#tanakh

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comicgeekscomicgeek:

relatablemormonmoments:

urlocalllama:

if I could ask God anything and get the real, genuine answer, I’d ask him why He commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. He knew He was going to stop him. He knew that He’d never truly ask him to do it. He knew that if he went through with it then His promise would be frustrated.

The thing is… the story has led parents to think it’s okay to sacrifice their children, metaphorically and sometimes literally, for a false sense of moral superiority. How many LGBT+ children have been sacrificed in the supposed name of Christianity? How many autistic children? How many orphaned children? How many abused children?

Maybe it was the right lesson for Abraham, especially about how it paralleled Christ’s atonement. But it’s not a story that has translated well into modern times.

do you want the Jewish answer? It was to challenge him to think critically about commandments from g-d (and translating to religion as an institution, rulings from religious leaders and scripture), and it’s a challenge he failed. He was supposed to, theoretically, fight g-d and say “no, by no means am I going to do this. I don’t care that you created everything, that is my child and my world, and I’m not going to do it just because you said so.”

Instead, Abraham royally screws up, traumatises his son, and in doing so, loses his son, loses g-d’s will and favor, and in the Tanakh we never really hear from Abraham again after this point, because he failed.

It’s a story about someone blindly following in faith, and losing the most important things to them because they never stopped to think “Wait, did I hear this right? And if I did hear this right, am I so sure that this is something I want to follow?”

Isaac was Abraham’s only son at the time, and the child he had fought so hard to have. Him following an order blindly without thinking of the consequences is not supposed to be a good thing (It just kind of benefits the feudal society that eventually embraced Christianity, which is why the understanding was changed in Christian worldviews.)

I wish I could say I was surprised at the totally different meanings being derived here…

I am growing very, very tired of hearing that this is The Jewish Answer to this particular question. Because there is no The Jewish Answer to anything.

Jews have been discussing the Tanakh for as long as we have existed, and if you have ever encountered a difficulty within that vast and rambling text I guarantee you we have discussed it, interrogated it, weighed it, and absolutely not resolved it definitively. The idea that Abraham was supposed to refuse or question God’s order to sacrifice Isaac, and that he actually failed the test, is ONE (1) of VERY MANY Jewish takes on the story.

And it’s one that I personally can’t make ring true, because God tells Abraham he did right and will be rewarded for it. And what is the point of a test if you tell someone they passed when they failed? If Abraham has lost God’s favor, why does God tell him the exact opposite of that?

(Does that mean this interpretation is wrong? Of course not. Just that it doesn’t work for me. I’m sure I’m not the first to raise that particular difficulty, and I won’t be the last, and difficulties aren’t disqualifying.)

The fact that any parents anywhere think this story means they should sacrifice their children is, of course, a monstrous misreading – as is (in Jewish thought, generally, at least) the notion that the Binding of Isaac foreshadows the Crucifixion. The former assumes that God’s exceedingly specific commandment to Abraham is in any way intended as a general instruction to future parents; furthermore, both of these misreadings lose sight of the crucial climactic moment of the story, in which the child-sacrifice is prevented, because it is not something that God wants anyone, ever, under any circumstances, to actually do.

But I don’t think that necessarily means Abraham was supposed to argue, or refuse. I think Abraham was asked to do it specifically because he knew it wasn’t what God really wanted, and maybe the point of it was to see if his loyalty to this God of his was actually contingent on the fact that unlike most of the other religions around at the time, this one wouldn’t demand that he sacrifice a child. So is he really in this because he thinks it’s right, or because it’s easier for him? Maybe that’s what’s being tested here – and maybe (as has been suggested elsewhere) it’s not that God wants to find that out, it’s that God wants to give Abraham the chance to demonstrate it for his own self-awareness.

Or maybe it’s not that at all, because there isn’t just one Jewish answer.

I can recognize in that last fragment the text of the Bircat Kohanim, the priests’ blessing toI can recognize in that last fragment the text of the Bircat Kohanim, the priests’ blessing toI can recognize in that last fragment the text of the Bircat Kohanim, the priests’ blessing toI can recognize in that last fragment the text of the Bircat Kohanim, the priests’ blessing toI can recognize in that last fragment the text of the Bircat Kohanim, the priests’ blessing to

I can recognize in that last fragment the text of the Bircat Kohanim, the priests’ blessing to the congregation, which is currently part of the prayer liturgy and has also become part of a traditional sabbath blessing from parents to children.

In rough translation:

May [God] bless you and guard you; may [God] shine [God’s] face upon you, and favor you; may [God] lift up [God’s] face upon you, and give you peace.


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#muslim    #judaims    #plural    #royal we    #majesty    #hashem    #tanakh    

bprinny:

funkylittlegoblin:

kisstheshow:

careful-crow:

thewitchway:

nakedinasnowsuit:

santmagdalene:

The first funny bitch was Cain, who straight up lied to God after killing his brother.

God: where’s Abel?

Cain: fuck if I know??? I’m not in charge of him

It is TRAGIC that you can’t read this in the original Hebrew.

God:  Where’s the Sheepkeeper?

Cain: Do I LOOK like a Brotherkeeper? 

God: hey where’s Abel???

Cain:

He killed his yonger brother in cold blood because he was jealous of him. There is in no way anything funny about this. No hesitation just poped a rock over his turned head, droped his body over the edged and tried to lie to god about what he did. FUCK YALL CRAZIES!!!

oh are those the receipts, Cain is problematic now?

Cainceled 

Bwahahaha

paraparathecow:

magnetothemagnificent:

Thinking about how trans the story of Yosef is….

Yosef was the son Rachel and Yaakov always wanted. He is described as feminine- adorning his hair, painting his face. His brothers see him as different, they hate him. He’s banished from his home and left to figure himself out in a foreign country. When his brothers see him again, they don’t recognize him.

They don’t recognize him because he has transformed into who he was meant to be.

Now, I don’t know how Yosef would have identified if he were alive today.

Midrash describes Yosef’s soul as having been switched with his sister Dina’s.

Whether he was gay, bi, intersex, or trans is something we’ll never know.

But his story resonates so deeply with me, just another Jewish person who made a huge transformation and became unrecognizable.

Didn’t his brothers hate him because of the sheer arrogance in which he described his dreams? (And the fact that he was treated better than all his siblings by his parents)

His brothers hated him because he was different. Midrash tells us that it was because Yosef was effeminate, and would do his hair and colour his lips “like the women do”. There was also an element of jealousy to his brothers’ treatment of him, but it’s important not to discount the element of “distrust of the different.”

A d’var torah (plural divrei torah, literally “word(s) of Torah”) - is a kind of speech or essay delivered by Jews, for Jews. The speech usually refers to the Torah parsha of the week. I’ve shared a couple of my divrei torah here on this blog, including ones about Tamar in parsha Vayeshev and about Balaam in parsha Balak.

For me, divrei torah are a lot of fun to write. I think of it as a “holy book report.” But I know not everyone thinks of a book report as “fun.” Recently, some people have asked me how I write them, how I know what to say and make it interesting. So today I am sharing my thought process for writing a d’var torah.

Here are my four “steps” to writing a good d’var!

1. Explain the Text

This is the “book report” part. Often, a d’var is delivered right after the Torah is read aloud to the congregation, but this doesn’t mean that everyone knows what this week’s parsha is about. It can be difficult to follow along, both in Hebrew and in English. Even if you can follow along, sometimes it’s just not very clear what’s going on, especially once you get out of the stories in Genesis and Exodus that we love to tell our kids and get into the laws of Leviticus. A parsha needs some explanation, just to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Now, I’m not telling you to talk about EVERYTHING that happens in the parsha.  Each parsha contains a LOT. Bereshit, the first chapter of Genesis, is not just those first seven days - it also includes Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, a lot of family trees, and the beginning of the story of Noah! You could write a dozen essays on any one of these pieces of Torah, but remember, this is a ten-minute d’var torah, not a thesis paper. Vayeshev has one hundred and twelve verses in it, but for my d’var, I just talked about those thirty verses that Tamar is in, and I had plenty to say!

Read the parsha, find something that strikes you as particularly interesting, and share those details with your congregation in your d’var torah. But what, you may ask, makes a part of the Torah particularly interesting? That leads me to the second step…

2. Connect to Today

This is really the whole point of a d’var - connecting the ancient texts to today. Why does this matter? Why do we read the Torah today, and what can we learn from it? How can the text give us a new perspective on our lives - or, how can our lives give us new perspective on the text?

Sometimes the answer is obvious, and sometimes not. It’s easy to draw connections between Esau and Jacob’s rivalry and your own sibling squabbles, less so to draw connections to the laws of kashrut if you yourself do not keep kosher. Fortunately, you’re not alone here. You can look up divrei torah written by rabbis throughout the years and quote them (with proper citation!) in your talk. Feel free to share contradicting opinions - “Rabbi X said this, but Rabbi Y said that.” As the saying goes, “two Jews, three opinions.” We love critical thinking and debate!

But here’s the thing - you don’t NEED to tell your congregation what other people think about this parsha. You can say what YOU think about it. What does this parsha remind you of in YOUR life? When I wrote about parsha Balak, I connected Balaam’s treatment of the donkey to behavior I’d seen from theme park guests at work, and drew from that a lesson about not assuming that people who disobey you have malicious intent. When I wrote about parsha Vayeshev, I talked about the mind-blowing impact that Tamar’s story had had on me as a thirteen-year-old, showing me that our culture has much more potential for feminist liberation than I had previously believed.

Which brings me to the next step…

3. Be Vulnerable

When you write a d’var torah, you are a teacher. In this moment, you are the expert on the text, like a professor giving a lecture. But think about the connotations we have for the word “lecture.” A teacher giving you a lecture is a neutral thing, but a lecture can also be a parent scolding you. I don’t see a d’var as the time to scold. If your audience gets defensive, then they will disengage with you and won’t learn from you.

Yes, connect the Torah to the real world, and share what we can learn from it today. But be sure to include yourself in that “we”! If you say, “Here is what YOU should learn from the Torah,” people might get defensive. If you say, “Here is what I’VE learned from the Torah,” people will sympathize with you and learn with you. When I talked about Tamar, I could have used her example to critique the status quo; instead I used it as an opportunity to talk about how I had been wrong in the past and how grateful I was to be a part of this culture. When you are vulnerable, you become memorable and inspirational.

4. Find the Humor

This is something I’ve learned in guest service: if you can get people to laugh, then they’re more likely to listen and do what you say. It’s common speechwriting advice, too, to use humor to connect with your audience. I began my Tamar parsha with a slightly self-deprecating joke about musical theatre, and my bat mitzvah parsha for Bechukotai - which I have not yet worked up the courage to share here - was a completely unintentional stand-up comedy routine. (Honestly, at the time, I had no idea why everyone was laughing. Now I get it, and I cringe.)

Please note that I am NOT telling you to insert humor to non-humorous situations. If you’re talking about the plague of the firstborns in Exodus, that is NOT the time for dead baby jokes. What I’m saying is, when you find humor in the Torah, do not shy away from it. Don’t get so caught up with the idea that this is a holy text you must respect, or that you have the responsibility of teaching your community on your shoulders, that you write something completely dry and disengaged. The d’var that has the congregation zoning out and dozing off is, frankly, not a good d’var. The d’var that feels like an amiable human conversation is one that people will remember.

Explain the text, connect it to today, be vulnerable, and find the humor - and, ta-da! You have a d’var torah! Read it aloud to yourself before anyone else; you’ll find that things sound different when you say them with your voice than when you read it silently. Then go and teach!

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