Ask a Jew, Mark II

I'd like to have a 5.0 thread like this one:
Ask a Jew.... - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

I can't claim to be a fount of knowledge about Judaism, but @Levite is still here, as are others, and surely, more questions remain besides the ones answered earlier.

I do take issue with a number of statements made in the old thread about Reform Judaism, and what trends apply among Jewish religious movements generally.

 

As someone who converted I'll be happy to answer any questions along that line.
When I converted I started with a Reform almost Reconstructionist woman rabbi, went to working with an Orthodox Rabbi and finished with a egalitarian Conservative rabbi so I've been all over the map.
There were members of my wife's family who wouldn't come to our wedding because it was against halukka.
Because I converted Conservative I wasn't Jewish enough.
Some of them came and apologized later but that's a different story.

 

I would be happy to participate in this thread. Thanks, @Street_Pattern!

 

My guess is that they all died, or were absorbed into other populations.

Groups of previously-unknown Jews in Africa, India, and China have been proven legit, but I suspect they are much more recent in origin than the twelve tribes.

 

So actually what you're referring to are the other tribes of Israel. Yehudah (Judah) was the largest and most powerful tribe to survive, and so it became synonymous with the Jewish People ("Jews" being the Anglicization of the Greek Ioudaioi, meaning "Judeans," so called in turn because the land in which they lived had become known as Ioudaia, or in Latinized form, Judea).

But originally, there were twelve tribes of the People Israel, and essentially ten of them became "lost." What happened was this. The ancient Israelite tribes united into a kingdom somewhere around 1000 BCE, initially under a warleader from the tribe of Binyamin (Benjamin) by the name of Sha'ul (Saul). His own warleader eventually replaced him as king, stabilizing the kingdom: this man was named David. David's son Shlomo (Solomon) succeeded him, but his policies later in his rule became unpopular among the majority of the tribes, and the kingdom split (this would have been around 900 BCE or so). The larger portion, holding what is today the northern portions of Israel, with parts of Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan, chose a different king for themselves, and called themselves the Kingdom of Yisrael (Israel); the smaller portion, holding what is today the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the southern portions of Israel, remained under the rule of the House of David, and were known as the Kingdom of Yehudah (Judah). Perhaps incidental to this was also the increasing tension in Israelite society between monotheism and henotheism or monolatry (the belief that many gods exist, but one among them is supreme, having created the others and ruling over them). This tension went back and forth in both kingdoms, but the northern Kingdom of Yisrael consistently remained henotheistic, whereas the southern Kingdom of Yehudah eventually leaned toward monotheism.

In any case, the northern kingdom was the more powerful and aggressive of the two, and when the ancient Assyrian empire arose, and began subjugating the Middle East, the northern kingdom made alliances and sought to fight them. They were conquered by the Assyrians in 722 BCE, and as was customary with troublesome populations they had conquered, the Assyrians deported almost the entire populace of the Kingdom of Yisrael, and dispersed them throughout the Assyrian empire, so as to destroy their cultural integrity, and thus quash their rebelliousness. Almost the entirety of ten of the twelve tribes was lost in that Exile. Such survivors of the ten as there were sought refuge in the southern Kingdom of Yehudah, and merged with their populace. Thus, the Kingdom of Yehudah found itself populated by the tribes of Yehudah, Binyamin, Levi, and scatterings of various other tribes. The Kingdom of Yehudah fought a holding action against the Assyrians, and eventually were able to come to terms with them, so that they spared Yehudah in exchange for it becoming a vassal state and tributary.

By the time that another century or century and a half had passed, the Assyrians themselves were beginning to fall to the rising power of the Babylonian empire, and finally, Babylonia conquered Yehudah, laid brutal seige to Jerusalem, put it to the torch, destroyed the Temple, and carried the nobility of the kingdom into Exile, in 587 BCE. This Exile lasted only around 40 or 50 years, until the Persians, who had conquered the Babylonians, permitted the Jews to return to their land and rebuild the Temple. But not only was the kingship never restored, the clan lines became distorted, and tribal identity blurred. Since that point, the surviving people retained relatively established tribal identity only for the tribe of Levi, which was the priestly tribe, and the rest of the people are referred to entirely as Yisrael (the People Israel), since while the land became known as Yehudah and non-Jews referred to us as Judeans, we still counted ourselves as the remnants of all twelve tribes, and hoped for a return of those lost to us.

The truth is that the majority of the "lost tribes" were probably lost in truth before the Assyrians fell to the Babylonians-- without adequate community, and without the strength of identity lent by the fusion of Israelite culture to monotheism, they would have been deeply lacking in survival tools, and likely assimilated into the local populace within several generations. But it is not impossible that some survived in some form. The Beita Yisrael (Ethiopian Jews, who now pretty much all live in Israel) claimed to be of the lost tribes, though they had not retained tribal distinctions. The B'nai Menashe of India also claim to be of the lost tribes-- specifically from the tribe of Menashe (Manassas), though there has not yet been proof of this. And the Lemba people of southern Africa claim to have originated in the northern Kingdom of Israel also, and though scholars are questioning this, it does seem clear that their migration to southern Africa took place, if not during the time of the First Temple, then early in the time of the Second Temple. One never knows. But I personally wouldn't hold my breath for such claims to be proven true. I tend to think the "lost tribes" are truly lost, and their memory is all we have of them, and the lessons they taught us about what not to do....

 

I wanted to share what my own rabbi (Reform) says about changes in Judaism during recent decades.

His view contradicts in some respects what was posted in the earlier item, especially as to the meaning of "left" and "right", at least within Reform.

He is the longtime rabbi (now nearing retirement age) of the largest Jewish congregation in this town, with about 400 families. Since we now also have a junior rabbi, I guess he's the senior rabbi.

All of the following are what I recall from comments and lectures of his I have heard over the years. Probably I have mis-remembered or oversimplified some of it.

Though I generally agree with him, these contentions come from him, not me. I recognize that others may have equally-well-informed views that contradict these. My own comments and observations are in italics.

-- Over the last 40+ years, all of the movements have become ritualistically more conservative and theologically more liberal.

-- The Reconstructionist movement is the embodiment of this trend, having many Orthodox style practices, yet welcoming of atheists.

-- A typical Reform service today is like a Conservative service of 40 years ago. A Conservative service today is like a Modern Orthodox service back then. Across the board, there is less English, more Hebrew, and services are longer.

-- Forty years ago, most every large Conservative congregation had an organ that was used on Shabbat, but those are gone: the movement has largely given up using musical instruments on the Sabbath.

-- In Reform, the organs are still there, but in many places they are used less often (or not at all) during Shabbat services.

-- There are some very old Reform congregations, especially in the South, that still practice what is now called "Classical Reform", with services somewhat modeled on what Protestants do, and minimal Hebrew. But those things are somewhat in disrepute, and those congregations are seen as "right wing" and "assimilationist" in clinging to things seen as discredited.

-- Some old Classical Reform practices, like holding services on Sunday instead of Saturday, have been completely discarded even by the most "right wing" congregations. Younger people in Reform are often shocked to hear this was ever done.

-- The youngest and most "cutting edge" or "left wing" Reform congregations (like ours to some extent, founded in 1966) are the ones that have revived the most traditional rituals.

-- In most places, including here, Reform conversions are now done the traditional way, with a beit din and mikveh.

-- In Reform, part of the "left wing" vs. "right wing" issue is frankly about secular politics. At least in the Midwest and South, the old Classical Reform temples tend to be the most affluent and politically conservative, whereas the "cutting edge" congregations which embrace traditions tend to be less affluent and politically more liberal or left wing.

-- There is also a generational issue. For instance, in our congregation, the dwindling minority of men who still don't wear kippot at services are older, generally in their 70s or 80s, and presumably grew up in Classical Reform. I myself would never attend a Jewish service without a yarmulke.

-- He thinks the patrilineal descent issue is overblown, but (1) he interprets it narrowly, to people with a Jewish upbringing, and (2) he strongly encourages anyone whose status is questionable to go through conversion.

-- He tells of people who went through conversion twice or more, to satisfy different movements.

-- He also will not officiate at weddings involving non-Jews, or convert any man to Judaism who is not circumcised. I don't really know how common this is among Reform rabbis, but his position on marriage and conversion is not controversial in our shul.

 

With all due respect, I do not believe this to be accurate in most of the movements-- though I will mostly grant it for Reconstructionism. There is a growing move toward both increasing ritual conservatism in the Reform movement, it is true, but I think it often comes with an increasing theological traditionalism; and in the Conservative movement, there is a crisis of lapsing ritual observance among our congregations-- though I grant the increasing theological liberalism. And Orthodoxy has not only become increasingly strict in observance, but increasingly rigid in theology-- with the exception of the Open Orthodox movement.

Again, with all respect, I disagree heartily. A Conservative service today is in no way like a Modern Orthodox service of 40 years ago. If anything, a Conservative service 40 years ago was far more like a Modern Orthodox service then. And a typical Reform service today is in no way like a Conservative service of 40 years ago. Reform and Conservative services of today are far more like one another, as Conservative services have added more English, and Reform services have added back more Hebrew-- and neither are anything much like Modern Orthodox services, either 40 years ago or today.

I'm sorry, but this is just inaccurate. Organs or other instruments didn't become anywhere close to mainstream in the Conservative movement until late into the 1990s, maybe closer to the turn of the millennium. And musical instrumentation in services is not declining in the Conservative movement, it is-- unfortunately, to my mind-- rising.

Yes, because the Reform movement seems to have mostly shifted over to guitars. I have been to a fair number of Reform services, given that both my wife and my mother are Reform rabbis, and I am not sure I have ever seen even one that didn't have some sort of instrumentation.

I hope this is the case. The Reform rabbis who are my friends (and relations) certainly do so, and advocate doing so. But I do still hear about Reform conversions not done with halachic (Jewish legal) propriety, and several times I have had people come to me to be married and found that whichever of the couple had converted had been converted improperly by a Reform rabbi or beit din (rabbinical court), and had to be converted properly before they could be married.

I don't want to threadjack this thread, nor do I want to say anything untoward, so I will just let it go by saying that I could not disagree more strongly on the idea that "the patrilineal descent issue is overblown"-- very much the reverse, I think. But I appreciate his encouraging people of questionable status to convert-- that is a very positive act.

Converting a man without circumcision or hatafat dam brit (the ritual consecration of a pre-existing medical circumcision by the drawing of a single drop of blood) is, fortunately, becoming far less common in the Reform movement. Unfortuately, your rabbi's wholly admirable refusal to officiate at intermarriages is far from common in the Reform movement-- very much the opposite, I am afraid.

 

Again, my recollection of his comments may be inaccurate or oversimplified. And obviously, he is better informed about Reform than he is about any other movement.

I certainly did not mean to provoke you, in any way, about patrilineal descent, but I thought you would be interested in his attitude about it.

My own situation is somewhat relevant here. My father was Jewish; my mother was not. I grew up with the understanding that I was an outsider to Judaism.

And I married a woman who was not Jewish.

However, this whole situation caused me a great deal of anguish, and I felt increasingly motivated to rectify it. Meanwhile, my wife had felt drawn to Judaism since long before she met me.

So after a great deal of discussion, and two years of study, with the rabbi mentioned above and some others at Hillel, my wife and I simultaneously converted, and we have been active in our temple ever since.

Our daughter, who we adopted at birth, was converted as an infant. She had her bot mitzvah a couple years ago.

 

Oh, please don't think you provoked me! Nothing in my response was personal, and if it came out sounding that way, I heartily apologize, since that was definitely not my intention.

First of all, let me just say, I really appreciate you sharing your background here. And I also want to let you know how very, very much I honor and respect your conversion and your wife's-- and even more so the feelings that moved you to do so-- and your commitment to raising your Jewish daughter in a Jewish household. Our people are fortunate to have your family: your kind of commitment is precisely what we need to survive and thrive.

As for me, you'll have to forgive me, in that for me, the whole subject of Judaism and Jewish life is full of strong feelings. It's not just who I am, it's my profession, it's the family business (both my parents are rabbis, I and my wife are both rabbis), and having gone from Orthodox in my youth to Conservative in my thirties to more or less frustrated with all the movements now, and engaged in both dialogue and debate with the rabbis and leadership of other movements along the way...well, I guess it's sort of inevitable that I get very...entwined.

In general, while I confess to definitely being opinionated about matters Jewish, I am also very pluralistic, and a deep believer in machloket l'shem shamayim ("dispute for the sake of Heaven," our tradition's philosophy of tolerance of differing opinions); yet there are a couple of issues that are hot buttons for me, and patrilineal descent and intermarriage are high on that list.

It's not about any individual of patrilineal descent-- I have helped many such convert (quickly and without fuss), and counseled some of them when they went through the hard process of realizing that even though the Reform movement told them they were Jewish, the halachah (Jewish law) and traditional Judaism did not see it that way. I felt very deeply for these people, and still do for all those I encounter, whom I try to aid in making their lives easier and their options more plentiful. But I think the Reform movement has done such individuals no favors-- no, nor the rest of the Jewish People, either-- by trying to introduce a doctrine of patrilineal descent when there is no precedent for such in the tradition, nor any ready basis in halachah to make such a change, or indeed any consensus among the Jewish People as a whole that such a change is either necessary or desirable.

And while I won't get into the intermarriage thing, suffice it to say that it's not that I don't empathize. Prior to marrying Mrs. Levite, I mostly dated non-Jewish girls. I did so with open eyes, knowing what I risked, considering that I have never been willing to consider marrying someone non-Jewish. And indeed, twice, I ended up in a long-term relationship with an amazing girl who I loved and totally would have married, except that she was uninterested in converting. And in both cases, the relationship ended, and I had my heart broken. So I get how one can fall in love with a non-Jew, and feel hurt at religion coming between oneself and one's beloved. But I still feel strongly-- all the more strongly, maybe-- that intermarriage is bad for the Jewish People, especially at this juncture in history.

Anyway, I said I wouldn't threadjack, and I will do so no more.

 

I agree completely.

Now, I'd like to talk about cemeteries.

Could you discuss and explain the rules about (living) Kohainim, funerals, and cemeteries? Do the rules apply differently to non-Jewish cemeteries? If a fenced or walled cemetery has only one gate, does that mean a Kohain may not enter it? If a Kohain is a passenger in a funeral procession, and the procession's route goes directly through the main gate of the cemetery, is a Kohain required to disembark before the entrance, and find another route into the grounds? Or should a Kohain just refrain from taking part in a funeral procession, say for a non-relative?

Given my interest in historic cemeteries, I'm very glad not to be a Kohain!

 

One of my wife's family friends is Kohainim and he stood at the gates when she and her stepfather was buried.
As he explained it to me they couldn't be exposed to any dead bodies so I assume they couldn't go into non-Jewish cemeteries either.
At her stepfather's service it was pouring rain and he stood there with no umbrella his face to the sky all by himself.
That touched me on a level I can't describe.

 

So, what this is about is tum'ah and taharah, which is generally translated as "ritual impurity" and "ritual purity." I wish there were better translations (though there are worse, unfortunately), because those English words don't render the concepts properly. These have nothing to do with actual uncleanness, or any kind of physical miasma or dirt or whatever. This concept refers to what I suppose I would have to call, for lack of better English terminology, "negative energy," in the sense that in America has, unfortunately, become associated with stereotypes of crunchy-granola-hippie-woo-woo cosmology/theology; but it is actually a common idea in a lot of ancient cultures-- it still exists in many of the non-Western cultures.

The idea is that life has an energy to it, and so does death. And the things that are manifestations of life and death have those energies within them. In smaller form, this is the same concept behind why Jews are forbidden to eat blood, why Jewish women are commanded to go to the mikveh (a pool of "living water," water from a completely natural source in motion, immersion in which ritually purifies what is tamei to become tahor) after their period ends or after they recover from giving birth, why Jewish men in theory are to immerse in the mikveh after experiencing a seminal emission, why Jewish men and women are not supposed to have sexual intercourse while the woman is menstruating, why (even in the days long before anyone knew anything about sanitation) we are commanded to wash our hands after relieving ourselves or upon waking up or before eating bread (which once was the hallmark of any meal), and why many of the animals we are prohibited from eating are either predators or scavengers, and so forth.

This same idea gave rise to the concept that the negative energy from death is strong. So strong, in fact, that it is hard to purify away-- we can no longer do so, because it requires more than a mikveh. It requires a substance called mei nidah, which was made from mikveh water, certain herbs and other ingredients, and the ashes of a perfectly red cow. It is this last ingredient that makes the mei nidah unattainable today, because perfectly red cows are exceedingly rare, and only the High Priest of the Temple and his cohorts were permitted to evaluate a red cow to determine if it were perfect enough; and of course, there is no longer a Temple, or a High Priest. Therefore, technically, the entire Jewish people are perpetually considered ritually impure with tum'at meit, the ritual impurity of death. But kohanim, who are priests (and would serve in a Temple if one stood today), are held to higher standards of ritual purity and impurity (as the Temple in which their ancestors served, and in which they would be called to serve again if the messiah were to come, was a place of complete ritual purity), and so they seek to distance themselves from tum'at meit as much as they can under the circumstances.

So a kohen is not to go into cemetaries, nor is he to attend funerals, except for the funerals of his immediate family. In practice, many kohanim among the Liberal movements tend to ignore these prohibitions today, either deliberately or out of ignorance. But some still abide by them, and the kohanim in the Orthodox communities do so quite stringently. Some kohanim will attend the chapel service for friends or relations beyond their immediate family, but not the graveside service; others will attend neither, but will come to the shiva (the first and most intense phase of formal mourning, where the bereaved sit at home for seven days, focused only on grieving, and their friends and community come to visit them and offer support).

It is a complex subject, and one that most likely seems strange to modern, Western eyes. But it is a practice of great ancientry, and has both positive and negative aspects to it. Still, as you say, I am glad I am not a kohen, only a rank-and-file Levite!

 

What about the tradition of Jewish cemeteries having a special gate, off to the side, for Kohainim to use?

 

In older Jewish cemetaries, there would be a section to one side reserved for the families of kohanim. There would usually be a gate at that side for kohanim to use, so as to allow the kohanim the most minimal time and route into the cemetary for the funerals they had to attend. These days the need for such a gate tends to be obviated by the custom of arriving at the cemetary, very proximate to the intended grave site, by car; and we hold that tum'at meit does not pass through separations or barriers, it must be direct. But sometimes the custom is still preserved. For similar reasons, some funeral homes will have a room set aside for kohanim, with a live feed to the chapel, so that kohanim can take part in the funeral service without actually being in the same room with the body.

The truth is that all these sorts of things are custom, pure and simple: in the strict terms of halachah (Jewish law), once person is exposed to tum'at meit, they are tamei-- there is no more or less ritually impure, one either is or isn't. And since there is presently no purification of tum'at meit, everyone is halachically considered tamei in that respect. So in the end, it probably makes little difference. But the custom is often still preserved and upheld, in one form or another, and especially in the Orthodox communities, is often taken quite seriously.

 

Bump?