Judaism, beliefs, terminology, etc

[TrustMeImRudy]

Not a research question but I have to wonder, anyone here read the ENTIRE Talmud? :O

 

[buyjupiter]

Finding a complete set (with commentaries) is a bit difficult and pricey. I mostly see versions with the "highlights" of Talmudic thought and interpretation.

One day, I will read it all.

Have you Rudy?

 

[MattR]

My dad has all the talmud, he's a rabbi for more than 10 years now, and he'd not completed it yet. When learning Talmud one cannot just read it. For a start, because it's in Aramaic mixed with Talmudic Hebrew (more modern than Biblical Hebrew, but still not as Modern Hebrew of current day). Second, even if you do speak Aramaic fluently (some do, more for laughs rather than using it on everyday basis), some of the situations seem out of place and need explaining by later works such as Rashi (a French rabbi who wrote commentary about the entire Talmud, and most of the Old Testament). Reading all Talmud with it's (basic) commentaries requires more than several years.

P.S. to those Talmud means nothing: Talmud is basically the chronicles of the all the data learned in the seminaries. Until that day, everything was learnt from father to son, until some (rabbi, of course), collected everything to a written set of books. Most of the Talmud is written like the following:
"Rabbi X said 'XYZ should always do ABC, because in the Bible it reads enter verse here. Came Rabbi Y and called 'No, XYZ has to do CBA, because the verse Rabbi X gave has another meaning. The verse enter verse here though, means you have to do CBA'. And the rabbinical law decided after rabbi X" and so on and so on.

 

[TrustMeImRudy]

Oh god no, thought it's something I would like to accomplish someday, I'd like to read all the religious texts of all the religions.

To add to MattR's explanation about the Talmud, if you've ever heard or seen the stereotypes about Jews being argumentative, that arises primarily from the Talmud which is essentially those observations and lessons followed by a bunch of arguments, a lot of which go completely off-topic and continue on tangents for several pages I've heard...

 

[buyjupiter]

I was going to write something about how I like to debate, not argue, but that kind of plays into the whole stereotype of being argumentative and splitting hairs. Oy vey. I'd like to think that it comes out of being a writer, and the knowledge that words are important, not some kind of ethno-genetic trait. (If anyone finds an argument gene, let me know.)

 

[buyjupiter]

More relevant to this thread though, and writing in general: I know there are some beliefs about how to name children. In Ashkenazic traditions (Eastern European Jewish tradition, also where you would see Yiddish used), children were not named after living relatives. There was (is) a belief that if you named a child after a living relative, it was a wish that the older relative was deceased, because there was (is) a long standing tradition of naming children after deceased relatives. (I've also heard the reasoning that if you did name your baby after Aunt Sarah, the Angel of Death could get confused and take your Aunt Sarah instead of your sickly infant.)

There are some exceptions to that tradition, but they are few and far between.

However, Sephardic Jews (those who lived in the Spanish peninsula, pre-1492) did frequently name children after living relatives, and it's considered an honor to have a child named after you.

I believe the Ashkenazic tradition is at least partially responsible for all the variations you see on common biblical names like Sarah, Abraham, Moses, etc. I think you also see more native versions of the names dependent upon where the community was located, so in the Ukraine, you'd see the Ukrainian versions of Sarah alongside the Yiddish and Hebrew.

I don't know that anybody would be interested in Yiddish at all?

 

[TrustMeImRudy]

I enjoy debating too, so I know what you mean 'cause I don't argue much, I just discuss. That said, that stereotype nowadays is usually applied to Ashkenazi Jews, actually the other Jews are pretty much ignored, and people are always suprised when I tell them I'm a hispanic Jew. Yes, you can be Cuban or Colombian and be Jewish. Yes, you can be black and be Jewish. Yes, you can be Asian and be Jewish. It's called either 1. Immigration, or 2. Conversion. Anyways, Sephardic Jew here, in that my family is descended from those jews that lived in the spanish peninsula but later on moved to the New World.

Personally I never liked Yiddish, as I always loved the sound of Hebrew but the sound of Yiddish made me cringe. Certain languages just don't sound appealing to me, know what I mean?

 

[buyjupiter]

Personally I never liked Yiddish, as I always loved the sound of Hebrew but the sound of Yiddish made me cringe. Certain languages just don't sound appealing to me, know what I mean?

I'll have to agree to disagree here. I love the sound of Yiddish, with it's "kv" sounds, and the guttural sounds. Reminds me a lot of Hebrew actually, but then I came to Hebrew after hearing/speaking Yiddish, so that's probably why. (I'm also a fan of disappearing languages, and I use Yiddish words fairly often to keep all of it from dying out.)

 

[TrustMeImRudy]

Of course, to each his own. It just doesnt sound appealing to me...but then again most people seem to like the sound of Italian and it just annoys me so much, so its probably just me.