Lovely tribute. May I change the subject slightly? Last week, and again in this week's portion, the text describes the roll of Bezalel, Oholihab, and the many other artisans and crafts people charged with creating and decorating the mishkan. The term used to describe "skill" is "chacham-lev" or "chachamat-lev." These individuals are wise-hearted. Maybe it was the colloquial way of saying "skilled" artisan, but I prefer to think of this as lovely recognition of craft and artisanal skills. These had value in the time represented in the Torah, during the time that the Torah as redacted, and still today.
You say the Reform movement takes a "... thousands-year-old tradition" to renew it everyday ....
May I remind you there is NO tradition of the Reform movement, but rather the tradition of the Orthodox movement - simply because Reform Judaism has no tradition beyond that which remains after two or three generations, which by that time is practically nil. Reform Jews of today are not the descendants of Reform Jewry of the past. Within only 2 or 3 generations, Reformism goes extinct. Starting with a group of Reform Jews, the number of them who remain hugging Torah after 3 generations is insignificant. If you take this as an accusation, you miss my point. This is not an attack. It is an empirical finding that the chances for assimilation into the Gentile culture and intermarriage is a simple matter of fact. The only "tradition", therefore, that you adopt as your own happens to be that which Torah-observant Jews have propagated for over 3 millennia.
Torah at its core is truth (אמת).
(This is suggested by the 1st 3 words of Torah, where their last letters spells "truth". The order of these letters is not in order, because, at first sight, Torah truth does not SEEM apparent. But the further you delve into Torah, as its words 2, 3 and 4 represent, the more its truth becomes evident, which is why the last letters of THESE words DO spell "truth" - in the right order!)
I say this only to correct a slight error in your reasoning - that Reform Judaism has "its own" tradition - for it merely adopts another's tradition, calling it its own, and then reforms it - or, as its geneology will prove in 4 generations at most, hollows it out. As any slight error, its long vector becomes a major deviation in degree.
Here's the researched empirical data I alluded to: http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/will-your-grandchild-be-jewish-chart-graph.htm although with common sense you would derive the same conclusion.
Another thing about אמת : It comprises the 1st letter of the alphabet, the last one and the middle one - to signify that Torah truth remains unchanged (unreformed) from beginning of time to the end of time.
Lovely tribute. May I change the subject slightly?
ReplyDeleteLast week, and again in this week's portion, the text describes the roll of Bezalel, Oholihab, and the many other artisans and crafts people charged with creating and decorating the mishkan. The term used to describe "skill" is "chacham-lev" or "chachamat-lev." These individuals are wise-hearted. Maybe it was the colloquial way of saying "skilled" artisan, but I prefer to think of this as lovely recognition of craft and artisanal skills. These had value in the time represented in the Torah, during the time that the Torah as redacted, and still today.
Dear Rabbi Blake,
ReplyDeleteYou say the Reform movement takes a "... thousands-year-old tradition" to renew it everyday ....
May I remind you there is NO tradition of the Reform movement, but rather the tradition of the Orthodox movement - simply because Reform Judaism has no tradition beyond that which remains after two or three generations, which by that time is practically nil. Reform Jews of today are not the descendants of Reform Jewry of the past. Within only 2 or 3 generations, Reformism goes extinct. Starting with a group of Reform Jews, the number of them who remain hugging Torah after 3 generations is insignificant. If you take this as an accusation, you miss my point. This is not an attack. It is an empirical finding that the chances for assimilation into the Gentile culture and intermarriage is a simple matter of fact. The only "tradition", therefore, that you adopt as your own happens to be that which Torah-observant Jews have propagated for over 3 millennia.
Torah at its core is truth (אמת).
(This is suggested by the 1st 3 words of Torah, where their last letters spells "truth". The order of these letters is not in order, because, at first sight, Torah truth does not SEEM apparent. But the further you delve into Torah, as its words 2, 3 and 4 represent, the more its truth becomes evident, which is why the last letters of THESE words DO spell "truth" - in the right order!)
I say this only to correct a slight error in your reasoning - that Reform Judaism has "its own" tradition - for it merely adopts another's tradition, calling it its own, and then reforms it - or, as its geneology will prove in 4 generations at most, hollows it out. As any slight error, its long vector becomes a major deviation in degree.
Here's the researched empirical data I alluded to:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/will-your-grandchild-be-jewish-chart-graph.htm
although with common sense you would derive the same conclusion.
Another thing about אמת : It comprises the 1st letter of the alphabet, the last one and the middle one - to signify that Torah truth remains unchanged (unreformed) from beginning of time to the end of time.
ReplyDeleteBeth