Thread: Shaving and Orthodox Judaism story

Originally Posted by Englishgent

My children will be educated and taught that they should seek a Jewish partner to fall in love with and marry.

If they were to not do so I would regard it as my failing not theirs.

We come from an unbroken chain of generation after generation of Jews. I personally hope that we continue that chain. If others wish to break it then so be it.

My children will be educated to follow their own choices -- I will merely supply them with the wherewithal to make their own choices in life. If that's an understanding of their Jewish culture which leads them to continue those traditions, then its all good. If it's a distrust of organised religion and a rejection of religious Judaism, then so be it. And if it's an appreciation of their mixed background in equal parts (at the cost of losing their Jewishness), that's fine too. As long as the result is a balanced, happy and confident individual, I don't much care if they choose to be Frum or behave like a Goy/Shiksa.

I have fully immersed myself in my wife's culture -- I can says the Baruchs on a Friday night, we celebrate the big festivals (and let me tell you, Jewish festivals are GREAT for kids -- so inclusive and educational, like Passach), I go to all the family occasions (Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, Shivas, etc.) and do not feel out of place whatsoever... despite all of this understanding and involvement with the Jewish culture, I still cannot get my head around the pressure that parents place on their children not to marry out.

It is a truly alien concept to me, and I cannot help feel anger at times. My brother in law tears himself up over the fact he has a secret Shiksa girlfriend, and I remember the prejudice I received and being made to feel like an outcast... in my book, that is a big flaw in the culture.

You see, I'm about as mixed a mongrel as you get, and therefore my Jewish children are too: Russian, Polish, English, Irish, Scottish, and Chinese genes. I am the product of a (racially) mixed marriage. My children are the products of a religiously mixed marriage. And you know what? We're all leading happy healthy lives.

My in-laws accepted me years ago. I forgave them for what they put us through. But I cannot condone what they did. Attitudes like that can make their children's lives a misery and cause terrible anguish and damage. Was it necessary? Really? look at the result -- their daughter married out to someone she loves and makes her happy, and they have some more wonderful grandchildren who they love dearly. And now my background is no longer an issue for them.

Right, here's my ha'porth.

There is no doubt that the Jewish religion has been subject to some of the most horrendous demonstrations of pure evil that humanity has ever perpetrated. The Nazi holocaust was the worst, but examples occur every day, even in the most secular societies, such as the one in which I am privileged to live. Intolerance & its child, persecution, are an utter anathema to me wherever & by whomever they are practiced.

What do I mean by intolerance? When any one person or group of people are treated in a less than civilised & humane manner by other people because of their race, nationality, creed or any other aspect of themselves. I have led a full & interesting life & seen plenty of it, up close & very personal. Tolerance is ridiculously easy to do. Just be as courteous to every single person whom you meet as you would like them to be to you. Try it. I guarantee you will have a very nice day.

Unfortunately, it seems that Judaism breeds intolerance in many places, even here. Why? I can not definitively say. I do believe that it has something to do with Jewish cultural & social insularity & the claim of being the only deity's chosen. For example "So you think that you're better than us, do you? We'll show you. Let's have a pogrom boys. We'll have their cash & valuables because they're different to us & don't want to join in. Then we'll kill 'em or deport 'em" It has happened in most countries at one time or another in history. I would have thought that a tribe that has been discriminated against so much would be a little more tolerant when it has the upper hand. Current events give the lie to that. Can someone please explain to me how the West Bank & Gaza Strip are anything other than Palestinian ghettos?

History points are done. What Mark & Chimensch have related about their life experiences appall me. Having met them both (& they seem to be damn fine blokes) I cannot understand why anyone would want to put them through such anguish because of the choices they made or with whom they fell in love. Trying to give it respectability by saying that it is an issue of cultural or religious preservation is petty & very narrow minded. All faiths believe that humanity were given free will by the creator. How can one deny that gift, surely the greatest of all of the deity's & claim that it is being done in order to further the service of that deity? My paternal family are Traditional Welsh Pagans. My father rebelled against that by becoming a Christian & seeking to indoctrinate his family into that faith. I went against him by going to my grandfather & seeking to learn the old ways. I have walked that path ever since & my faith has supported me emotionally, mentally, spiritually & at the worst of times physically. You cannot force a child to be any one thing. If you give them the choice, however, they may well seek to follow tradition because it can help them to establish their own identity within that tradition

Mr Englishgent, you claim that Signore Chimensch is a self-hater. How on earth can you justify your screen name then, given your location, without a charge of hypocrisy? We are all shaped by our life's experiences. If they are negative, we will associate them with negativity. If, subsequently, you are less than enthusiastic about the group which you believe caused it, is it surprising? I cannot see that Chimensch has made any comments that are defamatory to your faith or the Israeli nation. Could it not be that you are in some small way further persecuting him for what you see as abandoning the tribe, when all that he did was follow his heart & was ostracised for it?

Madame YesSheDoes. Your take on intolerance is interesting. It seems to me that your tolerance only stretches as far as your agreement. Atheists, New Agers & "perversion" fall outside your fence & therefore you feel free to say that they are some how lesser because they do not agree with you. The purge to which you refer is not a crusade against your faith, but a levelling of the field so that all faiths may be free to be practiced. Yes I did read your signature. All those you say are intolerant are simply seeking the same level of courtesy for their beliefs that you demand, nay expect for yours. Your god is your god, not mine, & I do not want him forced down my throat when I make it abundantly clear, to the fundamentalist evangelists who repeatedly knock on my door that I am not interested. If I were to be impolite for a moment, I would say that that arrogance sickens me, as it has no respect for my faith, which does not make any claims to be the only Truth, merely that which I find to be true for me. It isn't a mish mash of politics dogma & a little of what remains of the totality of the amazing teachings of a zombie Jewish magician. Manners now resume. I am a Pagan & a Pervert & proud of both. Why? Because they are both things to which I have come through using the mind which the gods gave me. If I harm no one, what business is it of any one else? You may not agree with me, nor I with you, but I will not call you evil, but encourage you to consider why you think these things are wrong. Just being different should be celebrated not reviled. The only people whom I have met whom I did not like are those who are discourteous & do not think for themselves. With the rest, it's been a ball!

As far as being shunned or cast out for marrying outside his faith you all have to understand that the orthodox who do this live in a society where that is the norm and that's the way it has to be. The family members might feel bad about it but there is no other consideration. You do x and y happens to you. That's how they maintain their sect.

In many ways its no different than many other groups of people who do things the rest of the world might not understand, tolerate or like.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let me remind you that even though each of you is very passionate about your own point of view, you still have to recognize that everybody else is as well.
Please be respectful towards the other participants even if you do not agree with their ideas.

Otherwise this thread will be closed and/or if a particular member(s) is/are stirring trouble they will receive a well deserved time out.

Thank you.

Englishgent seems to be truly angry at me for the personal choices that I have made in my life. I imagine that he would be equally angry at his own children, and grandchildren, if they should make a choice different from what he has laid out for them. I think that is the essence of my disagreement with my father.

I believe that each of us is given a life to develop as we please, without harming others. The Jewish attitude is that you must follow the instructions that were given to you by your ancestors and hand them down to your children. In the past, in the ghetto, these instructions were imposed on the Jewish community by the internal force of the rabbis, who had the power to imprison and even kill rebellious Jews.

In my personal situation, I felt that my father wanted me to be an extra, or a piece of scenery, in a play that was about his life, not mine. His attitude was simply, "my way or the highway". Certainly, he has a right to feel that way, as I have a right not to sing "for he's a jolly good fellow."

I also believe that I can demonstrate that there is a direct line between Englishgent's anger and authoritarianism and the anger and authoritarianism of the Israeli's who are bombing and shelling defenseless people in Gaza.

My friends from highschool, who are now settlers on Palestinian land, believe that they have the right to be there because it's written in the bible. The deeds and keys to their houses and land that Palestine refugees still have, UN resolutions and decisions of the World Court of Justice mean nothing. God said it and that's that. Oh, and if you don't like it in the refugee camp or the West Bank or Gaza, why don't you just go somewhere else? In fact, just last week, Lipni said that, when a Palestine state is established, she would tell the Arab citizens of Israel that their "future is elsewhere". My way or the highway.

Englishgent's comments to me can be summarized as, "Why don't you just shut up and leave the Jews and Israelis alone?" There's not much I can do about the injustices that are being committed in Palestine in the name of the Jewish people but at least I can say that they are wrong.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

As far as being shunned or cast out for marrying outside his faith you all have to understand that the orthodox who do this live in a society where that is the norm and that's the way it has to be. The family members might feel bad about it but there is no other consideration. You do x and y happens to you. That's how they maintain their sect.

In many ways its no different than many other groups of people who do things the rest of the world might not understand, tolerate or like.

I hear what you're saying. We see that everywhere, in history and still now. In the UK we can see the same thing in recent history with Catholic and Protestant families inter-marrying, particularly in Northern Ireland. And in Scotland, the animosity shown between Rangers fans and Celtic fans (Catholic tradition, Protestant tradition respectively) highlights this intolerance in many guises, even in sport.

Although it has been the way of the world, and that particular monster continues to rear its ugly head, as humans we instinctively seem to know it is wrong. From my point of view (as a mongrel, you understand ), objection to interracial marriages and to inter-faith marriages are part and parcel of the same intolerance that has led to all of the world's atrocities. And although objecting to their daughter consorting with a gentile is clearly less damaging than, say, supporting genocide, in my book they are driven by the same irrationality. You're not one of us, so you have no rights (in this case, no rights to marry their daughter, but take it to the extreme of genocide/holocaust, no rights to live).

That's why I don't get it. And maybe I never will, because I was not brought up a Jew or with Jewish culture and the horrors Jewish people have faced. Maybe I'd think differently if I had. But the world is changing with regard to mixed partnerships. Geography is no longer an obstacle, people move around the world more, mix more and inter-marry. Like my father, who left the UK to work in Hong Kong and carved out a great life amongst both locals and expats and ended up marrying a Chinese woman, to the horror of both his and her parents. They remain happily married today, more than 40 years on. The world is changing, many of us on this forum are proof of that. In my world there is no room for such irrational exclusion. If my children find a partner who makes them happy and fulfilled, and they make a good team, I don't care if they turn out to be black, white, yellow, brown, male, female, Catholic, Jewish, Pagan, French, German (or even Welsh ).

Even if they support Liverpool.

Whew. I didn't intend for this to become a discussion about religion! Since its there now, let me clarify one thing right off the bat:

I'm not married to this girl.

Someone mentioned on the second page that my wife and I should raise our children Jewish because she is Jewish, so let me reiterate:

I. Am. Not. Married.

Especially not to her. So the children thing holds no weight with me. I'm 22 years old, and looking forward to not having kids for a long time. However, I am looking forward to eventually teaching my son how to shave (i.e. with a straight).

Second, I'm not a talmudic scholar, nor am I Jewish. I am not Catholic, though I thought about converting for some time. I didn't because I don't like organized religion in most forms, be it organized Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. Here's why: because it becomes about the letter of the law and not the spirit. I don't believe that Jesus would fault us for handing out condoms in South Africa to prevent the spread of AIDS and save lives even though it is contraception and contrary to what the Pope (a human being, and therfore, fallible) says is right. If Adonai doesn't want us to shave, I don't think he makes the distinction between an electric razor and a straight. If Adonai wants us to bond and reconnect with our loved ones (family, Him) on the Sabbath (shabat, shabbos), I don't think he cares if we drive to a park for a family picnic, even though other men (talmudic writers, human beings and therefore fallible) say that operating a car on the Sabbath is work and thus forbidden.

So I'm not a big fan of organized religion.

But I am a big fan of being right and my girlfriend (not wife) being wrong.

Could we just make a very clear distinction between the Catholic church and Christianity? I'm getting a bit sick of being called catholic every time someone mentions Christianity.

Don't get me wrong. I don't dislike catholics but I'm not one and for a lagre part don't agree with the pope's views.

Catholics are Christians, yes but not the other way around, Christians are NOT automatically catholics.

Just like Shi-ites (spelling) are muslims, not every muslim is a shi-ite.

Other than that I find this discussion very interesting.

Haha my buddy's dad always asks me "What a good catholic boy like you doing eating lox and bagel?" whenever I'm over his house for lunch/breakfast. He always uses Catholic and Christian interchangably lol. I'm Christian, not Catholic. Seems to be a mistake that a lot of people make.

My FIL believes that Anglicanism and Eastern Orthodoxy are forms of Catholicism. I dare him to tell that to the Irish.

Since we're differentiating now, maybe its time for some levity; God Trumps | New Humanist

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