Understanding Judaism

[bananabrain]

He said "Dreams are private myths. Myths are public dreams." And in that he meant they could both be understood using similar tools.

yeah, that's what i thought he said. i don't see why the second necessarily follows from the first, though, especially if the dream tools aren't all that good. freud's ones certainly leave a lot to be desired given his virtually complete ignorance of judaism (at least the bits of it outside vienna).

I was thinking of the hasidei ashkenaz. It's certainly not an acceptable approach but it has existed.

i suppose that's really my point, that it's not really an acceptable approach. mind you, even the h-as were obliged to marry and to give onah to their wives.

And yes, I know, according to the traditional perspective I have no authority to tweak.

what i keep saying to people is if they're not involved in the traditional perspective they can't hope to affect it. all this fecking nonsense over denominations is totally injurious to klal yisrael and that's why we need to get on with each other better. incidentally, if you live near boston, you may be able to get down to new york for the limmud conference, which i cannot recommend enough. see ( http://www.limmudny.org/ ) i have been going to the UK conferences for 12 years and their philosophy is one of the most positive contributions to modern judaism from the grass-roots up. we need to own this stuff for ourselves!

But E-l Sh-a-Dai is still masculine.

according to someone i consider very knowledgeable on the subject, the use of the male gender in biblical hebrew is common for non-gender items. basically, i feel quite strongly that this is our hang-up about gender (and the implications of gendered language) and that it is for us to get over it and not discriminate, rather than blaming it on G!D's drafting. i just think there are more important issues we should be dealing with.

read of someone calling G!D Noga when trying to avoid concepts of gender.

personally, i'd consider that kabbalistically problematic.

It seems like they were written with each statement as a heading for the explanation. Were they published separately first?

to be honest, dauer, i'm not absolutely positive and certainly couldn't cite my sources; that's just my understanding and what i learned - i just can't remember where.

Can you explain? I think you were speaking to what I said about evil being an integral part of the divine plan that is beneficial for our growth and is good along with the rest of creation.

well, essentially evil is mostly a matter of context, or misapplied intent - there is no such thing as intrinsic evil in and of itself in real terms, only in applied.

You said that what happens because of mental illness should not be considered "evil." But if a person who is mentally ill shouts the unspoken name of God, marries a prostitute, and maybe a fish, and a torah, and proclaims themself the messiah, encouraging people to this day to follow their path, surely this is evil.

well, surely the greater source of evil is the acts of the people that follow him and, in the case of nathan of gaza, he's the chief offender in this respect. i think we can all agree that evil can arise from a desperate desire to do good under many circumstances.

If it is because of a genetic condition, or even due to experiences in early childhood, it is still from G!D, either biologically or part of a divine plan

look, by definition everything is from G!D, so this actually becomes a question of our approach to theodicy. mystically speaking there may be many different reasons why something happens; the important thing being that at some point a tiqqun may be necessary, or a tiqqun may go wrong. this should really be a separate thread, i think.

b'shalom

bananabrain

 

[dauer]

yeah, that's what i thought he said. i don't see why the second necessarily follows from the first, though, especially if the dream tools aren't all that good. freud's ones certainly leave a lot to be desired given his virtually complete ignorance of judaism (at least the bits of it outside vienna).

He doesn't use the same models as Freud or Jung, but creates a new language of archetypes for myths based on their work, the work of others, and his own experiences. So for instance on the hero's journey he'll first take a general idea and then break it into smaller parts of it that may or may not appear like this -- which he fully explains in the book:

I. Departure
1.The Call of Adventure
2. Refusal of the Call
3. Supernatural Aid
4.Crossing the first threshold
5. The belly of the whale

II. Initiation
1.The road of trials
2.The meeting with the Goddess
3. Woman as the Temptress
4. Atonement with the Father
5. Apotheosis
6. The ultimate boon

III. Return
1. Refusal of the return
2. The magic flight
3. Rescue from without
4. The crossing of the return threshold
5. Master of the Two Worlds
6. Freedom to live

And that's how he maps the general path of the hero, in this book also including the cosmogonic cycle which he breaks down (and goes further into under chapters within these headings) emanations, the virgin birth, transformation of the hero, and dissolutions. Then he includes an epilogue on myth and society. But I guess you're referring to things like "woman as temptress."

what i keep saying to people is if they're not involved in the traditional perspective they can't hope to affect it.

I'm not trying to affect the traditional perspective, and I am interested in the traditional perspective. I value all of the approaches to Judaism even if I disagree with them from time to time. Honestly, I don't think the traditional perspective can be affected except for those Jews who adopt the psycho-halakhic approach, and at that point they've left the traditional path. It just seems like everyone's building more fences, except for some of the MO.

all this fecking nonsense over denominations is totally injurious to klal yisrael and that's why we need to get on with each other better.

I disagree with you if you are saying that having denominations is injurious, but I do agree with you that the relationships between these movements is a problem and is injurious to klal yisrael. I completely support programs like the one you've mentioned but there will always be those to the right and to the left who will not budge. I went to an interdenom HS for a year and there were MO, Conservative, Reform, Recon, UTJ. It was a wonderful atmosphere to see everyone coming together like that. I wish there were more places that went in that direction. What is injurious to klal yisrael is letting our differences separate us.

according to someone i consider very knowledgeable on the subject, the use of the male gender in biblical hebrew is common for non-gender items. basically, i feel quite strongly that this is our hang-up about gender (and the implications of gendered language) and that it is for us to get over it and not discriminate, rather than blaming it on G!D's drafting. i just think there are more important issues we should be dealing with.

It's not as if it's an issue for me, but it's not something I restrict myself about either.

personally, i'd consider that kabbalistically problematic.

Yeah. It wasn't exactly a source that would care too much.

well, essentially evil is mostly a matter of context, or misapplied intent - there is no such thing as intrinsic evil in and of itself in real terms, only in applied.

I agree. But the applied action of Shabbetai was evil.

well, surely the greater source of evil is the acts of the people that follow him and, in the case of nathan of gaza, he's the chief offender in this respect. i think we can all agree that evil can arise from a desperate desire to do good under many circumstances.

Sure, but it's still evil.


Dauer

 

[bananabrain]

But I guess you're referring to things like "woman as temptress."

dunno! i think i'd have to read it, really.

It just seems like everyone's building more fences, except for some of the MO.

i agree. one of my bugbears is what i call "kashrut-led spirituality", which is basically being more and more frum about stupider and stupider things. i mean, kosher-le-pesach bog roll, for feck's sake. my teacher is a great one for complaining that the standards of the chazon ish in weights and measures (which, when he was at yeshiva, were considered a little on the over-the-top side for those who really wanted to be stringent) are little-by-little being adopted as norms for those who are merely "normal". all this when people seem unable to be even reasonable, let alone lifnei min'shurat ha'din about little things like, oh, i don't know, ethics, respect and presumption of good intentions. it is ridiculous when people like jonathan sacks and yitz greenberg are subject to accusations of heresy from the yeshiva world when they don't live or work in it.

I disagree with you if you are saying that having denominations is injurious, but I do agree with you that the relationships between these movements is a problem and is injurious to klal yisrael.

hmph. i accept the reality that they exist, but i consider their existence to be an unfortunate accident of history, which is due to a number of things, particularly the so-called enlightenment. as a result it puts people in a difficult position if they have been brought up with propagandistic denominational positions - and nobody is exempt from this. i guess what i'm saying is not that denominations are inherently injurious, but that ours happen to be and seem universally set on justifying themselves by denigrating each other.

But the applied action of Shabbetai was evil.

yes, but those who followed him and acted on that increased that evil.

b'shalom

bananabrain

 

[simpletoremember]

Here is an excellent online Jewish resource: [Admin edit by I, Brian - link spam removed]

 

[dayaa]

hello/shalom
thanks for the general invitation to ask questions
i would like to ask some questions about jewish religion please
i tried to find information before but found inadequate sites
i tried going to a jewish forum and found some very interesting ideas but was also put off by the attitudes of some of the people there....maybe here will be more open as it is a comparative religion site, not a jewish site
1. can you please explain the difference between torah and talmud and which has the greater authority and why. the islam accuses the jews and christians of ignoring the clear and obvious and messing about with the more speculative sides of things.....is this referring to talmud? and how would you answer the accusation?

2. can you please explain the basic differences between orthodox/conservative/reform judaism

3.i read on the jewish forum quite blatantly that jews have superior souls yet in some of your comments above it seems that that might not necessarily be true. please explain why some say so and some not.

4.i also read that a convert to judaism gets a new soul. please explain

5. the 7 noahide laws seem interesting but i also read that these are divided into many smaller sections, one condition being that noahides accept the superiority of jews. that seems a bit strange as noah came first. it also seems to suggest that noahides are second class citizens. please explain

6. please explain why God would want sacrifices.

7. please explain why God would want circumcision.
thankyou

 

[bananabrain]

wow, dayaa, you're not asking much.

you should be able to find the answers to much of this on http://www.jewfaq.org which is a reliable and open-minded site. have a read there and then come back and ask some more specific questions.

re your question 3, this is a quite involved question which requires some knowledge of the various sects and denominations as well as different opinions on the nature of the soul. suffice it to say that it's complicated and advanced and by no means agreed upon by all.

b'shalom

bananabrain

 

[dayaa]

hello/shalom
thank you for the site. now i know where to look i will go and try to understand some basics first then come back with questions. sorry if my questions were a bit "uneducated"....but that's exactly what i am . i know very little about judaism except from the "wrong" perspectives and i am trying to broaden my outlook. it's very difficult to know where to start. thanks for pointing me in the right direction