By Rabbi Levi Backman
As the school year comes to a close, I would like to take this opportunity to share with you some of the past year’s best questions and comments that myself and other Jewish students at Western have encountered and have been asked.
I figured it could be a little funny and a little educational. All this without going too philosophical or theological, just a light dosage of Judaism.
I would also like to mention there is no such thing as a bad question. I am always open to hearing from students.
Sometimes, the deepest truths are found in the simplest questions.
1. One of the craziest things is people saying that the Holocaust did not happen, when there are people who were there and lived through it who can talk about it now.
2. Once, while playing baseball in a T-shirt and baseball pants, someone stopped me to ask why we rabbis and hassids are always wearing black?
I wasn’t, but good question anyway!
Rabbis do not always wear just black, but they do wear a lot of dark, conservative clothes. It’s a concept of modesty and tradition.
3. When people ask “Do you speak Jewish?” They mean Hebrew or Yiddish. But, whatever the case, in America your average Jew speaks good English with American accents, and knows how to read and write American … Hebrew, not so much. Jews in Israel, on the other hand, speak Hebrew and English.
Speaking of Hebrew, people always ask how important it is for a Jew to know Hebrew: how to read, and write and speak it.
Let the truth be told that although at Chabad we give Hebrew lessons, Judaism’s priority system says that action is more important, such as eating matzo on Passover and resting on the Sabbath.
Yiddish was and still is a language that Jews use to communicate with each other. However, it is not a vital matter in Judaism and many Jews don’t know it. It doesn’t make a Jew any less Jewish.
4. “Do Jews believe in hell?”
The hell that Judaism teaches is a far cry from eternal damnation. Everyone goes to heaven, maximum wait time – 12 months. Also, Judaism preaches “to live it up,” make heaven on earth, make the most out of your years on this physical world, make the world a better place with more peace, justice, morals and ethics.
5. What does Judaism have to say to members of other religions?
Regarding non-Jews, the Torah explains that everyone was created perfectly as they are and every nation of the world has something to contribute to the greater good in the world.
The Torah asks all mankind to go by the “7 rules of Noah (from the Ark):”
-Believe in the one God
-Not to curse God
-No adultery
-No stealing
-No murder
-To be kind to animals
-Set up a justice system.
6. Sometimes, students come to me and tell me they are bad Jews. My answer is the Torah’s answer. There is no such thing.
A Jew is a Jew, and the soul is what makes the person Jewish, not the person’s religious behavior.
7. Here is a popular myth that is sometimes asked: Jewish males wear “yarmulkas” or kippas – it’s like a skull cap or beanie. So I am not sure where this myth came from, but people often ask: “Are there really horns under that yarmulke?”
8. When a Jew is tanned he or she gets asked, “Are you that tan all the time because your people walked through the desert for 40 years?”
Anyway, there are dozens more, but I picked a few that might be interesting.
If you have any questions or comments about Jewish life, give us a call or stop by the Chabad House.
Wishing you all a happy, healthy and safe summer!
My thoughts….
in my opinion he’s writing to college kids – public – goyim etc, and therefore he possibly wrote it in that manner?
When renaissance artist, Michelangelo, sculpted Moses. He misunderstood karnos to mean horns. This is where people get the idea that Jews have horns.
ppl think there r horns under yarmulkas b/c when moshe came down from har sinai, it said there were “karnos or” “rays of light” coming from his face and in modern hebrew, “karnos” means “horns”!