Happy Passover 2018!

general topics
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Eat all the matzah, enjoy the Seder

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Shalom!

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Happy passover to all!

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Sabbath Shalom.

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Eat matzo
Tell story

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One of the eternal questions of my life is bound to be, am I a Jew? Father was, Mom isn’t, am cut, had a Bar Mitzvah, most people would probably think I’m Jewish for a variety of reasons, but I am not a follower of Judaism in any traditional sense, and I technically never converted.

But with all that said, Happy Pesach, ya’ll!

My favorite part of the Seder story: The clear instruction that while there ARE other gods than the Jewish god, you shouldn’t worship them!

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Did you undergo a conversion with a Bet Din?

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No, as I said I never converted.

But there is obviously a bigger question here: What does it mean, to be a Jew? “Jew” means different things, in different contexts:

• Religion
• Ethnicity
• Culture

If Judaism is something you must “convert” to, that means Judaism is purely a religion. But then there would be no such thing as a secular Jew, and of course there are so-called secular Jews.

So, at the end of the day, what does this make me?

Jew-ish! ba-dum ching

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Wait, how is romaine lettuce a “bitter herb”?

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According to the standards of the American Reform movement since the mid 80s, you count as a Jew in a Reform context. Outside of that context you might be welcomed but wouldn’t count for a minyan.

We are a nation called Am Israel in Hebrew. Doesnt matter if a Jew looks white, Ethiopian, Indian, Persian, North African or whatever. We are one people with a common heritage. What gets called the cultural aspect in the US is basically from Europe but thats far from the default setting worldwide. What in English is called Judaism is simply the contract between our people and God. Thats the foundation of any Jewish culture anywhere.

BTW side note, we had almost 300 people at the Chabad Seder in Tokyo! Jews from all over the world celebrating our freedom and it was AWESOME!

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