan) is International Holocaust Memorial Day, so I’ve compiled a list of charities you can donate to which help to preserve European Jewish culture as well as supporting living Jewish communities, especially in Eastern Europe, as a way to honour victims of the Holocaust both by preserving their memory and by supporting the European Jewish communities that the Nazis aimed to destroy.
-YIVO[Link]; founded in Vilne, Lithuania in 1925 and now based in New York, is one of the largest organisations for the preservation and education of Yiddish, as well as hosting the largest archive of Eastern European Jewish materials (23 million items) - including many which were rescued from Nazi book-burning by Jewish resistance. It is the ONLY prewar Jewish library and archive to have survived the Holocaust.
-World Jewish Relief[Link], formed during the Holocaust by the UK Jewish community to aid the evacuation of German Jews. The majority of their modern day work focuses on aiding vulnerable Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. They also provide aid to refugees, disabled and elderly people, and respond to international disasters across the world.
-The Yiddish Book Centre[Link] hosts an online archive of hundreds of digitised Yiddish books (many with translations), as well as a video oral history archive with 1000+ Jewish people of all ages and backgrounds telling their own stories, many in Yiddish (with subtitles). They also train new Yiddish translators and run lectures, education programs, film screenings, music festivals, and the world’s first Yiddish museum.
-The Together Plan[Link] supports post-Soviet Jewish communities, especially in Belarus due to the current instability there. As well as supporting Jewish communities with aid, education, and community building; they also record and translate Holocaust testimonies, preserve Jewish graveyards, and run education on Jewish Belarus.
-The European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative[Link] works to preserve and restore Jewish cemeteries, particularly in countries whose Jewish populations were decimated by the Holocaust, which left cemeteries to be vandalised and fall into decay. This is an important act in honouring the dignity of the dead, as well as witnessing and preserving the presence of lost European Jewish life.
If you have no money to spare, consider spending some time browsing the testimony and history hosted on YIVO and the Yiddish Book Centre as an act of memorial instead.
Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown on Sunday, September 29th and lasts through sundown Tuesday, October 1st.
Yom Kippur begins at sundown on Tuesday, October 8th and lasts until Wednesday night, October 9th.
During these days, please be thoughtful of those who observe them by not scheduling meetings, conference calls, or deadlines. For teachers, please do not schedule tests, presentations, or other mandatory activities. And remember that many of us host family and/or other guests for these holidays.
For those who celebrate Christmas, imagine if everyone wanted something from you between the mornings of December 24th and December 26th while you had multiple things cooking, preparations to be in services, and family and friends coming over.
Be thoughtful, kind, and inclusive.
And greetings: “Happy New Year” is appropriate to say on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. “Have an easy fast” is appropriate to say on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement when Jews traditionally fast for 25 hours.
“At that point you should just go outside and build a kosher hut”
also
art becomes life I guess
I’msobbing this is a perfect addition
We knew this couple from our schul back in the day who had an issue with birds continually flying into their french window, so upon advice from an animal control expert they lined the outside of the window with foil as a measure to ward off the birds.
They happened to do this right before Pesach and their neighbours asked them if this was some kind of Passover tradition. At the time they were like “Huh? OMG goyim have such weird ideas about Jews!” but after seeing this, I’m now in the opinion that the neighbours were right.
I am not jewish so my presence is not relevant. However i am high. And i genuinely cant tell if this makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE WHATEVER because i am high or because im not jewish. Or are jewish holidays just…. Like that.
Jewish people: this post
Me, a simple non jew who happens to be high as balls, sobbing: what the fuck does this mean
Yo@transenbyhollis that is an extremely fair question, high or not.
For you and the rest of the peanut gallery, the joke here is honestly…. just kind of something you had to have lived through to really get?
So you may be aware that many Jews (in particular, religious Jews, but some secular Jews also) keep the dietary laws known as kashrut. The really, really basic meaning of this is that we only eat meat from certain animals that has been slaughtered in a certain way, and we separate meat and dairy. How people observe this in practice varies a lot. If you follow the strict traditional rules, you have separate dishes, cookware, and ideally appliances for meat and dairy. However, there is a whole continuum of practices that are more lenient.
In any event, for eight days a year, during the holiday of Pesach (Passover), those who keep kosher year-round (and even some who don’t) observe unique kashrut rules that involve removing all of the chametz (leavened grain products) from the household and one’s diet. If one holds by traditional observance, ridding one’s life of chametzin preparation for Pesach is a BIG deal, and includes a truly insane amount of cleaning and then the covering of surfaces that cannot be kashered.
It’s such an intensive process that once you’ve lived through it, it only makes sense to make jokes about it. Covering items that do not have and couldn’t even have food on them (see: the toilet paper) is hilariously over the top, but a good tension relief when you’re on your tenth hour of scrubbing your entire kitchen with a toothbrush to ensure that literally no cookie crumb has escaped.
GUESS WHAT TIME IT IS AGAIN
Sudden mental image of a dude just taking a power washer to his kitchen
when i was a small child i (christian-raised) understood: Passover and Easter are two holidays that are around the same time of year but different; Easter is the Christian holiday celebrating Jesus’s return from the dead; Passover involves a ban on chametz and can involve observers throwing a lot of chamitz away. Young me came to the knowledgable conclusion that Jesus = chametz
How dare you leave this in the tags:
[Screenshot ID: tags from @kindigo
#christians: so easter is coming up #jews: *busy cleaning for pesach* love that for you. SARAH CHECK ON TOP OF THE CABINETS. I DON’T CARE GET A STOOL. #christians: …so have you heard about our lord and savior jesus christ #jews: YES EVEN THE TOILET PAPER. ALL OF IT. sorry im really busy. what’s so special about this guy? #christians: he is risen– #jews: *screaming* End ID]
[Image ID: “Friendship ended with MUDASIR / Now SALMAN is my best friend” meme edited to say “Friendship ended with BREAD / Now MATZO is my best friend.” Pictures of challah and rye bread are crossed out in the lower corners, and Salman’s head is covered by a piece of matzo. Happy Passover!]
This exact holiday combo post can only happen once every 33 years.
The reason it’s every 33 years is because it takes the Islamic calendar, which is Lunar based, 33 years to complete a ‘round’. The Hijra calendar as it’s more known as ‘reverses’ every 11 days, which is why Ramadhan/Eid changes every year. It will therefore, likely, fall on Easter/Passover at some point.
This is not a chanukiyah, the menorah used on Hanukkah (those have nine branches, not seven) but the second I saw this I said “Oh, what up Judaism” and the Louvre confirmed it for me. Their focus is on the candelabra and the braided vegetation around it but I’m pretty sure that’s a shofar on the right of the inside the wreath, and possibly a lulav on the left? Either way, fun to see!
[ID: A piece of masonry carved with several objects – rosettes at the corners, a wreath of some kind of vegetation, and a seven-branch candelabra, consisting of six branches curving outward from a central stem, flanked by two sinuous shapes. The one on the right resembles a traditional shofar horn, and the one on the left appears to be a long rod of some kind with two small branches off the main.]
when someone is a christian they are not constantly asked their position on the holocaust the transatlantic slave trade the extermination of native americans or any of the thousands of atrocities committed by christians so why do muslims get asked about terrorism and jewish people about israel and are grouped in with specific bad people while christians are not required to explain themselves??
goyim and non muslims can and should reblog
[christians and all sectors of christianity that means you]
Not so friendly reminder that abortion bans violate Jewish women and Jewish families’ religious freedom.
Jewish law does not reconize a fetus as a fully autonomous person nor does it legally consider the fetus to be a full person deserving of protections equal those accorded to human beings by G-d.
The Talmud states that the fetus as part of its mother throughout the pregnancy, dependent fully on her for its life — merely an extension of the mother.
And one of our most important values is the principle of Pikuach Nefesh - the preservation of human life. If the life of a pregnant person is in danger, abortion is not only allowed but is treated as a right, and abortion is considered an act of self defense.
