Jesus Christ was circumcised as a Jew on the 8th day after his birth. Until 1960 the Catholic church celebrated the day as Circumcision Day. In medieval times the holy foreskin was worshipped in many European churches.
What do Jews believe the afterlife is like?
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@Castin
Well notwithstanding that a lot of Jews are antisemitic.
Semite is a bit of hijacked hyperbole....Check out it's general definition.
But another discussion.
But correct, hyperbole for sure.
And a reference to all religions and their ritual absurdities.
Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Catholicism etc etc etc.
I make no distinctions, unless the distinction is already made.
Jews and the afterlife, as it were.
And a wall is a wall.
No more no less.
And recording what has happened (history) is data acquisition, and storage.
No more, no less.
And nodding at walls, is no more or less a derived exaggeration of data manipulation.
And circumcision........Well, genital manipulation of minors is often regarded as perverse in western societies....Such are the contradictions of morality I suppose.
And the afterlife.
What to do hey.
How does one plan for eternity?
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@Castin
Thank you for what you wrote.
Just to clarify -- for many Jews, physical movement, known as shuckeling from the Yiddish for "shake" (similar to shaking or quaking in other religious usages) is a way to express or create focus when praying or even learning (and for some, even learning secular material). Some pray standing stock still and other move their bodies in various directions. Certain prayer requires standing in one spot, so one cannot walk or wander and swaying is an unintentional side effect of the need to move and the rule forbidding moving the legs. It is not a requirement of prayer, nor anything codified nor institutionalized. It is a personal and often automatic reaction to the spiritual sense. It is something that the same Jews would do WHEREVER they were praying, be it alone in a living room at home, or in a group in a synagogue or on an airplane or anywhere else.
Being at the wall is something else. It is a locus of spiritual meaning to Jews so to be close to it is meaningful Some rest heads or hands on it to make that nearness very real and tangible. Others kiss it the way they would kiss a torah scroll or a religious book, to show affection for a holy object. When I am there, it does allow me to feel a recharging -- a being (literally) in "touch" with my identity so I do rest my head an hands against it (also an expression of realization of loss as the wall signifies a lost temple as well, so there is some sense of grief). One can look online and find pictures of people resting their heads, touching or kissing the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. It isn't exactly the same (as the expressions at the Western Wall are driven by a spiritual, less "real" to the outsider, feeling than a Vietnam Memorial) but it is parallel.
Even though some people also pray while touching their heads to the wall, the two behaviors, movement during prayer and the wish to have physical closeness to the "divine spirit" that rests on the wall are unrelated, so any conflating of them into "butting heads against the wall" is silly and misinformed.
One can watch people at the wall here https://thekotel.org/en/western-wall/western-wall-cameras/ and https://thekotel.org/en/western-wall/cameras-prayer-plaza/ to see the variety of ways people express themselves.
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@rosends
For sure, watching people do stuff is entertaining.
Ballroom dancing is the new religion for some.
Have you ever watched Sufi Muslims dancing....I think that it's absolutely enthralling.
Doesn't necessarily make the ideology any more reasonable though.
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@zedvictor4
Have you ever watched Sufi Muslims dancing....I think that it's absolutely enthralling.
I quite liked watching the lads having a bit of a knees up (literally), Vid lad. I was disappointed not to see the women there do their thing though.
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@zedvictor4
Doesn't necessarily make the ideology any more reasonable though.
Agreed, nor should it. I don't think that behaviors are designed to convince people that the ideologies behind them are reasonable.
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@rosends
True.
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@Stephen
Yep...I thought exactly the same.
Dancing great.
Female oppression not so.
248 days later
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@rosends
What do Jews believe the afterlife is like?The Jewish idea of the technical aspects of an afterlife is a matter of much discussion. Early biblical/textual sources give scant reference and even less explanation. Post biblical source flesh out a little more, explaining that there is a next world, judgment, resurrection of the dead in messianic days, and other stuff. But the details and structure are not universally agreed upon by Jewish authorities.An over simplified version would include the following ideas:after death, the immortal soul is judged. There are 3 basic categories -- fully good, fully evil and middling. Most of us are middling. There is a period of time after death when the soul goes through what can best be thought of as a period of re-education, of realization about responsibility for having committed sins. At this point, the soul is separated from the divine presence and that stinks. Re-education prepares the soul for a reconnection to the divine. That time period is up to a year, but we assume less.People who are purely evil are separated from God eternally and those who are purely good connect to the divine presence imemdiately.The idea of a resurrection, of an eternal (physical) life or like that, and where that fits in to this process and the arrival of a future messiah is where things get confusing.a side note -- the next world, and any form of "eternal reward" is for those who are Jewish (as measured by their adherence to the canon of 613+ laws) and non-Jews who are measured against the obligation to follow the 7 Noachide laws.
The jews are very vague about the afterlife.
“Judaism is famously ambiguous about this matter. The immortality of the soul, the World to Come, and the resurrection of the dead all feature prominently in Jewish tradition, but exactly what these things are and how they relate to each other has always been vague.”
But facts limit their choices.
1. The Jewish population unlike other races are not growing but shrinking. That rules out reincarnation.
Reincarnation, also called transmigration or metempsychosis, in religion and philosophy, rebirth of the aspect of an individual that persists after bodily death.
2. By rejecting Jesus the Jews gave up on resurrection or heaven.
3. After living under 613 commandments the Jews all believe in a liberated soul in the afterlife.
But both earth and heaven with its binding morality cannot provide the Jewish soul the liberation it seeks.
So they settled for Sheol.
Sheol generally means the unseen realm of the dead, the present state of death. Both the godly and ungodly go to Sheol in this sense of the term. When used in this way, there is no idea of a place of judgment or condemnation. It is, for example, the place where the righteous Jacob would go.
Sheol was also the place where sinners would end up.
In common speech this refers to the grave - not the literal burying place of the dead but rather the realm of the death. The New International Version normally translates Sheol as "grave." It is usually with the sense of the realm of the dead.
So there is a place for the Jews called Sheol which is also the place where sinners would end up.
Any wonder the Jews have no incentive to improve or respect morality as their history proves. Neither can they escape sheol their final destiny.