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Mail.Liberal-Judaism |
| Volume 13 Number 31 | Mon Feb 23 23:55:02 US/Pacific 2004 |
From: ethel jean saltz <nietgal@airmail.net> Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 04:39:06 -0800 Subject: Re: Abrahamic Faith An amazing statement was made by our guest speaker Friday night at our annual interfaith service. He's a prof in theology at a university and a minister. The topic was the ten commandments. He summarized the central worship this way (not using the words Abrahamic Faith) : the Jews use the Torah, the Christians use Jesus and the Muslims use Muhammad. I think that if this can't be accepted by all Jews, Christians and Muslims, then there will always be murder. Ethel Jean Saltz be-ahavah oo-ve-shalom oo-ve-emet MAC-NIET-SPIN-GAL
From: ethel jean saltz <nietgal@airmail.net> Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 07:41:38 -0800 Subject: Jewish Study Bible By parents reading the actual texts of, say, the NRSVWA, with their children and encouraging discussions based on their family reading. Pointing out that the O.T. is really the Original Testament, agreed upon by all the components of the Abrahamic Faith, and that the State Of Israel recognizes that the only difference between the actual text strings of the O.T. and TaNaK is the sort order of the Books. You see, I was 20 YO, married, senior college student, secretary to Dr. Irwin Gladtstein(sp?), non-Rabbi, director of Hillel at G.W.U. in D.C., Foggy Bottom;) in 1949. I asked him to suggest a bible. With a double income, I could now afford to buy my own non-school book for the first time in my life. No more returning to library. I wanted to own a bible after having had five years of kheder (7-12 YO). He replied "I'm going to shock you. I'm suggesting a Christian Bible. The Goodspeed Version of the Bible. That's because it has the latest archeological correct translations." I loved that Bible. I really absorbed the minds of all the real live ancient people. It made me so proud and grateful to have been born a Jew. I appreciated my kheder ed and above all the Hebrew language and prayers. I won't tell you how I interpreted the N.T. Except to say that I found it to be a mistaken psychological management of spirituality. It just didn't make sense to me, after what I discovered in the O.T. I've tried but never have really managed Hebrew with facility, but I can use a dictionary to help because I later in life have taken snatches of Hebrew grammar education. In my young daze, we were not encouraged to translate. Today, in order to take Hebrew, you translate immediately, thank goodness -- with the very first "alef". Now, this year, the Oxford U. Press has published the Jewish Study Bible. I have to thank Marc Kivel for suggesting this book to us. It is mindlessly Godlike. To me, truthful education is the only education permissible by God. Together with absorbing the bible into one's own life. We all, in the USA, since putting "under God" into the pledge in 1952, can use the text of TaNaK (and in my case, the other Jewish writings in the Apocrypha) legally. Can't parents encourage their children to do the same thing? I need the Rabbi to hold the community together, even if I'm at the bottom of the Jewish pyramid. Are Rabbis threatened by the the Jewish Study Bible? Ethel Jean Saltz be-ahavah oo-ve-shalom oo-ve-emet MAC-NIET-SPIN-GAL
From: Jay Lapidus <jlapidus@snet.net> Date: Sun Feb 22 6:41:09 US/Pacific 2004 Subject: Jewish Study Bible I highly recommend this new volume, which you may read about at this link: http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Bibles/StudyBibles/TanakhJewishversion/?view=usa&ci=0195297512 [Moderator's Note: I"ve made the URL http://tinyurl.com/yvxk8 to correspond to the above. For those who have long URLs to put in a message, you should take a look at http://tinyurl.com -- it takes a long URL and makes it into a short URL for posting.] Verse-by-verse scholarly commentaries - from traditional rabbinic and modern sources - are understandible to the average congregant. Various articles, including one each from my teachers, Uriel Simon, Avigdor Shinan, and S. David Sperling, may be found towards the back. (BTW, Rabbi Sperling was the professor at Barnard College who introduced me to the Documentary Hypothesis.) Two drawbacks resulted from the publisher's effort to keep the volume from becoming too heavy: The paper is extremely thin and requires extra caution. The print size of the commentaries is small. (The book accepts the Documentary Hypothesis, so I don't recommend it to Orthodox Jews.) Shavua Tov, Hodesh tov.
From: Rabbi Moshe ben Asher & Magidah Khulda bat Sarah <kharakim@jps.net> Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 09:12:04 -0800 Subject: More congregational development resources We have recently added the following DIVREI TORAH RESOURCES for CONGREGATIONAL DEVELOPMENT at http://www.gatherthepeople.org/Pages/Dlprayers.htm on the GTP web site: * Shemini: "WHY KEEP KOSHER--WHAT'S THE POINT?" acknowledges that more than 80 percent of American Jews ignore kashrut, the mistaken belief that its purpose is to foster health and hygiene, the role of ritual as symbolic communal communication with ourselves about what we value, and the spiritual purpose of kashrut to bring us closer to God as a people (2 pp.) [available at http://www.gatherthepeople.org/Downloads/KASHRUT.pdf]. * Vayeira: "NEVER LEAVE THE STRANGER OUTSIDE" underlines Abraham's commitment to extending hospitality, the priority of welcoming strangers over communion with God, the common reluctance of congregants to reach out to newcomers, and suggestions for overcoming fear of rejection by asking about the newcomer and taking an interest in the person (2 pp.) [available at http://www.gatherthepeople.org/Downloads/STRANGER_OUTSIDE.pdf]. * Haazinu: "CHARGE YOUR CHILDREN" highlights the importance of raising children to be not only students of Judaism but teachers of the Jewish people, the need to model Jewish parenthood, peoplehood, and citizenship to achieve that end, the materialism that prevents us from doing so, and the role of Torah as a foundation for familial, communal, and national life (2 pp.) [available at http://www.gatherthepeople.org/Downloads/CHARGE_CHILDREN.pdf]. * Vayikra: "ANIMAL SACRIFICE AND HUMAN SPIRITUALITY" spotlights the contemporary commercial slaughter of animals in the billions, the spiritual purpose of animal sacrifice in ancient Israel, the overall effect of animal sacrifice to ensure the entire people's atonement with God, and the comparable role of prayer in contemporary Jewish life (2 pp.) [available at http://www.gatherthepeople.org/Downloads/SACRIFICE_SPIRITUALITY.pdf]. Gather the People is a tax-exempt nonprofit organization--launched by a sponsor committee of rabbis representing virtually all the branches and movements of Judaism--providing creative tools for congregational development and organizing at http://www.gatherthepeople.org.
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