Differences between Eretz Yisrael and Chutz La'aretz
BZ has an interesting post up on the changes he makes in his prayers. While I don't want to focus on most of them, he mentions a couple distinctions that have always bothered me. Why are there changes in nusach ashkenaz between eretz Yisrael and chutz la'aretz.
For reference here is a list of the most common differences I'm aware of. Please list others I forgot in the comments.
- Baruch Hashem Le'olam is said in weekday ma'ariv chutz la'aretz. In Israel it is skipped.
- Barchu at the end of weekday ma'ariv and shacharit in Israel.
- Sim Shalom is said in Israel in the Shabbat mincha amida. Chutz la'aretz says Shalom Rav.
- A longer version of Birkat Hachodesh in Israel.
- In the prayer for Israel, there is an extra line added to the version said in Israel. This is in the paragraph that Sim Shalom drops.
- Changes in the leining and musaph sacrifices for Chaggim(I'm fairly sure these are a result of the second day of Yom Tov).
Presumably there was one unified tradition that diverged sometime in the past century. But what was the reasoning behind these changes? Are these differences a case of Rabbis inside/outside of Israel being more resistant of change or are there fundamental differences between eretz Yisrael and chutz la'aretz that require these changes? I've never found a decent answer to these questions, so I figured I'd throw it up to the blogosphere. Do
any of you guys know the origin of these splits?
Labels: ashkenaz, nusach, siddur
A New Term for an Old Problem
Continuing a trend of endlessly creating
new terms to describe the Upper West Side scene,
The Forward has added a new one, Flexidox. The Forward’s description:
Flexidox Jews have practice, but not theory. Flexidoxy is defined by its refusal to defend itself or invent rationales to justify this or that deviation from traditional religious practice. In contrast, say, to the Conservative Jew who says that ancient religious law evolves, or the Reform Jew who says it is irrelevant, the flexidox Jew takes no position on what Jewish law actually is — only on how he or she interacts with it.
Esther Kustanowitz describes Flexidox Jews as
people who would otherwise be called Conservadox, but they don’t like the ‘Conserva’ part since it’s an ideology that they may find distasteful.
Creating a new label is fine and good, but as the article rightly points out there have been Flexidox Jews for years. The Jew that drives to an Orthodox shul, but would never dare set foot into a Conservative shul because it’s not frum is a classic example. At the end of the day the best description for these people are “lazy Jews.”
I don’t even like they are being associated with Conservadox. Their outward observance might be the same, but at least a Conservadox Jew believes that he is acting according to his understanding of Halakha. As a good example, a Conservadox Jew might decide to eat unhekshered cheese because he believes rennet is a davar chadash and is no longer an animal product. While a Flexidox Jew might decide to eat unhekshered cheese because it’s easily available and makes it easier to live in the modern world. Both people buy the same cheese, but deep down the Flexidox Jew believes that he’s eating treif.
This discussion doesn’t need to be contained in the Orthodox/Conservative divide. There are people in every movement that say, “I’m not X because being X is too hard.” Instead of promoting lazy Jews with a hip new term, we should be celebrating Jews that truly embody what it means to be Jewish.
BZ is a great example. He’s a self identified Reform Jew, but instead of saying I do whatever I want because I’m a Reform Jew, he has an ideology and every decision he makes is logically justified in that ideology. When there are more Jews like him across the spectrum we can finally stop worrying about Jewish Continuity and instead celebrate being Jewish.
Anyone want to suggest a hip new term for Jews that actually believe what they practice?
Update:
David Kelsey
comments on the same article(admittedly before me) and comes to a similar conclusion.
Also, Flexidox is not even a new term.
Apparently FutureSimchas used it as a religious category as early as March 2004.
Labels: Flexidox, Forward
In The Big-Bang
I was talking to a friend a couple days ago and he commented on how many random sites I read. I responded, no I just read sites that link to random sites. Kind of like a Jewish Slashdot. So that was my inspiration for this name. That was also the inspiration for this post title. Once I'm starting this blog with a merger of Jews and technology I figure I should title the first post with a pun on the start of the Torah, "In the beginning," and the Big Bang.
In terms of creating the blog I've been reading a number of blogs recently, and once I started commenting I decided it would be nice to have an account so I could begin to be known as a person on the J-Blogosphere instead of as a bunch of random posts.
I haven't really decided how I will approach this blog. It'll probably be a mixture of stories I found elsewhere and my commentary, but I don't know what the mix will be yet. One thing I promise, no personal details about my life. I would like to remain anonymous and not have people guessing who I am. I'm sure none of you found this first post enjoyable. But hopefully future posts will be more enlightening.
