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Salah is pretty strictly defined, though. 5 times a day.

"Observing" and "keeping" are pretty imprecise when talking about the Jewish sabbath.

And of those 613 commandments, how many must be kept?

Must a Jew keep kosher, for example, to be a Jew?

 

If you believe the Torah is the word of god, yes.

 

I don't see it as any of their business. They don't get to define Judiasm for others just as Catholics don't get to define Christianity for all Christians. They should focus on defining it for themselves.

There are times I don't care for being lumped in with certain Jewish sects, such as the ones who disrespect women. One group has pretty much destroyed one of the local school districts near my by taking over the board of education and gutting the budget while misappropriating funds to send their children to religious schools. In both cases, they justify their actions by saying it is about their faith.

And yet, despite what I dislike about their beliefs, I respect them. I would never tell them how they should practice, that they should put aside outdated foolishness like refusing to shake hands with a woman. I think that's what they should do, but I respect their right to practice their faith as they see fit even though they refuse to extend the same courtesy to me and others like me.

 

Interesting that the Conservative movement still struggles with kashrut practice.

What We Eat: Looking at Kashrut Through a Conservative Lens

 

I hate to say it, but tricks like that have always felt like a cheat to me. Either follow the rules or don't. Why bother to sneak around them? G-d is all-knowing. He's going to be able to figure it out if you fudged one of the rules.

 

This is an example of that linguistic imprecision to which I referred earlier. To the degree that, e.g., Christians have “evolved” with respect to one thing or another, that’s not necessarily, to them, picking and choosing to “fit [a] lifestyle,” but rather a recognition that their understanding of the commandments was in error. For the longest time Christians interpreted Paul’s letter to Philemon as at least condoning of slavery as an institution, then they began to reinterpret it in a completely opposite manner. That’s not evolution ... that’s recognition.

 

Every generation gets the Bible* it deserves.


* ditto Koran, Torah, Bhagavad Gita, etc.

 

How about divorce? Is that not widely accepted, even if not ideal?

 

This is incongruous to your previous stances. If you’re going to go “rules are rules” on religion, you would have to abide by religious texts, no?

 

I won’t speak for others, but I doubt there are many Christians who think divorce is just like eating ham — after a shrimp cocktail or two — at Easter.

 

Confusingly, a lot of those workarounds have rabbinical approval.

That's why I mentioned the eruv earlier.

 

Not at all. I'm saying either obey the rule or don't. Bending it feels like a cheat.

That's just how it feels to me. I'm certainly not telling these people they are wrong or questioning whether they are truly Jews or not. I'm just saying that if you feel like you have to abide by the texts exactly, then it doesn't make much sense to me to find work-arounds because you can't fool an all-knowing G-d.