71–80 of 165 posts
I've always been idly curious as to what happened in Israel (as in the geographic area) between, say, 35 A.D. and 1948. It seems, though, as if everybody who might have some insight there also has an agenda that makes any concrete information they might have to share indecipherable.
I've always been idly curious as to what happened in Israel (as in the geographic area) between, say, 35 A.D. and 1948. It seems, though, as if everybody who might have some insight there also has an agenda that makes any concrete information they might have to share indecipherable.
Mostly 1,400 years of Muslim rule besides a short period of Catholic rule during the crusades.
Wow amazing how the bound of religion and ethinicy can led people to survive thousands of years and still maintain an identity.
Indeed, this fact this makes me proud to be a Jew. (A happy Passover to all whom it may concern). As a young boy my father used to take me to the Pergamon museum in Berlin - one major exhibit is the Babylonian street of processions (it dates to the neo-Babylonian empire) He used to say - here you see our heritage, we were around the show when Berlin (and all the other great capitals of the world) were still a swamp.
The Parthenon is only a century younger, and a much more architecturally impressive structure. Yet if a Greek or other ethnic European made a similar remark about the superiority of their heritage on the basis of it, they'd be accused of racism.
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Indeed, this fact this makes me proud to be a Jew. (A happy Passover to all whom it may concern). As a young boy my father used to take me to the Pergamon museum in Berlin - one major exhibit is the Babylonian street of processions (it dates to the neo-Babylonian empire) He used to say - here you see our heritage, we were around the show when Berlin (and all the other great capitals of the world) were still a swamp.
I was born Jewish and was pretty religious for most of my life, but even when I was religious I never understood why we should be proud of this, or why this is a good thing in and of itself. I would be really interested if you could explain more your way of thinking about it, because to me when my father explains that we should be proud of having the same meal our ancestors did Xthousand years ago I don't feel impres…
I was also raised religious (Hareidi) and am now entirely secular, by most counts. And I've spent many hours trying to argue that it's ridiculous to take pride in the fact that some arbitrary tradition lasted for a few thousand years. So a bunch of people did this or that ritual for thousands of years...sucks for them! Why should I? (Never mind that the tradition may have evolved/morphed to the point that Talmud-era Jews would barely recognize it, let alone second temple Jews or earlier.)
Moreover, if I've already rejected the notion that the Torah is the word of God, why would I consider myself Jewish? How does being born to one woman versus another determine my identity and fate? If I don't believe, why am I "in the club" at all? Because the believers say that I don't get to choose my own identity? Shouldn't I be able to just laugh that off?
I went through a phase in which I refused to identify as Jewish, but it didn't stick. There is too much of my upbringing that I _do_ connect with, or remember positively, and feel good about. So I can't quite shake the identity. And lord knows I've tried.
Instead, as the sun sets on Tel Aviv for the last day of Passover, I'm writing a comment on HN and enjoying the challah I just took out of the oven. Let me check...yeah, it took more than 18 minutes to prepare. But what can I say? I'm Jewish, and what kind of Jew celebrates a holiday without challah? Not this one.
I think the point here is that identity, belonging, nostalgia, and a sense of connection to a larger community - not just a generation alive today, but a chain of generations - can be a powerful emotional driver for people. Simply put, the idea that "our ancestors" did this or that and the tradition and identity lives gives many otherwise rational people a feeling of belonging.
And while there's no shame in choosing to forge your own way, independent of the social environment into which you were born, it's no great honor either. It just is. Some people feel imprisoned by the narrative, some empowered, and some just don't care. And some - I suspect more than might meet the eye - are forever caught between a prison of arbitrary rules and the discomfort of floating listlessly through a strange and uncaring secular society.[0]
So if you managed to leave the baggage behind, all the power to you. For others, the baggage is inescapable. And for yet others, the baggage isn't baggage at all, but a source of positive emotion.
[0] I can't remember the exact page, but somewhere in Chapter 9 of Brachot the Talmud briefly addresses this conundrum. Search for "אוי לי מיצרי אוי לי מיוצרי". Hope I got that right...it's been many years.
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I don't see any condescension (it doesn't diminish the present greatness of the great capitals at all), it is a factual observation (also you might need a sense of humour to see the irony on the part of what used to be a persecuted minority, after all - and I used to be in east Berlin before the frigging wall came down)
Could be. What I do know is that I have Greek friends who express the same feeling and they weren't a persecuted minority. There's a certain hubris about nationalities with a rich past. It's not necessarily bad, but it's still hubris :)
Saki, The Jesting of Arlingthon Stringham
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I was born Jewish and was pretty religious for most of my life, but even when I was religious I never understood why we should be proud of this, or why this is a good thing in and of itself. I would be really interested if you could explain more your way of thinking about it, because to me when my father explains that we should be proud of having the same meal our ancestors did Xthousand years ago I don't feel impres…
Its a personal thing, I am not in a position to persuade anybody. I think that our present is explained by the context of the past, and that you can't understand the present without looking at the past. Now the past is a complex thing that can't be reduced to some simple formula, I still believe that you can still learn out of it, because human nature didn't change to much throughout the ages. Our reality may be quit…
This is dangerous logic, because you're not comparing it to anything. For instance one argument I've seen for the existence of a god was the fact that many constants and other seemingly 'magic numbers' of our universe are set just as is required to maintain life as we know it. The problem there is that assuming this is true, it's still meaningless since the only way we could ever come to observe this fact was if it was true. This observation is known as the anthropic principle [1].
Basically considering the merit or probability of something happening when you would be unable to observe it not happening is impossible. You could say you're comparing it against the failure of other groups, but this is probably somewhat disingenuous as I think it's reasonable to hypothesize that the oldest persistent ethnic group is likely some group within Africa neither you or I have ever heard of, and you'd probably be unlikely to praise their longevity and persistence in and of itself, even if it too was likely ripe with strife throughout time.
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>I really just can't understand this frame of thinking that says Judaism is good because it's been going on for long. Im not a rabbi or in kiruv or anything, so take this with a grain of salt...but I would point to Jordan Petersons position about the longevity and survival of the bible stories and his response to atheists around it all sounding made up. There is a reason these stories survived through the ages. There…
This is great. I’ve dismissed my Jewish heritage and the teachings of religious texts, but this perspective gives me pause. Maybe I’ve been hasty in my assessment that religion doesn’t offer me anything for making a better future.
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I was born Jewish and was pretty religious for most of my life, but even when I was religious I never understood why we should be proud of this, or why this is a good thing in and of itself. I would be really interested if you could explain more your way of thinking about it, because to me when my father explains that we should be proud of having the same meal our ancestors did Xthousand years ago I don't feel impres…
>I really just can't understand this frame of thinking that says Judaism is good because it's been going on for long. Im not a rabbi or in kiruv or anything, so take this with a grain of salt...but I would point to Jordan Petersons position about the longevity and survival of the bible stories and his response to atheists around it all sounding made up. There is a reason these stories survived through the ages. There…
>From a purely pragmatic standpoint, the very fact that we are finite beings in a world that will survive our existence means that our life will face tragedy...and the best way to cope with a tragic existence is to find meaning in life and in our actions.
Agreed.
> Considering you grew up religious, I am assuming you had a modern Yeshiva education...like many others, it sounds like they failed to show you the pragmatic wisdom in yiddishkeit and instead left you feeling unconnected with your brilliant history.
This is condescending, in my opinion. You're presuming to know why they don't accept the religious narrative. It's great that it speaks to you, but it doesn't speak to them and it doesn't have to. I might be reading too much into this, but it seems you're invoking the common meme that "if you would only have had the wonderful opportunities to learn in this yeshiva or that one, or to appreciate the 'true beauty' of this stream or another of Judaism, you'd agree with my point of view." Maybe, maybe not. Maybe GP had a superior education than you did, and if YOU would have had the education GP had, you'd reject religion too?
> I would encourage you to try to pass on the parts that you did connect with and the pragmatic wisdom in much of the torah and halacha to atleast give your children the chance to make their own decisions.
Maybe the opposite is true? Maybe the only way to give children a fair choice is to NOT indoctrinate them with ideas they didn't choose, and instead give them a blank slate from which to start?
No matter what you do for your children, you're making decisions for them. Raise them religious, you're exposing them to X instead of Y. Raise them secular, you're choosing Y instead of X. There's no way to give them everything, you have to make choices for them.