Western Lecture 4 Notes

Western Lecture 4 -prayer is very important, prayers are there for everything but must be done in right frame of mind kavanah- having right intention -jews developed aids to assist in getting into the right frame of mind and put on prayer shawls known as Tallith -men put kippah on head- skull cap, yiddish for kippah is yarmulke -another aid for orthodox and hiddicks is Tefflin (greek is phylacteries)- means magic box, but in the box were actually a bunch of prayers -another aspect of prayer is blessings- of food, ppl, ceremonies- this shows that God is responsible for eveything Sabbath- day to study scripture and stay home with family. Hassidic Jews can only go as far as parents house. This is a day of restricted activity Diet- Levitcus gives dietary laws. 3 aspects of food and drink laws: 1. Permitted and prohibited: what you can and cannot eat. Jews can't eat pork, shellfish, artichokes 2. Preparation: how animals to be sacrificed, way food cooked etc. something fit to eat (permitted to eat) was called Kashrut (yiddish is Kosher). Animal must be drained of blood and Kashrut is prepared by a special butcher known as a Shokhet 3. Food Combining: can't combine meat and dairy, b/c seen as impure. This is according to the scripture that says “Thou shall not boil a kid in the mother's milk” Rubanic Judaism took over with emergence of synagogue, services were held on sabbath (sabbath had to have services but services could be held on other days as well). Called together as a congregation − the people were called to come and pray by the sounding of a shofar- ram's horn -developed a style of reciting scripture (rhythmic, musical) and people were trained to sing like this and the people that sang were known as hazanin -Jewish community in Yemen is really old and maintained its history and had own version of scripture called Targum. It's aramaic, and from this you get the singing of hebrew scripture -Masoretes?? −

Festivals -Jews follow lunar calendar and thus have only 355 days in a year -adar sheni- adjustment period -Jews realign with solar calendar so there have to be adjustments because the holidays are determined by the solar calendar -jewish year starts with Rosh Hashanagh – new year, established by the equ inox -after Rosh Hashanah comes Yom Kippur- day of anotoneent, day when you fast and ask for forgiveness -Yom kippur turned into lent in christianity and ramadan in islam -after yom kippur comes Sukkoth- refers to when crop was ready to be picked and so you stay with crop to protect it -to commerate this people build tabernacle in backyard and sleep there -its like thanksgiving -Hannukah- winter solstice, was not layed out as part of Torrah and came out with Maccabees and protection of Hebrew from Helleinization

-it involves the lighting of candles, commemorates that even with a little oil Maccabees could stay locked away from enemies and the amount of oil was enough for them Purim- takes place near spring quinox, celebration that you made it through fall and got through winter - way of getting rid of extra food with celebration, equivalent to mardi gras in christianity Passover- spring, commemorates angels of death passing over the doors of the Hebrew people, when it was sent out to kill the first born sons of the Egyptian people -special meal on Passover is called seder. One aspect of seder is that only unleavened bread is eaten, bread made with flour and water and no yeast. Sometimes referred to as the feast of unleavened bread Shavuoth- a late spring/early summer, which matches barley harbest. Barley is used as a major animal feed and therefore dairy produced from these animals. It commemorates the act of God giving the law to Moses Life Cycle -mark of covenant with Abraham with circumcisionof children -Aliyah means coming up- introduce children to synagogue and thus Judaism lives on thru children -Nahath (nahas)- good feelings community gets when a new child is born, this means community will live on -important for child to read torrah, there is a purpose of teaching alphabet as long as torrah is there -around puberty child is ready to show synagogue that they can read the torrah- this event is called Bar Mitzvah for boys (become full member of Jewish community) and for females its Bat Mizvah -Marriage is seen as something that is done in order to procreate- b/c child lives on. -Death- tragedy in terms of community bew -7days of mourning and the body is watched over, this guards soul from being taken away -sitting with dead means shiva -prayer called kaddish- death prayer said by oldest son. Psalms are recited in shiva, especially psalm 23 Conversion -Jews don't actively proselytize- don't try converting -born a Jew, b/c they are a chosen group and offspring are chosen people -doesn't mean you can't become a jew, can convert but usually happens b/c your becoming a Jew for marriage purposes- need to undergo circumcision -like a ritual immersion – cleaning yourself and live under the burden of the commandments Modernity -during the 1600-1700 was an age of discovery. Time made people paranoid and Jews were seen as strange and Hews were forced to live in enclaves?- small places and Ghettos refers to Jewish enclaves? In Venice -most Euro cities had group of Jews with walls around themlike in Poland and Russia, and Jews were locked in at night -made Jews think that the modern world is sending things that they are not ready forgiveness -during 1700-1800, some Jews adapted to modern times and others remained resisting adaptaion -jews started separating into : Conservative, Reform and Orthodox 1) Reform- put Jewish on rational basis to match up w/ things happening in modern world done by Moses Mendelssohn, who said Jews should become more European and alter the way they dress and stop engaging in so many rituals and thinking of Judaism in ritual framework -Mendelssohn said dietary laws inhibited developing spiritually and told them to drop this

-he said most of things in torrah are metaphors and they are there to help us learn -went against old ways 2) Conservative- didn't take leap of Reform, can follow history of Jews and can adapt to things but will not change their identity - will still teach Hebrew but may change clothes -the causer of this movement was Leopold Zunz. -there were Jews in US in late 1800s and Rabbis got together in Cincinnati to decide how American Jews were going to do things that were going on around them. Caterer brought shrimp and those who ate the shrimp became reform in US and those who didn't became conservative Jews in US. 3)Orthodox- Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch -said people forgot what it is to be a Jew and this was said in response to the 2 forms of Jews created -felt scripture should be taken literally (613 commandments given by Maimondes) and also followed -Derek Eretz – follow way of land, basis of religion is founded in agricultural calendar and live in a way that let's you get along -Orthodox Judaism is official jews of Israel and are a political party and have the swing vote- no legislation can be passed without the consent of the Orthodox Thinkers: Franz Rosenzweig- died 1929 had idea that Jews had eternal covenant with God and so Jews weren't really subject to events taking place around them -Jews should focus on being Jews b/c God will take care of everything else (his will be done) Martin Buber- died in 1965 and tried to determine real essence of Jewishness -I-thou relationship informed by spirtual- actually things that fulfill you -I-it relationship- something w/ no intrinsic value- no fulfillment -said have too many I-it people Mordecai Kaplan- died in 1983- associated with the reconstruction of Judaism- combination of all 3 Judaisms and the combination of Judaisms recognizes the quality in sexes -Judaism should get identity from its culture Emil Fackenheim-philosopher who said that jews needed to live lives today as if there was a 614th commandment “Jews must continue to live so as not to grant Hitler an aspertonous? victory Zionism- movement w/i Judaism- nationalist movement -the jewish people are meant to be a nation -Seder- read during passover, and it is the wish that the next passover will be celebrated in Jerusalem UN decided in 1948 that jews can go home and state of Israel was created by the UN − in Israel they speak modern Hebrew developed by Eliezer ben Yehudah in 1959 and now it is the language in Israel; it does not resemble the Hebrew in Torrah Immigration- as a result of the temple being destroyed in 70 C.E. Jews that settled in Mediterranian countries are called Sephardic Jews. -Jews that moved north are called Ashkenazi -Sephardic Jews moved into north and south america as craftsmen in the 18th century -in 19th century Ashkenazi moved as managers, bankers, and lawyers into Europe, NA, SA -in Russia, russians felt that Jews always got in the way and so Jews tried to get away and lived at stetlach, place way oustide city and with Russian Revolution stetlach were wiped out and but ppl began leacing stetlachs even before this and in 1922 US thought that too many Jews were coming and stopped them from coming

-in 1933 Hitler (architect0 came to power and decided Jews, Gypsies etc. should be eliminated, and period of ethnic cleansing came to a peak at WWII -Entlosung- “final solution”- Germans wondered why they couldn't take over the world and they thought the answer was b/c of the Jews, so this resulted in the death of 6 million Jews − there were 18 million Jews in total and this wiped out 1/3 of Jews and it equaled ¼ of deaths in WWII -religion of Judaism is different after Holocaust and it has become politicized