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So I made dough tonight for shabbos (no, not challa dough, spent beer grain dough), and I made enough to take challa.
But I was thinking, “what a waste”. Here, I am taking off challa, but I don’t have 40 people to do it with! So instead of having some really big awesome zchus, it is worth nothing! Nothing!
So isn’t that ridiculous? Instead of a big mitzva, I did the same exact thing and it was just probably like bittul torah or something.
Anyway, that’s why I had this idea. Every thursday night, we’ll post if we’re taking challa and then we can divide into tranches of 40 people so that we can get a zchus and maybe get married or something. So, if you’re making challa, post on the companion thread. http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/challah-baking-40-women-tranches
And if you’re making spent beer grain dough, also post there. (For the record, I leavened it with the yeast slurry that I harvested from the lager I made a few weeks ago, but that meant I needed to ferment it in cold temperature because that is where lager yeast works best. Weird.)
Sadly, many people reduce mitzvot to mystical or magical ritual practices, with the hope of a theurgic effect.
I do mitzvot, including being mafrish challah, because HaShem says so, not because Shaindy needs a shidduch or Moishe is having his tonsils removed.
PBA,
LOL.
I think le ma’aseh, maybe we have more alike than previously thought? We’re both Yidden, we both keep the mitzvot, and are sincere mevakshei haemet and masmidim.
I think it’s funny that popa and rebdoniel are in agreement but only popa knows it.
Moishe should take out both Shaindy and his tonsils.
(As it turns out, this one is the companion thread).
Rebd, I too want to be sure that I’m not reducing mitzvos to some kind of ritual.
Can you please explain- What is a “theurgic effect”???
I see RebDoniel is coming over to our side! Between his Uri L’tzedek thread (ignoring the Apology one) and his comments above, he might actually be becoming a ittle chareidi!
And apparently “tranche” is Popa’s word du jour.
Pba,
Yep, he got me.
If you are being mafrish challah, you are already doing the mitzvah. So what if you couldn’t find 39 other people? Have the proper kavanah and you’re good to go.
Oomis,
That was actually his point. He was making fun of relegating mitzvos to segulos, rather than doing the ratzon Hashem.
No, he was worried about doing a mitzvah hoping for a “theurgic effect.”
And I’m still waiting for an explanation, lest I fall into the same (supposedly) terible trap.
I have come to the point where I see myself not “fitting in” perfectly in any one community.
I am not a socialist, which rules out my support for a left-wing organization like ULT. Labor rights, government regulations, etc. aren’t my cup of tea since I’ve learned enough about economics and have payed taxes long enough to know that such a model doesn’t work.
I am also not crazy about women’s learning and leadership; I am starting to see that many of these attitudes animating the “Maharat” movement are those apolitical and social forces which animated similar movements in the broader society, whether in the churches or in non-Orthodox synagogues. Plus, many of my mentors and teachers left the Conservative movement over the very same issue of women’s leadership that the LWMO have begun to embrace wholeheartedly, perhaps precisely for the desire to be “progressive.” Halakhic arguments can be made in favor of these innovations, but whether they reflect a step in the proper direction socially is another question entirely, since we must resist all attempts for women to be made honorary men. Learned women in history, such as Nehama Leibowitz, the author of Livyat Hen, and the rebbetzins of R’ Joffen, R’ Hutner, and R’ Bleich (all accomplished PhD-holding scholars in the world of academic Jewish Studies never sought kavod for themselves. I also find women having aliyot to be uncomfortable; if I reject feminism when I vote, certainly I should reject the same attitudes in religious matters.
My embrace of the universalism and humanism of the Rambam, Rav Hirsch, and others. academic approaches, a concern for ethics, a favorable approach to higher education (although l’maaseh, “Torah u’Maddah” doesn’t work in a money-driven world like ours; Torah u’Parnassah makes more practical sense, since we have to support ourselves and can’t all get tenure as humanities professors or go begging like Socrates did), and an approach to giyur that is more user-friendly and open to zera yisrael is rooted in classical Judaism, not bound by particular movements nowadays.
Embracing the historical approaches of Western Sephardim, Rav Uziel, German Orthodoxy, Rationalism, etc. is not bound to what particular yeshivot are doing.
I see my tafkid to simply seek knowledge, make a good living, and be a shomer torah u’mitzvot and give my kids a good Jewish education.
To the eclectic Rebd,
Since it was apparently beneath you to attempt to enlighten me, (perhaps as a woman, better to keep me in the dark, uninformed?) I have found it.
Theurgy- A system of beneficent magic practiced by the Egyptian Platonists and others.
I can see why you’d want to avoid that while taking Challa.
Amazing how the posts here run the gamut from the illiterate to the incomprehensible.
Amazing how the posts here run the gamut from the illiterate to the incomprehensible.
Apparently you aren’t using the same definition that Reb is using.
a. the intervention of a divine or supernatural agency in the affairs of man
b. the working of miracles by such intervention
Anything theurgic indiciates that people have an effect on G-d; i.e. that you perform a ritualistic action for the sake of invoking the action or evoking Divine favor, etc.
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