weekend so far
Feb. 3rd, 2002 02:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioAt the end of the tape he recorded his phone number and email address (in case I had questions), and then ended with the word "b'has'lecha". I infer from both ccontext and the fact that I recognize "lecha" that this means something vaguely like "take care", but it's probably going to bug me until I find out for sure. Gotta remember to ask Dani. (Unless one of my Hebrew-enabled friends speaks up first.)
At Friday services, Temple Sinai now has name tags for board members
to wear during the service and social afterwards. (I think I've
alluded before to being "tagged and released", like they do with
endangered species to track individual bald eagles or whatever.)
Last night my manager (Werner) was there with his family, and as I
walked up to say hi he said something like "woo hoo! board of
trustees, eh?". So much for separation between work life and non-work
life. Not a problem, but I didn't really know what to say. So I
just shrugged, and introduced myself to his wife. :-) Even though
a board member really has no impact on a regular congregant, it still
felt a little odd to be perceived as being above him in some pecking
order.
The name tags seem to be having a positive effect so far, though a couple board members are grumbling a bit. Every week, so far, at least one person who I did not know has approached me just to chat. I think this is good, because while I try to approach newcomers, I'm a little too shy and often end up bumping into a non-local relative of the bar mitzvah instead of a member or prospective member -- and they would rather be schmoozing with their relatives, not people from the congregation. I guess my radar just isn't very good.
The name tag also helps me be more confident in approaching people like that. It's funny, but a random person saying hi and welcome can sometimes come off wrong, but a random person with a name tag saying hi and welcome gives a different impression -- that this is someone who is "supposed" to do that sort of thing, so it's ok.
The Saturday-morning study group is in the first chapter of Leviticus,
which is about animal sacrifices. (Ok, half of Leviticus is about
animal sacrifices.) A couple weeks ago one of the rabbis made a
good point, so after this paragraph I am no longer going to talk about
"animal sacrifices". The phrase has the wrong connotation, and isn't
what the Hebrew means, quite. The Hebrew word is "korban" (singular)
or "korbanot" (plural), and those are the words I'm going to use in
my journal from now on.
You see, it's not about "sacrifices" in the sense of "giving something up", the way we use the word in English today. In most cases, the person who brought the korban took the meat home with him, or most of it. There's a reason that some people refer to the temple service as the "priestly barbeque". God got part, the priests got part, and you got part. Some korbanot were for attoning for transgressions, yes, but the bulk of them were specified on a particular schedule. Everyone brought a lamb for Pesach, for instance, because you were supposed to eat roasted lamb at the seder. It has nothing to do with sin.
The Hebrew word "korban" comes from the same root as the verb "karov", which means "to draw near". A korban is how we -- or rather, Jews before the destruction of the temple -- draw closer to God. Prayer replaces korbanot now, because you can't have korbanot without the temple. (The Torah says so, that's why.) And the structure of the prayer service mirrors the structure of the temple service of 2000 years ago.
Ok, end of digression. We were reading passages from Leviticus about how to actually do the sacrifices, and someone brought up the issue of cruelty to animals. (I presume this was a "city kid"; most of us are.) This led to a discussion of whether the methods for killing the animal were humane. I seemed to be the only person in the room who was willing to attempt the point that if we presume that this text is of divine origin, and if we take note of the many examples throughout the Torah where compassion is important even for animals, then we must presume that the Creator of all life wouldn't specify an inhumane method of killing animals for His glory.
I think some of my fellow congregants think I'm nuts. I suppose that will get more pronounced if we ever drift toward the detailed discussion of how this is done, as given in the Talmud; I've actually studied that part a little. (No, it wasn't my idea, but that's where Rabbi Roth's online mishna-study group happened to be headed, and I was part of the group, and all Torah/Talmud study is good at some level, so....)
There was a side discussion about the folks who want to return to this system; we've had that discussion before and there was nothing really new here. I don't think I know any Reform Jews who want to rebuild the temple and return to korbanot, though this is part of Orthodoxy. (Actually, it's not just a Reform idea; 800+ years ago the Rambam -- Maimonides -- argued that this would be going backward and we should not expect to return to that system.) Today, there are some people who are actively breding red heifers and making tools and stuff because they plan to bring this about, which would be scary if there were more than a few hundred of them.
Toward the end Rabbi Freedman jokingly said that next week will feature a discussion between a member of PETA and a Chareidi Jew. :-) (A discussion with the latter could actually be fascinating, though it's not going to happen.)
(no subject)
Date: 2002-02-03 05:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2002-02-04 07:48 am (UTC)If you read roughly the first half of Leviticus (which won't actually take you all that long), you'll find instructions for communal korbanot -- festivals, daily offerings, and for other occasions, and also for personal ones (sin-offerings, primarily). Some of these are consumed entirely on the altar, but most are not, and in that case most of the meat goes home with the person who brought the korban. (I am fuzzy on what happens when the congregation is instructed to bring a specific korban -- as opposed to when everyone is instructed to individually bring one, like for the Pesach lamb.)
You may recall that the tribe of Levi, which includes the priests (kohanim), does not get land; they are dedicated to service and they live off of contributions from everyone else. They get a portion of each korban (except for the ones that are entirely consumed, of course), and they get the tithe.
By the way, in addition to animal korbanot there are meal-offerings. Bread, in other words.
So my understanding -- which could be flawed! -- is that the korban was about both connecting to God and eating meat. (It also means that this ritual isn't completely "wasteful" -- yes, do this because God commanded it, but then you eat.) If you think about it, killing an animal to satisfy your hunger is kind of severe; you can fulfill your needs without killing a creature that God made, after all (and before Noah people were vegetarians). So maybe this ritual helps you remain aware of the fact that this is in fact what you are doing -- meat comes from living creatures that you killed, not from the shrink-wrapped-chunks-of-processed-meat farm.
(no subject)
Date: 2002-02-05 08:14 am (UTC)Well, that would take the fun out of it! :-)
there are meal-offerings. Bread, in other words.
Actually, I think of these more as pancakes. Mmm, pancakes. (contrast this with the "show bread", which I think is matzah. Or maybe "real" bread?)
(no subject)
Date: 2002-02-05 09:15 am (UTC)I wasn't *complaining*; just pointing it out. :-)
Pancakes: yes, it sounds like it's something like that. Certainly flat, at the very least; we're not talking about a process where bread has time to rise.
(contrast this with the "show bread", which I think is matzah. Or maybe "real" bread?)
Not matzah in the sense of being deliberatly kept from rising, but from the descriptions it sounds like it's closer to pita than to today's challah. Hard to say, and I haven't explored it in any depth.