thegirlthatdoesntexist:

image

It’s World Mental Health Day! (October 10th.) So I thought it might be useful to compile mental health resources for the Jewish community into one post. If you know of any that aren’t listed, please feel free to add them.

RELIEF – connects/refers Jewish people to therapists and other
mental health resources (focuses mainly on the frum community)

Elijah’s Journey – suicide prevention for the Jewish community (Facebook page)


The Aleph Institute
– provides spiritual support for Jews in
institutional environments such as prison, health facilities, and
rehab


No Shame On U
– aims to de-stigmatize mental illness by providing
comprehensive education


OHEL
– comprehensive services for those facing mental health issues, with professionals fluent in English, Yiddish, and Hebrew

Yad Rachel – for mothers facing postpartum depression, also helps educate family and health providers

Shema Koli – support for victims of abuse

Frum Support Forums – for mental and physical health

(NY) The Jewish Board – provides services for a number of things, including crisis support, supportive housing, and mental health services.

Torah and the Twelve Steps – spiritual-based rehab for those recovering from substance abuse

(UK) Jewish Helpline – 

0800 652 9249

(Mexico) Jewish Crisis Line – 

1118

(The two following aren’t specifically mental health resources, but I still felt they were important to add.)

A list of Jewish LGBT+ organizations

Keshet – Jewish LGBT+ educational resources

Many cities also have Jewish Family Services, which will often be able to refer you to a therapist or other local resources.

The Orthodox Jew who became a gender-reassignment surgeon

alessandriana:

progressivejudaism:

I’m at synagogue on Saturdays, but if my pager goes off, I drive in to the hospital, because saving a life supersedes the Sabbath. Many people I meet believe that my faith is at odds with my career. But my work allows me to practise the medicine that interests me while helping a marginalized community. I deal with patients who, by and large, have had negative experiences with hospitals and the health care system, and I give them the care they deserve. That is very much in line with my religious practice.”

“And that is the real source of discomfort: many Orthodox people see gender-affirming surgery as an admission that God made a mistake. They see me as calling God out on that mistake by correcting it. Which is odd: nobody’s accusing God of screwing up someone’s pancreas when they have diabetes or suggesting it’s a sin to inject insulin.”

The Orthodox Jew who became a gender-reassignment surgeon

randomslasher:

thelogicalloganipus:

academicnerdlord:

prismatic-bell:

wynx-hates-pedos:

toorational:

thelogicalloganipus:

randomslasher:

thelogicalloganipus:

“the Bible says homosexuality is a sin” well the Bible also has a lot of sexism, rape, incest, violence and a lot of contradictory messages in general because it was written by people and people have agendas

I don’t really think that God even has the time to care about if people are gay like if he’s got a whole world to run there are more important things anyway

And if God is love, he’s not just loving me if I am what he wants; he’s loving me as the person he made me to be, which is a queer person

You can’t say “I love you, and I made you gay but I’m sending you to hell you awful sinner” my dude that doesn’t make sense it’s not like hell has a low population is it

The god I believe in loves queer people because that’s how he made us

the bible doesn’t condemn homosexuality anyway. It’s content taken out of context and misinterpreted over hundreds of years of translations, re-translations, and mis-translations. 

Hell, in Kenneth Davis’s Don’t Know Much About The Bible, there’s a passage that absolutely blows my mind and proves just how much we can misinterpret with simple translation mistakes: 

In researching the world’s oldest city, for instance, I learned that Joshua’s Jericho is one of the oldest human settlements. It also lies on a major earthquake zone. Could that simple fact of geology have had anything to do with those famous walls tumbling down? Then I discovered that Moses and the tribes of Israel never crossed the Red Sea but escaped from Pharaoh and his chariots across the Sea of Reeds, an uncertain designation which might be one of several Egyptian lakes or a marshy section of the Nile Delta. This mistranslation crept into the Greek Septuagint version and was uncovered by modern scholars with access to old Hebrew manuscripts.”

The bible is one long-ass game of telephone, whispered around the world in dozens if not hundreds of languages, for thousands of years. I have a hard time knowing what my grandpa is talking about, when he starts going on about the technology or practices of his youth, and that was only about 80 years ago, in the same country and in the same language as me. So why every Joe on the streets thinks they can take one or two verses, completely out of context and probably mis-translated several times to boot, and use it to spout propaganda and hatred for an entire group of people will forever be beyond me. 

You’re all valid, and frankly, if there is a ‘loving God,’ then that God will be happy to see you happy. Seriously. 

I needed that. Thank you.

The Bible wasn’t faxed down from the sky, people, it’s been compiled and formulated for hundreds of years until it became what it is today. And yes, misinterpreted by whoever with whatever agenda-of-the-day.

And hypocrites always stick to the word and not the spirit of any religion: to love, to help, to respect, to protect, and to strive to make the world a better place.

Yup, Jesus never said ANYTHING against LGBT people. All he said was don’t be greedy, don’t be lustful and don’t be wrathful. The fact that LGBTphobes took those instructions out of context to justify their LGBTphobia is pretty telling!

Hey, your friendly neighborhood Jew here!

You guys know that verse in Leviticus that homophobes like to trot out? Well, I’m here to tell you:

They don’t read Hebrew and they don’t know shit.


And now here’s something you probably won’t hear from any of those Fine Christian Folks ™ anytime soon, either:

We do read Hebrew and we still don’t know shit.


Here’s the thing. The most “accurate” word-for-word translation of that verse would say “a man shall not lie with another man; it is forbidden.”

Here’s the issue.

The grammar surrounding “men” in that sentence isn’t correct, and the word I’ve translated as “forbidden” is “toevah,” a word so fucking old we literally don’t know what it meant anymore.


The strange sentence construction suggests that “lie with another man” uses a feminine construction you wouldn’t normally find in a sentence that’s entirely about men, and while “toevah” means “forbidden,” it’s not actually clear what is forbidden. Here’s an incomplete list of possibilities:

Pederasty (adult male/adolescent male sex) is full-stop forbidden, a man sleeping with a male prostitute is full-stop forbidden, a man sleeping with a man as part of any kind of sex magic or fertility ritual is forbidden.

And my rabbi’s personal interpretation, based on the sentence construction: a man shouldn’t sleep with another man in a woman’s bed. (So basically: don’t cheat on your wife with a dude, which is probably treated separately from “don’t commit adultery” because adultery would come with the risk of an illegitimate child.)

You’ll notice none of these involve “ew, you disgusting gays.”

Unless you accept a word-for-word literal translation with zero consideration for the social mores and other tribes surrounding Israel contemporary with the writing of Torah, nothing about this commandment has anything to do with our modern understanding of queer people having committed relationships. Once you start taking the rituals and practices of Israel’s contemporaries into account, it suddenly becomes clear why these prohibitions would have been put into place (sex magic was common in the cult of Ba’al, for example, while pederasty was practically a requirement in Greece).

If you’re just a person out there loving other people of the same gender as you? The Torah says nothing against you. But do you know what our literary tradition does say?

It puts you in the company of Naomi and Ruth.

Ruth is considered the first convert, and her vow to her mother-in-law Naomi (after Ruth’s husband’s death) forms the basis of our modern marriage vows. “Where you go, I shall go, and where you lodge, I shall lodge; your people shall be my people, and your G-d my G-d; and where you die I shall die, and there shall I be buried.” Ruth remarries as prescribed by law at the time, but even when a child is born of that new union, nobody calls it “Ruth’s and Boaz’s child”–they all say a child has been born to Ruth and Naomi.

You are in the company of a woman whose name we invoke in our prayers and whose life we celebrate. I wear her words around my shoulders on my tallit, my sacred prayer shawl. Since we consider that everything in the Tanakh is intended for learning and study, what might we take from this story, but that a queer person can be virtuous and beloved of G-d?

Slow clap for Jews spitting truth.

Yesssssss

phenomenal

keshetchai:

reasons why amy santiago is already jewish:

  • she says she wants holt to be her rabbi
  • instead of calling it the spa or Turkish Bath, she refers to Jake going to The Shvitz. (ep: Old School)
  • Jake wishes her Happy Chanukkah (in the episode Christmas)
  • instead of getting holt one present, she had six small presents which is just one short of the full seven (see above)
  • went to magnet school (it was probably day school)
  • family events center around thanksgiving and never christmas & is in general way more obsessed with thanksgiving dinner than christmas or other holidays
  • is cuban, and there’s definitely a cuban jewish population (one of the local cantors where i am is cuban!)

reasons why amy santiago wasn’t already jewish but converted to judaism:

  • she saw a complete collection of the talmud and fell in love with the cross-indexing 
  • that one time she was like “i LOVE complex and obscure rules” when getting paperwork approved for holt 
  • wants a rabbi in her life (both holt and a real rabbi)
  • loves books a whole lot so probably read the recommended reading list in a week 
  • shavuot is an all night study session and that is the best kind of holiday amy santiago has ever heard of she would convert based on that alone 

prismatic-bell:

monthofsunday:

animatedamerican:

dduane:

hymnsofheresy:

stoneandbloodandwater:

fromchaostocosmos:

fromchaostocosmos:

cutecreative:

hymnsofheresy:

hachama:

hymnsofheresy:

ravenclaw-burning:

hymnsofheresy:

when christian artists change the line in hallelujah from “maybe there’s a God above” to “I know that there’s a God above” >:c

#idk why i’m so unreasonably angry#maybe cuz it’s my fav line

it’s also because Leonard COHEN (!) was Jewish and this is a quintessentially Jewish line, and changing it to that level of Annoying Certainty is stripping it of its Jewish meaning and imbuing it with that particularly American smug evangelical Christian attitude that makes me tired, so very tired

THAT IS EXACTLY WHY

I don’t think I’ve heard any cover artist sing my favorite verses

You say I took the name in vain
I don’t even know the name
But if I did, well really, what’s it to you?
There’s a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

um woah

I will always hit the reblog button so hard for Hallelujah but ESPECIALLY mentions of the elusive final verses which are just about my favorite lyrics ever. Why do people always omit the best part of the song??

In Yiddish

In Hebrew

In Ladino

Yeah, I wonder why the verses that reference specific Jewish mystical and chassidic concepts that aren’t readily understood by American “I love Jews, you know, Jesus was Jewish!” Christians never get any airtime. Funny that.

You say I took the name in vain
I don’t even know the name
But if I did, well really, what’s it to you?
There’s a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

These are specifically about Chassidic Jewish theories of the holy language, how each letter and combination of letters in Hebrew contains the essence of the divine spark and if used correctly, can unlock or uncover the divine spark in the mundane material word. And of course, there are secret names of God which, when spoken by any ordinary human would kill them, but if you are worthy and holy and righteous can be used to perform miracles or even to behold the glory of God face-to-face. The words themselves have power. Orthodox Jews often won’t even pronounce the word “hallelujah” in it’s entirety in conversation, because the “yah” sound at the end is a True Name of God (there are hundreds, supposedly) and thus too holy to say outside of prayer.

None of this is to mention how David’s sin in sleeping with Batshevah (the subject of much of the song, with a brief deviation to Shimshon and Delilah) is considered the turning point in the Tanach that ultimately dooms the Davidic line at the cosmological level and thus dooms Jewish sovereignty and independence altogether. From a Christian perspective this led to Jesus, the King of Kings, and that’s all very well and good for them, but for the Jews, the Davidic line never returned and is the central tragedy of the total arc of the Torah. Like, our Bible doesn’t have a happy ending? And that’s what this song is about? There’s no Grace – you just have to sit with the sin and its consequence.

Of course, Cohen is referencing all of this ironically, and personalizing these very high-level religious concepts. Like the point of this song is that Cohen, the songwriter, is identifying with David, the psalmist, and identifying his own sins with David’s. The ache that you hear in this song is that the two thousand year exile that resulted from one wrong night of passion and Cohen feels that the pain he has caused to his lover is of equally monumental infamy. Basically, in a certain light, the whole of Psalms is a vain effort for David to atone for his sin and I think Cohen was writing this song in wonderment that David could eternally praise the God who would not forgive him and would force him and his people into exile. But he ultimately gets how you have to surrender to the inexorable force of God in the face of your own inadequacies and how to surrender is to worship and to worship is to praise – hence, Hallelujah. You can either do the right thing and worship God from the start, or you can fuck up, be punished, and thus be forced to beg for His forgiveness. It’s the terrible inevitability of praise that’s driving him mad.

Like honestly, I identify with this song so strongly as an off-the-derech Jew, I sometimes wonder what Christians can possibly hear in this song, as it speaks so specifically to the sadomasochistic relationship that a lapsed Jew has with their God. It’s such a different song from a Christian theological perspective it’s almost unrecognizable, man. This song continues to be a wonder of postmodern Jewish theology and sexuality from start to finish. Don’t let anyone give you any “Judeo-Christian” narishkeit. This is a Jewish song.

(Sorry about the wild tangent it’s just 2AM and I love this song so dang much, you guys.)

holy shit. woah.

This.

I … I am finding myself having some very powerful and inarticulate Feels about @dduane reblogging this whole thing with the tag 
#Young Wizards meta.

As a somewhat lapsed Catholic I feel every fucking word of this

……

That feeling when a post is by Jewish people, about Jewish people, about a song about being Jewish being appropriated by Christians, and someone comes onto the post and says “as a Catholic….”

ruffboijuliaburnsides:

animatedamerican:

pipistrellus:

The thing is though the main funny thing JRR does not realize about the jewishness of his dwarfs is that his elfs are also extremely Jewish and that’s the cultural relationship I want to see in fanwork, i want elfs to be early modern German orthodox spiritualist weirdos i want elfs to put chasidim to shame…. and I want dwarfs to be Russian peasant jews from the early 20th century who are like, cool, 1. what are you talking about 2. My brother and I run a fruit stand and are communists

… I feel like I have followers who will appreciate this

……fuck. yes.

Why Did God Create Atheists?

rehfan:

naamahdarling:

razairazerci:

religiousragings:

There is a famous story told in Chassidic literature that addresses this very question. The Master teaches the student that God created everything in the world to be appreciated, since everything is here to teach us a lesson. 

One clever student asks “What lesson can we learn from atheists? Why did God create them?”

The Master responds “God created atheists to teach us the most important lesson of them all — the lesson of true compassion. You see, when an atheist performs and act of charity, visits someone who is sick, helps someone in need, and cares for the world, he is not doing so because of some religious teaching. He does not believe that god commanded him to perform this act. In fact, he does not believe in God at all, so his acts are based on an inner sense of morality. And look at the kindness he can bestow upon others simply because he feels it to be right.”

“This means,” the Master continued “that when someone reaches out to you for help, you should never say ‘I pray that God will help you.’ Instead for the moment, you should become an atheist, imagine that there is no God who can help, and say ‘I will help you.’”

ETA source: Tales of Hasidim Vol. 2 by Mar

I started reading this and was worried it would be something attacking atheists, or bashing religion, but this makes me really, really happy.

imagine that there is no God who can help, and say ‘I will help you.’”

Holy shit.

Holy shit.

Yes.  YES.

This is lovely and precisely the thing I’ve been trying to explain to my family for ages.

This is exactly why as an athiest I perform regular acts of charity, despite being disabled and on a fixed income myself. I don’t have someone telling me I need to for some eternal, ephemeral reward. I do it because it’s the right thing to do. I don’t have a checklist in my head, ticking off credits with a higher power. I think, “Shit, it’s hot this week and the homeless shelter is giving out lots of bottled water. I’ll buy a few cases and drop them off if I can.” Because it’s something I can do to help that I can afford and manage to do at this current time to help others. That’s not an example I pulled out of my arse – right now I have 3 x 24 bottles of water in my car plus four packs of tube ice blocks ready to freeze, plus a whole bag of sanitary products (they were on sale last week) and it’s 41C outside today. I’ll drop them off at the collection point on Monday. We’re able to do this much because my Christian mother saw us regularly buying things for charity, donating items we didn’t need, or chucking a bit of money in people’s fundraisers and thought she, personally, should do more, and offered to go halves. I’m not saying there aren’t uncharitible athiests – there are plenty – but the idea that those of us who don’t believe in a higher power are amoral, heartless, and devoid of any kind of selflessness is just plain wrong.

Hey, so I celebrate Hanukkah. Do you think you could maybe parody a Hanukkah song or two? Cuz that would be awesome!!

buckykingofmemes:

I headcanon Bucky’s family as being at least partially Jewish, so it would make a ton of sense to do that! I’d be happy to! However, I have virtually no exposure to Hanukkah in real life (sadly, cause it seems pretty cool), so I don’t really. know any? I asked google and it immediately spit up what looked like an Adam Sandler comedy thing, which seems like maybe not what you’re looking for. 

Hanukkah people, whadda ya got? If you can send me links to or names of popular Hanukkah songs, I can give it my best shot. And anyone who feels like it is welcome to parody their own versions! Tag me, please!

(Be warned that I’m in full-bore finals mode, so I may not actually be able to produce these for like. maybe ten days. But I will try!)

-Mod Hell

@ruffboijuliaburnsides , can you help the mod of an awesome RP blog out? I know you can help 100% more than I can, the non-Jewish kid of mormons that I am.