The Beis Medrash Schmooze

Orthodox Jew, he/him, Either aroace or just shtark This is my jumblr blog for Jewish Stuff! My Everything else blog is @snissel7

[snissel613]

I think a lot of Jewish rhetoric, especially online, can make you forget that Orthodox Judaism is an exclusive ideology. It makes claims about the moral, metaphysical, and spiritual nature of reality, and believes these claims to be objectively true.

[snissel613]

importantly for my belief system (though not as universal as the main point) is that objective doesn’t mean provable. I believe God objectively exists and objectively commanded us to follow Halakha, but proving these things from first principles or trying to convince someone else to believe them is probably an excessive in futility (not to mention incredibly rude)

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

I went to kabbalat shabbat at an Aussie shul (reform) for the first time last week. After services, in addition to challah and pastries and tiny glasses of wine, they had hard liquor (gin, vodka, and scotch) which I have never seen before at an American shul. Is this an Aussie thing? Did I just go to square shuls in the US? Is it more common in other denominations?

Does your synogogue normally provide hard liquor at the oneg?

yes

no

show results

Remaining time: 5 days 18 hours

I thought about trying to divide results by region or flavor of judaism but it seemed to complicated. Lmk in the replies or comments.

[magnetothemagnificent]

What American shuls are you going to where they *don't* have hard liquor???? For context I'm Orthodox, pretty much every Orthodox shul I've ever been to (and they've all been in either the US or Israel) has had hard liquor available during Kiddush. Some shuls would have more or less than others, some would advertise it more or less than others, but they'd all have l'chaims available if you wanted some.

[snissel613]

it’s certainly common (but not universal) at the kiddush, but I’ve never even been to a shul that had an oneg at all (I’ve only been to orthodox shuls ftr)

[snissel613]

thinking about “halakhics hot takes” as an icebreaker but you just know it’s going to be evenly split between

“[x thing] is misogynist actually” (boring and ice cold)

“the Rambam in Maachalos Assuros 2:3 is wrong, see Kesubos 60a (source #2 on the handout)…” (prohibitively technical)

“You should make an Asher Yatzar on blowing your nose” (ngl this one’s actually good)

[magnetothemagnificent]

Saying "I don't hold by the sliding timescale" in the same tone a frum person would about something they're machmir about that they don't hold by the prevailing psak for. Saying "I don't hold by the sliding timescale" in the same self-righteous tone my brother does when talking about a hechsher he doesn't hold by. Lol.

[snissel613]

Achievement Unlocked: I was on a hike and led a zimmun so I said “bereshus baal habayis”

[fuzzytheduck]

This is like when i leave the bathroom and absentmindedly say borei nefashos

[knaidelmaidel]

[snissel613]

nononono not I guess I volunteered to lead the zimmun with the explicit intention of doing this

[snissel613]

Just saw this gem on a WhatsApp chat

[snissel613]

Achievement Unlocked: I was on a hike and led a zimmun so I said “bereshus baal habayis”

[eliyahu613]

slid into ben gvir's dms

[gerrysherry]

first tumblr jew to actually have a likud member’s phone

[eliyahu613]

this is what i sent him

[jewishgay4il]

ah the israeli tradition of just whatsapping MKs and shouting at them why they're idiots

[eliyahu613]

are you being sarcastic

[snissel613]

probably not, I’ve had friends run into politicians in restaurants or get invited for Shabbas lunch

[eliyahu613]

A agrees to pay B $10 for every time B lies. B then goes to C and lies about something entirely harmless that is not important to anyone's life, and is not in any way lashon hara in order to get the $10. B repeats this many times. is B committing the aveira of lying for personal financial/business gain? let's discuss.

[vettir]

I suppose there's really two things to question. Why did A agree to pay B $10 per lie, and why is B lying to C?

[eliyahu613]

B is lying to C in order to get paid by A. A agreed to pay B $10 per lie because A thought it would be fun and silly to do that.

[vettir]

3rd question then, as I am not fully familiar with the aveira of lying for personal financial or business gain. Is it against any lies that benefit you, or against misrepresenting things to others to take advantage of them?

[eliyahu613]

i am not sure, that is a big part of the question i am asking. is it bad because it harms others or because it helps you?

[snissel613]

I think the real question here is if the prohibition about lying is bein adam leMakom (ie. an immoral sin against God) or bein adam lechaveiro (an ethical sin against another person). If the former then this would be prohibited and if the latter then it wouldn’t.

[eliyahu613]

i got this bentcher from nyc and didn't even look at it until today and

what the hell

[robot-roadtrip-rants]

what the...ENHANCE!

ENHANCE!!!

Yiddish????

Between that and the inclusion of the Mashiach in the Birshut... section, I'm guessing it comes from a Charedi community. Possibly Chabad?

[hyperpotamianarch]

Only Chabad do the Adonenu Morenu VeRabenu thing. The Yiddish isn't too common, but does exist. But yeah, this is Chabad, possibly of the more Meshichist side.

[eliyahu613]

@robot-roadtrip-rants more information: the top of the bentcher says nusach arizal (i didn't realize the arizal had a birkat nusach)

[snissel613]

ok the Yiddish is pretty normal, weirder is the pseudo-Mizrachi start, weirder still is the explicit messianism. Definitely Chabad

[eliyahu613]

do you know anything about the logo/probably the group that made it that you can see on the top left of the first page? (it's in my other reblog)

[snissel613]

nope, nothing I recognize, but here’s what it says: The line below the title says that this is for R. Zalman Tuvia Abelsky, shliach and chief rabbi of Moldova and Kishinev The logo on the top left says “Taanos HaRaz”a.” I don’t know who the Raza is (maybe the same rabbi) On the bottom right corner of the back there’s the logo again and an email

[etrogjam]

I never actually heard the Kars4Kids jingle until just now and tbh with that tune I am not surprised it was a haredi charity. It sounds like many of the children's jingles you'd hear on Naki Radio or something.

Idk if I have any frum or OTD ppl still following me but it's not just me, right? (Obvs it's still shady advertising but)

[snissel613]

I had known the Kars4Kids jingle since I was like 5 and learned just last week that it was a charedi charity

[eliyahu613]

i got this bentcher from nyc and didn't even look at it until today and

what the hell

[robot-roadtrip-rants]

what the...ENHANCE!

ENHANCE!!!

Yiddish????

Between that and the inclusion of the Mashiach in the Birshut... section, I'm guessing it comes from a Charedi community. Possibly Chabad?

[hyperpotamianarch]

Only Chabad do the Adonenu Morenu VeRabenu thing. The Yiddish isn't too common, but does exist. But yeah, this is Chabad, possibly of the more Meshichist side.

[eliyahu613]

@robot-roadtrip-rants more information: the top of the bentcher says nusach arizal (i didn't realize the arizal had a birkat nusach)

[snissel613]

ok the Yiddish is pretty normal, weirder is the pseudo-Mizrachi start, weirder still is the explicit messianism. Definitely Chabad

[wenevergotusedtoegypt]

My Orthodox-Jewish-from-birth full-time-yeshiva-attending children just asked me what Judaism is 🤣

[askjumblr]

Because of the length and extensivity of the Talmudic scripture, how do modern Jews - Reform, Conservative, Orthodox; all except for Karaite, since they don't believe in additional scripture - interpret the beliefs, stories, laws, and traditions espoused and argued over by the various Jewish scholars within the text?

It would appear, on its own, that due to the size of the Talmud, as well as the sheer quantity of scholars within, that there would be multiple branches producing different variants of Judaism. Is that what the aforementioned branchers already are, or, is it the case that there's a pretty universal contemporary agreement on which rabbis to agree with and which to ignore, or the individual points and arguments created by the rabbis, those which modern Jews do and don't agree with?

To put it simply, there are two metrics of understanding in Judaism. The originality of the Old Testament, then the scholars of the Talmud, and then the modern Jewish experts and modern Jews in general who agree with this or that as part of the Talmud, and reject this and that. So, are Jewish people supposed to believe in only what certain rabbis said, while excluding other rabbis entirely, or certain individuals things within the total text?

It would appear that reading the Talmud would be more easily done by reading a commentary on it, which presents the mainstream, academically-accepted Jewish view at the forefront of the text.

.

[snissel613]

a few things FOR Orthodox:

Firstly, the Talmud does have a lot of opinions in it but it’s not like chock full, there’s a lot more discussion and proofs and disproofs. And it’s not like all 500 rabbis ever mentioned in the Talmud have 500 unique rulings on each of the billion topics discussed.

Secondly, when there are disputes, they’re more often about smaller details and are often highly technical. Even going back to the Mishnah there is a clear standard that some basic things aren’t up for debate. And each generation later, some opinions become the halakhic standard and some get left as historical opinions that nobody holds like nowadays, so by the modern day it’s really only minor details and stuff around new inventions that really gets debated for practical Halakha

Also I’m not terribly knowledgeable about other denominations but as I understand it the differences are more about methodology and axioms than technical details; It’s less like “How do you interpret this passage? Do we rule like Rabbi A or B?” and more like “Is Halakha obligatory to follow? Which halakhic standards can be changed, and how?”

[fuzzytheduck]

I'm obsessed with seeing my own culture from outside perspectives. Fascinating.

[koshercosplay]

you now have THIS jewish superpower

but it comes with THIS side effect

is it still worth it?

absolutely yes!

this will suck but it's still worth it

hm probably not

the side effect makes it totally not worth it

Voting ended onMay 20

based on this post

(if they cancel each other out, spin again)

[magnetothemagnificent]

I got holidays always start on convenient days for you and you can only eat meat if you schecht it yourself. I'm vegetarian, and tbh probably the only way I *would* eat meat if I schechted it myself. This is great.

[l3gendarycatlover]

I got "immediately know if anybody is Jewish" which would be handy but not that great. And then "nearest shul is over an hour away" which is more of a pain than the former is handy. I don't like going places that far away.

[magnetothemagnificent]

You got the Chabad Shaliach special lmfao

[asthmaticplushiedragon]

"זה עבודה זרה!"

"אמא שלך עבודה זרה!"

שיחה של שתי בנות אקראיות בדרך לכותל