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Animal-Mother posted:Do you know anybody who got circumcised as an adult? That's... quite a commitment. Born and raised Reform, now nonpracticing and an atheist. Not to hijack OP's thread, just here to answer those. My friends got married. Both converted for it. As far as I know, full circumcision as a grown adult isn't possible due to medical garbage unless it's done fully in surgical situations. My friend told me that blood was drawn, and that was sufficient. I stopped asking for details at that point. I don't recall the exact order or schedule in a synagogue. I stopped going the second I had the option to no longer go, which was basically after I got bar mitzvah'd. I'll be honest, I had a bunch of lousy times in Hebrew school and having to go to services. I asked my parents about it a year or two ago, and they said they were doing it mostly for my grandparents. I probably drew the short straw in Reform congregations; everyone acted like the worst kind of knuckle-rapping nun or disgruntled postal worker in Hebrew school, and bar mitzvah lessons lasted for around two years of extra work and homework. As such you can consider my comments below extremely biased and I hope that someone who's in it voluntarily, or a little more joyfully, would have a more neutral perspective. This was also in the 90s, things have hopefully changed since then. The way I recall is that they do prayers and services, usually either only in Hebrew, in Hebrew then in English, and if you're unlucky, it's sung in Hebrew, read in Hebrew, then read again in English. If you're super duper unlucky it's the part where you have to stand, then do all this and other stuff related to whatever section of the service that it's on, and remain standing for further permutations of the same, until it's time to sit again. Then you get to the Torah portion. You stand, the rabbi does blessings, the congregation responds, the pre-Torah reading blessing happens, the Ark is opened, the Torah is taken out and blessed, the rabbi reads from the Torah. I think it's entirely in Hebrew, but I can't remember. Usually the synagogue's Torah has its history read at every single drat service. At least at my temple, it was. The history wasn't particularly interesting, it came from a wealthy donor family that came over in the late 1890s. After the Torah readings are done, the post-Torah blessings happen, the Torah is put away. At some point they parade the Torah around the congregation up and down the aisles and sing a song while doing so, I forget what it was. At this point if you're observant or feeling so, you pass your prayer book down to the edge as the Torah comes by. Whoever's on the edge touches it to the Torah and passes it back, at which point you kiss the prayer book. It goes up the center aisle and both sides, in order to keep the human prayerbook bucket brigade minimal. At this point, after the roughly 30-45 minutes you've been standing, they mercifully let you sit. After the Torah parade and put away parts, and any relevant further blessings, there's a Haftarah portion, which I think is basically a reading from other Old Testament books that are considered holy books or part of the Hebrew Bible, but not in the Torah proper. I forget if this involves ceremonies similar to the Torah or if it's just the usual sung Hebrew, spoken Hebrew, spoken English, and now you can sit down again. Following that, the rabbi does a sermon, you stand up again to do the Kiddish blessing over the wine and the blessing over the bread, and then they do any announcements, tell you who's getting bar/bat mitzvahed that weekend if applicable, and then it's over and you shuffle into the reception hall. At that point they'll have wine for the grown-ups and grape juice for the kids, and a cube of bread for everyone. You do another Kiddish and bread blessing and eat/drink. You socialize and stuff. My in-laws' church does coffee hour after Sunday services and they always have snacks, cake, cookies, and coffee, and I'd guess the same socializing, how-ya-doin', schmoozing, etc. happens at temple. I was too young to remember; the kids I knew from Hebrew school and I would always get together to hang out and one kid named Brett would try to sneak wine, usually successfully. I should note at this point it's something like 7:45 and hopefully you had dinner beforehand or you're extremely cranky.
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Mar 13, 2017 20:44
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Blurred posted:What's the go with heaven? From what I recall in Reformland, there's no Heaven per se and more so the Kingdom of Israel. The idea is that Moshiach will return and establish the Kingdom of Israel where Jews will be beside God for eternity. Whether or not that conflates with the State of Israel is more of a rabbinical question. Groups like Neuterei Karta interpret the Talmud, Torah, and other religious documents/laws to state that God denied Israel to the Jewish people until Moshiach returns, and as such the State of Israel has no right to exist, and Jews are being punished for whatever they did to piss God off. It's interesting to learn about them but they tend to be anathema amongst most Jews, even other ultra-orthodox groups. I encourage the curious to do their own research and make their own educated stance about them, because they're the guys who Ahmedinejad and others invited as token Jews to the big Holocaust denial conference a few years back. In the meantime, have a fun read about ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel who get drunk and dance to electronic music: http://www.npr.org/2014/03/14/290106644/israels-orthodox-ravers-are-on-a-holy-mission-to-dance Given my personal experience with Judaism, which was singularly joyless and on or close to being in a captive audience, I'd probably have a very, VERY different experience if the staff and rabbis at my temple made having joy with Judaism a priority.
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Mar 16, 2017 16:51
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Grandmother of Five posted:Cool thread When I was in high school, some douchebag drew a swastika on my locker. I told the principal, they sent a janitor to clean it, and that was that. In 10th grade (1998), we were watching an excerpt of Triumph of the Will as an example of propaganda. A known jerkoff made a Hitler salute and the teacher said "that's a really good way to get your arm broken" I see Christians as either mixed between evangelical jerks or decent human beings. I know a very, very small quantity of born-again type of Christians who would never even dream of proselytizing - they're just the "I love Jesus" types. One is single and wonders where all the men who love Jesus are. Evangelicals who do proselytize are probably just jerks and I steer clear of those parts of America in general. I see Muslims by and large as misunderstood in the US. Islam today is being perceived by and large as Judaism was in the 1920s/30s in the US. Hell, maybe even Catholicism up to when JFK was elected. "They can't be really American." There are extremists in most religions, if not all religions. A Muslim terrorist will have an equivalent Jewish terrorist or extremist. Christian extremists commit crimes in the name of God here in the US and abroad. I'm an atheist born Jewish. I'd probably find closer kinship to a practicing Muslim than an atheist given the literal oppression and culture of hate surrounding them more than an atheist. Yes, there's anti-atheist sentiment in this country, but they aren't trying to ban atheists from entering, nor are there "Trump is going to get rid of all you atheists" hate crimes happening almost daily.
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Mar 20, 2017 20:32
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I like this kind of thread a lot, so thanks to anyone taking the time to answer any questions. Anyway, questions!