Comments on: slow torture http://danyaruttenberg.net/2005/04/28/slow-torture/ Danya Ruttenberg's website Tue, 06 Jan 2009 21:00:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.2 By: Danya http://danyaruttenberg.net/2005/04/28/slow-torture/#comment-372 Danya Sun, 01 May 2005 22:33:00 +0000 http://danyaruttenberg.net/2005/04/28/slow-torture/#comment-372 Hey, Emily-- Yeah, from what little I know about the latter, the process of discerning Jewish and Islamic law are really similar. Which, given everything else I know about Islam, is not surprising to me. As for Conservative Judaism--yeah, no, it's, let's see. The catchphrase of the movement is "tradition and change," ie trying to figure out how to stay committed to Jewish Law while living in the (post?)modern world. All the fights within the movement (and there are a lot) are about how much tradition versus how much change, and when, and how to do it. So, yeah. Sometimes you'll get stuff that's socially conservative-lower-c, sometimes stuff that's socially/politically really quite radical. Hey, Emily–

Yeah, from what little I know about the latter, the process of discerning Jewish and Islamic law are really similar. Which, given everything else I know about Islam, is not surprising to me.

As for Conservative Judaism–yeah, no, it’s, let’s see. The catchphrase of the movement is “tradition and change,” ie trying to figure out how to stay committed to Jewish Law while living in the (post?)modern world. All the fights within the movement (and there are a lot) are about how much tradition versus how much change, and when, and how to do it. So, yeah. Sometimes you’ll get stuff that’s socially conservative-lower-c, sometimes stuff that’s socially/politically really quite radical.

]]> By: mili http://danyaruttenberg.net/2005/04/28/slow-torture/#comment-371 mili Sun, 01 May 2005 14:31:00 +0000 http://danyaruttenberg.net/2005/04/28/slow-torture/#comment-371 This has nothing to do with this post--I just wanted to say that I visited the rabbinical assembly webpage with all of the rulings on it, and they are amazing! I'm not Jewish, so many of the legal concepts they explore are totally foreign to me--and there are a lot of terms I don't understand, especially the ones that aren't even written in transliteration--but the reasoning is fascinating. It really reminds me of reading fatwas and other Muslim religious rulings--they have the combined reliance on human logic and divine/divinely inspired precident. Also--to show my ignorance--I had always assumed that "conservative" Judaism was, well, "conservative" in a way that paralleled other ideas of "conservatism" I had--but these rulings have shaken that up quite a bit. (I knew that there were people who were politically progressive who were 'conservative' Jews--I just thought that the establishment was 'conservative' and they were seperated from it.) So, anyway, excellent link, thanks. Go write your papers! emily This has nothing to do with this post–I just wanted to say that I visited the rabbinical assembly webpage with all of the rulings on it, and they are amazing! I’m not Jewish, so many of the legal concepts they explore are totally foreign to me–and there are a lot of terms I don’t understand, especially the ones that aren’t even written in transliteration–but the reasoning is fascinating. It really reminds me of reading fatwas and other Muslim religious rulings–they have the combined reliance on human logic and divine/divinely inspired precident.

Also–to show my ignorance–I had always assumed that “conservative” Judaism was, well, “conservative” in a way that paralleled other ideas of “conservatism” I had–but these rulings have shaken that up quite a bit. (I knew that there were people who were politically progressive who were ‘conservative’ Jews–I just thought that the establishment was ‘conservative’ and they were seperated from it.)

So, anyway, excellent link, thanks. Go write your papers!

emily

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