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עולם חסד יבנה

@unbidden-yidden / unbidden-yidden.tumblr.com

An unbidden yid; known to oy the occasional vey. You can call me Avital (they/ze/היא). Please see my pinned before you follow. I can't make you read it, but I will hold you to the same standard as I would if you had. Let me know if me following you makes you uncomfortable and I'll unfollow. I welcome nice messages/asks, so please feel free to interact with me! [Avatar made by my wonderful friend @considdured!] "Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”

About

***I have made the difficult choice to replace my other "please introduce yourself" post with this intro so that (1) it's easier to find and and (2) I realized I could consolidate them. So! Here goes***

New followers: Please introduce yourselves so that I know you're a real person and so I have a general sense of why you're following me. Thank you to those of you who have already done so!!

[I put a cut in for length because I was tired of scrolling past it, but please keep reading for additional important information before you follow. Thanks!]

Yet there is palpable frustration within the Jewish community over how little our efforts on this score seem to matter. Our public discourse about anti-Semitism seems almost immune to being influenced by what the actual Jewish community wants to talk about.
As noted, the majority of the Jewish community is politically left of center. We welcome a more robust and nuanced conversation about Israel entering American politics – including the need to mobilize to counteract Israel’s increasingly right-wing drift. Yet we do not endorse those who wish to wipe Israel off the map, and we see the trap when Jewish efforts to participate in American politics are cast as “proof” that we exert a nefarious sway over the polity.
When liberal members of Congress evoke anti-Semitic tropes, we have no desire to let them go unchallenged. But neither do we have any interest in having our criticisms lumped in with cynical and hypocritical denunciations emanating from the political right.
We understand that the most tangible threats to Jewish lives and livelihoods in America – the anti-Semitism that sheds actual blood in America – emerges from the political right, including (especially via Soros conspiracies) the mainstream Republican Party. But we also claim special pain at anti-Semitism coming from inside our home and our political community – an anti-Semitism that hurts us directly precisely because it comes from those we are in coalition with.
There is no conceptual difficulty in holding to these positions together. A great many of us are wholly comfortable in our own skins on these issues. But to the extent these distinctions are impossible to maintain in practice – to the extent that “criticism of Omar” simply is encoded as part of a right-wing campaign, to the extent that “supporting Omar” simply is an endorsement of extreme-left anti-Israel politics – the net effect is that most Jews are silenced. We may speak the words, but they go unheard.
For all the talk about the Israel Lobby this and Jewish Power that, the clearest takeaway from this whole ordeal is the striking disempowerment of the Jewish community. Spoken about and spoken over, the Jewish community is being systematically stripped of our ability to contribute to the dialogue happening over our own lives. We are “represented,” if you can call it that, by Glenn Greenwald on the one side and Lee Zeldin on the other (surely, this is the definition of Jewish hell), both of whose elevated stature in public discourse about Jews is almost exclusively a feature of gentile, not Jewish, interests.
It makes for a crushing feeling of powerlessness. The nation is having a conversation about Jews virtually impervious to the input of Jews themselves.

This is from 2019, and the world has changed dramatically in many ways since it was published and since I last reblogged it. But one way in which it has not, is that the points of this article are still true. That’s why I dug through my archive to find it, because I think it captures this particular frustration so well.

Coming back to this again - what's extremely clear to me is that both sides functionally view antisemitism as a tool. It is a sin that they can either engage in themselves (while excusing it at the same time) or that they can point out in the other side as a rhetorical tool to rake their opponents over the coals. Both are silencing tactics. Neither's efficacy to that end is improved by input from actual Jews, who want actual substantive help. But we can't get it with all this so-called "help" from both sides.

Which, every time we point this out, we get hushed with essentially a threat - "oh, you don't like our allyship? You're not grateful for everything we've done for you? You know, we could just not help you at all, you know that, right?" And pretty much every time, I see Jews back down and fall in line, because every Jew knows in our bones it could be so much worse, and it's not right now, so maybe let's not rock the boat or jeopardize our precarious situation, hmm?

What happens when Jews don't back down? We get ignored or actively silenced, exactly like this article describes.

Good news: if you’re currently laying around and not producing anything, you are a credit to your species.

It’s recently been found that even hive insects rest. Bees will play with colorful toys. Ants sleep for about 1 minute but they do it so frequently it amounts to a few hours per day. Even trees take breaks.

The only things that work without rest are machines; literally everything that lives requires rest.

EVERYTHING THAT LIVES REQUIRES REST. STOP JUDGING YOURSELF FOR NOT BEING A ROBOT.

And even machines need to rest all the time. Even unfeeling blobs of steel need maintenance, upkeep, and care. They need to be turned of every now and then to cool down.

Rest is sacred

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all of those funeral options like the tree pod or mushroom shroud or urn with seeds that "feeds" the tree are uhhhh, bullshit. unfortunately. if you want to be a tree when you die, be buried in the ground without a francy casket or embalming, and have a tree planted above you. this is the same thing as any of these hypothetical "tree pods" but it's skipping the scammy cash grab companies trying to capitalize on grief with fake ass science.

cremated remains will not "feed" anything, either. they'll probably impede growth, tbh. cremated remains are non-organic. what's left over after a cremation is hollow, dry, brittle bone fragments that someone like me sweeps up and puts in a big metal blender to create the smooth "ashes" one expects. By all means, go ahead and scatter ashes in nature, but don't expect anything to grow from them.

If you want your body to return to nature after death, go for a green burial or an at-sea burial. there are many dedicated green burial sites in the world, and one also has the option of simply being buried in a more traditional cemetery that allows for simple wicker caskets w/o a vault around them, and the body left unembalmed. If the tree thing is really your jam, go for burial in a dedicated green cemetery that allows your family to plant a sapling above you, or if it is available where you live have your body composted and use the soil to grow plants.

tldr; there are options for green funerals out there, and options for "becoming a tree," but I would not recommend going anywhere near products offering this such as tree pods, etc. as they are expensive scams preying on people's grief for their dumb start up. get composted or green buried 💚🌲 source: I'm a mortuary scientist and provider of both traditional funerals/cremations & green burial/at-sea burial.

there are also these special burial grounds where people are placed sparsely around an ecosystem (usually a forest) that is in danger of destruction. the reason is that the land cannot developed as easily when it is legally considered a cemetery, and the land can be left alone other than digging graves for unembalmed bodies by hand.

I forget how long the presence of your body guarantees the ecosystem's safety, but it's an interesting option.

Day 2: Joshua 2 // יהושע ב

I started working on this draft motzei Shabbos because I was so excited about this particular chapter, but I waited because I wanted to really get my thoughts right. So!

One of the reasons I wanted to start by reading Joshua rather than track the OU cycle (which is currently in the middle of Psalms/Tehillim) is because I absolutely love the character Rahab (/Rachav). Rahab is explicitly described as being a prostitute, and yet the text itself doesn't condemn her for it or try to whitewash it. She is described by her occupation multiple times, and her and her family are spared because of her intuition and bravery in facilitating the Israelite conquest of the city. Like Tamar in Bereshit, the future of the people hinges on the goodness of foreign women (likely converts or their historical equivalent) who engage in commercial sex. In Joshua it's even clearer - she and her family were said to be adopted into the people Israel and she is still described as a prostitute; unlike Tamar (which is a one-time exceptional circumstance that the text is clear did not recur) there is not explicit statement that she renounces this work.

This moment is also a moving reversal of the mistakes of the Israelites during the original spies narrative in the Torah. Notably, Joshua was one of the only two spies (along with Caleb) who tried to convince the people to fight for the land, while the remaining ten instill fear into the people, such that the generation that left Egypt is then doomed to die in the desert before the people can literally and figuratively move forward. Here, the spies sent are fewer in number and chosen by Joshua who, certainly, must be remembering his own experiences as a young man. By having a successful reconnaissance mission, the people are demonstrating the nation's collective teshuva for the sin of the original spies and the people’s reaction to them, and their readiness to enter the land.

The book of Joshua taken as a whole is very focused on the conquest of the land, the various cities that are razed and burned to the ground, and the many people and clans slaughtered. It's a tough book for those of us who oppose war for land or prosperity and care about human rights. But the acceptance of Rahab is a bright spot in a grisly war narrative.

Anonymous asked:

Why does god let bad things happen to good people?

That's a hell of a question to ask as a tumblr anon 😅

Anon, i highly recommend this volume by Rabbi Harold Kushner. It is a book specifically designed to answer your question.

Yes, this is an excellent recommendation actually! This was the first real Jewish text study I did and it genuinely made it possible to seriously think through my own theological answers to this question. 10/10 would recommend to a friend.

Anonymous asked:

I’m kinda sick of Jews who almost romanticize the Diaspora (coming from someone currently in it). Being like “Oh poor us, we have *no joined nationality* because our *origins have been erased* (by an ambiguous implied oppressive force). We just have *no clue whatsoever where we came from* and we’ll just *keep living homelessly forever* and that’s *fine and correct* (but we’ll keep being artistically melancholy about it)

(This is also a vague post to some art I saw but won’t link. I’m sure they’re a fine person and maybe they’re not even against Zionism but like. Come on. Come on.)

(I did once see an anti-Zionist say that Jews being Diasporic meant we had no home though. So this sentiment can get awful)

It is important to recognize and value the diversity of Diasporic Jewish cultures while also being able to recognize how dangerous and evil the Diaspora has been for us. I really distrust Jewish people who seem to only like Jewish traditions as captured in faded sepia pictures of communities that have been wiped out for a century while at the same time hating and rejecting Jewish traditions as they are practiced today, where Jews live today. Reactionary nostalgia is as untrustworthy on the left as it is on the right.

That famous Bundist poster - "Wherever we live, that's our homeland" - was developed by the Jews of Kiev in 1918. 23 years later (less than the distance between the release of "The Matrix" and today) nearly all of them wound up in the ditch at Babi Yar. Any who survived were then pogrommed again by the Ukrainians after the war.

The level of privilege and performative self-abnegation required for a Jew to say "we have no rightful homeland" is astronomical; as it happens, it pretty much matches the level of discomfort and denial that I get from leftists when I ask them where Jews are indigenous to.

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Day 2: Joshua 2 // יהושע ב

I started working on this draft motzei Shabbos because I was so excited about this particular chapter, but I waited because I wanted to really get my thoughts right. So!

One of the reasons I wanted to start by reading Joshua rather than track the OU cycle (which is currently in the middle of Psalms/Tehillim) is because I absolutely love the character Rahab (/Rachav). Rahab is explicitly described as being a prostitute, and yet the text itself doesn't condemn her for it or try to whitewash it. She is described by her occupation multiple times, and her and her family are spared because of her intuition and bravery in facilitating the Israelite conquest of the city. Like Tamar in Bereshit, the future of the people hinges on the goodness of foreign women (likely converts or their historical equivalent) who engage in commercial sex. In Joshua it's even clearer - she and her family were said to be adopted into the people Israel and she is still described as a prostitute; unlike Tamar (which is a one-time exceptional circumstance that the text is clear did not recur) there is not explicit statement that she renounces this work.

This moment is also a moving reversal of the mistakes of the Israelites during the original spies narrative in the Torah. Notably, Joshua was one of the only two spies (along with Caleb) who tried to convince the people to fight for the land, while the remaining ten instill fear into the people, such that the generation that left Egypt is then doomed to die in the desert before the people can literally and figuratively move forward. Here, the spies sent are fewer in number and chosen by Joshua who, certainly, must be remembering his own experiences as a young man. By having a successful reconnaissance mission, the people are demonstrating the nation's collective teshuva for the sin of the original spies and the people’s reaction to them, and their readiness to enter the land.

The book of Joshua taken as a whole is very focused on the conquest of the land, the various cities that are razed and burned to the ground, and the many people and clans slaughtered. It's a tough book for those of us who oppose war for land or prosperity and care about human rights. But the acceptance of Rahab is a bright spot in a grisly war narrative.

Day 1: Joshua 1 // יהושע א

Today, Friday July 7th, 2023, we are beginning an approximately two year journey to read the Prophets (Nevi'im) and Writings (Ketuvim) of the Tanakh. We will be using the OU's podcast shiurim for commentary to guide this study. However, please feel free to add your own sources and commentary in the notes. Please add any thoughts or discussion in reblogs so that it is easier to keep track of the conversation. Toda raba!

Hey folks! I'm trying to encourage myself to study the Nach (the non-Torah part of the Tanakh, so Joshua - Chronicles II) and was wondering if anyone else would like to start our own sort of ad hoc Nach Yomi (basically a chapter of the Tanakh every day.) It looks like there are a few interesting podcasts out there that provide commentary, so I was going to suggest possibly: (1) reading the full text on Sefaria, (2) listening to the podcast(s), and then (3) posting some sort of comment about it on here. I wish I had time for a traditional chevruta on this, but unfortunately I do not. That said, I do want it to be a serious engagement with the text.

Anyone interested? I'll be studying this in an intentionally Jewish way and through a Jewish lens, but other folks are welcome too.

Quick follow up: I know I picked up a number of new followers who are Christian recently, and if any of you are interested but feeling shy, please know that I'm actively interested in comparing notes with you on this. The Nevi'im (prophets) in particular are a major area of interpretative difference, and I'm actively interested in learning about those differences. So, if you're a Christian interested in learning these texts using a Jewish method, I am interested in your perspective.

Bit of a shot in the dark, but have any other tichel-wearers tried using these in their scarves:

I was able to make something similar with heavy-duty fusible interfacing, but was curious if anyone else had tried this?

Being raised by areligious jews with 0 exposure to christianity outside pop culture is so fun. One time I asked my ex-catholic friend why a picture of jesus had a bristle crown and she looked at me like I was insane. One time I heard someone mention the "lance of longinus" and responded, word for word, "Like from Evangelion?" One time during a history lesson my professor described an important monk and scholar as "Dominican" and I spent the rest of class super confused and hung up on it because I was very sure that the Dominican Republic didn't meaningfully exist as an entity back then, maybe she meant he was a native Taino or something but that's a weird way to say that and I'm pretty sure this was pre- European contact? Really fucks people up when they realize I genuinely have no idea.

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This but it's my partner taking an art history class in college and the professor looking at them like they grew a second head when they answered "What came out of Jesus' wound when he was stabbed on the cross" with "...Blood?"

Additions that prove my point by mystifying me because what on earth would come out of a nail wound besides blood. Are you telling me it was something besides blood. What was jesus full of that wasn't blood. You guys are scaring me

Apparently it was water?? I guess he was also stabbed on top of being crucified (which feels like overkill imo) and water came out, which was a huge deal in medieval symbolism and also to my medieval poetry professor, who was genuinely shocked and upset that I didn’t know. This man fully docked me points because I, a whole ass Jew, hadn’t somehow heard about the secret waterballoon Jesus lore that I guess everyone is supposed to like… intuit

On the plus side, it does lead to some absolutely wild medieval Jesus art of angels tapping him like a fucking keg

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a friend of a friend went to go see passion of the christ for kicks without knowing anything about the story

when jesus was hauled up on the cross he turned to my friend and said, in all evident sincerity, 'i know they're not going to kill the main character but how's jesus getting out of this one?'

I'm going to be completely real. I grew up as part of the Christian Bourgeois, and I don't even know the water balloon Jesus deep lore.

I grew up in a Christian Evangelical "totally not a cult" church, and they would have a fit to think anything but blood came out of Christ's body during crucifixion. So I'm gonna go with that's a Catholic thing, maybe?

Does anyone know if it's still possible to have multiple administrators for a sideblog?

Hey folks! I'm trying to encourage myself to study the Nach (the non-Torah part of the Tanakh, so Joshua - Chronicles II) and was wondering if anyone else would like to start our own sort of ad hoc Nach Yomi (basically a chapter of the Tanakh every day.) It looks like there are a few interesting podcasts out there that provide commentary, so I was going to suggest possibly: (1) reading the full text on Sefaria, (2) listening to the podcast(s), and then (3) posting some sort of comment about it on here. I wish I had time for a traditional chevruta on this, but unfortunately I do not. That said, I do want it to be a serious engagement with the text.

Anyone interested? I'll be studying this in an intentionally Jewish way and through a Jewish lens, but other folks are welcome too.

Quick follow up: I know I picked up a number of new followers who are Christian recently, and if any of you are interested but feeling shy, please know that I'm actively interested in comparing notes with you on this. The Nevi'im (prophets) in particular are a major area of interpretative difference, and I'm actively interested in learning about those differences. So, if you're a Christian interested in learning these texts using a Jewish method, I am interested in your perspective.