Let's Talk Judaism!

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That is such a beautiful thing, to have someone there to attend to the body praying the psalms, caring for the family…

Its very touching. I never heard of this in christianity.
 
Valke2 said:
It is traditional to wash the body in preparation for burial. This process is called Taharah (Purification). Taharah is accomplished by a specially trained group of people. Not every community has a group which can do Taharah. Embalming is a violation of the Jewish tradition because it impedes the natural process of decomposition. The body, once washed, is dressed in a plain linen shroud called Tachrichim… Some people may be buried in their tallit (prayer shawl). When this is done, the tzitzit (corner fringes) are cut off, signifying that the tallit can no longer be used for prayer by this person. It is also common these days for the tallit of the deceased to be retained by the family and passed on to a living relative; another tallit, acquired for the purposes of burial, is used in its stead for burial.
scheinerman.net/judaism/life-cycle/death.html#prior
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Hi

So I think you confirm that it is not and it had never been a funeral custom of Jews to bring 100 pounds of aloe and Myrrh. This might be a later addition in John that was a Jewish custom to prove some point which was not there in the first place, in my opinion.

Jesus was never washed for funeral, nobody attended the funeral ceremony of Jesus and none invited for it; they were all busy attending to the wounds of beloved Jesus who was still alive to their happiness, in my opinion.

It is only later that he went on exile from Judea to India alongwith Mary, in my opinion.

Thanks
 
Are you allowed to work at places that serve or make unclean food? Or is it just you can’t eat unclean food? What if you grow unclean food for a friend, is that allowed?
 
I have a humble question. Is it true that as members of the church we can go to any other temple ex…Budha, induh…exc. to pray to God and it wont be consider an offence to the church…?
 
jay12 said:
I have a humble question. Is it true that as members of the church we can go to any other temple ex…Budha, induh…exc. to pray to God and it wont be consider an offence to the church…?
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What do you mean by church? This thread is about posters questions to understand Judaism.
 
good thread so far and Valke is very patient with our ignorance, I do have a question, related to an earlier post on proselytizing.
Is there a group or movement within Judaism that has a concern or mission to bring non-practicing Jews back to stricter observance, or simply to educate those Jews who were not raised with knowledge of scripture and the law?
 
notsmart said:
That is such a beautiful thing, to have someone there to attend to the body praying the psalms, caring for the family…

Its very touching. I never heard of this in christianity.
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It would be more difficult in christianity, I would think, because the time between death and burial can be several days. In Judaism we try to bury the body within 24 hours.

Staying with the body and/or participating in the burial are considered the greatest of mitzvahs that we can do. Because it is something that we do when we know that there is no way we can be paid back for our deed (as the person is dead).
 
Valke2 said:
It would be more difficult in christianity, I would think, because the time between death and burial can be several days. In Judaism we try to bury the body within 24 hours.
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Well, that is true but people could offer to take turns after all. It could be done. I still think its a testament of the kind of Love God wants us to have in this case.
What is the reason for the burial to be done within 24 hours? Personally, I think it may help the grieved for it to be faster than the days and days that go by in non jewish burials. I don’t usually think much about this whole aspect of life, I guess its time to think about it a little bit now that I am older.
 
paarsurrey said:
Hi

So I think you confirm that it is not and it had never been a funeral custom of Jews to bring 100 pounds of aloe and Myrrh. This might be a later addition in John that was a Jewish custom to prove some point which was not there in the first place, in my opinion.

Jesus was never washed for funeral, nobody attended the funeral ceremony of Jesus and none invited for it; they were all busy attending to the wounds of beloved Jesus who was still alive to their happiness, in my opinion.

It is only later that he went on exile from Judea to India alongwith Mary, in my opinion.

Thanks
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If it was ever a custom in Judaism I am unaware of it. I think disputing a detail reported in one of the Gospels, however, is not a strong arguement for the position that Jesus wasn’t crucified. My answer was to how Jews bury the dead today. I do not know how we did it 2,000 years ago. It is not something I have studied.
 
Valke2 said:
If it was ever a custom in Judaism I am unaware of it. I think disputing a detail reported in one of the Gospels, however, is not a strong arguement for the position that Jesus wasn’t crucified.
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Don’t mind paarsurray, he’s a heretic Muslim.

Actually, I find it strange that some Muslims come onto “ask questions about Judaism/talk about Judaism/discuss Judaism” threads to ask questions that would question Christianity, for example, details in the gospels. I don’t think it’s charitable.

Ooh, I have another question! Why did Aaron get to perform the miracles for a while, and than Moses performed them? (I mean with the staff) Is it because of Moses’ office? Or Aaron’s office?
 
IN general, the child of a jewish mother is a jew. And if that child is a daughter and she grows up not practicing judaism and she has a child, that child is still a Jew. I believe that is such a child wanted to embrace Judaism, many jewish communities would require a public act to announce and affirm their judiasm to the community (i.e., reading from the Torah at service)
 
Eucharisted said:
Are you allowed to work at places that serve or make unclean food? Or is it just you can’t eat unclean food? What if you grow unclean food for a friend, is that allowed?
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I don’t know the answer to this question. My guess is that a Jew can work in such places.
 
jay12 said:
I have a humble question. Is it true that as members of the church we can go to any other temple ex…Budha, induh…exc. to pray to God and it wont be consider an offence to the church…?
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Umm… It’s ok with me. Did you post this on the wrong thread? As far as shul goes, a non jew may attend services. They just can’t be called up to the Torah to read from it.
 
puzzleannie said:
good thread so far and Valke is very patient with our ignorance, I do have a question, related to an earlier post on proselytizing.
Is there a group or movement within Judaism that has a concern or mission to bring non-practicing Jews back to stricter observance, or simply to educate those Jews who were not raised with knowledge of scripture and the law?
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THere are such groups. Chabad being the most wel known. TThey believe, rightly I think, that the more a Jew understands about their religion, the more likely they are to become more observant of its laws.
 
Valke2 said:
That’s an excellent question. And a pet peeve of mine. There is a concept in Judaism that translates into building a fence around the Torah. Based on the law requiring one to put a railing on their roof, so that if someone were to go on the roof, they wouldn’t fall off. In short, this concept means that at times we make laws that are designed to prevent someone from breaking the real law. An example is the prohibition against carrying money on the sabbath. Now, there’s nothing in the Torah that suggests carrying money on the sabbath breaks a commandment. But the rabbis were concerned that if you carry money on the sabbath, you will be tempted to engage in commerce (maybe stopping at the local lemonade stand on the way to synagouge). So they made a law saying don’t carry money.

I think that, around 1100 CE, the rabbis became concerned that if a Jew saw another jew eating chicken parm, they might mistakenly think he was eating veal parm. And that since his pious neighbor was eating veal parm, then eating veal parm must be ok. So to prevent this extremely likely scenario from happening 🙂 we came up with the no chicken parm law.

As someone who is half Italian, I’m not crazy about it.
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. . . I understand that the rabbis did not determine that chicken was actually meat until the 15th or 16th century. Is that correct?
 
notsmart said:
Well, that is true but people could offer to take turns after all. It could be done. I still think its a testament of the kind of Love God wants us to have in this case.
What is the reason for the burial to be done within 24 hours? Personally, I think it may help the grieved for it to be faster than the days and days that go by in non jewish burials. I don’t usually think much about this whole aspect of life, I guess its time to think about it a little bit now that I am older.
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Judaism has a lot of laws surrounding death for a variety of reasons (so many laws in fact that there are a few popular books that contain all the rules and explanations and it is very common to see these given to the berieved. One being, as you said, to help with the grieving process (this is a main one).

The biblical support for burying the dead as quickly as possible is found in the following verses:

"Thou shall surely bury him the same day. His body shall not remain all night.) Deu. 21:23. Jewish law interprets that to mean we need to bury the body before sunset following the death.

The theology underlying this is that we are made in the image of God and therefore the body should be accorded the deepest respect. We view it as a sign of disrespect to leave the body unburied. The soul has been returned to God but the body is His as well.
 
notsmart said:
That would depend on what type of Jew you are talking about. I have been to Jewish funerals and the first thing here that caught my eye, was it sure the heck was not the most simple fashion available, That casket was fanicer than the Pope’s.
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I have also been to “plain pine box” Jewish funerals. There is a very wide spectrum of practice.
 
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