Friday, July 19, 2013

Diaspora Judaism (extra readings)

I assume most of you will be working on papers and won't have any time for blog entries today (Friday) or over the weekend.  If you do get a chance, you might read through the various post-Tanakh Jewish writings on pp. 213-225 of the Novak anthology.  What do you see here that helps explain Judaisms ability to hold its own as a "world" religion?

Looking forward to seeing your papers/projects on Monday.  I will hang around MJ 101 (our usual classroom) until noon today (Friday).  Stop by if you would like help or suggestions.
Posted by Ancient Art at

7 comments:

  1. UnknownJuly 20, 2013 at 7:08 PM

    On Novak, p. 213 we read that the Talmud is the record of the oral tradition of two thousand years of Jewish reflection. The study of this record of law, philosophy, and legend has provided a way to preserve the Jewish religion and has helped it to survive
    these many years. Also the Torah has served to guide, inspire, and teach the Jewish way of life. Respect for God, for life, for the Sabbath day of rest, and for freedom has held the Jewish people together and made them strong through many adversities.

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  2. UnknownJuly 20, 2013 at 7:10 PM

    By the way, The Princess Bride is probably the worst movie I have ever seen.

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    Replies
    1. UnknownJuly 22, 2013 at 8:07 PM

      oh, Barb, you missed something. You have to embrace the cult classics. We should obviously rent Army of Darkness for you. Not the same kind of literary classic, but original classic.

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    2. AnonymousJuly 23, 2013 at 5:04 AM

      HA!

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  3. UnknownJuly 22, 2013 at 8:09 PM

    I like the opinion of Albert Einstein on Judaism. It is very acceptable for many people in the world to agree "the essence of the Jewish concept of life seems to me to be the affirmation of life for all creatures". This is very humanly friendly.

    Also, Einstein says that " 'to serve God' is equivalent to serving 'every living thing' " (outer quotes from Novak, p 218).

    These stated Jewish values could be agreed upon with many other world religions. It holds a great foundation.

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  4. UnknownJuly 23, 2013 at 8:26 PM

    I agree with what has been said so far by Barb and Deirdre. Judaism’s teachings, way of life, and respect for God do make a good foundation. After visiting the synagogue this morning and learning more about Judaism from a Jewish convert, I’ve learned things I didn’t know about this religion. Our speaker seemed to think that Judaism still held as a world religion because in a way it was the “parent” religion to a couple others (Christianity and Islam). I also think they are able to hold their own because Jews are still waiting for the messiah to come as they believe that Jesus was just a prophet, and this is a unifying thing as well.

    After learning more about this religion, I felt the same emptiness in it as I have with the other four religions we’ve learned about in this class so far. Jews are still waiting for the messiah when Christians believe that Jesus was and is the Messiah, the Saviour. And, because Jesus is God’s son and we know the rest, life, death, resurrection, we can be saved. To me it seemed that in Judaism there wasn’t really salvation because anyone, Jew or non-Jew, could go to heaven-- even though our speaker seemed to not believe in heaven or hell which kinda defeats the last statement anyway. This is why I felt empty, if that makes sense to anyone.

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  5. UnknownJuly 23, 2013 at 8:30 PM

    Oh, also, if we're getting extra credit for correcting the teacher's grammar...

    This next part is taken from the prompt to this post:
    "...that helps explain Judaisms ability to hold..."

    I think that there should be an apostrophe "s" in "Judaisms" as this word is possessive of "ability."

    :D

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