(no subject)
Feb. 20th, 2007 04:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mari4212Okay, I definitely did not get enough sleep last night. I got through my Judaism class just fine, but I started crashing, energy-wise, in physics. I did manage to understand the notes and the examples we were given, though, so that's good.
Judaism was interesting today. (Okay, so it pretty much always is. When it comes to religion and philosophy, I admit, I'm easy. It's all shiny and interesting and yayness-inducing.) We started out with a vocab test that I'm pretty sure I aced. The rabbi's comment when I turned it in was that normally the first person to turn in their quiz has either 100% or 30%. Given how comfortable I felt with the vocab covered, I'm leaning towards it being the former grade, rather than the latter.
Then we started talking about the mitzvot, and their purpose in the religious life of Jews. The rabbi quoted an orthodox book that he's used in the past as a text for the class, where the author stated that a mitzvah "serves to make concrete that which is otherwise in the realm of the abstract, while serving to sanctify that which is otherwise mundane". The first part of that really reminded me of the Episcopal viewpoint on sacraments, as "outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual reality", so I brought up that as a comparison, and the class batted the idea around a bit. Then the rabbi brought in a collection of viewpoints on the mitzvot from the various traditions in Judaism, and we read over them with him giving some background and commentary of his own, which led into a digression as we explored how the concept of individual autonomy had come about in post French-revolution times. (I swear, it actually was relevant to the discussion at hand. It wasn't just an fun diversion.)
Like I said, incredibly interesting, from my religion-geek viewpoint.
My religion-geek viewpoint is also remembering that today is Shrove Tuesday, and I'm missing out on Pancake Supper at church. Darn it.
And now I've got about an hour before I have to get to my physics lab, so I'm hoping the aspirin I took kicks in soon.
Judaism was interesting today. (Okay, so it pretty much always is. When it comes to religion and philosophy, I admit, I'm easy. It's all shiny and interesting and yayness-inducing.) We started out with a vocab test that I'm pretty sure I aced. The rabbi's comment when I turned it in was that normally the first person to turn in their quiz has either 100% or 30%. Given how comfortable I felt with the vocab covered, I'm leaning towards it being the former grade, rather than the latter.
Then we started talking about the mitzvot, and their purpose in the religious life of Jews. The rabbi quoted an orthodox book that he's used in the past as a text for the class, where the author stated that a mitzvah "serves to make concrete that which is otherwise in the realm of the abstract, while serving to sanctify that which is otherwise mundane". The first part of that really reminded me of the Episcopal viewpoint on sacraments, as "outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual reality", so I brought up that as a comparison, and the class batted the idea around a bit. Then the rabbi brought in a collection of viewpoints on the mitzvot from the various traditions in Judaism, and we read over them with him giving some background and commentary of his own, which led into a digression as we explored how the concept of individual autonomy had come about in post French-revolution times. (I swear, it actually was relevant to the discussion at hand. It wasn't just an fun diversion.)
Like I said, incredibly interesting, from my religion-geek viewpoint.
My religion-geek viewpoint is also remembering that today is Shrove Tuesday, and I'm missing out on Pancake Supper at church. Darn it.
And now I've got about an hour before I have to get to my physics lab, so I'm hoping the aspirin I took kicks in soon.