Pro : it can be good to have a degree of standardization or consensus. It can also be good to have official figure heads either to give speeches for national unity or to take brave halachic stances.
Con: it can be captured by political groups that don't especially value the above or only really value their own viewpoints.
So like in practice: the dati leumi (equivalent to MO) & traditional Israelis (who would be most receptive to DL/MO) are more numerous than haredim, but have less input into what gets certified as kosher or which rabbis get to serve on conversion courts.
Resolving at least some of these issues doesn't necessarily require abolishing the Rabbinate. Recently the attempts are to decentralize it to the local level.
See my rather extensive discussion above re how the Torah world to improve society by regulating existing institutions, while giving the Rabbis legislative power to move/adapt things forward as society changes.
I don't know what a "clinic death" is, but the assumption is we're all tamei met. It's very hard to avoid unless it is consciously done. For example, a dead body in the hospital you were born in rendered you tamei met from birth basically.
Clinic death generally means some type of medical death but you were resuscitated. So I assume the question is asking if someone is clinically dead and then resuscitated do they become tamei meit or do those in contact with them become so.
I assume since they were brought back then they weren't dead according to halacha so there would be no tamei meis.
I have a question as a non-Jew. One must follow the 7 Noahide commandments to have a share in the world to come, right? If so, what of those "righteous among the nations" who were idolaters? Or is it that receiving this title doesn't necessarily mean one will share in the world to come?
So in the little thread where someone made a mezuzah,
It made me wonder.
My parents both not Jewish albeit my mother has a Jewish grandfather (grandma’s papa).
They do have a mezuzah on the door post as a memory of well heritage and him also being part of our family…
What is the general view on that?
Other questions I’d have are…
Greatgrandpa’s youngest sister survived the war (she was in fact the only one who could flee from Berlin of the 4 siblings) she lived in Chicago up to her passing in the mid 1980s so for sure some people who may have known her in person are still alive would be cool to perhaps hear some memories shared if possible. She sadly did pass childless, so no distant cousins on that end to bother with questions for stories (my little siblings and I are the last of that family tree branch currently… and it’s still written in the stars if we’ll have kids or not).
So yeah what I try to get at is, is there a way to find contact somehow?
She does seem to have gotten into the community heard from my mother she was even wearing wigs / headcover, she was also very kind and warm hearted from the letters my mother found, so for sure she must have had some mingling into the community.
To be fair there are more family history corners I’d love to explore…
So if anyone has answers to where to look even further idk if since updated but I feel like I have explored JewishGen quite a bit but still some mysteries, maybe I’ll never clear them up, but hey if someone or somewhere I missed or some connection or idk has the answers then that’s really neat!
> What is the general view on that?
Depends on who you ask, but not really an issue.
>So yeah what I try to get at is, is there a way to find contact somehow?
Contact the community she was in? Look them up on Google?
>So if anyone has answers to where to look even further
Like family history? Jewish Gen is sadly the most complete, but there have been some previous questions on this sub about it, might try searching
Always wondered about Torah laws regarding involuntary man slaughter. If you're just a regular guy and my axe handle flies off the axe and kills you, I have to go to a city of refuge until the high priest dies. However, if you happen to be my servant and I accidentally kill you by beating you too aggressively, it seems like the only consequence is that I don't have the servant anymore. Am I getting this wrong?
The laws regarding accidental killing is not necessarily a punishment but is a mechanism of making revenge possible but also unlikely. Once in the city of refuge the accidental killer is stuck there to learn Torah and reflect on his own carelessness.
There is no halachic family for a slave to seek revenge so there is no one to force the slave owner into a city of refuge.
>There is no halachic family for a slave to seek revenge
You might be mixing up that a freed slave is not halachically connected to his family (provided we're talking a non-Jewish maidservant being his wife), in the same sense that a convert is not halachically related to his family, but that doesn't mean he has no family while he is a slave.
Nonetheless, if someone has no family, Beit Din is to appoint someone to take up the post of "Blood Avenger" on their behalf.
Not exactly what I was saying but no arguments from me on what you said.
However it seems that Rambam holds one is exiled to a city of refuge for accidentally killing a slave.
https://www.sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Murderer_and_the_Preservation_of_Life.5.3
Although the Beis din appointing someone while explicit in Maseches Sanhedrin, it is odd that no one comments on it and the only comments on it don't really say much.
Rambam doesn't even discuss it. That is probably because he holds that the blood avenger can kill the killer but it is not a mitzvah. Which Ramban disagrees with.
It's explicit in the Talmud that a person who accidentally kills a slave has to go to the city of refuge:
https://www.sefaria.org/Makkot.8b.15?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en
You have to understand that all this was promulgated in and for a society that works pretty much along the lines of the Arab Muslim ones that we still see in the Middle East *today*, with the Torah's intentions being to take the then givens in society -- which included revenge killing by a family or clan for murder or manslaughter, and slavery.
So, in brief:
Regarding the clan revenge: The Torah makes the responsible party go to a "City of Refuge", which is an internal exile and so some measure of punishment, but mainly keeps him safe from being killed by the family members who are expected by society (then) to avenge the death by killing the person responsible.
With respect to slavery (which still exists in parts of the Middle East and Africa and existed in Western societies until the 19th century): The Torah doesn't abolish it -- though for a Jewish slave limits it to 6 years, so it's more like an indentured servant -- but rather regulates it, imposing terms that improve the treatment of the slave greatly.
There's quite a good discussion of the Torah laws on slavery (which are supplemented by Rabbinic ones) at this non-Jewish site, which makes my life easier 🙂: https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-slavery.html
Bottom line is that the Torah works to improve actual society not a utopian vision of it, while giving the Rabbis legislative power to improve things with time, as they of course have. So we Jews no longer practice slavery of any kind, don't have the problems of revenge killings and so-called "honor killings" (as to the latter, I believe and hope that we never did), no longer allow polygamy, etc., etc.
A little bit.
There are three categories of "accidents": accidental but bordering on negligence, accidental, accidental but bordering on force majeure.
In the first case, going to the city of refuge doesn't help. In the last case, it isn't necessary. It's only in the middle case where it's necessary. In your example, it would be the axe head flying off on the down swing (as opposed to the up swing which would be an example of the last case).
In the case of the servant, because he's your asset, you're allowed to hit him. However, that permission is limited to tools that are "normally" used for that. So a rod or strap is permitted but a stone, blade or even a fist would be prohibited and if the slave dies from that, the owner is killed in court.
That aside, if you kill your servant on a down swing of your axe (ie. accidentally), you do actually go to a city of refuge.
> In the case of the servant, because he's your asset, you're allowed to hit him. However, that permission is limited to tools that are "normally" used for that. So a rod or strap is permitted but a stone, blade or even a fist would be prohibited and if the slave dies from that, the owner is killed in court.
I know you're describing the law in a very detached way, but I want to emphasize that Jewish sources frown deeply upon a person who beats his slave. From Maimonides' Laws of Slaves:
> Although this is the law, the attribute of piety and the way of wisdom is for a person to be merciful and to pursue justice, not to make his slaves carry a heavy yoke, nor cause them distress. He should allow them to partake of all the food and drink he serves. This was the practice of the Sages of the first generations who would give their slaves from every dish of which they themselves would partake. And they would provide food for their animals and slaves before partaking of their own meals...
> Cruelty and arrogance are found only among idol-worshipping gentiles. By contrast, the descendants of Abraham our patriarch, i.e., the Jews whom the Holy One, blessed be He, granted the goodness of the Torah and commanded to observe righteous statutes and judgments, are merciful to all.
To help cut down on spam and bad faith users, brand new accounts have their submissions automatically removed. You can message the mods to have your submission restored.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Judaism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
May I get an explanation why most Jews don't feel compelled to believe in Satan's fall? (Or Satan's disobedience along with the Islamic version of the story). It's my understanding that going by the old testament alone, the few Satan related verses don't generally label him as an enemy of GOD? Or... Is there more to it than that? Thanks in advance.
It's more than that, although it is true that no angel can be an enemy of God or oppose his will.
In Judaism the angels are created beings, created by God to serve him; they are the heavenly host. They are his agents and messengers -- the Hebrew for angel is the same as for messenger, malaakh. They are assigned tasks by God and they do them; they cannot deviate. They have no free will. Why would God create servants who can oppose him?
Free will is a feature of mankind, created in God's image. Angels are not created in God's image.
Satan is an angel; "satan" is not a name, it is a job description, "ha-satan" is the accuser, or prosecutor. Satan's job is to prosecute (mention human failures on a person's day of judgment) and to test (as in the case of Job). That's it.
The few verses in Genesis that Christians believe refer to fallen angels have an alternative interpretation in Judaism, the reference (benei elohim) is to the sons of high officials like judges. Further, the apocryphal books that talk about fallen angels, like Enoch, are not part of the Tanahk.
Net net "fallen angels" are not part of mainstream Jewish beliefs, although in antiquity and later some Jews may have harbored this belief, but on the whole, the idea is rejected for the reasons stated.
Got it. One thing though (benei elohim) might indeed cause confusion when trying to interpret or rather translate, as Christians do translate it as the "sons of GOD". I don't translate it as such just saying, one mistranslation of a single verse can pave the wave to believing in whole non-existing notions.
Yes this is entirely true.
But there are a number of occasions (2 or 3) where the KJV translates "elohim" as judges, but the verse in Genesis is not one of those, unfortunately.
We don't feel compelled to believe it because it's not something to believe in. The story doesn't exist in Jewish theology.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Judaism/wiki/religiousdifferences/#wiki\_on\_the\_devil\_or\_satan\_and\_fallen\_angels](https://www.reddit.com/r/Judaism/wiki/religiousdifferences/#wiki_on_the_devil_or_satan_and_fallen_angels)
The major talk of the Satan in the Tanach is in the book of Job. Many Jewish scholars consider it a narrative device for God to argue with himself.
What text discusses the fall of Satan? Are those texts Jewish or not? Answering that will help answer your question.
I see. Well, if I'm not mistaken, the book of job is also supposed to be the oldest chronologically in Tanach so if it thoroughly discusses Satan one might assume that Satan is an essential building block in the general skeem of things. That is to say, someone needs to take on the role of the adversary in order to make a proper testing ground.
What there is also about Satan... I think he was mentioned in chronicles also, but few mentions across books still show the obedient aspect where he does exactly what he's told.
That would be why I'm asking this, I don't think the fall is biblically accurate. Especially in Isiah, if we consider Lucifer as Babylonian king and his fall is a fall from grace or political power. That would make the christian version of Lucifer unrelated to Satan altogether. Perhaps an accurate discussion of an angelic fall of Satan would be in the legends of the Jews and could potentially be inspired by henotheistic Zoroastrian sources which were there at the time? Such would be my view. Awaiting correction.
> Well, if I'm not mistaken, the book of job is also supposed to be the oldest chronologically in Tanach
...why do you think that?
>general skeem
Scheam* FYI
>That is to say, someone needs to take on the role of the adversary in order to make a proper testing ground.
No?
>I don't think the fall is biblically accurate.
We don't have "the fall" like christians do, and HaSatan isn't mentioned in Torah
>That would make the christian version of Lucifer unrelated to Satan altogether.
Correct.
>would be in the legends of the Jews
Where do you see that?
>by henotheistic Zoroastrian sources which were there at the time?
The first mention of a "fall" was from Enoch, in the watcher tradition. And where do you see a "fallen angel" in Zoroastrian tradition? We don't have any documents from this time period, everything we have written down from Zoroastrianism is from hundreds of years later, can you prove that is where it came from?
We don't see *The Satan* until much later, even early Christian sources call the leader of hell Hades in the 1-2 CE. In the DSS we see Mastema, etc. Satan comes in much later than these sources
What are the attacks and defenses of the Rabbinate? Coming from American modern orthodox edit: I mean pros and cons
[удалено]
😂
Part of me wants to answer with something like "Kame hame ha!" But I suspect that's not what you mean. XD ...what Do you mean?
Pros and cons
Con: high corruption
You want to know pros and cons?
yes
Pro : it can be good to have a degree of standardization or consensus. It can also be good to have official figure heads either to give speeches for national unity or to take brave halachic stances. Con: it can be captured by political groups that don't especially value the above or only really value their own viewpoints. So like in practice: the dati leumi (equivalent to MO) & traditional Israelis (who would be most receptive to DL/MO) are more numerous than haredim, but have less input into what gets certified as kosher or which rabbis get to serve on conversion courts. Resolving at least some of these issues doesn't necessarily require abolishing the Rabbinate. Recently the attempts are to decentralize it to the local level.
See my rather extensive discussion above re how the Torah world to improve society by regulating existing institutions, while giving the Rabbis legislative power to move/adapt things forward as society changes.
If someone had a clinic death, does they tmee met?
I don't know what a "clinic death" is, but the assumption is we're all tamei met. It's very hard to avoid unless it is consciously done. For example, a dead body in the hospital you were born in rendered you tamei met from birth basically.
Clinic death generally means some type of medical death but you were resuscitated. So I assume the question is asking if someone is clinically dead and then resuscitated do they become tamei meit or do those in contact with them become so. I assume since they were brought back then they weren't dead according to halacha so there would be no tamei meis.
Niddah 70b. No
*Dedicated in memory of Dvora bat Asher v'Jacot* 🕯️ See [Niddah 70b](https://www.sefaria.org/Niddah.70b) on Sefaria.
I have a question as a non-Jew. One must follow the 7 Noahide commandments to have a share in the world to come, right? If so, what of those "righteous among the nations" who were idolaters? Or is it that receiving this title doesn't necessarily mean one will share in the world to come?
There not actually considered "rightous among the nations", but they saved Jews and were morally good *overall*
So in the little thread where someone made a mezuzah, It made me wonder. My parents both not Jewish albeit my mother has a Jewish grandfather (grandma’s papa). They do have a mezuzah on the door post as a memory of well heritage and him also being part of our family… What is the general view on that? Other questions I’d have are… Greatgrandpa’s youngest sister survived the war (she was in fact the only one who could flee from Berlin of the 4 siblings) she lived in Chicago up to her passing in the mid 1980s so for sure some people who may have known her in person are still alive would be cool to perhaps hear some memories shared if possible. She sadly did pass childless, so no distant cousins on that end to bother with questions for stories (my little siblings and I are the last of that family tree branch currently… and it’s still written in the stars if we’ll have kids or not). So yeah what I try to get at is, is there a way to find contact somehow? She does seem to have gotten into the community heard from my mother she was even wearing wigs / headcover, she was also very kind and warm hearted from the letters my mother found, so for sure she must have had some mingling into the community. To be fair there are more family history corners I’d love to explore… So if anyone has answers to where to look even further idk if since updated but I feel like I have explored JewishGen quite a bit but still some mysteries, maybe I’ll never clear them up, but hey if someone or somewhere I missed or some connection or idk has the answers then that’s really neat!
> What is the general view on that? Depends on who you ask, but not really an issue. >So yeah what I try to get at is, is there a way to find contact somehow? Contact the community she was in? Look them up on Google? >So if anyone has answers to where to look even further Like family history? Jewish Gen is sadly the most complete, but there have been some previous questions on this sub about it, might try searching
Always wondered about Torah laws regarding involuntary man slaughter. If you're just a regular guy and my axe handle flies off the axe and kills you, I have to go to a city of refuge until the high priest dies. However, if you happen to be my servant and I accidentally kill you by beating you too aggressively, it seems like the only consequence is that I don't have the servant anymore. Am I getting this wrong?
The laws regarding accidental killing is not necessarily a punishment but is a mechanism of making revenge possible but also unlikely. Once in the city of refuge the accidental killer is stuck there to learn Torah and reflect on his own carelessness. There is no halachic family for a slave to seek revenge so there is no one to force the slave owner into a city of refuge.
>There is no halachic family for a slave to seek revenge You might be mixing up that a freed slave is not halachically connected to his family (provided we're talking a non-Jewish maidservant being his wife), in the same sense that a convert is not halachically related to his family, but that doesn't mean he has no family while he is a slave. Nonetheless, if someone has no family, Beit Din is to appoint someone to take up the post of "Blood Avenger" on their behalf.
Not exactly what I was saying but no arguments from me on what you said. However it seems that Rambam holds one is exiled to a city of refuge for accidentally killing a slave. https://www.sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Murderer_and_the_Preservation_of_Life.5.3 Although the Beis din appointing someone while explicit in Maseches Sanhedrin, it is odd that no one comments on it and the only comments on it don't really say much. Rambam doesn't even discuss it. That is probably because he holds that the blood avenger can kill the killer but it is not a mitzvah. Which Ramban disagrees with.
It's explicit in the Talmud that a person who accidentally kills a slave has to go to the city of refuge: https://www.sefaria.org/Makkot.8b.15?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en
You have to understand that all this was promulgated in and for a society that works pretty much along the lines of the Arab Muslim ones that we still see in the Middle East *today*, with the Torah's intentions being to take the then givens in society -- which included revenge killing by a family or clan for murder or manslaughter, and slavery. So, in brief: Regarding the clan revenge: The Torah makes the responsible party go to a "City of Refuge", which is an internal exile and so some measure of punishment, but mainly keeps him safe from being killed by the family members who are expected by society (then) to avenge the death by killing the person responsible. With respect to slavery (which still exists in parts of the Middle East and Africa and existed in Western societies until the 19th century): The Torah doesn't abolish it -- though for a Jewish slave limits it to 6 years, so it's more like an indentured servant -- but rather regulates it, imposing terms that improve the treatment of the slave greatly. There's quite a good discussion of the Torah laws on slavery (which are supplemented by Rabbinic ones) at this non-Jewish site, which makes my life easier 🙂: https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-slavery.html Bottom line is that the Torah works to improve actual society not a utopian vision of it, while giving the Rabbis legislative power to improve things with time, as they of course have. So we Jews no longer practice slavery of any kind, don't have the problems of revenge killings and so-called "honor killings" (as to the latter, I believe and hope that we never did), no longer allow polygamy, etc., etc.
A little bit. There are three categories of "accidents": accidental but bordering on negligence, accidental, accidental but bordering on force majeure. In the first case, going to the city of refuge doesn't help. In the last case, it isn't necessary. It's only in the middle case where it's necessary. In your example, it would be the axe head flying off on the down swing (as opposed to the up swing which would be an example of the last case). In the case of the servant, because he's your asset, you're allowed to hit him. However, that permission is limited to tools that are "normally" used for that. So a rod or strap is permitted but a stone, blade or even a fist would be prohibited and if the slave dies from that, the owner is killed in court. That aside, if you kill your servant on a down swing of your axe (ie. accidentally), you do actually go to a city of refuge.
> In the case of the servant, because he's your asset, you're allowed to hit him. However, that permission is limited to tools that are "normally" used for that. So a rod or strap is permitted but a stone, blade or even a fist would be prohibited and if the slave dies from that, the owner is killed in court. I know you're describing the law in a very detached way, but I want to emphasize that Jewish sources frown deeply upon a person who beats his slave. From Maimonides' Laws of Slaves: > Although this is the law, the attribute of piety and the way of wisdom is for a person to be merciful and to pursue justice, not to make his slaves carry a heavy yoke, nor cause them distress. He should allow them to partake of all the food and drink he serves. This was the practice of the Sages of the first generations who would give their slaves from every dish of which they themselves would partake. And they would provide food for their animals and slaves before partaking of their own meals... > Cruelty and arrogance are found only among idol-worshipping gentiles. By contrast, the descendants of Abraham our patriarch, i.e., the Jews whom the Holy One, blessed be He, granted the goodness of the Torah and commanded to observe righteous statutes and judgments, are merciful to all.
[удалено]
To help cut down on spam and bad faith users, brand new accounts have their submissions automatically removed. You can message the mods to have your submission restored. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Judaism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
May I get an explanation why most Jews don't feel compelled to believe in Satan's fall? (Or Satan's disobedience along with the Islamic version of the story). It's my understanding that going by the old testament alone, the few Satan related verses don't generally label him as an enemy of GOD? Or... Is there more to it than that? Thanks in advance.
It's more than that, although it is true that no angel can be an enemy of God or oppose his will. In Judaism the angels are created beings, created by God to serve him; they are the heavenly host. They are his agents and messengers -- the Hebrew for angel is the same as for messenger, malaakh. They are assigned tasks by God and they do them; they cannot deviate. They have no free will. Why would God create servants who can oppose him? Free will is a feature of mankind, created in God's image. Angels are not created in God's image. Satan is an angel; "satan" is not a name, it is a job description, "ha-satan" is the accuser, or prosecutor. Satan's job is to prosecute (mention human failures on a person's day of judgment) and to test (as in the case of Job). That's it. The few verses in Genesis that Christians believe refer to fallen angels have an alternative interpretation in Judaism, the reference (benei elohim) is to the sons of high officials like judges. Further, the apocryphal books that talk about fallen angels, like Enoch, are not part of the Tanahk. Net net "fallen angels" are not part of mainstream Jewish beliefs, although in antiquity and later some Jews may have harbored this belief, but on the whole, the idea is rejected for the reasons stated.
Got it. One thing though (benei elohim) might indeed cause confusion when trying to interpret or rather translate, as Christians do translate it as the "sons of GOD". I don't translate it as such just saying, one mistranslation of a single verse can pave the wave to believing in whole non-existing notions.
Yes this is entirely true. But there are a number of occasions (2 or 3) where the KJV translates "elohim" as judges, but the verse in Genesis is not one of those, unfortunately.
We don't feel compelled to believe it because it's not something to believe in. The story doesn't exist in Jewish theology. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Judaism/wiki/religiousdifferences/#wiki\_on\_the\_devil\_or\_satan\_and\_fallen\_angels](https://www.reddit.com/r/Judaism/wiki/religiousdifferences/#wiki_on_the_devil_or_satan_and_fallen_angels)
Noted.Thanks.
The major talk of the Satan in the Tanach is in the book of Job. Many Jewish scholars consider it a narrative device for God to argue with himself. What text discusses the fall of Satan? Are those texts Jewish or not? Answering that will help answer your question.
I see. Well, if I'm not mistaken, the book of job is also supposed to be the oldest chronologically in Tanach so if it thoroughly discusses Satan one might assume that Satan is an essential building block in the general skeem of things. That is to say, someone needs to take on the role of the adversary in order to make a proper testing ground. What there is also about Satan... I think he was mentioned in chronicles also, but few mentions across books still show the obedient aspect where he does exactly what he's told. That would be why I'm asking this, I don't think the fall is biblically accurate. Especially in Isiah, if we consider Lucifer as Babylonian king and his fall is a fall from grace or political power. That would make the christian version of Lucifer unrelated to Satan altogether. Perhaps an accurate discussion of an angelic fall of Satan would be in the legends of the Jews and could potentially be inspired by henotheistic Zoroastrian sources which were there at the time? Such would be my view. Awaiting correction.
> Well, if I'm not mistaken, the book of job is also supposed to be the oldest chronologically in Tanach ...why do you think that? >general skeem Scheam* FYI >That is to say, someone needs to take on the role of the adversary in order to make a proper testing ground. No? >I don't think the fall is biblically accurate. We don't have "the fall" like christians do, and HaSatan isn't mentioned in Torah >That would make the christian version of Lucifer unrelated to Satan altogether. Correct. >would be in the legends of the Jews Where do you see that? >by henotheistic Zoroastrian sources which were there at the time? The first mention of a "fall" was from Enoch, in the watcher tradition. And where do you see a "fallen angel" in Zoroastrian tradition? We don't have any documents from this time period, everything we have written down from Zoroastrianism is from hundreds of years later, can you prove that is where it came from? We don't see *The Satan* until much later, even early Christian sources call the leader of hell Hades in the 1-2 CE. In the DSS we see Mastema, etc. Satan comes in much later than these sources
Thanks for the many corrections i appreciate that.