Judeo Talk

Tu B'Shvat and Jewish Environmentalism

Last week the Jewish holiday Tu B'Shvat took place. Tu B'Shvat (a term meaning "the 15th day of the month of Shvat") is a festival centering around agriculture, though in the modern day it is mostly concerned with the care of trees. For this reason it has recently been referred to as Jewish or Israeli Arbor Day. This modern interpretation is rather tangential to the original purpose of Tu B'Shvat, though in many ways it continues in the spirit of the holiday.

Martin Luther King Jr. and the Jewish Community

Today in America we celebrate the life and works of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the most iconic civil rights leader of our nation in the 20th century. Though Dr. King is remembered for his stirring speeches and his tireless, grassroots campaigning efforts to demand equality and social justice in America and throughout the world, his real power was in his ability to forge alliances between people who had never worked together before. King was ever-mindful of his political actions and how exactly to create ripples through the media and through whole communities. This is how Dr. King's civil rights movement came to include the American Jewish community.

Jewish Food from Around the World

The Jewish people have existed for thousands of years and have made homes in various cultures throughout the world. One of the most enduring aspects of this long-lived, globetrotting history is food. Jewish food isn't so much a culinary tradition on its own as it is a sort of Silly Puddy of world cuisine. Wherever Jews have lived, they have picked up local influences in the foods they create. The following are just a few of the many intriguing, tasty and culture-infused foods in the Jewish tradition.

Jews in the Crusades

The Crusades, those times of war and atrocity across Europe and the Levant that defined much of the brutality of the Middle Ages, are most famous as conflicts between Christians and Muslims. Indeed, those two religious groups contributed the largest part of the soldiers and suffered the highest casualties of the Crusades, though they were not the only ones to fight. Jews experienced much hardship during that troubled period, such that they wouldn't see the same level of violence and persecution until the rise of fascism in Europe in the early 20th century.

Practical Advice From The Torah

Though most translations still tell the stories of the Torah in lofty, archaic language, it's important to understand that the lessons they teach have more to do with the common, human experience than with anything more grand. Underneath the poetics and awkward phrases, the Torah is full of practical advice that is as useful today as it was those thousands of years ago when it was written. The following are just a few selections from the many and varied Toritic lessons for everyday life.

Friendship in Judaism

Though much of Jewish philosophy focuses on the values and obligations of the family unit, as well as the elements necessary for good political leadership, the sages have also had a lot to say about the role friendship plays in Judaism. In fact, friendship is considered one of the great virtues a person must acquire in order to truly understand Torah, also known as the Middot Torah. The specific Middah Torah concerning friendship is known as Dibbuk Chaverim, a Hebrew term that literally translates as "Binding of Friends", or at least binding in the sense of forming a union. Dibbuk is a binding by fusion, whereas the term Akedah is a binding by force, as with a rope, while Shasheret means binding as two links in a chain are bound (also metaphorically applied to the binding of two lives in marriage). Dibbuk Chaverim indicates a kind of equality in the union, as well as a mixing of personalities. Plainly, the Jewish concept of friendship focuses on the influence two people can have on one another.

Sunday Religion School

Judaism in modern America has always been heavily influenced by the practices of our Christian neighbors, if only because of proximity. The convention of sermonizing was mostly foreign to the faith until the Reform movement adopted it in the late 19th century, though many 21st century congregations prefer the more study-base D'var Torah at their Shabbat services. Some older synagogues have pews instead of chairs, a brief and rather poorly received change first instituted by Reform movement pioneer Isaac Mayer Wise. Of all the Christian-influenced conventions in Judaism, one of the most pervasive and enduring is the Sunday religion school. Sunday has no particular importance in Jewish ritual and it should be noted that classical Jewish communities didn't limit religious education at the local synagogue to just one day a week. Sunday school is a natural outgrowth of the demands of secular American culture. Simply, children go to secular school Monday through Friday, it's impractical to ask people to devote their evenings to yet more study and Saturday has been more or less claimed as the culture-wide day of leisure. So, Sunday belongs to religious education, regardless of one's affiliation.

Hanukkah Made Modern

The rituals of Hanukkah are fairly sparse in comparison to those of other holidays. Most of the observance is limited to at-home customs and there is very little in the way of a religious service. Some synagogues perform their own, semi-formal service, though there is no standard congregational service in the liturgy for the holiday. Hanukkah is meant to be kept in the home, though the lack of a traditional service also indicates that Hanukkah as a holiday came into being much later than more formalized observances like Yom Kippur and Passover. It's a holiday for people in the diaspora and people on the move. This, unfortunately, separates the average Jewish family from the guidance of those educated in the rituals, language and history of the faith. So, while it's easy for modern Jews to learn the Hanukkah prayers and even find their literal translations, it's less likely that they'll have access to the deeper meanings of those things.

Judaism and Ethnicity

Recently, we received a question in our comments section in reference to an article about Messianic Judaism and how it differs from what is traditionally accepted as Jewish philosophy. In that article I made a brief mention of how the perception of Jews as a social group has changed, especially in America, over the past century. The commenter, B. Wolper, asks,

You say in your article that Jews were considered an ethnic group until around the mid-twentieth century. What changed that? Why are we not considered an ethnic group anymore?

I would like to thank B. Wolper for the question and will now clarify exactly what I meant when I suggested that Jews in modern day America are no longer considered a distinct ethnic group.

Prayer and Daily Life

In modern life, the act of prayer has been compartmentalized. Those who pray usually only do so at appointed times of ritual. They pray at religious services, before or after meals, on holidays and at life cycle events like weddings and funerals. This is all well and good, but there's also room for what one might call "spontaneous" prayer, little observances throughout the day that can bring spirituality into our regular lives.