Movie Pitch: Jewish Vampires

[tongodeon]

I've always admired the Jewish tradition, welcoming discussion and discussions of the discussions involving lots of complicated rules and issues. Simultaneously pragmatic and formally legalistic, sometimes perversely so. For example you're allowed to carry something outside your house, unless it's on the Sabbath, unless you're inside an Eruv,

Comments

[mister_borogove]

The Eruvim are totally admirable because the Jewish god loves seeing his children trying to hack the rules -- imagine if your D&D rules lawyer was your favorite young nephew and you were the DM, and how you'd feel the first time he tried a clever interpretation of the rules to keep his character alive.

[occlupanid]

in conclusion, go vampires.

[tongodeon]

I don't think that's admirable at all

I never actually used the word "admirable" at all but to put a finer point on it the idea of the sabbath and what it's meant to allow (thanks, rememberance, familial togetherness, meditation) is admirable. And the rules generally reflect that and I call them pragmatic for that reason - you can't carry stuff outside the house because you shouldn't do work because that's a distraction from the important stuff that the sabbath is for. The rules end up getting a little complicated because life gets pretty complicated and I appreciate the pragmatic flexibility. You can have rememberance and honor your family and community outside as well as inside as long as you don't get too far away or go too crazy, and that's what the eruv is for.

[xiphias]

What you have to understand is that we Jews believe that these rules are objective, real rules of the universe. We believe that they're not simply rules of human interpretation, but are built into the structure of the universe in some fundamental way