Halakhah Puns

My girlfriend is from a city in eastern Poland called Bialystok. Those of you who know jewish history might know that Bialystok once had a thriving community of jews and one of the largest temples in Europe prior to WW2. My girlfriends grandmother was a Jew but later “became catholic” for the sake of the family’s safety (aka to avoid being murdered). The family has been “catholic” ever since. Would my girlfriend be accepted as a Jew or would she need to formally convert like anyone else?

It's like if someone is in a pit of sin of their own making, and even though you want to give them a rope and lift them out, you can't because they would be a danger to everyone on the surface outside the pit. As long as they're not ready to believe the truth, you have to lie and let them keep believing the lies that keep them in the pit, for your own protection. Yet do you also have a responsibility to at least leave clues inside the pit that they could use, once they start to question themselves and seek truth, to find the way back? Giving them the ingredients to make the rope but in a way that they will only be able to assemble it into a rope once they repent, find truth, and are no longer a danger to those on the surface? What responsibility is there to hint at truth even while delivering a necessary lie?

Alright, so contemporary Jewish apologists like /u/The_Monster_Cookie argue that hudud in Islam is incompatible with the Islamic notion of a merciful god while apparently maintaining the traditional position in Judaism that Yahweh is a god of both justice and mercy.

As much as I love to see it when theists of different religions fight it out amongst one another, I much prefer to see them having an intellectually honest debate and the aforementioned debate simply is not premised upon intellectual honesty. /u/The_Monster_Cookie correctly points out that we have some similar punishments in Judaism, but dishonestly claims that:

1. it is impossible to administer such punishments in the present time, and

2. such punishments were rarely dispensed.

In the present debate, I will address these fallacies one by one.

Firstly, much like Islam, Judaism holds that Yahweh is a god of both justice and mercy. According to the Talmud:

> God says, "All I do, I do in justice. If I sought to pass beyond justice but once, the world could not endure," as it says in Isaiah 26:4, "If I were to overstep justice by a single step, I should set all on fire, and the world would be burnt up." (Tanhuma, Mishpatim 41b)

> They that are born are destined to die; and the dead to be brought to life again; and the living to be judged, to know, to make known, and to be made conscious that God is the Maker, the Creator, the Discerner, the Judge, the Witness, the Complainant; God it is that will, in future, judge, blessed be God. (R. Elazar ha-Kappar, Aboth 4:29)

Therefore, we should expect Yahweh to be merciful.

Secondly, the punishments prescribed in Judaism are anything but merciful. In Islam, they have stoning, beheading, and amputation. In Judaism, we have sekila (i.e. stoning), serefah (i.e. burning), hereg (i.e. beheading), and chenek (i.e. strangulation). To describe serefah for you, it is not like how the Europeans used to burn witches and heretics. In Judaism, serefah involves burning someone from the inside out, as they are forced to swallow boiling oil. We like our punishments cruel that way.

Moreover, under Jewish law, you can be subject for such punishments over seemingly trivial matters. Non-Jews could be stoned for preaching their non-Jewish religions, while Jews could be stoned for working on the sabbath, swearing at their parents, or just not being a very good son. You could also be beheaded if you were a resident of a city dee

Does anyone have any resources relating to this topic?

Personally, I'm inclined to not donate to blatently non-Jewish religious institutions. Often there are non-faith-based charities with similar aims which I can donate to. However, sometimes I encounter gray areas, and it's in those gray areas that I'm more interested in finding associated resources. I'll give you some examples I've seen:

• Food or snacks or entertainment or resources or whatever at an event are provided without charge. Rather, one donates what one is inclined to donate. The proceeds go toward the church (or whatever) sponsoring the event.

• A friend is raising funds for a humanitarian aid trip which seems like it will really do good. However, it is sponsored by a church or is technically a mission trip.

• Students from a local school affiliated with a religion are working to raise money for the school.

• A church with a parking lot in a city allows the public to use the lot for a fee, the proceeds going to the church.

• The only charity providing a certain service of importance in a community is affiliated with a religious institution.

I'm sure people can think of other similar examples. It seems like commonsense that it would be impermissible (I guess I could be wrong) to donate money to, say, the Gideons (who are a Protestant ministry which distributes Christian Bibles). But where's the line? I've glanced around the web a bit, but I can't really find much. Anyone have any resources?

I am in a Jewish Law course in my law school. I have a religious background, but never had a formal Hebrew school education. I would love to use this course as an opportunity to delve deeper into halakhah.

I need a topic for a 30 page research paper and would grateful for any suggestions!

The Oral Torah, in Conservative Judaism, is accepted as the basis for all codes of Halakhah. This means that Conservative Judaism accepts the Oral Torah as a binding document. This is, I believe, the major distinction between Conservative Judaism and other liberal forms of Judaism. Conservative Judaism still claims to be a halakhic movement: that is, a movement which considers halakhah binding.

Now, I imagine that many Jews out there wondering: "How can he have the audacity to claim that Conservative Judaism is a halakhic movements when it allows driving on Shabbat, ordination of women and gays, and more egregious violations of Halakhah?" And it's here where I think that the major distinction is drawn between Conservative Judaism and more Traditional sects.

First of all, there are definitely Conservative Teshuvot that have passed where I, personally, disagree with their decisions. That is, I don't agree with their halakhic reasoning which allowed them to reach their conclusions. But, I'm pretty sure that Jews are free disagree with Rabbis and seek out other halakhic decisions i.e. not follow Teshuvot which they disagree with. These disagreements can be found throughout the generations, from Rabbi Feinstein and Rabbi Henkin, down to Rav and Shmuel.

We've established that halakhic plurality exists in the halakhic framework. Now, I'd say that a lot of the halakhic decisions that Conservative Judaism has reached in the past 100 years clearly disagree with poskim in the more Traditional denominations. But, just because I reject someone else's halakhic decision/reasoning doesn't mean that I have the right to call it non-halakhic.

Many will disagree with this, but I would point out that the Talmud, the Tosefta, and the Mishnah all preserve minority opinions. One must note however that there are traditions and laws present which lack any sort of minority opinion. The dichotomy here means that throughout time there have been things that even Jews have agreed upon. For example, I don't know of any source which argues that eating a cheeseburger is an acceptable halakhich position. However, there are varying opinions on how long one must wait between eating meat and dairy.

There's another place where Conservative Judaism is different from the more traditional sects - and that's in what it's people are actually doing. A vast majority of Conservative Jews don't keep kosher/shabbat/family purity/other laws. However, I believe this has recently been an issue in M

Do your worst!

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂

Pilot on me!!

Dad jokes are supposed to be jokes you can tell a kid and they will understand it and find it funny.

This sub is mostly just NSFW puns now.

If it needs a NSFW tag it's not a dad joke. There should just be a NSFW puns subreddit for that.

Edit* I'm not replying any longer and turning off notifications but to all those that say "no one cares", there sure are a lot of you arguing about it. Maybe I'm wrong but you people don't need to be rude about it. If you really don't care, don't comment.