Would Jew Look At That

We are spending the next 7 episodes giving overviews of the world's most popular religious traditions. We're starting with the oldest persistent Abrahamic tradition: Judaism. Join us as we discuss religious texts, practices, observances, and more!

No religion is monolithic, but there are some things that bind together the Jewish faith, like the Hebrew Bible. While we don’t know who wrote the Hebrew Bible, some people believe Moses wrote the five books himself.

In this episode, we talk about the Exodus--the exciting story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt. We also discuss the story of King David, his childhood battle with Goliath his prophesized son that will rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.

Judaism uses the Tanakh: a group of writings to guide their worship. This includes the Torah (the 5 books of Moses), the Nevi’im (works of the Prophets) and the Ketuvim (the Writings). One thing that makes the Jewish community unique is that they are encouraged to argue and debate their scripture, which is where we get some of these writings from.

There are three main branches of Judaism: Orthodox, Conservative and Reform. We explain the differences in observances between these groups.

The Jews are also known for dietary restrictions, circumcisions, deep-fried food, and taking it really easy on Saturdays. We explain all this and more on this episode of the Holy Watermelon Podcast.

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Katie Dooley  00:12

Hello, everyone,

Preston Meyer  00:13

and welcome to the holy watermelon od test.

Katie Dooley  00:16

My name is Katie Preston. And what are we talking about? We have a new series Happy New Year 21 Let's hope it's better for everyone, then 2020 We have a new series, I get series mini series started, guess

Preston Meyer  00:35

what we're doing, we're gonna take a dive, not a super deep dive, because there's an awful lot of depth to every religion, but we're going to take a reasonably deep dive into the biggest of the world religions. And then maybe we'll take a look at some of the smaller ones later, too. So we're gonna start with Judaism. Cool.

Katie Dooley  00:56

So tonight, yeah, today we're talking about today's because it's the first chronologically an Abrahamic religion. So it seems like a good place to start.

Preston Meyer  01:11

Yeah, it's like most religions, it's kind of tricky. It's not monolithic. There's not a pope who's in charge of all of the Jews, for example. But there's one unifying detail that they all adhere to some degree or another, to the Hebrew Bible, and the Jewish tradition of the good old Holy Land.

Katie Dooley  01:36

So let's start with how it started. Some of the I guess, I guess it starts with Exodus. And maybe you want to talk about this briefly, in brief the story of Exodus, and I don't know what you know about who wrote that story. Now,

Preston Meyer  01:56

I don't think anybody knows who wrote that story down. There's an awful lot of people who genuinely believe that Moses wrote, all five of the books ascribed to him in the old testament to the Hebrew Bible. But there's also a handful of clues in there that say that was written much later. That's not to say that Moses couldn't have written down some of it. But there's not a whole lot of evidence for that either. It's a large collection of books, the the Exodus, which is probably the second most read of the Five Books of Moses, because nobody reads Leviticus, or Deuteronomy, or numbers, the names are intimidating, and the content is incredibly dry. But Exodus is the exciting story of Moses, leading the Israelites out of Egypt. And of course, Genesis tells the story of how the nation the people of Israel came to be. So those two books get an awful lot of credit, and the other three are forgotten. And so the Exodus, the foundational story of who Israelites are, as a freed people, is hugely important to their identity. It's about Moses being born into slavery, and then being thrown into a river in a handy dandy boat so he doesn't drown and sink, which is super important. If you want a nation to survive.

Katie Dooley  03:26

You can buy it's Moses baskets for your kids that are called Moses pass. Of course. I don't know what convenience they are.

Preston Meyer  03:35

They're not. I don't recommend trying to use them in that way. though. I haven't looked at them.

Katie Dooley  03:44

Why would you carry your kid like that? I don't know. It's kind of weird. Like, they're not safe like a car seat. Right? Comfortable like a bassinet. I don't know why you would want one. But then you go fun facts the world you can buy a moses basket for your baby. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  03:57

And so the story that we have an exodus of that transference from one family to another is reminiscent a lot of the story of Noah and the ark. One of the stories probably influenced the way the other was told at least a little bit, because storytelling just is subject to that feature. And then Moses grows up in the royal court in Egypt, and at age 40, after probably having been married and initiated into the Egyptian cults and whatnot. He kills a dude for being super rude to some Israelite slaves, and realizes, Oh, crap, this is a crime because they actually had decent laws protecting their slaves. But also, you can't kill another Egyptian, especially when he's not a slave.

Katie Dooley  04:50

I mean, that rule still applies, I think.

Preston Meyer  04:53

I think mostly, I mean, the world's getting weirder. But generally don't kill Egypt. Yeah, we're at war or your own countrymen. In Canada, if you kill a foreign national, about half of our country is probably going to cheer you on. Things are kind of weird. But a Canadian citizen is a big no no for the murder in Canada. So Moses flees off into the wilderness at age 40, leaving his family behind. He most certainly had wife and children at that age, being a prince in the royal court at 40. And single would have been unheard of. And takes off, finds his new family Midianite priest offers his daughter to be Moses new wife, and Moses starts a new family lives with them for 40 years did

Katie Dooley  05:47

he leave for a pack of smokes and never come back?

Preston Meyer  05:53

I don't think he had time to give the pack of smokes excuse to the kids. He just disappeared. Of course. I mean, he could have been on literally any errand when he was catching this Egyptian beating Hebrew in the streets. And yeah, any excuse could have been given at that time, I guess. And then after 40 years in the desert with this Midianite family Midianites are also descendants of Abraham. So they're like, cousin ish, because we're not really very many generic, very many generations from Abraham, with Moses himself. So reasonably distant cousin, but close enough that you totally would have shot to the same family reunion if that was a thing.

Katie Dooley  06:42

3000 year old family we

Preston Meyer  06:45

probably older 4000 3000 years ago, well, three and a half, maybe. I mean, archaeology is kind of rough on this one on the exact dating of it. And so at age 80, Moses is like, just doing his business taking care of the flocks. Also, his father in law is still around. So that's kind of cool. People have to be really old in these Bible stories, right? Honestly, the number 80 It's kind of sketchy. 30 I mean, we don't know for sure. They say he was 40 when he left Egypt, that he probably wasn't younger than 30 to get a number like 40. But we keep stacking for two years and 40 years and 40 years for Moses. It's kind of suspect. But I mean, we're

Katie Dooley  07:35

straight up don't know this. This might be a completely where we still tracking time, like we do now. Yeah, pretty much. So there's still 12 months in a year and 30 days in a month and 24 hours in a day.

Preston Meyer  07:47

24 hours in a day. I think there's a Babylonian thing if I remember correctly, cuz I know we have. That's 30 July and August because of Julius and Augustus. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  07:59

Remember, though, that

Preston Meyer  08:00

the Roman calendar was 10 months for a long time. The Israelites were pretty committed to a 12 month calendar that occasionally threw in the 13th month, rather than a leap day like we have to adjust the calendar they added just a whole month. Because every month, you couldn't tell. Yeah, it was kind of weird. I'm

Katie Dooley  08:21

just curious if that's why they got so bold in the Bible is because the year was only six months,

Preston Meyer  08:27

they definitely would have had some serious problems with the harvest scheduling and make sacrifices that went with those if they shifted through the year too much. So that the years were still more or less years, and sometimes they were a little bit shorter. Sometimes they're a little longer to counteract the shorter ones. And so at Moses dealing with the sheep sees this fire up in the mountain. And like that, that bush is on fire. But as it gets closer, he realizes it's not burning away. The narrative there seems a little bit weird to me, like fires happen. Maybe he was worried about a camper or somebody who is like squatting. I don't know. Either way, he goes up in the mountains uses burning bush, and then talks to God is the story. And then it's okay. I mean, there's not a whole lot of concrete proof to say that they he was of sound mind at the time, in fact, or Karen was the name of the movie. It's got a Christian Bale as Moses, Moses. It's a reasonably enjoyable movie. God is portrayed by a child in the film. And Moses looks like a crazy person about half of the time. I don't know if that's a directorial choice or an actor's choice. Christian Bale is a very talented actor, but

Katie Dooley  09:56

frequently looks crazy. Absolutely. But I like going through his filmography in my mind, and I'm like, I can't think of a time he acted like a normal human.

Preston Meyer  10:06

There were a few instances as Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins, where he pulled off being a reasonably balanced playboy. A couple of scenes.

Katie Dooley  10:18

And I just feel like reasonably balanced and Playboy shouldn't go together, but yeah, burning bush High as a kite talks to

Preston Meyer  10:31

God. Yeah. And God tells him, Your people are slaves in Egypt, and you need to free them. Moses, like not can't do it. And God's like, don't worry, we're gonna make this happen, basically forces Moses into this situation that he doesn't like, and do

Katie Dooley  10:48

that. Right didn't do to Abraham. Right? Or Jesus. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  10:54

God puts people in tough situations all the time. And to save a nation, why not? So Moses goes back to Egypt with the meets up with his brother Aaron, who's a few years older than him and his older sister, and they show up to the Pharaoh's court. Presumably at this point, the pharaoh was his brother, his adopted brother rather than his Father, The Prince of Egypt is doing a pretty good job of engraving that tradition in people's minds. decent movie. DreamWorks did some great work there. Yeah. So they went back to Egypt. And they say, Hey, Let my people go. And eventually, they do after the Pharaoh says, No plagues, no more flags, no more flags, stop it. No more plagues, worse plagues. Eventually, God just kills all the firstborn in Egypt, probably not the whole kingdom. But I mean, realistically, more likely, a small isolated place like the lower part of the capital city, maybe there's loads of guesses on that one. We don't really know what the story is trying to communicate there. But an awful lot of first born in Egypt are killed, including the pharaohs own son. And then he says, Fine go, and the Israelites hightail it out of Egypt, taking loads of gold and jewelry and precious things with them, they leave very rich, which is a very bad thing for Egypt. And so the Pharaoh chases them. And as they cross the read, see, the pharaohs army gets drowned out by the ocean. Gee,

Katie Dooley  12:46

I mean, I don't think it needs explanation. But in my readings for this, that the read sea becomes the Red Sea, which is what most people are familiar with. That wasn't a miss. Speak by Preston. That is it was the Red Sea.

Preston Meyer  13:00

So it's a tricky thing that we know the story was telling about the crossing of the read sea. And the story shifted to the red sea, but they are actually two different bodies of water

Katie Dooley  13:15

testing. Was that far. Does the read seek exists? Do we know where it is? Like, because we know

Preston Meyer  13:23

the the Nile Delta, I remember correctly, that's

Katie Dooley  13:27

just for like archaeological proof. They're like no layman read, which it's right here it happened. That's when I heard that was the reason for the change if they're two different bodies, which I didn't realize,

Preston Meyer  13:38

yeah, it's, it's kind of a weird thing that stories do over time, as they change to become more awesome grants, the read see is it's a decent bit of water. But it's not the Red Sea doesn't show up on maps like there. It won't be on your globe the way the Red Sea is. And so then the Israelites wander around in the desert for 40 years. If you check a map, you can see that you can make that walk in about two weeks. So the big question is, why did it take 40 years thanks. So much zigzagging so much camping and avoiding going to the Holy Land for decades. So right after they leave Egypt, Moses sends out a couple of guys, Caleb and Joshua. Actually, his name wasn't even Joshua, his name was homeshare. Bose has changed his name to Yehoshua later. And there's loads of theological thoughts on that because that is approximately the name of Jesus. And so he sends Caleb and Hoshi off to go see the Holy Land scouted out. Holy Land is not a huge place of land compared to Alberta, but it's not a small space. And there's also a bunch of other guys to go out with them and All these other guys that don't get to be named because they suck, lie about it and say these people are scary. We don't stand a chance. And Caleb N pushchair, say, You know what, we can do this. And Israel, for the most part believes the greater number of witnesses and says we're not going. So Moses like, fine. We're just kind of wander around the wilderness for 40 years until all of you are dead years.

Katie Dooley  15:29

You can do in two and a half weeks. It's just man. I can't imagine

Preston Meyer  15:37

they set up camp, they move camp a few times. They fight several battles with other nations those years, but they hold up on this land that they don't want. Waiting for everybody who wasn't ready to go to their destination to die. Wow. Moses himself doesn't even actually get to the Holy Land. He gets to see it from a hill. And that's it. And Caleb and Joshua as we know him now, Hoshi have got that new name. They get to go into the holy land. The Book of Joshua is a direct sequel to The Five Books of Moses because he is the new leader put in place after Moses. And that's basically the Exodus Joshua leads them conquering all the people who refuse to be good neighbors, and destroying loads and loads of people. Part some parts of the Bible say Joshua killed literally everybody who wasn't going to be faithful to the Israelite God. And then other parts of like, yeah, no, we left way too many unfaithful here. The Bible is a fun text there. There's a claims of there's so righteous having defeated all of the infidels, and then these others just like, ya know, we were in trouble because we left them alive.

Katie Dooley  17:07

The next biggest one I think of is King David. And David and Goliath. I mean, that's when he is a kid. But he becomes King David.

Preston Meyer  17:15

Yeah, Israel, at the time really wanted a king. They thought, hey, our neighbors love kings, and look how powerful they are. And the the chieftain at the time, called a judge usually was like, God is our king. You don't need a king. God is your king to call anyone else King is gonna spell ruin for the nation. And they're like, no, we want a king. And so Samuel, the chieftain, prays and guest direction to put in this fella named Saul as the king of Israel Better Call Saul, right? The problem is it didn't work out. Oh, no, a little bit like a lawyer. It just didn't really work out. And Saul was given all the opportunities to try and be good, but he just kept screwing up. And so he Samuel got this revelation that no don't, this is not a good thing. But instead of saying to Saul, you can't be king anymore. He just goes over to this other little family over in the Bethlehem area. And he says to the Father of this family, Jesse, one of your sons is going to be king. Let me meet with them. And Jesse shows off his biggest, strongest sons, the eldest, and look how great they are. And Samuel is like, Nah, they're not great. And

Katie Dooley  18:47

I really hope it says that. They're not great. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  18:52

He's he gets fancy language about looking at the soul kind of thing. And then he spots David and he's like, this one's special. This is the guy. And David later goes on to defeat Goliath in combat in the weirdest way. challenging him the best of the nation against the best of the other nation. And instead of duel of swords and or clubs or anything else, the rock basically just throws a

Katie Dooley  19:23

rock at him. David Hobbit

Preston Meyer  19:27

he was supposed to be pretty young, but probably not Hobbit sighs I would imagine he was at least 16 at the time. So he would have been regular sized regular size for his nation at the time. 3000

Katie Dooley  19:43

years ago. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Preston Meyer  19:47

So there's that. And David also turns out to be a really not good kick. Now he does all kinds of things. He's not supposed to. Flooded with that she but he does. As he also has a serious problem with doing things he's specifically told not to do. So in the royal court, there's always a prophet, a person who speaks for God, to warn the king, hey, there's some pretty good reasons why you shouldn't do some of these things. One of those things is taken account of the nation for the purposes of building armies. Or, alternatively, counting the people to tax them even heavier. Because you feel like you deserve more money than you're getting problems for kings. David's like, we're going to count all the people and the army and tax them. Yeah. And a province. Like, if you do this, God will kill your nation. And then he's like, Yeah, we're gonna do it anyway. And then huge numbers of Israelites die all across the nation of some terrible plague COVID-19. Yeah, bad things. They had no power to stop it. Medicine at the time definitely sucked, especially in their little pocket of the world. And anytime you did have St. Leprosy, you would go to the priest, because the priests were the most educated, just generally, if anyone could read, your priest could read, if anybody knew a lot about taking care of things other than cheap, it was probably the priests. So they were basically your doctors. And the guy who's got some sort of authority over all of the faithful in the nation, just told you don't do this thing. So that sucks. Yeah, David just wasn't a great king. He wanted to build a temple, Israel had a very small portable temple, like a large tent, by our standards today. And the Prophet told David, don't do it. It's okay if you collect all the stuff to do it. But your son will be the one to do it because you are not pious enough. Look at what you've been. So there's a whole lot of songs ascribe to David, some people will think that David himself wrote a lot of music that became the Psalms in the Hebrew Bible. There's perfectly acceptable number of scholars who are 100% committed to the idea that there's, like we see today, loads of people writing Psalms, as though they were David. You know, writing from somebody else's perspective. Yeah. Which is a perfectly normal literary practice that is definitely older than a lot of people give it credit for, like the Books of Moses, probably written by a dude who or a collection of dudes. And they were definitely dudes.

Katie Dooley  22:55

Women should read and write God.

Preston Meyer  23:01

And you know, just just scribing things to Moses. There's parts that say Moses was the humblest man that there ever was. It's fun to say, look at Moses awarding himself as the humblest man, because it's in one of the books of Moses was written probably decades or centuries later, by another dude or several dudes.

Katie Dooley  23:22

You mentioned King Davidson and the temple, which I think is a very important point to

Preston Meyer  23:27

Solomon's Temple is a huge deal. It's a massive undertaking, it took seven years to build. And if you were to see the building, you would realize that seven years is way too long to take on building this tiny structure. You've seen the Mormon temple here in the city, right? Yeah. So the Temple of Solomon was half that size. Wow. And it took them seven and a half years.

Katie Dooley  23:54

I mean, it took them 40 years to cross it desert. So I'm not surprised. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  23:59

Israel does have a tendency to take a little longer to do they drag their heels at this point. And when you read the story, you see that they have a lot of issues with faith. Moses takes up ah, takes off the mountain. And he's gone for, you know, a little over a month. And in that time, they're like, you know, we're gonna go back to worshipping Egyptian gods, we're gonna build a new calf out of gold and all this nonsense, things that really pissed me off when it comes back down and say, Hey, what are you up to?

Katie Dooley  24:28

I was only gone. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  24:30

I mean, also disappearing off the hill for a month.

Katie Dooley  24:33

I mean, again, 40 years, seven years a month. Well, the same to

Preston Meyer  24:39

kind of track their heels. I feel like we're starting to edge up onto the, just the, the edge of racist. We're gonna try not to do that too much.

Katie Dooley  24:55

So King, David son, is it prophesized Is that the right word? To rebuild the temple.

Preston Meyer  25:03

So there is yeah, that's the son of David, mysterious person, I don't know who he is, but he's supposed to be of that royal line. He's supposed to come back, save Israel and rebuild the temple, or at least be associated with the rebuilding of the temple in some way.

Katie Dooley  25:17

So I, this is a really, I've always found this as an interesting fact. So, Judaism is waiting for this Messiah, the son of King David to rebuild the temple. This is this line, that Christians believe that Messiah is Jesus, and he's already come. So that's, that's the, that's the line between Judaism and Christianity.

Preston Meyer  25:39

I mean, ultimately, Christianity, when it first came about was hardly distinguishable from Judaism apart from, apart from believing that this Jesus person is that Promised Messiah. Problem is he died without rebuilding, or without being at all associated with the building of the temple. King Herod had done a lot of work to renovate the temple and make it up to his standards, whatever it was at the time, but Jesus was barely associated with the temple in his day. And so both Jews and Christians are waiting for the coming of the Messiah in the future, and the rebuilding of that temple of Jerusalem perfect. But I think we're just moving a little away from our focus and being as many people are easily distracted by Christians.

Katie Dooley  26:31

I just wanted to point out that that is that line, maybe the next thing we should talk about is how this materializes in the in, in today's world, so the Torah and the Talmud. I am hesitant, because I'm scared to get around the tar is the Five Books of Moses. And the Talmud is everything that the rabbi's have argued about. And the Torah

Preston Meyer  26:59

of the Talmud is the writings of some rabbis, because obviously, we still have rabbis stay who aren't adding to it. And there's loads of rabbinical writings that aren't included in the Talmud that are ancient and revered. In addition to those, there's also the other parts of the Hebrew Bible, often called the Tanakh, which is an acronym that to knock is a three letter acronym. T stands for torah, the law in the books of Moses, the Nebby, M is the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, those are big ones. And then there's a bunch of minor prophets. And then you've got the Ketuvim, the writings, that includes the wisdom books, the songs, Chronicles, the history that didn't make it into those other two sections. And it's often thought that it's like this book, the Bible is written by God, I think I've addressed this before. People believe it, I don't understand why you can't open the book and believe that they're written by a whole bunch of people. It's a national library. Like if you were to assemble a canon of English literature, you'd have Dickens and Shakespeare modernly, you'd probably add Rowling to that as well.

Katie Dooley  28:21

And I mean, even Shakespeare's even argued that he there was no way he could have written it all by himself. Exactly. That's probably a really good comparison. You

Preston Meyer  28:29

look at Stephen King, and how prolific his writings are, many of which are not high quality. And it's easy enough to believe that Shakespeare could have written that volume, but producing that volume, and that quality level is either absolute genius or otherwise unbelievable. And, you know, whatever it Shakespeare, we can't say, oh, yeah, it was Francis Bacon, he wrote half of it. Okay, I don't really care. If I say Shakespeare's Hamlet, you know what I'm talking about. And so there's, the Hebrew Bible is just a national library. You have fiction in the National Library. That just makes sense. You've got song books, you've got Wisdom literature, you've got sets of Proverbs as a subset to that, that, I think is a nifty thing. The proverbs are mostly adopted from another nation. And then you've got the prophets, all these people who say, hey, Israel, stop being so terrible. And the nation actually kept definitely not all of it in their national library in a volume that was actually preserved as it got translated for the Jews and Alexandria and across the world. It's kind of cool, but to say that it's one cohesive book that should not under any circumstance contradict another part of itself. It is problematic and to think that it was all written by God is unsupportable? Well,

Katie Dooley  30:06

that's one interesting thing about today is that I definitely haven't seen in other religions and my research is that they're encouraged to argue and debate like Jewish people are known for that. That being said, there are still, you know, there's, we're gonna get into the different types of Judaism and conservative values or orthodox values where, if you differ, they think you're wrong. But there is a huge practice of debating the content of the Torah. And that's where the Talmud comes from. It's these debates

Preston Meyer  30:44

about Jesus going back to that easily found distraction is absolutely the typical forsake rabbi. He argued all the time. And know about the law. Yeah, with other rabbis. They, there's loads of people who like to say all the Pharisees were bad. Jesus definitely grew up in a Pharisee family. And everything about his teaching practice and style was absolutely in line with that tradition.

Katie Dooley  31:20

Is that a good segue into the different types? Sure. Today ism. Yeah, that will be one tackle next to there's a lot to talk about, because there's, like the biblical side, and the historical side. And then I'm sure our parishioners are congregants, you guys are

Preston Meyer  31:37

probably more interested in learning how to deal with your neighbors of various types.

Katie Dooley  31:41

Right? And what everyday practices are, why did they have two fridges?

Preston Meyer  31:46

Oh, definitely to keep things separate, but aren't supposed to touch or even be stored near each other. So now lead to separate sets of pans. So

Katie Dooley  31:55

we'll get there. But let's start with there's unlike crochet, there's about three types of Judaism it I mean, a few more, but you can do break it down into three big groups. Let's the start sort of, yeah, let's start with orthodox because it is definitely the most rural following. This is where the Hasidic tradition falls under. So if you picture a Jewish person from New York, the only place in the world I've ever seen or Israel, I guess it'd be the other place out there. All of them there. These are the men with the curls and the beards and the big black hats in Israel chanting at the wall.

Preston Meyer  32:43

Yeah. So these are the people who are generally. And I feel like within every group, you're going to have some dissidents, but as a reasonably fair generalization, they are super committed to following the law of Moses as it is recorded in the Bible. As well as pretty much every legal judgment from the rabbi's since then, on how to deal with those laws in the Bible. My

Katie Dooley  33:12

my show notes say that they believe the law is binding and revealed by God so they're definitely the strictest of these denominations or onward, but denominations loose groupings

Preston Meyer  33:29

loose

Katie Dooley  33:30

group. They won't we're gonna get into their practices later, but they have the strictest dietary practices, they'll have the strictest dress codes. Yeah, yeah, I mean, those are short for modern practices. They'll some I want to say the like something the Sabbath, they keep the Sabbath holy. Sure. They keep the Sabbath. Yeah, they all they all keep the Sabbath holy, but they will take it to a much stricter

Preston Meyer  34:01

level. gonna remind our audience that the thing that most of you probably already know, the Jewish Sabbath is Saturday.

Katie Dooley  34:09

And that's because God rested on Saturday. He did a whole week of work. And then he got tired, put his feet up. He

Preston Meyer  34:17

took a chill day. And I can definitely agree with the need for that.

Katie Dooley  34:24

The Sabbath. I mean, like Christians have their Sunday and I think Muslims are Friday, Seventh Day Adventists if you're Christian or Saturday as well. The Jewish community doesn't do any work on Saturday. In my readings, it's actually considered one of the holiest days and it happens every week. So imagine having Easter if you're Christian or pseudo Christian, every week, so they have a big meal at the synagogue and then they don't do any work on Saturday. And that is that will vary. How they define work will vary from I'm forced the docs to conservative to reform. Yeah. So with that being said, the next group is conservative.

Preston Meyer  35:09

Some slightly less conservative.

Katie Dooley  35:12

Orthodox is yeah, it's the middle between reform and orthodoxy. They you might see the men wear yarmulke more frequently, but they probably won't have the curls or the beards, but they might they might.

Preston Meyer  35:29

Yeah, probably not in many cases. That's all I have for now it's on conservative. Yeah, they're just kind of the middle ground or Yeah.

Katie Dooley  35:38

They're probably Yeah. Moderately strict on dress. Yeah, they're kind of Yeah, that's what wigs. Yes, we will get into organizing get into that. And then reform is the loosey goosey of the three, so they might not conform to any of the dietary restrictions at all. They might not do any of the dress. They are. This could even be some of the examples I saw are like Jerry Seinfeld's Jewish like he's probably nonpracticing, but he grew up in a Jewish household and how they define this is another subject we'll get to in a moment, but whether Judaism is a race versus a religion, but you are Jewish, if your mother was Jewish, so Jerry Seinfeld's mother was Jewish, and whether he Yeah, so whether he eats bacon or not, he's Jewish. And so reform can go into that group a little bit as well. I

Preston Meyer  36:38

definitely think there's a strong overlap between those two groups. Yeah. Or

Katie Dooley  36:43

Yes, like me and Christianity. You know, we celebrate Christmas, who we celebrated Easter, we never went to church that, you know, and then you'll get some who go to church for Passover or Hanukkah, or churches synagogue for Passover or Hanukkah. And that's kind of it and when their grandmas over, they won't eat pork, but if they're out with friends, they'll put bacon on their barn or so. Bacon

Preston Meyer  37:07

on their cheeseburger.

Katie Dooley  37:12

Oh, that's so bad Preston. So those are the three. It's

Preston Meyer  37:17

It's easy enough for the the Reform Jews to not worry so much about those dietary restrictions and a lot of the other cleanliness, purity, ritual cleanliness, laws. Because the way it's worded in the Torah, it's all about you don't go to the temple, unless you are ritually pure. And since the temple has been destroyed for almost 2000 years, more conservative Jews will ascribe those same limitations to go into the synagogue, whereas reformed Jews typically don't seem to. They just don't worry about it at all. Because there's that reason for following those laws is no longer present.

Katie Dooley  38:00

And yes, and I want to point out that reform is actually quite old. It started in the late 1800s, during the Enlightenment, so it was a way for reform came about so that Jewish people could participate more in secular society, and be part of the Enlightenment and have some of those ideas. Yeah, they address impurity or not, with holiness or spirituality that those things don't have any. You can say you can eat bacon and still be a holy person. Yeah. Let's talk about some of these practices and rules and observances that was alluded to and the degrees through orthodoxy to perform. Alright,

Preston Meyer  38:51

let's start with that shock that you had when I put cheese on that bacon burger. I

Katie Dooley  38:56

distinctly remember this from my one religious studies class. And I was very excited to like, look it up again. So there is a line and x, x Exodus. There's a line in Exodus 2319. Like if

Preston Meyer  39:14

you took notes? The line Oh, I didn't write down like, you will not boil a kid in its mother's milk.

Katie Dooley  39:24

Yes, you will not boil a kid's mother's milk. So that you might have more recent information or more refreshed information than I do. But essentially, it's that you wouldn't. The kid they're talking about is a goat. Yes,

Preston Meyer  39:39

not a human child, but a kid that you're allowed to eat under Jewish law, which does strictly forbid cannibalism.

Katie Dooley  39:47

So they, yes. So cannibalize your neighbors, so that it would be very hard to do nowadays I think because dairy cows cattle and beef cattle are very are separate. Yeah, the idea is that you don't know where you necessarily know where your milk came from or where you're from. Or if you were, you know, however many 1000 years ago, it would have been the same, you would have milked your goat until it couldn't do it anymore, and then you would have slaughtered it

Preston Meyer  40:19

just reminded me of the horsemeat scandal from a couple years back.

Katie Dooley  40:24

So it is that you don't know where where the milk versus meat came from, or the cheese or it I mean, it's meat and dairy that they keep separate, based off of this one small line in Exodus. Other dietary restrictions include they do not eat shellfish,

Preston Meyer  40:43

right. If it lives in the water, it has to have fins and scales

Katie Dooley  40:47

off at the same time. They can't eat a shark, right? Shark

Preston Meyer  40:51

scales are actually lies their teeth, their whole bodies coated in tea. Sharks are super creepy. I

Katie Dooley  40:57

believe. That yes, and then No pork, right? So ever either. No clove and Anna no hooved they must have cloven if

Preston Meyer  41:10

it chooses cut and has a cloven hoof, you're fine.

Katie Dooley  41:13

So you can eat cows, you can go and you can eat horses or pigs. Right? Camels are right. Oh no, I love camel. So those are the big dietary restrictions. And as Preston alluded to, and again, this will change depending on how orthodox to reform your Jewish people will have often separate fridges, separate cutlery, separate plates, separate cooking utensils, to to obey this law so that they never touch. And I remember hearing that. If you have had like a milkshake, they will wait a certain number of hours before eating

Preston Meyer  41:52

meat. Yeah, a cheese cake right after a steak dinner is a big no, no, that sounds delicious. You just got it. You just gotta have a little window of time in between your meal and your dessert

Katie Dooley  42:03

so that they never touch. Yep, another piece of dietary. I guess I wouldn't call this one restriction. But is meat has to be kosher. Everything has to be

Preston Meyer  42:14

kosher. So the word kosher comes from the word cash route, which basically is just the dietary law.

Katie Dooley  42:23

So there you go. Yeah. So they have to eat kosher

Preston Meyer  42:27

meats. Yeah, things that follow those laws, dietary laws,

Katie Dooley  42:31

so blood is not kosher never. So the big thing with kosher meat is that it has to be slaughtered in a particular way and all the blood drain. And this is actually very similar, if not identical to Hello. So hello, the blood similarity. And I know And hello, the blood needs to be drained as well in a certain way. So kosher meat has to be all the blood drain in a specific way. And then it is salted with kosher salt. And that is essentially how you make meat kosher. I remember asking a Jewish friend what Kosher salt is? And he said, Well, it's a salt use to make things kosher. I was like cool. But How's it different from table salt are either nice salt or Himalayan pink sea salt, like what is actually because I can go buy Kosher salt in the in the grocery store, but I can also go buy some regular salt in the grocery store. So what actually makes it different, fun fact it is flakier, lighter texture, and it has a milder flavor. That so I really didn't answer the question, what is kosher salt, but that's what makes it different. From a culinary perspective,

Preston Meyer  43:49

I now feel the need to look up what the chemical makeup of Kosher so I'm pretty

Katie Dooley  43:53

sure all salt of NaCl and then oh, there's a wide

Preston Meyer  43:57

variety of salts. It does look a lot different from your regular table salt. But so it does consist mainly of sodium chloride NaCl, but it also usually includes an anti caking agent. Interesting. Yeah. So it looks a little bit.

Katie Dooley  44:18

That's probably your powder. Yeah, here you go. So that's I think that's the big portion for the dietary laws and dietary restrictions. I don't think we'll get into holidays right now. And what, that's the whole thing but if you're interested send us an email or DMS on Instagram, if anything we talked about here because this is really just an overview episode piques your interest, let us know and we will do a full episode on it. But they're known for lefties that Passover Hanukkah

Preston Meyer  44:54

Hanukkah cancer pastor repeating it for you now. Hot black cars are definitely of Hanukkah. Why do I keep saying Passover?

Katie Dooley  45:04

I just remember coming to your house for lackeys.

Preston Meyer  45:07

Yes, that was definitely a Hanukkah.

Katie Dooley  45:11

I can remember but they just like any tradition they have their their big foods that they eat at different times of the year.

Preston Meyer  45:18

oily foods are definitely a big deal, especially for Hanukkah but honestly, year round. Just like America,

Katie Dooley  45:27

I just read something about brisket. They like brisket for some celebrate that

Preston Meyer  45:32

chest meat on the cow. I mean, also the horses got a decent chest to name. Kosher.

Katie Dooley  45:42

Yeah, so some other observances and practices. I think I feel like most I didn't know this until later in life. I mean, being in Canada, we don't have a huge Jewish population worldwide, the Jewish population is quite small, but married Jewish women and again, Orthodox versus reformed, married Jewish women cover their hair. So again, very similar to Islam. And there's a lot of once we do the Islamic episode, there's a lot of similarities between Judaism and Islam. So married women cover their hair. And that can be with a scarf or a hat. But most often, and this is very interesting to me is with a wig. So they just put hair over their

Preston Meyer  46:26

hair. Yeah, it's for that for Canadians. In our audience. Many of you should be familiar with shits Creek. It's gotten an awful lot of awards, wildly popular, starring the wonderful Eugene Levy and his son Daniel chips, and Catherine O'Hare. And yeah, they're kind of famously Jewish family. And Catherine O'Hair wears a wig. Almost all the time. Yeah, in the show. I don't know about real

Katie Dooley  46:56

life. Okay. I've never actually seen shits Creek. So

Preston Meyer  46:59

it's very funny. And it's got a lot of heart. I, and it's over now.

Katie Dooley  47:03

I've seen a lot in the news about it, because it's over. Yeah, I mean, they'll get on that.

Preston Meyer  47:08

It won a lot of awards. And I think they're fairly earned. Good. And Eugene Levy is just a comedy genius. All

Katie Dooley  47:16

right. Any family? Yeah. Yes, so Jewish women cover their hair, and Jewish man and cover their heads as well.

Preston Meyer  47:27

But usually just with a book, and some groups with a smaller head and some groups with a head that covers your whole head so that God can't see you at all. And then.

Katie Dooley  47:39

And then again, sometimes it's every single day, and then sometimes it's only for special occasions. And special occasion can be the Sabbath weekly, or it could just be a wedding or a bar mitzvah.

Preston Meyer  47:52

Yeah. So the haircut ring for women is actually a thing that's interesting to me. I've worked with a lot more Muslim women than I've worked with Jewish women. And for those really devout Muslim women, they wear that scarf to cover their hair. And the explanation that was given to me was that the hair is just a wonderfully sexy thing, which is a hard point to argue, I must agree. And that's clearly not the motivation for women. Because if you're just covering your hair with a Where is that's not getting rid of the the luer, that visible thing that definitely works on a lot of guys

Katie Dooley  48:34

had no idea. And then it's also at a different stage. So the hijab in Islam, it can be at a specific age, or when you start menstruating and the rest of the rest of your life, and then the only people that see you without it and this is the same as in Judaism is Is your husband or men on your mother's side. So that can be your brothers or your mom's brothers, so your uncles but not your dad's uncles. Right. Whereas this is like once you get married. So that's it, you know, so until the day you get married, people see your hair, whether you're a little different. So for 38 and then the reason for the Amaka and correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think I'm wrong. The reason for the Amaka is to always be aware of God's presence. It's a physical reminder that God's watching you.

Preston Meyer  49:39

I like to believe that a God that is all knowing no

Katie Dooley  49:44

is the master. Well,

Preston Meyer  49:46

I mean, he can choose what to see if he's all powerful. And he knows when you're done and he knows when it's safe to look. Santa Claus on the other hand, I mean, he sees you and you're sleeping. I don't think that God is so indiscreet.

Katie Dooley  50:11

Ignore tangent, don't agree, challenge and laugh along with this. That is the reason for the Amaka. Now, moving on to I would like to talk a little bit more about the Sabbath because they mentioned there's different how do they define work?

Preston Meyer  50:26

So, an awful lot of argument on theirs. And

Katie Dooley  50:30

I have seen I think it was an Religulous with with Bill Maher Del Mar. I

Preston Meyer  50:38

haven't seen that show in so long you need to rewatch it, we were going to rewatch it in my last semester of my degree, just as part of one of my broad look at religious phenomena things. But thanks to COVID We had no more classes and as much as I did enjoy that movie, I did not take the time to go and re watch it on my own separate from my disappearing classes.

Katie Dooley  51:01

I gave it to my dad, I could hook you up with okay, I believe it is really Religulous. If it's not someone out there is going to correct me. But he goes to a Jewish and obviously an Orthodox Jewish family's home. And they have like Rube Goldberg up their house so that they can open the fridge on a Saturday because in their mind that is considered work. They have like figured like they will not lift a finger. They figured out like you said Rube Goldberg it up so they can answer the phone up on a Saturday. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  51:34

an awful lot of Orthodox Jews that won't push buttons. Yeah, that's fine. I think that's derived from because having anything operated by push buttons is relatively new. That the the button pushing his drive from prohibition against doing up the buttons on your shirt are interesting. And so you'll see anybody that if you see Jews walking around on a Saturday, or Friday evening, and that's usually how they'll get around, they'll make sure that they're walking is within the prescribed distance because they can drive Yes,

Katie Dooley  52:10

that is one that will be followed by I'd say easily, both Orthodox and conservative and maybe even some reform.

Preston Meyer  52:18

Probably some are fine.

Katie Dooley  52:21

They just want the day off. Like if they if they needed milk, they'd probably be like, Okay, I'll go get some milk. But if they could avoid it, like I'm gonna like, like definitely shopping

Preston Meyer  52:31

on Saturday, or Friday evening. As much as possible, though, I'm sure that there's plenty of folks who agree that when the ox is in the mire, you got to pull it out. But there's plenty of arguments against that too. Sometimes, like as a sign from God, your ox is doomed. You're gonna go without milk. Elevators, those elevators with no doors that just keep moving in the cycle. The idea is terrifying to me. But if you're used to it, and you can operate them safely.

Katie Dooley  53:06

Yes. So driving, I know answering the phone is a big one as well. And I you know what, on the Saturday, I don't know if I disagree.

Preston Meyer  53:15

Any day where I don't have to push a button. I spent an awful lot of time on my computer on my phone. My phone has three buttons, right.

Katie Dooley  53:26

There has been in some of the articles I was reading a like a resurgence in the Sabbath. I mean, we're in the 21st century, it's pretty hard to avoid working seven days a week, everything's open all the time. And so there's been a varying that there's been a resurgence of people like taking the Sabbath, and just actually enjoying that disconnect time from their phone and from their work and actually stepping away. And I don't think that's a bad idea. Yeah, there's

Preston Meyer  54:00

still loads of places that have Sabbath day laws where you're not allowed to do business on a Sabbath, plenty of places in America. That's always Sunday. But it's still a thing that's observed. Of course, there's preference given to Christians and non Jews, because yea, separation of church and state didn't work so great.

Katie Dooley  54:20

I'm sure in the Jewish Quarter in New York, everything's got phones. Oh, absolutely.

Preston Meyer  54:23

But it's not enforced by law. It's just the culture has so completely saturated that neighborhood that that's the way it goes. And if that's the way you want to live, that is absolutely a desirable way to have it run.

Katie Dooley  54:39

We got I mean, we have more things to talk about. I just have a segue to them nicely.

Preston Meyer  54:43

I would just bump onto the next thing if you want to. So I got

Katie Dooley  54:48

circumcision. Yeah. Which all which leads into apartments because yeah,

Preston Meyer  54:52

it's all part of that law of sacrifice, which, weirdly, we've only barely brushed up against up to this point.

Katie Dooley  54:59

Oh, you look like you're right into. It's

Preston Meyer  55:02

fascinating to me that there's so much around the perception of the sacrifices that a lot of people think is negative, like the idea that, Oh, no, sacrificing a goat is barbaric. Not at all. Most of the sacrifices that were offered at the temple and the tabernacle before that, they were basically just, I'm going to call them holy barbecues, who, like there were the odd sacrifices that were an animal is burnt up completely as a gift to God. But most were eaten by the people offering the sacrifices. And more so the priests and their families, so that it was, and these were offered daily, there was a sacrifice every single day. Oh, we have a holy barbecue this summer. I think we probably should. And so these holy barbecues happened all the time, the flame was never supposed to go out. And I mean, you obviously weren't cooking meat at three in the morning. But that fire had to keep burning. I, a little piece of me suspects that every nation that had a fire that couldn't be permitted to go out, had a population was really bad at starting fire. Katie, I can't say for sure that that's the case. I mean, we've had fire for such a long time. We've been good at it as a species for quite a while. 10s of 1000s of years. Right. But a little piece of me wonders, you know. But these holy barbecues, were great. They were well attended on a regular basis. And depending on who you talk to, there's plenty of suggestion that these priests who were meant to feed their families with these offerings, would also share them with the poor. So ultimately, the sacrifices are far from barbaric.

Katie Dooley  57:09

I really want to barbecue

Preston Meyer  57:10

now. Right? And so circumcision going back to what we started here, is part of the law of sacrifice. It is part of that shedding of your own blood to bring you closer to God. Now, it's supposed to be just dudes. But for some reason, there are parts of the world who have taken this practice of circumcision, separated it from the religious aspects of Judaism, and have just started doing terrible things to women, which I don't understand how it's validated. And it makes me uncomfortable to female circumcision is never prescribed in the Bible, and is a lot more destructive than male circumcision.

Katie Dooley  58:05

So I have read and in my notes, it has to be done eight days after the boys born Yes,

Preston Meyer  58:12

in a specific time, when Jewish boys are supposed to be circumcised adult

Katie Dooley  58:16

male Sukkur, circumcision is very destructive. Don't do it later in life.

Preston Meyer  58:21

Well, the trick is like, how do you know? The like, you're not gonna have an erection? When you're still healing? That's super hard to take care of.

Katie Dooley  58:36

Yeah, just circumcised as a baby cool. If you weren't cool, believe it. I was gonna say Don't touch it. That's fine. Like.

Preston Meyer  58:46

Sure. Imagine if Wolverine was Jewish. Let's be like a daily. Well, I probably wouldn't have to be daily probably just be once a week kind of deal. Having the ability to regrow every last bit of your body quickly would be a problem.

Katie Dooley  59:04

I've never thought that way about Well, thanks, Preston. But you will never know. What is the

Preston Meyer  59:15

I think this is why people listen to us.

Katie Dooley  59:19

The reason it is a tradition in the Jewish religion to cut off for skins, is because God asked Abraham to do it and that he would be gifted a great nation. Yeah. And so ever since then, we've been chopping off penises

Preston Meyer  59:35

to be part of that nation. You have to You're not chopping off penises. Just a little bit off the end.

Katie Dooley  59:43

mean they're a little bit chopped off the end of your nose, not

Preston Meyer  59:47

not even a little so it's part of that law of sacrifice that binds the nation together and was a thing thing that caused a lot of shame for a lot of Jews say 2000 years ago back in the gymnasiums of Rome, were to be part of that larger Imperial community. You had to hang out in these gymnasiums, where everybody did so completely naked. Do you ever watch Friends? Yes, yes. Do you remember Joey's fake foreskin? No,

Katie Dooley  1:00:23

I haven't. I've only seen some episodes of friends. To watch this. There

Preston Meyer  1:00:28

is testament that that was happening 2000 years ago in, in Israel. I mean, I don't know if it's salami, but maybe it's only works that proudly. Yeah, that's an important point. I was actually just about to say they probably weren't using a pig for skin even though it might have worked out in color. But there was something that was done that allowed these people to mask themselves as being non Jews, because apparently that was the thing they were worried about when going to the gymnasium.

Katie Dooley  1:01:04

Well, that was I don't actually know. I'm about to say something I don't know, frequently. Go for it. Was that uses that identifier for the Holocaust? Because you?

Preston Meyer  1:01:18

I feel like, I feel like in the Holocaust, there was definitely some inspection. But I don't think at least to begin with. Many people were being secretive about their Jewish identity. But later on, I feel like yeah, there was probably people who were checking just to say, hey, because most Christians, especially in that area in that era, probably weren't doing circumcision on a regular basis.

Katie Dooley  1:01:46

I mean, that's basically all my points unless you wanna talk about Bar Mitzvah. Why, why we should wrap up with the Holocaust as depressing as it is, but it should be touched upon and eventually a full episode. True on the Holocaust. Do you have anything you want about Bar Mitzvahs with foreskin?

Preston Meyer  1:02:02

The bar mitzvahs aren't strictly associated with foreskin. Because your Bar Mitzvah happens, like when you're pubescent? Yeah, your foreskin comes off and you're a week old. And the bar mitzvah happens when you're pubescent. So you've got the opportunity to show to the congregation that you have learned stuff that you can recite your Haftorah. And you say, Yeah, I'm familiar with the law. I know what it means to be a Jewish man, or in the case of a button mitzvah to be a Jewish woman in this world. And that's the, what's the word? I'm looking for? The Rite of Passage, that's perfect. That's the rite of passage in Judaism, it's pretty common in most cultures in the world, there's a rite of passage that makes you an adult. For some it Yeah, yeah. Sweet.

Katie Dooley  1:02:55

16 is your kind of secular confirmation. If you're Catholic baptism, baptism can depend whether you do it at birth or older. But

Preston Meyer  1:03:04

yeah. And so sometimes that rite of passage is a walkabout. Sometimes it's a camp with a bunch of other guys. And sometimes it's showing that you actually know what it means to be a man in the world, which actually makes a lot more sense than a lot of the other rites of passage.

Katie Dooley  1:03:21

Yeah. Yeah, my last two points. So tetragrammaton, which I just like, think it's super cool.

Preston Meyer  1:03:27

It's a cool sounding word. And what is your

Katie Dooley  1:03:31

friends? It's like the one thing I remember, it's no, I remember more than that. But can I see what tetragrammaton is?

Preston Meyer  1:03:39

Can you pronounce that? What the tetragrammaton is?

Katie Dooley  1:03:42

No one can. That's why it's so cool.

Preston Meyer  1:03:47

There's so much disagreement on how it would be pronounced.

Katie Dooley  1:03:52

I just, I just want to jump right in. Because it's like the one thing I get really oddly excited about. This is one of those facts you need to take home this week to your families and be like, Do you know what tetragrammaton is? It is from the Hebrew Bible. And it's the name of God. And the Hebrew language generally doesn't use vowels.

Preston Meyer  1:04:17

Correct. Their alphabet consists entirely of consonants and glottal stops, and

Katie Dooley  1:04:21

those things people learn and know how to fill in the blanks. So there's four letters Tetra. In the Bible, why H W. H. And it's the name of God and we have some guesses on how it is said. The other thing is, is that it was taken out of Bibles because of the law that you don't take the Lord's name in vain. So you can actually just kind of true kind of shoot well finish my thought and then you can come back and correct me. So I have heard that they've taken out of later versions that Whatever It Takes slurs and vain if you're just you're not actually his name, it's just whatever. You're dissing God, which is okay, because that's the title, not his name, the closest pronunciation we have, originally we thought it was Jehovah.

Preston Meyer  1:05:16

Yes, as long time English scholars, we're committed to Jehovah.

Katie Dooley  1:05:19

And now we think it's closer to your way. So you've probably heard both if you're moderately interested in religion, which I presume you are, because you're listening to this podcast. So Jehovah is as the older one. But now we agree upon air quotes. Yahweh

Preston Meyer  1:05:36

is pretty widely used right now. Yeah, there's still argument on whether or not that w should have been a V like it was in earlier English texts. But everybody who is at all concerned with the actual Hebrew alphabet knows that the EO does not make a J sound. The J is a weird detail of Western Europe English,

Katie Dooley  1:06:01

what so even Yehovah would be closer than

Preston Meyer  1:06:05

Jehovah is definitely more carry more correct than Jehovah. But there's some pretty old texts in in Greek that look like they're saying Yehovah. So there will probably always be a huge disagreement on the pronunciation of the name because every now and that's, it's nice that Greek uses vowels and old Hebrew. You we've added vowels since then, to that text. So once you said about the word being taken out of the Bible, kind of true, the practice of reading the the Hebrew Bible, you would substitute a different word, instead of saying, the name of God. Usually, when you see it in print, it will be replaced with Lord as the Greek Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, straight up did cut the word that was the name of God, and replaced it with key, which is Lord, in almost every instance, which is a big, I think it's the reason why the King James version only says the name of God, two or three times instead of replacing every time with Lord, and the stone edition of the Tanakh that I have replaces it with Hashem, which is just a Hebrew word that means the name, which is perfectly reasonable, and lets you know that it wasn't saying, Lord, because there's also plenty of times where it's straight up uses the Hebrew word for Lord in the old test in the Hebrew Bible. So using Hashem avoids an awful lot of ambiguity, I guess. It's kind of a nifty thing. That's my field. Before I started going to school, I was actually a translator for biblical texts. So So field where I've got a little bit of passion and a fair bit of experience.

Katie Dooley  1:08:05

And that's why I trust you. Good enough for me.

Preston Meyer  1:08:11

My degree, but I actually validates work doesn't mean anything. It's the experience I had without any proper edge. Sounds good.

Katie Dooley  1:08:21

I know you keep me on the straight and narrow. I try. A few things I think are true and might not actually be. I do my best. Yeah, just what

Preston Meyer  1:08:31

you said was mostly true. There was just a little detail it was requiring a little tweaking, that's all.

Katie Dooley  1:08:39

So um, unfortunately, to wrap up this episode, we're gonna get a little dark and gloomy, more modern history. I don't think we can talk about Judaism without talking about the Holocaust. But we're over an hour into recording so don't so we will do a full episode on the Holocaust and anti semitism and how the history of anti semitism, which has been around for a long time, far, far longer than when the Holocaust happened. So they my research has said anywhere between six and 11 million Jewish people died during the Holocaust. And just recently, like in the last 10 years, their population has finally recovered. So it's back to pre World War two levels. It is still the smallest of Abrahamic religions with about 16 million, observant whereas Islam and Christianity are in the billions of people.

Preston Meyer  1:09:40

Yeah. There's more Mormons, according to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints official records than there are Jews according to these estimates. Now, of course, the number of Mormons is a lot smaller than reported numbers just because you've got loads of people who On the box drawing, and then literally never showed up to church again.

Katie Dooley  1:10:03

So the Holocaust, for lack of a better word was interesting.

Preston Meyer  1:10:11

It was

Katie Dooley  1:10:13

because it's Judaism is interesting because there is this sort of blend of Is it a race? Or is it a religion, and the Holocaust definitely affected the Jewish race, which I don't like to say because because it is very much a religion, they were targeted because of their race, their race. And Judaism, again, is unique in the Abrahamic religions, because it's not Evangelical, they don't actively recruit, it's very hard to join, you can join and there are Jewish people of all races, but because like I said, they don't actively recruit. And it's passed down from mother to her children kind of formed along racial lines, just like Christianity is predominantly white. And Islam is kind of Arabic and Middle Eastern, Far Eastern North African, they were hauled off Hitler and the Nazis were trying to exterminate the Jewish race. So they didn't care if you're Orthodox, or reform. If you had any air quotes Jewish blood in you,

Preston Meyer  1:11:24

you're part of the master race, you weren't any good, which is super weird to me. Honestly, if you want to create the master race, or Yeah, to create a master race, you don't pick an existing race, every, all of the people on this planet suck to one degree or another, let's be real. As groups, we definitely suck, look at the way we treat each other, right. But to create a master race, you need to amalgamate all of the best parts of all of the different races, for example, all of the fastest sprinters for as long as I can remember, Kenyan, Kenyan, or at least in that neighborhood of Africa. So maybe the master race should be at least a little bit darker. We need to be better runners. I say we that's wildly terrible. Because I definitely don't fit into this category of what I've just described as what would be the master race.

Katie Dooley  1:12:24

Answer on some Dutch because they're so tall. Sure. Yeah. Love that. Those are the off the top my head.

Preston Meyer  1:12:34

So just Kenyans there.

Katie Dooley  1:12:38

So there we go. Kenyans are the perfect done.

Preston Meyer  1:12:46

Oh, I hope we haven't caused any of our parishioners to make plans on genocide, that would be a problem. And I claim no credit or responsibility for the actions of other people.

Katie Dooley  1:13:05

See, we laugh through difficult things like you

Preston Meyer  1:13:08

have to sometimes don't laugh about the Holocaust, but find a reason to laugh through the suffering, you're gonna be healthier.

Katie Dooley  1:13:18

I mean, I don't know how much there is to touch on, especially in this overview episode, sort of the religious aspect of the Holocaust. Besides that, they were exterminated at a very high rate. I know that there are some lasting effects. Like I said, population has just recovered. But

Preston Meyer  1:13:41

thanks. So the First and Second World Wars, Israel has a homeland again, thanks to the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War. England took over Palestine, it was called British Palestine for a while, and then in the 40s. So I want to say I could be wrong. It might have been later, the Queen said this land, or actually, realistically, it totally could have been just the Prime Minister. But I feel like the queen had to sign off on this and she's a greater authority. So I like to give her credit. Either way, British Palestine was made into a new nation of Israel, more or less upon the historical boundaries of what we just kind of accept old Israel was. And then you got Jordan and Lebanon and West Bank. There we go. And so these nations are built up and finally gave Israel a home again, which was nice because they had been having a pretty hard time there. Since the time of the Crusades, Christians and Muslims have been fighting over that land for a long time and now still

Katie Dooley  1:14:47

fighting. Yeah, the ISRAEL PALESTINE issue might actually be an episode. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  1:14:52

I don't really want to take up our time for this topic. What will definitely be a political discussion I

Katie Dooley  1:15:01

don't know what side you're talking about, before we go on air, no

Preston Meyer  1:15:05

surprise on that one. Do you think you'll be pleasantly surprised when we agree on a lot of things? So

Katie Dooley  1:15:13

yes, the nation of Israel was created. One ramification I have heard is that in more orthodox families, especially families that and I mean, it's not like the the Holocaust was that long ago, but families that remember either parents or grandparents going through it, there is a lot of pressure to stay in Judaism, we pay for faith to dare leave. Yeah. So in some cases bordering on cult, like pressure to stay, obviously not. That's not a generalization on all Jewish people are like that. But that is interesting. That doesn't, it's a thing that happens and almost understandably so. Right. Watching your family die and be torn apart over a religion. And that sounds like I'm not really into it. Right? Yeah, though, that's definitely some generational trauma that they still have to heal from.

Preston Meyer  1:16:11

Yeah, it's a crappy time in history. Yeah. I mean, it's crappy time in history today, too, but it's different.

Katie Dooley  1:16:21

How can we tie up this episode in a bow is covered the Hebrew Bible, and stories from what we've covered?

Preston Meyer  1:16:28

Should we finish with the end? So one of the things that fascinates me about Judaism is the the eschatology, the the understanding of the end of the world. The Judaism is not monolithic. And, as we discussed earlier, rabbis argue amongst themselves all the time as part of their religious observance, almost, that there's so much discussion and no unanimous, accepted conclusion about what is after this life. Jewish afterlife is ambiguous and cloudy, like we nobody really can say with confidence, what it is, the Bible in the Old Testament doesn't give clear statements. The Hebrew bible talks about the immortality of the soul, and a judgment. And there's a held high place, often called Ghana, and a paradise. And there's of course, the rebuilding of the temple, which is not actually strictly associated with it, but is kind of connected.

Katie Dooley  1:17:47

Will the temple have to be built before the end of the world? Yes. Okay. So then the world won't come until the

Preston Meyer  1:17:53

temples, right. So that's the promise that scattered Israel will be reunited, the temple will be rebuilt. And Jews and Christians alike celebrate that Israel has its homeland again. Of course, there are exceptions to that celebration. But that is one of those landmarks for the end of the world is this has to happen before that can and find out what's going on in the next life is still a mystery. There's plenty of religions who will tell you specifically like this is what your day to day agenda is going to be in the next life. For many Christians, it's you're going to sing in a choir forever, the end, which sounds like not a thrill. But

Katie Dooley  1:18:39

y'all haven't heard my singing voice that would be for every one else around me, unless I get an upgraded set of vocal cords.

Preston Meyer  1:18:47

Right? There are plenty of Jews who subscribe to a reasonably common Greek belief that you you'll be a farmer in the next life and you'll be free to take care of your own self and family for eternity. Which sounds kind of

Katie Dooley  1:19:02

cool. Okay, but

Preston Meyer  1:19:05

there's, there's no real hard dogma on that, which is kind of cool. Like, you go ask a rabbi, what happens after this life? Most of them really say, What do you think? Let give me some fuels. So I can argue with the other rabbis. Yeah, that's, it's kind of nice. The theology of Judaism is not really terribly expansive. And like, like I mentioned, there's a handful of things that are mentioned and there's not a lot of certainty on how they even relate to each other. Like between paradise and Ghana and judgment. There's seems to be what should be reasonably obvious gum way to interpret that. But there's also an ambiguity there too. And everything else about is like, we just don't know, we know there's a good place, we know that there's a bad place. That's it. We don't know what the good is. We don't know what the bad is. It's probably not a tire fire.

Katie Dooley  1:20:21

I mean, that's, that's refreshing. Right? I like that. I like when people can admit that they don't know. Yeah. So

Preston Meyer  1:20:28

as opposed to the Catholic tradition, which relies heavily on Dante's Inferno, which is, I mean, it was fiction.

Katie Dooley  1:20:39

We'll get to that. We'll get to that in our next episode. So if you want to get in contact with us, send us if you have things you want to learn and comments, suggestions, even corrections or hate mail, holy watermelon [email protected]. And we have our Instagram up and running at Holy watermelon pod. We will be announcing new episodes, and some other really cool social media content on their phones. Give us a follow and

Preston Meyer  1:21:09

share us with your friends.

Katie Dooley  1:21:10

Oh yeah, five stars. Share with your friends. Check us out where wherever you listen to your punk

Preston Meyer  1:21:15

by the late Middle Ages. Thanks so much for listening.