Beef of the Week

Nope, not pastrami. Here on out when I am referring to the Beef of the Week I am refering to one of my issues, or should I say gripes about a situation or text study I encountered. The Beef of the Week on this second week of September goes to the understanding of the Noahide laws. WHAA?? you may ask? me too.

I began a new class today called 'Ethics of Living and Dying'. The class will deal with laws pertaining to civil society. We began today from looking at the Noahide laws, or according to the Talmud the first set of laws given down to a society. As stated in Tractaite Sanhedrin (didn't bring home my notes but promise to get you the exact source)that the 7 Noahide laws (given to the children of Noah after the flood) were as follows:
1. Set up courts
2. You should bless the name of God, i.e. do not commit blasphamy
3. Do not engage in idol worship
4. Do not spill blood, i.e. do not commit murder
5. You should not engage in acts of sexual immorality
6. Do not engage in robbery
7. Do not tear a limb from a living animal

These laws were apparently commanded to everyone on earth and preceeded the idea of Judaism.

Wheres the beef?? (hope thats not copyrighted). Okay, get ready, here it is:

I have never liked the term "chosen people" I think that it implies negative connotations from both internally and externally. In fact its not that God chose us, but us who chose God. It is us who decided to take on God in the manifestation that seemed truthful on how to live our lives. But like a radio show, that is transmitted from one central location but your station may be altered to pick up the best feed depending on your location-so too, I believe that there is a higher being and a truth but that the truth is channeled differently for different people to reach understanding. I refuse to believe there is only one way to view the higher power we call God. But here we are stating that the a non-Jew must recognize God in order to say that s/he will not commit blasphamy, the Gemara is going one step further in saying that not only must s/he recognize but s/he must not commit Avodah Zarah, or idol worship, implying that s/he must believe in a mono-theistic God. Well if this is true than Paganism, many Eastern religions, and depending on who you hold by, Islam and Christianity are out the window!

How can we say that we expect others to believe what we believe? Last time I checked we weren't asking questions in the lines of 'Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your lord and saviour?' as a stipulation on how to live life (or depending if you believe in an afterlife, entry into the afterlife). Yet according to this these are the 7 simple rules that non-Jews must follow--NOT SO FREAKIN SIMPLE!!

Now I know that other schools of thought remove these two God related laws and replace them with no castration or mixing of seeds. But to even entertain the thought that we are 'right' and the rest of the world is 'wrong' does not sit well with me. Hillel International has recently changed their slogan to 'Universally Human, Distinctively Jewish'. We live in a global world and I am on the large scale part of 2 communities--the Human race and the Jewish people. On a smaller scale, there are too many to count. For me to say that not only do I believe what I do is right for me but REQUIRED of everyone else on this earth, just cannot be and I cannot take it to be true.

This is the hard stuff. Okay, I don't believe this to be true, but can I find something else useful in this source text that is? Or does one it negate everything else I come across. And this is the microchosim of my struggle.

On a lighter note here are some of the other events of my week: Signed up for membership at Shira Hadasha only to be told I am on a waitlist that is not getting any shorter for High Holidays. Looks like I am still searching for a place to go...BUT i got a free t-shirt...yay. We are going on Tiyul (outing, hike, etc..) from Thursday-Sat. night to Arad which is in the mid-south of Israel just south of the Dead Sea (which according to BBC news is in a race to save it's existence). I have also been elected to coordinate a program the school does called 'Take Five'. The idea is that for 5 minutes 2 times a week a student gets up before the entire community and answers a random question relating somehow to their Jewish identity. In doing so the community gets to know something interesting about them, and for those who do not interact regularly it gives them a chance to hear from each other. Since I am running the program, I am also introducing it and therefore going to speak for the first one. Stay tuned, I will let you know how it goes.