Wednesday, June 01, 2005

The Lazy Days of Summer

Whoever wrote that was obviously not a stay at home parent. Or perhaps just not me.

Since Jake got out of school I've helped have a nice dinner for the new pastor and some friends, gotten some training for Vacation Bible School, looked at houses, planned for and got stuff to play my role for VBS (I'm a Rabbi -- Yahweh, give me strength, and apologies to all the Jewish folk reading this), took Jake to the dentist, shopped for a new DVD player, installed said DVD player, and oh, yeah, tried to keep up with the regular house stuff.

Tomorrow, we go to SeaWorld, the next day meet some guys to look over their plans to finish out a house we're interested in, and go to an extra-long drum practice. Saturday we have karate, a birthday party and a music recital. Sunday features a special church service and then set-up for VBS.

Yeesh. I knew I said we were going to have a busy summer, but its something else to actually live it. And this isn't really supposed to be the busy part.

When does school start again…?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just curious - what is the purpose of the Rabbi?

Jammer said...

Dave, its a part of this "Jerusalem Market" thing we're doing this year. The kids are going to split up into "tribes" (ignoring that 10 of the 12 tribes are gone by this time), and do a bit of simple cultural immersion.

The Rabbi is teaching in the Synagogue[sp], theoretically delivering up a basic bit of ancient Jewish religuous education. We're supposed to read from the Torah, practice Hebraic writing, discuss Passover, etc.

At some point I think I'm called upon to muse about this Jesus fellow.

It's a cool idea, but frankly I wonder if practicing Jews might be a bit offended.

Anonymous said...

It's a cool idea, but frankly I wonder if practicing Jews might be a bit offended.

Depends. I think exposure to other cultures is great, if done accurately. It's not like Jews have an ordained hierarchy, either; you're not insulting "the Church" if you dress someone up as a rabbi.

On the other hand, one of the serious problems that I find with Christian treatments of Judaism is that many Christians only understand Judaism in the context of Christianity. The concepts of "sin" and "messiah" and even the nature of God and the afterlife are very different in Judaism than in Christianity. Christians see Judaism as somehow incomplete, but Jews see Christianity as unnecessary.

From what I know, the average reaction of a Jerusalem rabbi to Jesus in the 1st Century would have been one of:
* his teachings are heretical
* man, those Essenes are all nuts
* just what we need, another guy who says he's the messiah

You have to remember that, even with Jesus having purported to have done miracles, that might not have impressed people of his era - there were many "magician" types and false messiahs wandering around Judea, and the Bible is full of un-godly people who performed miracles (like the Egyptian priests).