A Judaism question if you want to answer (no pressure!)
This episode made me wonder what the relationship is like between the different denominations of Judaism? Yana goes to Tree of Life (Conservative) and Robby grew up going to Rodef Shalom (Reform), so I was curious if that adds a layer to the interaction at all?
(For context Christian denominations can get very spicy with each other still today. In some it's frowned upon/forbidden to take communion in a denomination you're not baptized into, you need to be baptized if you want to marry in specific churches, etc.)
sometimes there's local tea between synagogues or communities, and there are some points of friction on the very very macro level (defining who is and is not jewish is the main one), and sometimes you get some weird judgemental people, but in your day to day interactions, not really!
in judaism, we're all a family (sometimes literally. when you have such a small population, the stereotypes about all jews knowing each other sometimes are very true). we are very close knit and a few edge cases aside, how you "observe" or mark your jewishness is not really a concern. when i'm with a fellow jew, it's nowhere near the "oh but they're x" like there is in christian spaces. it's more just like "omg yay a jew!!!"
this, in my opinion, comes down to how jewishness is built. (putting the rest under a cut)
for one, the "denominations" aren't denominations in a christian way (imo the word "movements" is better but still not perfect.) (insert essay here about how in the english language all the words we have for describing "religious" communities are inherently christian and that gets in the way of understanding and talking about these communities in a way that truly gets at the heart of what they/we are.) yes there's the big three movements (reform, orthodox, and conservative/masorti) and some others (reconstructionist is the next biggest), but a synagogue falls under these umbrellas when they share a few specific beliefs in common, but there is a huge amount of diversity underneath these umbrellas. this is why simply describing a synagogue with these labels doesn't really say much about what it's actually like to be there. for example, my home shul has a female rabbi and a huge group of 20- and 30-something queer and trans jews who are very consistent about going. it is under the conservative umbrella. there's also conservative synagogues who wouldn't think to ever have a female rabbi and are not accepting of queer people. this is because while the movement can make broad rulings, it is still up to the individual rabbi to determine the halakha (practical jewish law) and how it will be implemented in their community
(this also can lead to situations where a synagogue will become unaffiliated because of disagreements over the movement's stance on something. i could honestly see my shul leaving because conservative judaism doesn't accept patrilineal jews (ppl with a jewish father and a non-jewish mother) as being jews, and this is something that is so painful for so many people there, to the point that it's not really talked about because it makes everybody cry bc we've had to turn people away before and it fucking sucks. on a lighter note, i go to a synagogue that left the conservative movement because they want to be able to use instruments during services (i don't attend the services with instruments lmao))
i'm going to illustrate another facet of this with another example. for pesach/passover, jews don't eat hametz (things that leaven, basically). a lot of ashkenazi jews also don't eat kitniyot (very simply, things that historically could be mistaken for hametz or would commonly have hametz mixed in. this includes rice, corn, beans, and basically everything else that you'd eat if trying to plan a meal without hametz lmfao). a few years ago, the conservative movement voted to lift the ban on kitniyot [you can read the teshuva here, it's honestly fascinating and i really love it bc it gets at the heart of conservative judaism imo], announcing that you can now eat it during pesach. but! even in that teshuva, it's discussed how this is a 700–800 year old tradition and that in and of itself carries a lot of weight. many people feel/felt that their family's tradition or the ashkenazi tradition outweighs this ruling [1, 2] and that decision is completely halakhically sound! your family's/community's tradition holds a lot of weight in jewish tradition, oftentimes outweighing a movement's ruling (and is almost always taken into account when you approach a rabbi with a halakhic question)
there's a joke that i think this post probably exemplifies pretty well, you ask two jews a question and you get three opinions back. there's another that says that there's as many judaisms as there have been jews on this planet. with this amount of diversity within judaism, stuff like movement affiliation isn't really at the top of people's minds
i hope this is helpful and at least somewhat informative or at least coherent!!! as for this particular scene, i think them being connected to synagogues from two different movements would play a very very tiny role in the dynamic, if at all. for yana (and for many others) as long as a person is connected with a jewish community then they're happy
Prayer in Open D by Phoebe Bridgers, covering Emmylou Harris. I love Emmylou Harris so so much, so while we're here, her cover of The Boxer by Simon & Garfunkel is to die for.
28- a song by an artist with a voice you love
Fascination by Tamino, and then really his entire discography I LOVE his voice it's so beautiful & then also bc I can't pick one, Mitchell: Epic III (Live) from Hadestown (Original Cast Recording) 2017 because I think Damon Daunno has one of the loveliest voices on Broadway.
I heavily relate to the never ending laundry struggle but if you find that domestic responsibilities really get you down I highly recommend @/domesticblisters on tiktok! She's great at creating systems for people that feel very AAAAAAAA about laundry/dishes/whatevs
!!! i will definitely check her out omg thank you!
first impression: if this guy makes sokka sadder i'm gonna throw this juice against the wall (i was drinking apple juice and i remember this because the first time i watched sokka’s master holds a level of importance more or less on parallel with my birthday)
impression now: gay hermit extraorinaire <3 taught sokka neurodivergence is okay. a detail about his character that i enjoy is that he is on the other side of the spectrum as the boulder which was sokka’s first uhh male crush on main and whose variation of presentation of his masculinity sokka longed for and admired. piandao is more lean, agile, clever, artistic, calm. a lot more like sokka. even though sokka doesn’t have a crush on piandao he respects and admires him a great deal, and with it he comes to understand other presentations of masculinity that are also valid and worthy. he is so supportive and smart and he gives off more calming vibes than iroh could ever in like a thousand years, and i love that canonically he only teaches teenage boys who hate themselves. best adult in the show hands down
favorite moment: i’m gonna be honest his five-second fight at ba sing se will always stun me but for the quality of it all let’s say my favorite quote of his and one of my favorites in the show if you didn’t notice, the “you added a rainbow” scene because like yeah... sokka added a rainbow. there’s no metaphors nothing boy he’s telling you exactly as it is he painted a little rainbow . it’s wonderful. i also enjoy his hug with sokka and his entire speech to sokka and his duel with sokka and the time he and sokk—
idea for a story: not many for the moment however he makes an important apparition in a sokka-centric story i have planned in which he serves as a surrogate parent when sokka decays and decides once and for all he hates every person on the planet. and then he takes sokka to see a therapist <3 he’s also in a ty lee-centric fic i started and never finished. but piandao centric. not much there rlly </3
unpopular opinion: i think ppl focus too much on his hypotetical (is it? i think it’s canon???) relationship with zuko rather than his relationship with sokka which is a dynamic we actually see playing out on-screen. however i don’t rlly see anything particularly evil about that it just irks me personally
favorite relationship: look up
favorite headcanon: a gay man <3 it’d be cool if he was from the colonies or was a descendant from the water tribes or the earth kingdom. i think he and mai would be good friends :)
As someone currently studying criminology, you are absolutely not the asshole. The best and safest thing to do if someone knocks on your door for help is to call community services or the police. No decent person should be judging you for wanting to be safe.
ah, i do know that it's safer to not answer, that's why it's always been my rule to not answer unless i know who's at the door. i wonder if i had just been so bad at expressing it through sort of a joke post that i came off as asshole-ish. still bothers me.
statistically i know it's probably not someone with bad intentions, but even so there's like... no one i would have reason to want to answer the door for. family or friends would call or text ahead of time, but if it's an unexpected knock, it's likely a neighbor (i don't like any of my neighbors, in fact my direct next door neighbor creeps me out), or someone trying to sell something (despite the no solicitation sign), or even neighborhood kids trying to pull a prank (which has happened a handful of times). but there's always that chance, and considering my mom has an ex husband who absolutely is the kind of person who might come back around to do something bad if something else in his life made him snap, i sincerely cannot fathom taking the risk. we've also had issues with creeps in the neighborhood staring into our yard late at night, and on at least two occasions had very late night/early morning LOUD knocks that woke us and the dogs up. overall, do not want.
