#whereas say i have a jewish mother grandmother and great grandmother

[jewishbarbies]

Hey, I have read one of your recent posts about Oscar Isaac, and I wanted to ask about the acceptance of someone who's Jewish only on their father's side. Is it that crucial?

I'm asking because my partner is Jewish, while I'm not, but we both really want our future kids to carry the Jewish culture too. Do you think they will be excluded from the community or there can be some problems like that?

I think it generally depends on the denomination and community itself. If you raise your children jewish and you're apart of the community, i think they'll be considered jewish. either way, a lot of people will consider them jewish, but some denominations won't which is why it depends. ethnically, they will always be jewish. a jew is a jew is a jew. being considered religiously jewish has its own set of rules depending on the kind of judaism you'd like to practice. i'm not super knowledgeable on a lot of technicalities, so take this with a grain of salt, but it really all just depends.

[traitor-boyfriend]

What is your honest opinion on Butters, as a character?

to me the case w butters is just really sad. over the years butters has gone from being exceptionally sweet and shy and gullible to being quite the bully. i know there’s a lot of argument about this – and butters has many faults of his own – but it’s really strange to see people demonize butters and think it has nothing to do w cartman, when butters’ personality evolution has a pretty direct correlation to how often and how many cartman/butters duo episodes there are. the more involved he’s been w cartman’s machinations, the more prominent those little details have become. and obviously this is not all about cartman but i think it’s the most significant.

butters isn’t really shown to have any real friends outside of stan, kyle, kenny, and cartman. in the earlier seasons all four of them were pretty mean little brats who included butters solely to take advantage of him but they’ve done a lot of changing since then. he apparently respects kenny quite a bit but they don’t interact a ton one-on-one beyond going native, and he’s mostly neutral toward stan and kyle. they defend butters when they see the others ganging up on him (albeit passively), but they act of their own volition and never go out of their way to include him and definitely view butters as something of an outsider in their group; cartman is the only one who really seems to want to be around butters. he doesn’t show butters much kindness or real concern (while cartman has, the occasions where he shows this w/out it being marred by something greater are few and far between) but butters is extremely loyal to cartman and cares a great deal for and about him. butters thinks cartman likes him, so he sticks by cartman, and i think a lot of cartman has in turn rubbed off on butters b/c of this. and this isn’t something that necessarily upsets me, either. whereas, say, season 5 butters and cartman could be considered foils (the case could be made to an extent that they still are) to each other they’re very much so mirror characters now. i think butters actually -is- what a lot of people think of cartman – just an isolated and traumatized kid w no one really looking out for him whose only manner of expressing it is by acting out

while liane certainly isn’t, like, a model of great parenting, she does provide very well for cartman. he has a relatively stable home life and for all her enabling she does want to see a change in cartman and his behavior and she does love him dearly. he has a level of personal autonomy and freedom that butters really doesn’t have. arguably butters has the most dysfunctional household (save for maybe kenny, but kenny certainly deals w his circumstances much better than butters). his father is a tyrannical evangelical patriarch and his mother mostly defers to him in the archetypal wait-till-your-father-gets-home kind of manner. neither of them are all too concerned about him for the most part; there’s an entire episode where linda attempts to murder him and the two conspire together to cover it up for the sake of their marriage. butters obviously has a lot of latent resentment for stephen; in the magic bush, when he’s convinced he’s in a simulation and can act however he wants w impunity, the first thing he does is physically assault his dad. being punished so often and so severely for what is almost always the most minor and insignificant of offenses. while cartman often perceives himself as being persecuted by liane – or anyone, really – for no reason beyond his own delusions, butters actually is being unfairly punished. there’s also butters’ extremely abusive grandmother; there really is nowhere for butters to escape. he suffers a lot of overt and implied abuse – verbal, emotional, physical, sexual etc.

looking at the evolution of his alter ego of professor chaos is interesting too. his first couple of appearances have him as just some bumbling wannabe villain but all his little schemes are really juvenile and innocent and comically ill-conceived – just seems a harmless outlet for the frustration and anger butters internalizes. time goes on and you see butters using it as an actual opportunity to carry out schemes w substantial thought (though they always soon fall apart) w intent to do, y’know, actual bad things. and i think the most recent few seasons really lean into butters embracing his role as a ‘villain’ of sorts; burning down the school, the whole wieners out thing, etc. butters can be really mean-spirited now, selfish and inconsiderate of the feelings of others whereas that is totally unlike, say, season 5 butters, who is always willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt and treat them w kindess regardless of if they’re deserving of it or not. he’s capable of real violence and real vindictiveness when before they were only fantasy

butters is extremely naive and trusting and while that makes him a wonderful character to sympathize w it also makes him the perfect victim to cartman’s manipulation. and repeat manipulation like that ultimately becomes conditioning. this is most evident i think in the way butters treats kyle; he seems to dislike kyle significantly more than he does stan even though there’s no real reason for him to and i don’t think there’s really any way to argue against the fact that it’s b/c he constantly has cartman buzzing in his ear. cartman very often uses butters as his lackey in tormenting kyle, and on several occasions has butters entertain the use of antisemitism to get under his skin to the point where butters, after having played along w/out any genuine malice or real awareness of what he’s saying, no longer needs cartman to coach him in how to do it. butters has made several underhanded slights about kyle being jewish all on his own (pretty sure there was even one in the catholic church episode this season when kyle tells him no one wants to hear about jesus at a birthday party and butters says something to the effect of “well, of course you don’t.”) butters is also a character w a lot of unexpressed anger, so when the final button is pushed he tends to explode, and pretty badly at that.

the most interesting thing to me as of late is that butters is able to operate independent of cartman now in his own schemes and plots. butters used to be extremely timid and would avoid confrontation of any kind, while butters currently has no problem making himself and his opinions heard and doesn’t crumble when he finds himself in a capricious spotlight. cartman has emboldened a lot of confidence in butters.

so you have butters routinely ostracized and abused by his family, his peers, and the people who are supposed to be his friends. if they’re not the ones doing it, they’re looking the other way. his hyper-empathetic nature and unwavering trust in others has only betrayed him and the only person who shows him any sort of attention is often only looking to get something out of it, so he’s leaned into that now. basically my summation of butters’ character now as opposed to when he first began to get regular screen time is that, as the saying goes, a hit dog will holler

[malkakugel-blog]

Halacha Vs. Morality

 When Morality clashes with Halacha; Not Quite Morality

The Torah shows us how to live our lives. But what about dying? Is there a Jewish way to die? Is there a Jewish way to let die? The world of medicine has rapidly developed in recent years, keeping us healthier and better aware of our bodies, but also bringing up many Halachic versus ethical controversies. Life is a gift that G-d gives to us on loan, taking it back from us at the right time. We are unaware of His master plan. It has always been that way and the beauty of it is that it always will be. The Torah commands us not to kill לֹ֥֖א תִּֿרְצָ֖ח  (Exodus, 20,13). Unplugging life support, euthanasia, abortion, they all fall under the category of killing.  

Unfortunately, many Jewish people are faced with medical and Halachic controversies daily. Families are challenged to decide whether to put their loved one on life support to begin with, to resuscitate or not, to undergo dangerous procedures for someone dying anyway etc.  “…the doctors became more persistent about our moral and ethical obligation to “relieve” his and our suffering. This moral dilemma became one of the foremost sources of pain and uncertainty. We were haunted by the thought that we may be somehow acting cruelly by allowing our baby to live, and perhaps suffer needlessly. Yet on the other hand, to “play God” and decree an end to our child’s life was too heavy to handle.” (Luxenberg, 2001). Just a few short months ago, my great grandmother passed away. She was ninety six years old. Bubby Jean lived to see her great-great grandchildren. Her life was full of happiness, love and laughter. However, the last few years of her life was unfortunately very uncomfortable for her. My siblings and I would visit her from time to time and sometimes get worried for her emotional state. Although it speaking this way can be frowned upon, my grandmother claimed was ready to die five years ago! This would have saved her so many surgeries, medical procedures, anxiety, memory loss etc. The night she died, my grandparents (who live in Philadelphia) were staying at our house for Simchat Torah. We were getting ready to make Havdalah when suddenly my grandmother got a phone call from her sister who had been staying with Bubby Jean so My grandmother could come to us. Bubby Jean had been in and out of the hospital for several weeks by now and we all silently knew her time may have come. Tante Libby called my grandmother frantically, saying that their mother had stopped breathing, the paramedics needed to know if the family wanted to resuscitate her. This put my grandmother in a crazy position. Will she choose life? And technically be putting her mother through more pain and fear, or raise her hands in  surrender, and let her mother finally join her husband in the world to come. Thankfully, my grandfather is a Rav and on the spot, ruled that if the rest of the family members agreed, she could be left alone. What would you do in this situation? To make a long story short, my grandmother was laid to rest beside her deceased husband on Isru Chag. (side point to ponder; Moral and ethical points aside for a moment, is medicine making us live longer or die slower?)

Issues like these come up as well in pregnancy cases. If a girl is raped and is pregnant with her oppressor’s child, is she allowed to slaughter the baby?  Is the fetus considered a life yet? These questions stand in every Jewish person’s hospital room decision. The fetus is considered a human life. ‘…A fetus is a potential life, so we are not allowed to kill a fetus. However, if the fetus is endangering the mother’s life and the only way to protect the mother is by taking the life of the fetus, then we must do so. However, this is all only if the fetus is a life-in-potential. Once the baby’s head has emerged from the birth canal, she has become a full-fledged human being of the same status as the mother. Even though the mother has a family to take care of and has proven herself viable and valuable, we consider this a matter of one life versus another. At that point, we can’t give precedent to either life.” (Freeman) the Halacha rules that if the fetus is in any way endangering the life of a mother, than it is put under the category of a ‘rodef’. To put it graphically, a rodef is someone or something figuratively running after you with a knife. Killing it would be self-defence. So in the example of the raped adolescent, she may see the baby as a threat, it may bring back trauma, this puts her in a state of danger for her emotional health.  These scenarios, of course, are completely relative to the situation at hand. A Rabbi should be present in these decisions.

Which one wins? Will it be morality or Halacha? The truth is, its clear that moralities shift over time. Only a few years ago it was absolutely unheard of for one to publicize his or her sexuality. It wasn’t only unheard o, it was known to be immoral. Wrapping womens feet in China years ago, physical torture, was the norm. slaves, apartheid, women’s inequalities, communism, Arianism. All these things were once not only thought to be moral, but they were the norm. in fact, very often violent protests that go on for equal rights are what violence was used for in the opposite sense. Morals change with time, you could even say that morality trends in and out of society, masking itself as the current morality.

Halacha doesn’t change. It doesn’t even adapt. We adapt our lives to Halacha. So, what’s it going to be, will we choose the fate of our loved ones’ lives per trends or Halachas Consistency mandated by the one above Himself.

The bottom line is, who is in charge here, and who runs the world? The answer is right in front of our face, it is our choice, however, to believe in it or not. So, deciding between life and death, will you take that upon yourself? Do you trust yourself over G-d and His Master Plan? We are each sent down to this world with a mission. Our missions’ communal goal is to make this world a better, more Godly place. When life and death become choices for us, it’s pretty much like saying that my mission comes second to the conveniences of my life.

“The Talmud says that there are four people who even while alive are as if they are dead, one of whom is the metzora. Because of his condition he is forced to live apart from society and bereft of the opportunity to give to others. It is our ability to give to others that allows to truly live. So even the parshah itself goes from life to death.

There is a very important message in this. A person who comes into this world has the opportunity of life, but whether he “lives” or not is not only dependent upon the proper working of all his vital organs, but also a function of his will and how he uses his life. Hence the Talmud says that righteous people even after they are dead are considered to be living, whereas evil people even while alive are considered dead.” (Winston, 2014 (5774))

We must take our time on this earth in our own hands and be as productive as we possibly can be. We each have that special light inside of us that is waiting to spread to the dark places of the world. Politics and insecurities must never get in our way, and it won’t, with the help of the Halacha and Mesora.

Bibliography  

Exodus.  (20,13). Yisro.

Freeman, T.  (n.d.). What is the Torah’s View on Abortion? Chabad.org.

Luxenberg, M. (  2001). Pulling the Plug. Aish.com.

Winston, R. P. (  2014 (5774)). Choose Life. Torah.org.

  By Malka Kugel ttps://mail.g��8�f�