jack

One of the controvertial questions I asked while learning about Judaism is "Is there anything all jews agree on". There is very, very little: almost ANYTHING is guaranteed to start a big debate[1]. However, over four years, I have picked up one or two things that seem to qualify.

Note, I don't literally mean all. For any question about any religion there's always going to be SOMEONE who disagrees. But I mean that, in general, if you ask a couple of people who know, the response will generally be "yes, of course", not "well, you'd think that, and obviously I agree, but actually so-and-so thought that was totally wrong because..." and start arguing about it.

What I've come up with so far:

• There is at most one God
  
• Do not disrepect the torah scrolls
  
• Do not do human sacrifice, ever
  
• Cloths other than linen and wool can be mixed with impunity and linen and wool are ok to be worn at the same time with no way to touch

Lots of people (especially in New York and Israel) identify as jewish without being observant at all, and many more people are observant to a greater or lesser extent, but don't believe in God. But if I understand correctly, there's still rather a taboo against believing in other Gods, so few people still identify as Jewish if they believe something polytheistic[2]

And people outside Judaism may not even be familiar with Torah scrolls, but every synagogue has a big completely hand-written scroll of the Torah, which is held up and paraded round and read from during services. And I can't imagine anyone ever harming one: even if you don't believe it, you'd put it in a museum or something.

Human sacrifice doesn't really need an explanation, it's just hard to find anything that no-one has been in favour of, I cried "aha!" when I found another entry for the list.

Some orthodox people do still follow the no-mixed-wool-and-linen rule. But it seems to be one of the few rules that hasn't accreted a lot of extra suggestions around it over the years (like, "do not boil a kid in its mother's milk" became "do not eat meat and milk within four hours of each other"). So no-one (as far as Liv knew) kept any stricter version of it, which means everyone's A-OK with mixing other things in clothes :)

Are there any other suggestions? :)

[1] Liv cited an example where Bluejo's livejournal asked "What do Jews do on passover" and someone said "We argue a lot" and someone else said "No we don't!"

[2] I'm sure there must be pagan jews, but I think it must still be controvertial?

1. It is traditional eat oily foods (latkes, doughnuts, etc) and possibly cheese, for (separate) complicated apocryphal reasons. Latkes are fried potato cakes, typically made with (widely varying combinations of), potato, onion and egg, grated, mixed and fried[1].

2. It happens some time between late november and late december, lasting eight days.

3. It traditionally commemorates a revolt against attempts to change or suppress various Jewish practices (although many people point out the actual history isn't simple) but either way its polite not to try to police other people's religious practices especially at Hannukkah.

4. The most common spellings are "Hanukkah" and "Chanukah". Because it's originally transliterated from Hebrew, so there's no "right" spelling. Either is probably fine, although it's probably wise to pick one or the other. I asked Liv and she said that there could be many spellings of the original Hebrew and she didn't know off the top of her head which, and as far as she knew there were no lurking connotations of either of the common spellings, but there was probably a trans-atlantic difference. But I can't remember which.

5. A menorah is a seven-branched candlabrum which was used in the temple in Jerusalem and before, and often used as a symbol of Judaism and/or Israel. But as with many complicated rules, isn't actually really USED at the moment, since there isn't a temple any more. After the revolt was successful and the (second) temple was recaptured and rededicated, there is an apocryphal miracle where they didn't have enough oil to keep the menorah alight, but what they thought was one day's supply lasted a whole eight days until more could be brought in. Thus, Hannukkah is celebrated by lighting eight candles over eight days. These are often but not necessarily placed in a candlabrum which resembles a traditional menorah, which is either simply called a Menorah, or to avoid confusion, a Hanukiah.

6. The menorah should be placed where it can best be seen from the street (in order to make a _public_ celebration?). Usually people place them in windowsills, and if they live a long way from the street, just accept it's not perfect, but if you have a choice, it should be somewhere visible.

7. The candles should not be used for anything. In fact, the most likely thing you will use the candles for accidentally are (a) seeing and (b) lighting the other candles, so tradition dictates that you also light a nineth helper candle, and you can use that to light the others, and to see by. If you accidentally walk into a darkened room with a lit menorah, you should 8/9 shut your eyes so you're only using the light from the helper candle, not the others[2].

8. I don't know much about Hanukkah traditions for families, but apparently there's an exceptionally boring and pointless zero-sum form of gambling forced onto small children, where you give them some number of treats, and encourage them to bet them against a shared pot based on the result of a traditional spinner, and repeat until they figure out that the best way of winning gambling is to be the house, not the punter.

9. Bonus fact. Hanukkah doesn't have very much in common with Christmas. They both have little twinkly lights, a tradition of annoying party games, are more cultural than religious. But Passover is a lot more like the the Christmas "big family get-together with a big meal and little bits of history story" aspect. Hanukkah is perhaps more like shrove tuesday (theologically questionable oily foods), November the fifth (lots of solstice fire with a questionable link to historical political events) or July fourteenth (lots of fire and celebration, but tinged with rembrance of triumph over tyranny).

Footnotes

[1] Helpful tip! Don't grate the egg. Also, don't slavishly follow Jewish recipes described second hand on the internet by English atheists, and if you do, definitely don't admit in public that you tried to grate an egg, made a mess, and hurt your fingers.

[2] I made this bit up. Also, note that you light one candle the first night, two the second night, etc, so on the first night you can keep your eyes half-open, etc. And when I say you light eight candles over eight nights, I mean they light one more each night, but then leave them to burn down, lighting thirty-six plus eight helpers over the whole period.

[3] I considered claiming the facts were "top" or "interesting", but decided against it :)

It's presumably obvious, but I feel I should specify that I don't actually know what I'm talking about. I'm absorbed a large amount of information from pillow talk with Liv (we have the best pillow talk), and I hope it's fair if far from complete, but don't get into an argument where you say "well, Cartesiandaemon said Liv said Rabbi Hillel said the prophet Elijah said Moses said God said X, so it must be right!" I'll do my best to make sure what I say is somewhat true, but it will contain many examples where the emphasis is in the wrong place and it gives the wrong impression :)