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that was odd
Several years ago, I wrote an article for an SCA newsletter on how to build a yurt (aka ger), the Mongolian round semi-portable structure. I and some friends built one for camping in at Pennsic, so I wrote down what I did and shared it. Every now and then I get random questions and/or thanks from people who've found the article.
The most recent message is from someone who said he does "Roman and Bible reenactment" and had just built a yurt. (Unknown: what a yurt has to do with either.) Its first use was to be for his sukkah. He closed with "Shalom in Jesus".
Um, ok. A Christian? A "Jew for Jesus"? A re-enactor whose re-enactment extends to holidays?
I wrote back to thank him for the message and answer a question. And just to be helpful, I pointed out a couple halachic issues he might consider in using a yurt for Sukkot. I did not translate the Hebrew for terms that a Jew or a scholar would likely know. I didn't really expect to hear from him again.
He wrote back, citing a tertiary (at best) source for alternate interpretations. He also gave a cite for a round, domed sukkah in Amsterdam in 1722. This doesn't match up with anything either of us is trying to recreate, of course, but it sounds interesting. (Not interesting enough to go out and chase, though. It's a curiosity to me, nothing more.) He didn't say what they used for the roof cover or how it was attached.
He also described himself as Jewish, messianic, and a karaite. I didn't know there were still karaites out there. I'm not certain what the combination of messianic and karaite means, but I'm not going to ask him.
Karaites were a "sect", for lack of a better term, that accepted the written law but none of the oral law. They spent Shabbat in the cold and dark because they interpreted "kindle no fire" as "have no fire" rather than "light it in advance". It sounds like it must have been miserable. I thought they all died out several hundred years ago. Maybe this is a "neo-karaite" in the sense that we have "neo-pagans" who aren't tied to the original pagans?
The most recent message is from someone who said he does "Roman and Bible reenactment" and had just built a yurt. (Unknown: what a yurt has to do with either.) Its first use was to be for his sukkah. He closed with "Shalom in Jesus".
Um, ok. A Christian? A "Jew for Jesus"? A re-enactor whose re-enactment extends to holidays?
I wrote back to thank him for the message and answer a question. And just to be helpful, I pointed out a couple halachic issues he might consider in using a yurt for Sukkot. I did not translate the Hebrew for terms that a Jew or a scholar would likely know. I didn't really expect to hear from him again.
He wrote back, citing a tertiary (at best) source for alternate interpretations. He also gave a cite for a round, domed sukkah in Amsterdam in 1722. This doesn't match up with anything either of us is trying to recreate, of course, but it sounds interesting. (Not interesting enough to go out and chase, though. It's a curiosity to me, nothing more.) He didn't say what they used for the roof cover or how it was attached.
He also described himself as Jewish, messianic, and a karaite. I didn't know there were still karaites out there. I'm not certain what the combination of messianic and karaite means, but I'm not going to ask him.
Karaites were a "sect", for lack of a better term, that accepted the written law but none of the oral law. They spent Shabbat in the cold and dark because they interpreted "kindle no fire" as "have no fire" rather than "light it in advance". It sounds like it must have been miserable. I thought they all died out several hundred years ago. Maybe this is a "neo-karaite" in the sense that we have "neo-pagans" who aren't tied to the original pagans?
snort :^)