Religious links

[erudito]

Test your religious knowledge.

About the Druze.

Review of a book on the lost Christianities of the Middle East.

Row between the religious and secular in Israel and whether government computers can work on the Sabbath.

Vatican condemns the work of the latest winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine.

Being ironic about a notable anti-gay preacher

Comments

Re: Not as such

[catsidhe]

It stops at every floor, so that you can get in and get out without having to push any buttons.

The whole concept of ‘not working during the sabbath’ is actually a complicated one. For a start, there are theoretically people whose jobs are important enough to be exempted. Then there are mechanical compensations, such as the Sabbath Elevator, or pedestrian crossings which go off automatically every few minutes, for the same reason. (There are apparently a few in my region, but I wouldn't know directly)

Then there is the Shabbas Goy: a non-Jew who is employed on Sabbath specifically to do things like press buttons and open doors and such like. Mosaic Law doesn't apply to goyim, after all.

And, as Mim points out, if you want to know how effective the work prohibition on Sabbath really is, ask a Jewish housewife. She's not allowed to use the oven, but she's still expected to keep the family fed. The work ‘prohibition’ just makes it harder for her.

The thing about Judaism is, it is amazingly complicated. For a start, there's the division between the Secular and Religious Jews. Mim and her family see themselves as basically secular. They're Jewish, but it's a statement of ancestry and identity more than of religious belief.

Then within the Religious, you have the Liberals and the Orthodox. Who by-and-large don't like each other. The Orthodox see the Liberals as barely Jewish at all (and don't start them on the Secular), and the Liberals see the Orthodox as important keepers of tradition, but at the same time fossilised and archaic. Within the Secular you'll have people who go to Schul, but don't mind oysters, through to people who keep Kosher as far as is possible, but don't follow all the other stuff about peyatzim or funny hats.

The Orthodox is another ‘broad church’, ranging from people who feel comfortable being who they are, and don't want to impose it on anyone else, through to the sort of people who join Shas. If the argument about Government Servers is coming from anywhere, it's the extreme end of Shas (or those who see Shas as too Liberal). These are the people who stone cars driving through Jerusalem on Saturday. And while Shas was presented in that article as seeking a moderate line, be in no mistake that when it comes to the crunch, religious fundamentalism will win. Likud, on the other hand, are politically conservatively Jewish. “What about requests from Muslim or Christian citizens? Mr Eitan has yet to offer an answer.” I submit that this is the point: If you're a proper Jew you wouldn't be doing this sort of thing on Shabbas, and, really, who cares what the goyim do?

People like the Lebovitchers are off to one side a bit. They're considered by other Jews, of all descriptions, to be more than a little cultish and touched. (Lovely people for the most part, but still, nod and smile and back away slowly...)

Most Orthodox Jews usually accept sabbath elevators and Shabbas Goyim as acceptable loopholes. I suspect the sort of people who are getting worked up at servers being left to run on Saturday are the sort of people who think that Israel as a Jewish state precludes anyone else living there at all. Child of Moses (by my standards) or GTFO. In a religious sense, this includes Shas, and those more extreme. In a political sense, this includes Likud, and Yisrael Beiteinu (the extreme reactionary Settler's Party), and others.

Re: Not as such

[hannahsarah]

Wow, good writeup!

There's a running joke about Chabad. "Lubavitch is a lovely religion. Its' the next best thing to Judaism!" Chabadnicks don't appreciate Yeshivish humor sometimes. ;-)