Havdalah-gate
2021-Jun-28, Monday 08:51![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dorchadas
So this was a...thing.
I'm looking at this at a remove, but there was a Juneteeth Havdalah event with New York mayoral candidate Maya Wiley as outreach to the Jewish community organized by![[twitter.com profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/e0caa790ec10/-/twitter.com/favicon.ico)
TheJewishVote. The major problem with this is that Shabbat ends after sundown--traditionally when three stars are visible in the sky--and a lot of observant Jews wouldn't attend a political event on Shabbat (I wrote about this in 2018 when I attended a protest myself). Another problem is that when video surfaced, it appears to show people making the wrong blessing, using the blessing over wine when lighting the candle:
This is known as a ברכה לבטלה (bracha levatala), a blessing said to no purpose or for incorrect reasons, which violates the Third Commandment as it literally uses G-d's name in vain. This is the actual meaning of the Third Commandment, not avoiding saying "G-d dammit" or anything, because G-d is not G-d's name.
The criticism of this was pretty predictable. Lighting a fire on Shabbat is forbidden, Wiley held a Jewish outreach event when a lot of Jews couldn't attend, "their religion is Leftism not Judaism," that kind of thing. Not unexpected. But the defense of it left me uncomfortable as well. Ones like this one:
There certainly is a large chunk of Orthodoxy that views their practice as real Judaism and everything else as heresy--they'll often describe their traditions as "Torah Judaism" with the idea that it was handed down from G-d to Moses and then to them--even as completely modern practices like blurring out women's faces in magazines for modesty reasons gain extra traction in their community. But the opposition to this was pretty widespread. I saw a lot of liberal Jews who were annoyed or offended by this as well. The most frequent comment was that if Havdalah can be during the daytime, why can't Shabbat be on Wednesday? If halakha means nothing or is endlessly malleable, why even try following it? There are certainly streams of modern Judaism that hold to that but I disagree--we should engage with halakha wherever we can. If even passages like:
I guess my point is that I'm dubious of the "only the ethics matter" approach to Judaism because if the most important (or only) aspects of your practice are social justice, charity, and making the world a better place, what is the specific Jewish approach to that that isn't generalizable?
I'm looking at this at a remove, but there was a Juneteeth Havdalah event with New York mayoral candidate Maya Wiley as outreach to the Jewish community organized by
Video of @mayawiley making havdallah with members of @TheJewishVote earlier this evening. pic.twitter.com/72yMPgwafU
— Jacob Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) June 20, 2021
This is known as a ברכה לבטלה (bracha levatala), a blessing said to no purpose or for incorrect reasons, which violates the Third Commandment as it literally uses G-d's name in vain. This is the actual meaning of the Third Commandment, not avoiding saying "G-d dammit" or anything, because G-d is not G-d's name.
The criticism of this was pretty predictable. Lighting a fire on Shabbat is forbidden, Wiley held a Jewish outreach event when a lot of Jews couldn't attend, "their religion is Leftism not Judaism," that kind of thing. Not unexpected. But the defense of it left me uncomfortable as well. Ones like this one:
What I think people are *actually* taking offense to is that non-Orthodox Jews observe Shabbat and perform havdalah *at all*, instead of fitting the expectation that we don't care about our Judaism.
— Radical Traditional Jewish Person (@JustSayXtian) June 24, 2021
There certainly is a large chunk of Orthodoxy that views their practice as real Judaism and everything else as heresy--they'll often describe their traditions as "Torah Judaism" with the idea that it was handed down from G-d to Moses and then to them--even as completely modern practices like blurring out women's faces in magazines for modesty reasons gain extra traction in their community. But the opposition to this was pretty widespread. I saw a lot of liberal Jews who were annoyed or offended by this as well. The most frequent comment was that if Havdalah can be during the daytime, why can't Shabbat be on Wednesday? If halakha means nothing or is endlessly malleable, why even try following it? There are certainly streams of modern Judaism that hold to that but I disagree--we should engage with halakha wherever we can. If even passages like:
"If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, that will not hearken to the voice of his father and the voice of his mother and though they chasten him, will not hearken unto them, then shall his father and his mother lay hold of him and bring him out unto the elders of his city… They shall say unto the elders of his city: This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he doth not hearken to our voice, he is a glutton and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones that he die; so shalt thou put away the evil from the midst of thee; and all Israel shall hear, and fear."can be interpreted such that such a terrible punishment is highly unlikely, we can do the same with other aspects of halakha. Maybe there's some way to rule that Shabbat ends at 5:30 p.m. every Saturday regardless of time of year, and if so, I want to see the reasoning. If the time doesn't matter, and the specific blessings don't matter, what does matter?
-Deuteronomy 21:18–21
I guess my point is that I'm dubious of the "only the ethics matter" approach to Judaism because if the most important (or only) aspects of your practice are social justice, charity, and making the world a better place, what is the specific Jewish approach to that that isn't generalizable?
