seasonal humor

[cellio]

The following is (IMO) hilarious if you're at all familiar with Talmudic reasoning. I've been told that it's pretty darn funny even if you aren't.

Hilichot Xmas (the laws of Christmas).

(No, I don't know what the letter of approbation really says. If you do, please tell me.)

Comments

[sk4p.livejournal.com]

(a) On the "gentiles working on Sabbath" thing: If I'm not mistaken, isn't there something in Torah (or at least in Talmud) which implies that the full list of commandments are only expected of Jews, as their "price of admission" for being the chosen of God, and that gentiles are not expected to keep most of them?

(b) And if I recall correctly, the laws protecting human life supercede other things such as Sabbath observances (doctors, for example, may tend to the sick on Sabbath if it's necessary), so if there really were no gentiles around and you had to do that farming on Sabbath or run the risk of losing the crop, starving, etc. I'm sure it would be OK.

($0.02 from Comparative Religion Non-Denominational Boy.)

[cellio]

a) On the "gentiles working on Sabbath" thing: If I'm not mistaken, isn't there something in Torah (or at least in Talmud) which implies that the full list of commandments are only expected of Jews, as their "price of admission" for being the chosen of God, and that gentiles are not expected to keep most of them?

Oh, sure. The Torah is mostly about what binds Jews, and says very little about gentiles. (And the talmud says nothing about that -- it's just for Jews.) According to Judaism, gentiles are bound only by the seven laws of Noah, and it's mostly pretty basic stuff like "no murder".

The issue is not whether the gentile can do something on Shabbat; of course he can. The issue arises when a Jew (who is forbidden) asks him to do it, because having an agent do something for you is as you doing it yourself. (There are plenty of places in Judaism where you have an agent fulfill your obligation.)

(b) And if I recall correctly, the laws protecting human life supercede other things such as Sabbath observances

Yes. There are only three commandments that you must keep even if by doing so you will die; Shabbat is not one of them. To violate Shabbat, though, the demand has to be immediate. A doctor can perform emergency heart surgery; he can't open his office to give flu shots. That sort of thing. In your farming example, you'd have to make the case that the work has to be done that day (and not the day before or the day after) or people will die, and I suspect you'd have trouble making that case.