Jewish links, assortment
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 06:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I swear, someday soon I will write more actual content, but probably not until such time as I have functioning internets in my house. (Rather, it appears the internets themselves are functioning, but my new wireless card is not. Well,
cycon is supposed to come to my rescue for a bit tonight, so we'll see if that helps!) But in the meantime, anyway...
Quick PSA that Honorable Menschen's next FREE Friends & Family concert is scheduled for Sunday afternoon, Dec. 13, 5pm at
tremontstshul. (If you want an email reminder, sign up for our mailing list! :-) One of the new songs we're working on is "Reiach Tapuach", which I am totally loving; it's in 7/8 -- at least our arrangement is -- and the text, although modern, plays strongly on the language and imagery of Song of Songs. Yeah.
I happened to stumble across a new site called Tablet Magazine, subtitled (or sloganed) "A New Read on Jewish Life". Here's a sample article that caught my fancy: "A People Obsessed: Jews, geeks, and a haftorah of repetition and reason":
"Getting ready for Halloween, searching for an extra-large Ghostbuster outfit and something that could pass for a realistic proton pack, I found myself thinking about how the two major components of my identity -- Jew and nerd -- fit into remarkably similar patterns. For starters, both groups spend an inordinate amount of time picking apart canonical texts..."
http://www.tabletmag.com/life-and-religion/19519/a-people-obsessed/
"The Jewish Way to Party": sources on drinking and gladness (don't ask why I was looking this up, but I'm sure it had to do with some concept I want to write about myself at a later date):
http://www.templeohebshalom.org/ser67.htm
Apparently the roster of Jewish congregations in Cambridge also includes a Humanistic one: Kahal B'raira. Among the offerings on their website is a list of blessings with the concept of God taken out. I... just... eek. I am all for the notion of appreciation/reverence for mystery even after one rejects the existence of a sentient divinity, but... it pains me. Hmmm.
I think I'll stick with this model: The Say-A-Blessing Keychain!
http://www.popjudaica.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=25&zenid=a76227d180d313adb203c77340ad8c6e
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Quick PSA that Honorable Menschen's next FREE Friends & Family concert is scheduled for Sunday afternoon, Dec. 13, 5pm at
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
I happened to stumble across a new site called Tablet Magazine, subtitled (or sloganed) "A New Read on Jewish Life". Here's a sample article that caught my fancy: "A People Obsessed: Jews, geeks, and a haftorah of repetition and reason":
"Getting ready for Halloween, searching for an extra-large Ghostbuster outfit and something that could pass for a realistic proton pack, I found myself thinking about how the two major components of my identity -- Jew and nerd -- fit into remarkably similar patterns. For starters, both groups spend an inordinate amount of time picking apart canonical texts..."
http://www.tabletmag.com/life-and-religion/19519/a-people-obsessed/
"The Jewish Way to Party": sources on drinking and gladness (don't ask why I was looking this up, but I'm sure it had to do with some concept I want to write about myself at a later date):
http://www.templeohebshalom.org/ser67.htm
Apparently the roster of Jewish congregations in Cambridge also includes a Humanistic one: Kahal B'raira. Among the offerings on their website is a list of blessings with the concept of God taken out. I... just... eek. I am all for the notion of appreciation/reverence for mystery even after one rejects the existence of a sentient divinity, but... it pains me. Hmmm.
I think I'll stick with this model: The Say-A-Blessing Keychain!
http://www.popjudaica.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=25&zenid=a76227d180d313adb203c77340ad8c6e
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Date: Thursday, November 19th, 2009 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, November 19th, 2009 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, November 19th, 2009 12:55 am (UTC)The Humanistic blessings raise interesting questions. In the absence of a deity what does the word "blessed" or a notion of the sacred mean? Is "Blessed is the light in each of us" an indirect reference to a deity? I'm not surprised that atheists and agnostics want to employ the transformative power of ritual, the utility of which Jay Michaelson discussed in a Forward article (http://www.forward.com/articles/104833/) last spring.
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Date: Thursday, November 19th, 2009 02:58 am (UTC)aha, thanks
off to update the bookmarks....
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Date: Thursday, November 19th, 2009 04:53 pm (UTC)It's a very good question what "blessed" and sacred mean to a Humanist... not sure if it is a question I personally need to spend time and energy exploring (when I don't really have the necessary internal framework to make sense out of it), but it's tempting at moments like these.
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Date: Thursday, November 19th, 2009 01:11 am (UTC)You find so many interesting links- thank you because I would not know where to begin looking.
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Date: Thursday, November 19th, 2009 04:57 pm (UTC)Also, nice icon :-)
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Date: Thursday, November 19th, 2009 01:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, November 19th, 2009 05:09 pm (UTC)The other was at Havurat Shalom several years ago with their homegrown gender-neutralized prayerbook; in practice, this (at least in my memory) meant that they shifted between the masculine and the feminine -- which in Hebrew of course affects not just nouns but verbs and adjectives -- pretty much at random, even within the same sentence. Ow ow ow ow. I know it's a nice progressive earthy-crunchy community and all (and, too bad, RIGHT by my new house!), but I haven't been back since.
I'm pretty deeply traditional in my liturgical preferences. :-)
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Date: Friday, November 20th, 2009 02:46 am (UTC)I'm actually rather fond of my local Reconstructionists, because they are a pleasant small congregation, they are all about the singing, and they have a good feel and energy to them. Except, I have reached the point where I can't quite stand the changes that reconstructionists as a movement make to the text. So while they are perfectly cool with one reciting the traditional while they do their thing, it got old being the only one who did. (Unfortunately, there isn't much else in the vicinity, I quite dislike my local Conservatives, and therefore basically don't have anyplace to go.)
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Date: Thursday, November 19th, 2009 02:10 am (UTC)See also Marcia Falk's The Book of Blessings, although I don't believe she considers herself a practitioner of "humanistic" Judaism; rather, her similar reformulations (in both Hebrew and English) stem from her belief in divinity as wholly immanent, not transcendent.
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Date: Thursday, November 19th, 2009 05:42 pm (UTC)I encourage all interested readers to peruse Wikipedia on same. It is an, you should pardon the expression, enlightening read.
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Date: Thursday, November 19th, 2009 02:11 am (UTC)I will have you know it was with great restraint that I did NOT get the dog yarmulke and shawl for a dear friend of mine.
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Date: Thursday, November 19th, 2009 02:27 am (UTC)christian serviceHumanistic service. I can't call it Judaism as the only referent I have to Judaism has God as a fully integral part.And this from a non-practicing Orthodox Jew.
P.S. Almost finished a Tefillin bag for my father's 70th birthday:
http://rosemary.craftborg.com/2007/08/02/hp-house-fair-isle-pouch-bags/ in Ravenclaw.
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Date: Thursday, November 19th, 2009 09:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, November 19th, 2009 09:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, November 19th, 2009 10:55 pm (UTC)It will not change my views, I just will cease posting any of them.
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Date: Thursday, November 19th, 2009 11:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, November 20th, 2009 05:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, November 20th, 2009 02:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, November 19th, 2009 04:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, November 19th, 2009 09:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, November 19th, 2009 09:51 pm (UTC)But yes, I will call the tech for advice. At least maybe he can tell me how to re-derive the "encryption key".