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Post by louise on Sept 10, 2023 23:11:34 GMT -5
What’s on your mind — how to make kugel? This week’s Torah reading? Life goals? Prayer? We are all engaged in weight loss/weight maintenance journeys and we are all Jewish or at least interested in Judaism. We like to eat, we like to discuss. It is our goal here to provide each other support on our journeys, to share experiences, to call on our rich cultural heritage and texts, and to help each other grow spiritually.
Some of us take weekly turns starting the thread:
Holly
Lee
Louise
Lynne
Peachy
And for those of you who stop by to read this thread without posting — you are welcome to, but you are also welcome to chime in. Don’t be shy!
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Post by louise on Sept 10, 2023 23:17:53 GMT -5
Sunday morning I worked in the synagogue changing the books for the holy days and the day before we changed all the velvets to white. Ihad a great crew and the work went fast - what a diffrence with the sanctuary all dressed up!
In synagogue we have been talking about two categories of sins/misses/whatever you want to call them – those between you and other people and those between you and God. So you can’t, for instance, ask God to forgive you for something that happened between you and another person – you can only go to the other person for that. These two categories can be seen as ethical vs spiritual. My rabbi spoke recently about a third category – sins committed against ourselves. To make it even more interesting, his teacher (Rabbi Morris Shapiro – couldn’t find any online source for this) saw this as a sub-set of sins between yourself and God rather than between you and another person. I definitely thought it would be the latter. Thinking of this as a spiritual issue though elevates it for me. How I take care of myself isn’t an ethical issue, it’s a spiritual one. At a very simple level maybe because it’s how you are taking care of the gifts that were given to you. We talked a little while back about treating ourselves with care and dignity. It’s coming around again!
Just stirring the pot to keep us focused on the holy days.
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Post by hollygail on Sept 11, 2023 7:22:13 GMT -5
I've never considered how a person's treats him/herself as a "cheit" so have never considered whether it would fit into "sins against another person" vs "sins against God." I have to give this concept more thought before being able to discuss today's topic.
Thanks, Louise, for stimulating my brain at 5am. Not an easy thing to do!
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Post by peachymom1 on Sept 11, 2023 10:10:58 GMT -5
If human beings are made in the image of God, doesn't it follow that how we treat ourselves is how we are treating God? I try to remember that when I get down on myself.
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Post by gazelle18 on Sept 11, 2023 15:26:56 GMT -5
I love the concept that treating oneself with kindness and self respect is an extension of our relationship with God. One way of imagining God (for me at least) is that God is the part of oneself which bends towards kindness, charity, justice, and forgiveness. I’m not generally comfortable with DEFINING God, but describing aspects of life which I imagine God would approve, is a way of at least imagining God.
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