The mainstream Judaism has focused mostly on codifying rules for all situations in life, which has evolved into a semi legalistic framework of rules and their loopholes. So many loopholes... Like temporarily selling your belongings 1 week per year to bypass Passover rules about Hametz, etc.
Also most Jewish laws don't come from God. Instead, they come from the confluence of two doctrines: first we develop fence laws to keep ourselves from accidentally violating the actual laws. But, once we have been doing something long enough, they become Minhag and given more or less the full force of law. Naturally, this leads to new fence laws being developed around them, and the cycle continues.
Frankly, almost no Jewish law comes from God, and he has no business telling us what to do.
Debating whether such rules spring from physics, 'God', or a mere abundance of caution is fun for some.
That sounds reasonable, but consider that the original texts give instructions that are quite specific, and leave the door open to all sorts of poor food habits.
Exodus 23:19 (and 34:26) -
"Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God.
Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk."
---
Deuteronomy 14:21 -
"Do not eat anything you find already dead. You may give it to the foreigner residing in any of your towns, and they may eat it, or you may sell it to any other foreigner. But you are a people holy to the Lord your God.
Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk."
I wonder why it seems to circumvent Hells Kitchen?
My conclusion was the eruv wasn't there (despite the green checkmark on the website), making this whole thing even more fun than people find it here! :)
I'll admit, I especially don't get this part:
> The series of practically invisible wires becomes a necessity that “benefits the most vulnerable people of the community.” He sees it not only as a way for communities to come together, but also as a way for the more affluent to give back. The eruv is funded entirely by the Jewish community, with a considerable portion of that support coming from wealthy philanthropists.
Giving back to your community, sure. Benefiting the most vulnerable people of the community seems a bit much though. I feel like there are other ways that money could be spent.
All in all though, there are nonprofit religious organizations who spend an unreasonable amount of money on things that don't matter (private jets), so I'm not at all complaining about something that helps that communal feeling like this.
it makes sense contextually.
if there is some holy manifest that urges people to do a thing even when they're old/invalid/bed-ridden/sick, and there are people that will devoutly follow this rule, then it stands to reason that those people will feel a burden eased when part of the manifest is accomplished automatically.
I suspect the author may have misunderstood what this is euphemistically referring to. I think the original source means women. A lot of routine elements of childcare fall within this restriction, and in conservative communities that would be the exclusive domain of women. Without the eruv women with young children would be confined to their home during this part of the week.
You say that like it is a bad thing
There is a related concept in Eastern Orthodoxy called oikonomia, or a relaxation of the laws. Roman Catholics or Episcopalians may know this as "dispensation". When the law becomes very complex and there is a concerted effort to get legalistic and eventually you end up with circumventions that are worthy of publishing news articles to the goyim, eventually you begin to think about dispensations or oikonomia from the leadership in order to relax the rules of Shabbat observance and the Day of Rest.
And undoubtedly that is the crux of whence originated Reform Judaism and Conservative Judaism.
Judaism is more akin to Islam than Christianity in the particular aspect that it is not unified and not organized under one particular visible head, like the Pope or a Patriarch. Not since the Destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70. During the Second Tempe Period there was definitely a unification of Jews and a singular doctrinal authority.
But in today's synagogue system with rabbis interpreting Torah and Talmud, it is quite federated and decentralized, and in New York in particular there are congregations following individual rebbes and having unique beliefs inside the walls of their synagogue, but also councils/conferences of Jew leaders who team up to build this Eruv Wall and make America pay for it.
Protestant Christians run the gamut from “it’s complicated” with the pope to “the pope is the literal devil”. Some denominations have no central authority at all, and qualifications for priesthood is determined entirely by the local community.
I do think it's a bad thing to confine women to their homes though. I'm in favor of whatever theological tools individual believers and bodies of believers decide to use to break from this historical norm.
Basically if you are an observant Jew then you are forbidden from doing work on Saturdays. There are some extremely specific rules about what "work" is. One kind of forbidden work is taking things outside of your house; the eruv symbolically turns most of the city into "home" so you can do things like, say, take your baby for a weekend stroll on a nice day or walk outside with a cane. It's more nuanced than this, there's a whole bunch of rules about what you can't do and about how big an eruv can be and what you have to do to make it valid.
(I am not Jewish so do not ask me for any further details on this.)
I'm not sure entirely how serious this argument was, but he wasn't entirely unobservant; he made a point of not playing in orchestra on Friday evenings (after dusk).
Operating a particle accelerator (ie actually pressing the buttons) would probably be a no-go, but if you set it up beforehand and it runs through the weekend without interaction then that would be fine.
There is also apparently a slightly more technologically minded sub-sect of Judaism which considers only electricity generators that actually burn things (coal, oil, gas, biomass, etc) to be "fire". Battery powered devices are therefore OK, as would be things purely powered by solar power (as the sun is technically not "on fire") nucear power or even hydroelectric power. For the vast majority of electricity grids though, at least a percentage of generation will be from fueled generators and so forbidden on shabat.
This is not a mainstream view though.
I would argue that even a non-believer who studies the sciences in pursuit or truth and appreciates the beauty they reveal is doing God's work.
Actually I dislike those with buttons. They send the message that cars passing and pedestrians stopping is the "default", and ensure that a lone pedestrian always has to stop, regardless of luck, while establishing the ritual that pedestrians need to "beg" for being allowed to cross. In my view, cars already have too many privileges in cities, it's not the end of the world if they have to stop at an empty crossing from time to time (something that pedestrians also have to do often).
The exception would be low-pedestrian-volume areas with lights and crossings reserved specifically for pedestrians.
This was cause for major debate in the founding days of Christianity. Jesus’ ministry as a Jewish rabbi often involved condemning the religious leaders of the time for focusing on minutiae of the law, particularly Sabbath law.
Matthew 23:1–7 — “Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples: ‘The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So practice and observe everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, burdensome loads and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.’”
Matthew 23:23–24 — “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You pay tithes of mint, dill, and cumin. But you have disregarded the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” [Referring to the pious practice of straining one’s drinks for bugs to avoid violating dietary law.]
Luke 14:1–6 — “One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. There in front of him was a man suffering from abnormal swelling of his body. Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, ‘Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?’ But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him on his way.
“Then he asked them, ‘If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?’ And they had nothing to say.”
Mark 2:23–28 — “One Sabbath Jesus was passing through the grainfields, and His disciples began to pick the heads of grain as they walked along. So the Pharisees said to Him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?’
“Jesus replied, ‘Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? During the high priesthood of Abiathar, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which was lawful only for the priests. And he gave some to his companions as well.’
“Then Jesus declared, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Therefore, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.’”
Mark 3:1–6 — “Another time Jesus went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, ‘Stand up in front of everyone.’
“Then Jesus asked them, ‘Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?’ But they remained silent.
“He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.”
And there are further examples, like John 5.
This drove hotel security nuts and one of the conference admins had to get involved because the hotels employees who were all Arabic did not accept his explanation. They were certain he was up to something shady.
He and his wife had brought extra food and invited the conference admin and myself to dinner in their room. I remember it as a very special night and I am still friends with them to this day.
1) Making fires is prohibited work. Activating an electric switch causes a spark, which is kind of like a fire.
2) We have a tradition of considering using electricity to be work.
3) This is stupid, not using electricity is more work. Just push the button.
4) This is stupid, but having a day when we aren't all on our phones is nice, so let's keep all of the silly rules to not lose that
So is walking on a carpet and removing your sweater and almost anything involving fabrics and motion.
Is it really a useful definition of "fire" and "spark"? Most people think of those as different things. Fire implies oxygen, you put out fires with heavy blankets or with nitrogen gas since time immemorial. Sparks, as in tiny plasma discharges, does not require oxygen and can not be put out the same way.
ie intentionality matters.
Forget about burning to death or falling down pitch-black stairs and breaking your neck, it is apparently more important that electrical circuits are not energized or a valve is not opened on a saturday!
Absolutely absurd.
I am indifferent to people stringing up wires to lie to themselves. They are not "invisible" and the poles they are on are an eye sore in my part of London and also attract negative attention (e.g. people put palestinian flags or stickers etc on them). But whatever.
What I do have an issue is that someone's religious beliefs are preventing basic fire safety protections for everyone else. We in London/UK are rightly getting a lot of fire protections retrofitted to older apartment blocks because of the Grenfell disaster [1] - this is not some hypothetical thing, its a real problem in older buildings and it disgusts me individuals can veto fundamental basic fire protection for everyone else in their building just because of their own personal beliefs, despite being totally willing to go along with this Eruv sleight-of-hand.
Fire does not respect religion.
There are widely accepted fairly common sense exceptions for saving lives. [1] That could maybe apply to an automatically activating fire sprinkler. Only someone well versed in the scriptures could say for certain. (And only they would be believed anyway.)
Even about the emergency lighting one can probably find a workaround. For example could it be wired so it is always on via a timer during shabbat?
The point with discussing these with a religious authority is manifold. They might better know how to mediate. In both directions! They might explain to the engineers what is and isn't a sticking point. Similarly they could explain if a given technique is permissible to the person who worries about them. Or alternatively they might have heard solutions others have employed in the past previously.
The solution is obvious: religion and beliefs should not be a factor in these sort of things. We in the UK are a secular society with strong separations between state and religion, so this sort of behaviour should be treated for what it is.
You might want to look up who's the Supreme Governor of the Church of England
This is literally bogus. Nothing in Judaism prevents automated systems! That's the entire point of "sabbath mode" in elevators for example, and it's perfectly normal and usual to set electrical things to work on a timer on the sabbath.
Whoever told you this was utterly wrong and ignorant. There is no rabbi who would have agreed with this, WITHOUT the "you can ignore mitzvot to not die" corollary that others point out.
A fire alarm is a perfectly normal part of a kosher home. Maybe reconsider how much you trust the person who said this to you.
I feel like I would expect Arabs to be the most likely to accept this? Abrahamic religion that also still practices all sorts of ritualistic stuff in a region with a historically high Jewish population?
Although I don't know if the Bondi and/or the St Ives eruvs involve their own physical wires? I thought it was deemed sufficient for the rabbis to just "declare" various sets of third-party power lines / phone lines as constituting the eruv, or am I mistaken?
I'd assume the Bondi one also, because I suspect it's not really valid unless continuous and monitored, per the article. Although I'm no expert.
> accusations of anti-semitism (whether warranted or not is a matter of opinion)
I live within the St Ives eruv. At least some of the opposition was unquestionably antisemitic — I recall receiving at least one antisemitic screed in our mailbox during the time of the council debate. (That one went something along the lines of ‘the Jews are trying to kick out all the non-Jews’ etc. etc., for two pages of fairly small text.)
For Christians and those raised in the Christian tradition, this is entirely foreign. The rules are not set out nearly as strictly for you, you have to interpret them much more broadly.
Generally, if you read their respective books, the old testament has a set of rules mixed in with a quasi-historical context, while the new testament is almost entirely in the form of parables.
Islam, by the way, goes back toward the Jewish legalistic idea.
Only the most extremist of Muslims, the Salafi, take the Jewish legalistic idea, majority of other traditions in Islam lean towards Tafsir that squarely leans on “spirit of the law” than strictly the word.
>the Salafi, take the Jewish legalistic idea
What is "the Jewish legalistic idea"? It's not a monolith. What makes a salafi a salafi has nothing to do with legalistic ideas.
>majority of other traditions in Islam lean towards Tafsir
This also doesn't make sense to me, as tafsir is exegesis of Quran. Salafis and all muslims care about tafsir.
The core differences between different groups of muslims, loosely in order of priority, is which sources to take from after the demise of Prophet Mohammed, and then how to interpret any sources (incl. Quran) (literally (salafis), logically (shia), etc.).
There are different tafsirs of Quran as well, and can have very stark differences. However loopholes are completely disallowed by all muslims.
I'd say it is quite familiar to Christianity. Canon Law mirrors the secular legal system, complete with its own lawyers, courts and so on. (Arguably, it's the other way around: secular Western law that mirrors Canon Law.)
See https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/105380/is-t...
The legal system and morality and all areas of any complexity require judgment and decision making.
It might satisfy a certain type of person to have explicit, highly detailed mechanistic rules for human conduct, with no exceptions. But even where that’s been tried, 50 years passes, and now someone has the job of interpreting how those rules apply to modern life.
> The legal system and morality and all areas of any complexity require judgment and decision making.
I don't think it requires much real judgement to say that a wire does not make a home and that whole area is not a single big home. This is not some finely balanced call that requires the greatest legal minds. Judges can and do strike or ignore definitions that pervert the meaning of a statute too far from the plain reading, and they're right to do so.
In areas of law - or of everyday life - that we take seriously, we would not tolerate such a twisted reading of a rule.
Even in modern law, courts can and do come up with some fairly peculiar readings at times. Particularly with old laws or the constitution itself which can, at times, be vague at best when applied in a modern context.
The rules that the Eruv is a loophole for do not even come from God. They come from the specific interpretation that has developed about those relatively vague laws.
There is an old "joke" in Judaism that God has no place in interpreting Jewish law. I put joke in quotes because the Oven of Akhnai is itself part of the Talmud and is generally read as establishing that exact principle.
This type of "trick" is foundational to both Judaism and every common law system.
Disagree. Courts bend and stretch the law but only up to a point, and the more twisted interpretations tend to get overruled. Precedent is respected but only up to a point. And when people do apply a trick, everyone acknowledges that it's a trick, that they're subverting the will of the original drafters of the law because they think they know better than them.
The "eruv" definition was established back when the biggest conceivable area that it might cover was that of a medieval village or ghetto, of maximum several hundred (small cramped) houses, i.e. let's say about the area of Vatican City, which is 0.49km2 (0.19 sq mi). Whereas the total area of Manhattan island is 59km2 (22.7 sq mi). So, yes, in my opinion, a Talmudic judge would consider the modern-day Manhattan eruv a gross perversion of the spirit of the law, and would update the definition accordingly. But no such judge exists in this era. So, yay, let's play "how ridiculously can we apply anachronistic archaic rules to the modern world" - apparently, ultra-orthodox Jews consider it such a fun game, that they let it rule their entire life!
Let people like what they like. It's not hurting anyone. People are weird. Embrace it.
Orthodox Jews at East Europe still do not allow women in synagogue, very similar way is Islam!
The development of the religious law around eruvim strikes me as a series of common sense adaptations that took place to preserve an ideal in the face of changing historical circumstances.
It seems similar to Islam allowing women to wear completely sheer niqab.
I remember reading about an US state where the governor was allowed to unilaterally modify state laws before they came into effect, by removing parts of it. The constitution didn't specify what was meant by "parts", so some governors took it as the right to delete individual words and letters from the text and thereby completely change the meaning of the laws...
Personally I do think interpreting rather than following the word of your chosen supreme being is the height of hubris. Intentionally interpreting it such that you can ignore the ostensibly obvious meaning even more so.
Then again if a text allows for ways to skirt the spirit of a prescription then maybe the 'supreme' being that is supposed to have dictated it isn't all that.
And I'm all for it. =)
Don't try to parse this religion as "Christianity with different rules", it'll only mislead you.
Personally, I think that commitment and the thoughtfulness behind it is something to be respected.
I’m not Jewish and this just my paraphrasing of an explanation I’ve heard a couple of times. The idea of God giving us a hacker nature and delighting in it makes me happy.
The whole idea of "the spirit vs the letter of the law" is a secular one that came up as a result of imperfect human lawmakers. But when dealing with holy texts, that is obviously not required because axiomatically God doesn't make mistakes.
I mean, even apart from the fact god doesn't exist.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_and_meat_in_Jewish_law#Ra...
As for the former, that could very well be an example of the absurdities that Pharisaical thinking can lead to. On the one hand, there is the prudential application of the law. On the other, there is the semantic manipulation of the law even to the point where its observance is rendered comically vacuous and nonexistent.
In any case, you can't baptize an adult against his will. In extreme situations, when a person is in, say, a coma, there can be a presumption of consent, but as I understand it, if the person in question was totally hardened against the very possibility of baptism, then the presumption would prove false and no baptism would have occurred.
It's a pity the LDS church got there first on baptising the dead. Maybe there's some scope for baptising the unborn though.
W.r.t. your first question [0].
Following this logic, the entire ocean has been multiple flavours of holy water at once for centuries. Failing that, the subset which is has become homogenous throughout.
Pretty much half of the Tanakh’s narratives are focused on that theme.
“He who sits in the heavens laughs.”
“What is this baaaa-ing I hear...?” — Amalekite property and population not thoroughly destroyed
“Do you do well...?” — Yahweh to Job, to Jonah, to Moses, et. al.
The priests of Ba’al vs. Elijah at Mt. Carmel
“That man is you!” — Samuel to David, regarding his proto-Machiavelli seduction and murder maneuvers
“Let us [Elohim] go down [to Earth] and see what men are doing now.” Genesis 11
The idolatry of Jamnia — actually that one turned out OK
The true sinners are those who think that they know what God wants better than what He actually passed down as commandments. God knows what He wants and wrote it down exactly like that.
> The true sinners are those who think that they know what God wants better than what He actually passed down as commandments. God knows what He wants and wrote it down exactly like that.
So it's just man who decides "this is a loophole and God wants me to use it". Man decides what God really wants. Man who not only looks for ways around God's word but he also claims God wanted him to do this.
> If you have studied the holy texts deeply enough to find the loophole, that makes you more holy, not less. It's like an easter egg for true believers.
Did God ever say man should look for loopholes, exceptions, or reinterpretation of His word? Did God say what you just said or was it you who thinks that you know what God wants better than what He actually passed down as commandments?
You, just a man, purport to know what God invites and even demands us to do.
This doesn't follow. If you believe you can just decide how to reinterpret the word of God then you put yourself at the same level as Him and are qualified to follow your own word, rather than a religion.
You follow a religion because you want to be given the word of God to follow. Not the word of a man who pretends he is at the same level as God so his reinterpretation weights the same.
Let me bring it down to earth. If you go for a lecture from Einstein you want to get Einstein's word, not an assistant to interpret "I think he meant we're all relatives man".
If anything you have two choices. 1) You take God's word at face value, no interpretation, no exceptions. 2) You choose to freely interpret everything because God wanted you to.
E.g. In war time emergency you are allowed to carry guns and a radio but the volume must be kept low. This is a very arbitrary interpretation drawing from present needs rather than anything in the word of God. Well and good, anything can be categorized as an exception. If everything can be an exception that you don't need a rule book. The only reason for that book to still exist is so some men can make rules for other.
There are words in the bible where people just aren't sure what they are referring to. E.g. what is gopher wood? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_wood
. . .
> You take God's word at face value, no interpretation, no exceptions.
But your judgment that god's word must be understood in this way just reflects your own belief about how god has chosen to communicate with us.
And it's actually a belief that does not give god very much credit. Great books convey meaning in numerous different ways at the same time. Why would you assume that god has written a text that operates on the level of an Ikea instruction manual when he could have used all of the tools available to great literature — and, through his omniscience, used them perfectly to speak to the needs of different readers in different times and places?
Ask yourself this: when you read scripture, does does it seem more like an instruction manual or a piece of literature?
I'm trying to understand it in the most likely way it would have been understood by the first man who heard it, and put in that context (as much context as I can have from back then).
> when you read scripture, does does it seem more like an instruction manual or a piece of literature?
If you read them you know they very much sound like both. So the way I read it (and I read the "major" ones as a religious agnostic) is that if I take the freedom to interpret everything from that book always in a way that's aimed at making my life or religion more convenient, then I'm in it more for show. Something that's probably true for most religious people I've met.
Of course I don't claim to 'know' what god wants. All I can do is do my best with the information I have.
- Bava Metziah 59b
https://link.chabad.org/torah-texts/5455793/The-Talmud/Bava-...
When the word of God has obvious contradictions and inconsistencies what does it mean? Are there little traps that He set up for us mortals? Is God mischievous?
Such as?
God created all things out of love, and made humans as image bearers to tend to his creation. Out of love he did these things, fully knowing that humans were capable of turning away from God. Humans put themselves before God in the garden and by doing so brought evil into the world. The rest of scripture is God's good plan to turn the world right again, to expel evil from his good creation while also saving those whom bear his image that he loves. He does this by giving them the law to expose the sin of humankind, and sending the 2nd person of the trinity of God (Jesus) to fulfill the law. Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice to pay the guilt of the sins of humans. In doing so bringing true justice and mercy for the evil brought into the world. In his resurrection he conquered death (the ultimate punishment for evil, death is something that was never intended in God's good creation) and setting in motion the process of restoring the world, bringing about new creation in which Jesus is the first fruits. The world will be set right and all sin, evil, and tears wiped away.
(fixed some grammatical errors)
Out of love, God gave us the option to do things against him and be eternally damned?
So: all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving. Pick two.
In our culture it is easy to think of this in terms of Dante's "Inferno", but that is a poem from the Middle Ages, and not in fact what the Bible tells us eternal separation from God looks like. Anyways, there is a lot of context to cover that isn't possible here. If you'd like to understand all of this better, go to the Bible, but then also perhaps consider "The Prodigal God" by Tim Keller. Blessings.
Maybe we just have drastically different ideas of what "love" is.
Any love relationship that is truly loving is not created by power or authority. It is by the willingness of both parties, unconditionally.
So he doesn't want automatons, but he does want unquestioning loyalty and trust? Is this not simply a distinction without a difference?
If someone we knew in our lives behaved like this with their children, we'd rightfully question what trauma occurred to make them this way. To create and then cast away those he created who did not act as he wished is the behavior of a control freak, not a loving god.
Finally, you missed the part where humans chose to be cast away, the consequences of sin are death.
Either way, I pray this truth is revealed to you and that you are blessed in your day and week.
A loving relationship with the creator of the universe that's mandatory if you don't want to be cast away to hellfire, correct?
Ultimately if someone chooses they do not like God's design and do not want to be in his presence, he honors that, but that means they are setting aside their humanity, and his design for them.
In any case, the problem of evil is not the showstopper some think it is [0][1].
The quintessential example is perhaps #3 which purports that the two accounts of creation are contradictory. But there are a number of ways to interpret Genesis [0] that doesn't result in contradiction while maintaining the theological truths that are the purpose of biblical texts. The Bible isn't a scientific treatise.
Another typical class of examples are the purported inconsistencies within the Gospels themselves [1].
An article on inerrancy you might find interesting [2].
[0] https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/are-there-co...
[1] https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/how-to-reso...
[2] https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/is-scripture...
It still means accepting a restriction. I am Christian so do not think the same way about religious law, but if I was asked to come up with a defence of this idea, I would argue it fulfils the purpose of the rule - e.g. people still cannot pop into a office. I am sure someone who knows Jewish law could come up with a much stronger argument, but I just want to make the point you should not assume it is bad faith workaround
The article also says there is a 100 pages on this in the Talmud so that implies there has been a lot of discussion and argument about this.
Judaism isn't Christianity any more than Islam is.
Trying to apply Christian norms to Jewish practices usually ends up in a pogrom when Christians realize that Judaism isn't Christianity.
And just in case I hadn't said this enough: Judaism isn't Christianity.
I have no idea why the right in America has run with the whole "Judaeo-Christian Western Culture" bullshit when Christianity was founded from the start on not being Judaism and making a clean break with it. You might as well say Cristiano-Islamic culture since there was about as much impact on Western thought by Islam as there was by Judaism.
All three share common beliefs and values. Christians and Jews worship the same God.
Islam IS closely related to Judaism and Christianity and the Quran explicitly states Muslims worship the same God.
> Trying to apply Christian norms to Jewish practices usually ends up in a pogrom when Christians realize that Judaism isn't Christianity.
BS. Thinking about where we agree and where we disagree leads to greater understanding. Pogroms are motivated by ethnic differences and othering people, not by theology, religious law, or anything thoughtful.
> I have no idea why the right in America has run with the whole "Judaeo-Christian Western Culture"
Is it a right wing concept? The term seems far more widely used to me than that. They see correct to me, because western culture (that of the left, as well as the right!) is a product of Christianity, which is an offshoot of Judaism, so you cannot ignore the Jewish influence.
> when Christianity was founded from the start on not being Judaism and making a clean break with it.
It was far from a clean break, and the intention was not a clean break. There was much argument (see Acts) in early Christianity about which Jewish practices to follow. Christians use Jewish scriptures and prayers and symbolism. The first Christians were Jews, and they would not even have considered themselves converts at that point, just those who followed the promised (to Jews!) messiah.
> You might as well say Cristiano-Islamic culture since there was about as much impact on Western thought by Islam as there was by Judaism.
Not true because Judaism and Christian culture had a greater and longer lasting history of geographical and cultural overlap than Christianity and Islam.
On the other hand, all three religions have a lot in common.
This is like saying that Windows and GNU/Linux are closely related because they both run on PCs, and were both (Windows originally) written in C (thus worship the same "foundations"). :-)
> Christians use Jewish scriptures and prayers and symbolism.
Quite some applications have become ported from Windows to GNU/Linux or vice versa. There is also Wine. Also keep in mind that there exist people who use gcc to compile Windows applications.
A better analogy would be its like saying BSD and MacOS (the current version) are closely related because they share lots of common code.
You should read what the Quran says about Jesus or Mary or the Jewish prophets. Seriously, read what the Quran and the New Testament (and church documents like the Catholic Catechism) have to say about this.
I think the best analogies of the relationships between the religions is:
1. Christianity (claims) to be an updated and enhanced fork of Judaism
2. Islam (claims) to be a bug fixed fork of Judaism with some code from Christianity merged in.
> Quite some applications have become ported from Windows to GNU/Linux or vice versa.
We are not talking about optional bits, we are talking about things of fundamental importance.
It’s more of a “I can argue that I checked the box when I meet my maker and have to explain myself.”
Also, hopefully nobody actually takes these rules so seriously that they end up hurting or killing anyone. There was a bicyclist who was injured when one of these lines fell far below installation height, but I’m thinking more about, for example, people who need to use hospital equipment during the Sabbath.
They are supposed to ignore these rules if a life is at stake. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikuach_nefesh
Post-Christian Judaism following the destruction of the Temple only entrenched this Pharisaism by turning the faith away from one of Temple sacrifice, complete with a Temple priesthood, to one hyperfocused on slicing and dicing the Torah. (The Catholic mass continues the sacrificial liturgy, albeit in a perfect and elevated form; the Mosaic covenant is fulfilled and the perfect sacrifice of Christ - the spotless Lamb of God - becomes the sacrificial lamb for which the prior animal sacrifice was a preparation.)
“They fool no one but themselves.” - God
1. In Jewish law, the definition of "work that is prohibited on the Sabbath" includes "moving objects outside the private domain".
2. The definition of "domain" has three kinds: "public domain" (such as a house), "private domain" (such as a highway), and "vineyard" (a catch-all term for "hard to define whether it's public or private").
Turns out, most of an average city in the world is "vineyard". The Eruv's function is to change the domain within it from "vineyard" to "private domain". That's it. No "fooling God", no loophole, just a simple way to create a legal status. Public domain remains public, private domain remains private, and now the grey area in between gets resolved. And there's a bonus of "there's a nice symbolism in the creation of a unified community boundary".
The rabbi answers: "I'm not traveling, I'm wearing the plane!"
and
This is pretty crazy loop hole.
Will you convince city government (in NYC, where some level of corruption is a fact of life) to allow your plan?
A small guage wire (ex:24 AWG) is limited to low voltage use. The issue is that voltage will drop over distance less than a city block.
ref: https://www.cctvcamerapros.com/AC-DC-voltage-drop-cable-dist...
I wonder if a fiber would meet the definition...
Even then, if the eruv was broken, the sensor would only inform you that it is broken, but not where on the entire island the fault is.
(unless of course you monitor each segment of the wire separately, e.g. using capacitance sensing, with internet-connected controllers that send an alert when the capacitance of their segment changes. That would be the practical but boring solution)
Could they just do the entire island?
What keeps them from going around the entire planet?
Following that you could go beyond that and the loop would get shorter and cover more of the planet.
Theoretically you could then securely store it inside a safe and cover 99.9999* of the Earth.
I guess nothing, as fantastical canon can always be extended and rebooted. God will not protest if they twist the spirit of the word.
Havoc•8mo ago
You could just not but hey I guess no harm no foul