Dialogue

Tonight was Interseminary Dialogue, this time at HUC. It was a good night- we had some very nice discussion about funeral/mourning practices, with some interesting off-topic digressions into frequency of prayer, required population for such (both issues of quorum and of requisite ordained individuals), and found our way back to funerals, and the issue of closed or open caskets and embalming. It was really fascinating. I'm finding that I'm getting to know some of the folks who come regularly, which is quite nice.

I had one odd moment with one of the students from HUC who, without knowing me at all, proclaimed that some of his peers at HUC were probably just as observant as I was, and my first perception was that it was coming from a place of threat. But oddly, or maybe not so oddly, I responded first off with a comment about being pretty right-wing, religiously, which really seems in retrospect to be a presentation of "I feel threatened by that", like he was trying to challenge my legitimacy or something. Sort of ridiculous on my part. And yet I'm not sure what a better response would have been. Presumably something like "It's possible, but what do you know/what are you presuming about my practice/theology?". I don't know.

There was an email on the rabbinical student list-serve forwarding a flyer about a prayer vigil in front of the Iranian mission to the UN during what would be lunchtime on Taanit Esther on Thursday, with a comparison between Ahmedinejad and Haman, and I'm finding myself very puzzled by this. I mean, for one, I just don't know enough about the situation. But I also just find making those sorts of allusions somehow nerve-wracking: Biblical presentations of stories don't present history in the way that we perceive it from a modern lens, as far as I can tell. So that makes such comparisons somewhat dangerous. And for another thing, a prayer vigil outside something embassy-like: is one having a vigil to express one's views and the praying is so that it's clearly a religious gathering or is one praying for the outcome one would like, and the location is just to get people to come to the praying? Also, is it really safe to make an analogy between wanting to destroy Israel and wanting to kill all the Jews? I mean, certainly they aren't so far apart. At the same time, there's something about it that gives me pause. If destroying Israel would be equivalent to destroying the Jews, does that mean that we in the diaspora aren't real Jews? At the same time, one can't want to destroy Israel without having it somehow related to a perception of Jews and Judaism. I'm in search of the line there, if one can be drawn.

Dialogue

Tonight was Interseminary Dialogue, this time at HUC. It was a good night- we had some very nice discussion about funeral/mourning practices, with some interesting off-topic digressions into frequency of prayer, required population for such (both issues of quorum and of requisite ordained individuals), and found our way back to funerals, and the issue of closed or open caskets and embalming. It was really fascinating. I'm finding that I'm getting to know some of the folks who come regularly, which is quite nice.

I had one odd moment with one of the students from HUC who, without knowing me at all, proclaimed that some of his peers at HUC were probably just as observant as I was, and my first perception was that it was coming from a place of threat. But oddly, or maybe not so oddly, I responded first off with a comment about being pretty right-wing, religiously, which really seems in retrospect to be a presentation of "I feel threatened by that", like he was trying to challenge my legitimacy or something. Sort of ridiculous on my part. And yet I'm not sure what a better response would have been. Presumably something like "It's possible, but what do you know/what are you presuming about my practice/theology?". I don't know.

There was an email on the rabbinical student list-serve forwarding a flyer about a prayer vigil in front of the Iranian mission to the UN during what would be lunchtime on Taanit Esther on Thursday, with a comparison between Ahmedinejad and Haman, and I'm finding myself very puzzled by this. I mean, for one, I just don't know enough about the situation. But I also just find making those sorts of allusions somehow nerve-wracking: Biblical presentations of stories don't present history in the way that we perceive it from a modern lens, as far as I can tell. So that makes such comparisons somewhat dangerous. And for another thing, a prayer vigil outside something embassy-like: is one having a vigil to express one's views and the praying is so that it's clearly a religious gathering or is one praying for the outcome one would like, and the location is just to get people to come to the praying? Also, is it really safe to make an analogy between wanting to destroy Israel and wanting to kill all the Jews? I mean, certainly they aren't so far apart. At the same time, there's something about it that gives me pause. If destroying Israel would be equivalent to destroying the Jews, does that mean that we in the diaspora aren't real Jews? At the same time, one can't want to destroy Israel without having it somehow related to a perception of Jews and Judaism. I'm in search of the line there, if one can be drawn.