- Take Control of your Shabbat Meals, an article for people who worry about eating too much on Shabbat.
- Olive oil: the miracle ingredient, Biblical history and health benefits.
- Reflections on Being a Loser at Jewish Geography, or how a seemingly innocent question can prove embarrassing.
- Environmental Sensitivity, making environmental awareness an Orthodox issue.
Shabbat Shalom
7 Comments
December 12, 2008 at 3:02 pm
About the Jewish geography article, which I had read in the print version of Jewish Action: I liked her article, but I didn’t care for her conclusion. I don’t think one needs to avoid Jewish geography all together, merely to be sensitive to someone’s background and how one asks questions. With a totally different person, it might be a comfortable way to start a conversation. Like we teach a child according one’s way, we should also converse on topics of comfort as well.
I’ll have to peek at the others later… Shabbat Shalom.
December 12, 2008 at 5:34 pm
[...] popped over to IlanaDavita’s blog earlier to see this post which included a link to an article about environmental awareness in Orthodox Judaism. It makes [...]
December 12, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Interesting information on those links! Thanks for sharing them.
December 13, 2008 at 6:29 pm
I accepted a Shabbat lunch invitation at the home of the shul president while undergoing Orthodox conversion. I did not want the world to know that I was not yet halachically Jewish, and hated questions about my family. (I lied to everyone in Israel about my mother’s being non-Jewish, and lied to most in America about it too.) At this lunch table, one of the other guests, a psychiatrist it turned out, was interrogating me to an uncomfortable degree. I steered the conversation toward my (Jewish) father and away from my mother pretty successfully. At the end of the meal, he remarked that we had only talked about my father. “You didn’t tell me anything about your mother,” he noted, sensing something significant in this lapse.
“And I haven’t heard a word about yours, either,” I said, returning his suspicious look.
Jewish geography is well and good (and sometimes full of wonderful coincidences). But a hint of hesitance on someone’s part, and the subject should be changed. We are forbidden as Jews to embarrass someone, and should keep social conversation as comfortable as possible.
December 13, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Agree that we don’t need to get rid of Jewish geography altogether. Thank G-d for that!
Rabbi Fox made a good point about environmentalism being the province of the non-Orthodox. But I don’t think that’s the main reason, nor are the others he mentioned.
December 14, 2008 at 2:31 am
I just read the environmental link, and I want to mention two topics: canvas bags and pesticides.
In some circles, lack of knowledge can be part of the issue. I brought in my canvas shopping bags to our local butcher shop, which is run by frum Jews who speak Yiddish (and are from a more insular community). He had no idea why I had the canvas bags. I tried to explain, but he didn’t get it.
And then there’s the pesticide on the lawn of a shul…this I can’t blame on ignorance, because it’s an Orthodox synagogue of highly educated Jews who obviously value looks more than their children’s health. I have a big problem with that.
May 12, 2009 at 4:27 am
I thought I would finally leave a comment. I have visited your blog often. I am a Jewish book blogger, mainly Jewish fiction. Come and stop by some time.