(04-23-2023, 09:55 PM)Linde Wrote: (04-23-2023, 09:15 PM)veil23 Wrote: Hey Linde, thanks for the website. I read 5 or 6 articles. I have to ask -Why secular as opposed to observant??
I was born an d raised in Germany, my mother was a survivor of the camps. Judaism was eradicated from Germany by the time I was raised. I grew up without any religion, just the bit my mom could get across to us kids. I do not want to live with the restrictions Judaism requires of an observant Jew.
However, I am very proud to be Jewish, because we are resilient and tough people, who kept their identity for thousands of years living in diaspora in foreign and strange countries. Close to 25% of my DNA is still DNA from the Levant even though my family lived for hundreds of years in Germany. We simply stuck together.
Thanks, that was a well-expressed short history. I am certainly aware of the camps the unconscionable things done there. I am aware of the number of laws an observant Jewish person had to keep in the Old Testament (613). I am also aware of some of the "work-arounds" in modern Judaism. My brother lives in Bethlehem, NH and I have seen houses down the street which have strings around their properties, possibly Eruv lines, or something similar. I also read where Jewish business owners "sell" their stores or storehouses as opposed getting all the leaven out come the Passover and feast of unleavened bread. If G-d had given Israel the rest He wanted for them, when Joshua took the promised land, He would not have mentioned it again in Psalm 95. There is a Sabbath rest available where we cease from our own works as G-d did from His.