Religious Vs. Observant, and now that you have it, what do you do with it?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSs5EPXawYE

 

Hebrew			English
אֲנִי			I, me
אַתָּה			you (m. sing.)
אַתְּ			you (f. sing.)
הוּא			He/Him
הִיא			She/Her
אֲנַחְנוּ			We/Us
אַתֶּם			You/Y’all (m. pl.)
אַתֶּן			You/Y’all (f. pl.)
הֵם			They/them (m. pl.)
הֵן			They/them (f. pl.)

 

 

Conservative Judaism’s Beginnings

 

While the roots of Conservative Judaism were in Europe,  there were two sources of  the movement in American. One source of the Conservative movement began as an effort to “conserve” traditional Judaism in the face of the major innovations and changes Reform leaders in the late 19th century were making to Judaism.  The Jewish  Theological Seminary of America, which would become the source of leadership of  the Conservative movement, was founded in 1886 — one year after the Reform movement adopted its Pittsburgh Platform.

 

That platform explicitly rejected Jewish practices such as keeping kosher, praying in Hebrew, or hoping of a return to Eretz Yisrael, which Reform thinkers  such as Issac Mayer Wise viewed as inconsistent with modern ideas.  It was the modern ideas that they felt should come first; they believed the practices of Judaism would have to fit modernity.  The rabbis and teachers who founded JTS sought to conserve much of the Judaism Reform was rejecting.

 

 

A smaller source of Conservative Judaism came from those Jews who wanted a version of  European Orthodoxy that was more American.  That meant that many Jews who came into the US from Eastern Europe between 1880 and 1930 still wanted a calendar full of holidays and life cycle events such as Brit Milah and Weddings to continue as guided by halacha,  but they wanted the Rabbi to speak and officiate in English. They wanted Rabbis who could talk about baseball and the Bible. They wanted a life based on Jewish Law, but with accommodations made to reflect American dress, business trends, and other parts of life in the United States.

 

Of course,  some people think the movement really began at banquet in Cincinnati in 1883,  which is a story we will read about in a few weeks.

 

 

1.      The Torah has how many books?

a.     One

b.     Five

c.     Ten

d.     Twelve

e.     One thousand, six hundred and fifty seven. And a third.

 

2.     The Tanakh is the Torah with?

a.     The Haftorah readings and commentary

b.     The books of the prophets

c.     The books of the sages- like the Mishnah and midrash

d.     The books of writings- books like Esther and the Psalms

e.     B and C

f.      C and D

g.     B and D

h.     B, C and D.

i.       This question is insane, and the answer is A, B, C and D.

 

 

3.     “A Torah” or “The torah”  is the scroll, but when we say  “Torah” alone, what does that mean?

a.     It still just means a scroll

b.     It means all of Jewish law and learning

c.     It means the teaching of one’s rabbi

d.     It means the basic ideals of Judaism

e.      All of the above

 

 

 

4.     How old is the oldest chunk of Torah scroll we have?

a.     4000 years or so

b.     2000 years or so

c.     1000 years or so

d.     500 years or so

e.     100 years or so

 

5.     What does the last letter of the Torah  and the first letter of the torah spell together?

a.     It spells Lev, or heart

b.     It spells Eish, or fire

c.     It spells Gett, or divorce

d.     It spells Af, or nose

e.     It spells Zij, which is just gibberish

 

6.     How old are the oldest use of words from the Torah we have found?

a.     About 50 years old.

b.     About 250 years old.

c.     About 1000 years old.

d.     About 2000 years old.

e.     About 2700 years old.

 

7.     Can women write torah scrolls?

a.     What? No, it has to be a real rabbi, like with the black hat and beard

b.     What? No, that’s against tradition

c.     What? Maybe, but they would have to be Orthodox

d.     What? Sure,  but they have to train and learn a lot.

e.     What? Women have always written Torah scrolls.

 

8.     What do you call someone who writes Torah scrolls?

a.     Sofer/Soferet

b.     Shomer/Shomeret

c.     Soger/Sogeret

d.     Kofer/Koferet

e.     Mechutan/Machatensiteh

 

9.     How many verses are there in the torah? How many words are there in the torah? How many letters?

a.     585, 7,997, and 30,480

b.     5852,  79,976,  and 304,805

c.     58,523. 790,761,  and 3,048,056

d.     It depends on if it is A Reform, Conservative or Orthodox Torah.

e.     Fool! Everyone knowns each torah is written differently.

 

10.  What happens at Anshe Emet if someone drops a Torah scroll?

a.     The person who dropped it has to fast until they die.

b.     The person who dropped it has to fast for 40 days, sunrise to sunset.

c.     40 people in the congregation have to fast for a day.

d.     We hold a meeting to see what happened and fix it.

e.     We kick the person out of the community and never let them come back.

 

 

Who Wrote the Torah? -- The Most Common Approaches and Their Adherents.

Category/Approach	Theory	Ultra O	Modern O	Conservative	Reform	Academics
Divine: God alone gave the Torah to Humanity
Verbal Revelation Lamm, Berkovits	“Torah Mi-Sinai” Exact text of Torah today is from God only via Moses at Mt. Sinai. All  Torah Sheh Ba’al Peh was included as well.	JJ	J	L	L	NNN
Divine  Revelation- The “Hamotzi” approach	“Torah Min Ha’shamayim” All the Torah is from God,  Torah Sheh Ba’al Peh as well, in one way or another, not only       via Moses.	K	JJ	K	L	NNN
Divine and Human:  God partnered with Humans
Restoration of Revelation Halivni, Roth	“The Court of Ezra”:  Multiple schools and conduits recorded and expanded God’s revelation in different ways, as God intended for them to do. From these sources the original revelation was restored by Ezra’ court.	L	J	Mostly K But some JJ	K	NNNN
Divinely Inspired: The conduit for Torah is Humanity.
Continuous Revelation Bosker, Gordis	“Torat Nevi’im”  Jews recorded of a set of revelations from God over time; that revelation continues today.	L	L	JJ	J	L
Progressive Revelation	“Ruach Ha’kodesh ” The Torah is Divine inspiration of human words. Over time, we better understand what God wills.	L	L	J	JJ	L
Human Authors: The Torah is a purely human creation
Humanist Kaplan	“No Revelation”: The Torah is important for us because it is the Jewish people’s history, customs, and wisdom.	NNN	L	K Recon: JJ	J	L
Academic I Wellhausen, Simkovitch	Documentary Hypothesis- groups with agendas (priests, royalty, and others) each wrote one of four fictional sources, a special editor later edited them into one work (“JPED”)	NNN	K	JJ	J	L or JJ
Academic II, III Yoreh	Other Hypotheses:  Supplemental Hyp. says E came first and the others built upon it, Fragmentary H says there are so many sources.	NNN	K	JJ	J	L or JJ
KEY: J-  This is the right way to see it. JJ- Oh boy, is this great!  K- We don’t like it much, and it’s probably wrong, we just can’t  prove it. L- No intelligent person would ever believe this.   NNN- This idea is the worst idea ever in the history of everything ever.  NNNN- Actually, this is even worse!  We won’t even admit this exists.                                                                                       ©2025, M. Hirsch.

 

  

 

Heschel, “God in Search of Man”

The essence of our faith in the sanctity of the Bible is that its words contain that which God wants us to know and to fulfill. How these words were written down is not the fundamental problem. This is why the theme of Biblical criticism is not the theme of faith, just as the question of whether the lightning and thunder at Sinai were a natural phenomenon or not is irrelevant to our faith in revelation.

 The assumption of some commentators that the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments) was given on a rainy day does not affect our conception of the event.

The act of revelation is a mystery, while the record of revelation is a literary fact, phrased in the language of man.

 

So if the way the words of the Torah were written down is not the fundamental problem for Heschel, what is the problem?

 

What is a Teshuvah?

Lucas Teshuva

https://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/sites/default/files/public/halakhah/teshuvot/19912000/lucas_tattooing.pdf