Purim Torah!

[cellio]

Purim Torah season started on Mi Yodeya tonight-ish. Here are a few questions currently on the front page (some new, some from past years):

• May Sauron's ring be used for kiddushin (marriage)?

• Is money-laundering permitted during the Nine Days? What about airing dirty laundry? (the question refers to a period of mourning during which wearing freshly-laundered clothes is forbidden)

• Can my gravatar wear clothes from the "wrong" gender? (this one is mine and currently has a bounty up for grabs)

There are more, and I'm sure there will be many more over the next two weeks. Look for "PTIJ" ("Purim Torah: in jest") at the beginning of question titles.

There's also this answer, which I can only kind-of sort-of read but I see my name in there (made the mishna, apparently!). Um, I hope it's good? :-)

And a couple from past years that I enjoyed: one about losing an hour of Purim because of DST, and one about accepting the messiah.

Comments

[kyleri]

If Zaphod Beeblebrox observes the torah, it is only in the sense of "observe" that means "watches it whoosh by his heads while he's out for a stroll".

*spit take*

I LOVE THIS, this sort of argument/discussion/joint ranty rant is one of my FAVOURITE things about Judaism (& one of the places where I can really see the effect Judaism has had on heraldry in the SCA...)

[cellio]

I had a lot of fun writing that one. :-)

[kyleri]

I'll BET, it's GLORIOUS.

[wolby]

I also came here to say that your response to the Zaphod question was golden! And now I'm thinking about space colonization and Judaism. What direction do we face when praying when we finally have a minyan on the moon?? (Not to mention Mars?!) Is "the general direction of Earth" or "up" enough?

[wolby]

And now I need to find a physicist friend to ask if there are any places in the solar system where your relative position to Jerusalem changes quickly enough that you have to rotate over the course of a service....

[cellio]

You're not the first person to ask that. (Not Purim torah! This is a real question.)

[wolby]

Thank you for that link, I am already about five layers into the linked questions and need to tear myself away for now. :D

More Mi Yodeya sci-fi posts

[moe37x3]

https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3743/catalog-of-sci-fi-questions

#SorryNotSorry

[osewalrus]

Very nice!

[damont]

Love your comment on the would-be messiah!

Also amused at almost everyone deliberately sidestepping the obvious answer to the Purim/DST question, since the length of Purim is not determined by anything as worldly as a clock.