Who Is a Jew? According To Tanakh, Anyone Up To At Least A 16th Jewish

The Family of Manasseh (West)

¹⁴ The descendants of Manasseh: his Syrian concubine bore him Machir the father of Gilead, the father of Asriel.^{[e] 15} Machir took as his wife the sister of Huppim and Shuppim,^[f] whose name was Maachah. The name of Gilead’s grandson^[g]was Zelophehad,^[h] but Zelophehad begot only daughters. ¹⁶ (Maachah the wife of Machir bore a son, and she called his name Peresh. The name of his brother was Sheresh, and his sons were Ulam and Rakem. ¹⁷ The son of Ulam was Bedan.) These were the descendants of Gilead the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh.
¹⁸ His sister Hammoleketh bore Ishhod, Abiezer, and Mahlah.
¹⁹ And the sons of Shemida were Ahian, Shechem, Likhi, and Aniam.

We can see that the following applies:

1. Yitzchak (Fully Jewish, toshav l'habrit-- born of the covenant)
2. Ya'akov v'Esav (Rivkah is a Hebrew but a gentile.)
3. bnei-Yisra'el (Whose mothers are all gentile)
4. Y'hudah takes Tamar; Yosef takes Asenat, etc.. Bnei-Y'hudah v'bnei-Yosef, and those in similar situations (e.g., Shaul HaBen-Simon v'HaKena'anit)
5. Menashe took an Aramit as a wife and had Makhir, who was 1/16th Jewish.

Somewhere, though, I had gotten a 1/32nd or even 1/64th Jewish to be considered Jewish before. If any one of these is correct, please correct my 1/16th assumption.

Sometimes, I Get Pretty Raucous Ideas...



Is this one of those "'Bawdy' has never been so funny" ideas?

An Untitled Novel, Part 2

My mom's great-great-grandparents came across the Mexican border illegally in the 1900s. However, they-- unlike an interesting family who I once heard about-- did not decide to become Anusim to assimilate into Anti-Semitic America (I once asked my mom if our family did that. She said "No. I know what you're referring to, and I wouldn't be surprised if that family's story was more common than you think. But my great-grandparents remained haredim even at the risk of getting killed either in Poland or in America.").

Unlike that family, however (who became Anusim to try to avoid the pogroms, got kicked out of Poland by their families, and came to America as Anusim via Ellis Island), Mom's great-grandparents never once even thought about being Anusim either in Poland or in New York (where, like that family, they were intending to head but-- unlike that family-- stay)-- and they couldn't have been as convincing as that family, anyway; which is part of why pretending to be ethnic Poles and Catholics would've been hard for them.

And thanking G-d that they weren't caught by a Polish Catholic at the border (because who knows what they would've done then?), they had to deal with the Pole who caught them-- an ethnically-Jewish Pole who had become a naturalized American and an Immigration and Naturalization official, and happened to be stationed at the border when they were crossing it.

"Where are you from?" he asked in Yidish, being able to tell that they were fellow Jews.

"We are from Polinyah." they returned. Then they explained that they had first tried to make aliyah to Palestinian-occupied Yisra'el, deciding to follow the Zionist lead. But they were denied the opportunity to go "el Ha'Eretz" because they weren't haredi enough-- or maybe they were too haredi.

The fellow Jew understood; eventually helping them go through the immigration and naturalization process in Texas, then helping move them to Brooklyn in New York.

They remained haredim up to my mother's generation, and deliberately moved to haredi Northwest Baltimore when they moved. Then my mother moved out of the haredi community in Northwest Baltimore and met a New Yorker who was studying at Morgan State University-- my dad.

And that's when my mom's family were no longer haredim-- at least the generations since my mom's haven't been; and so far, my siblings and I are of the only generation that's proceeded from the Lewjes of Suwalki, Poland and Brookyln, New York.

Why I'm Not Running From Chapelgate Presbyterian Church, Even Though...

The pastor hates me. He's a real Anti Semite and hates that I confronted him over calling the Ark of the Covenant "a holy piece of furniture" and that I once mentioned on Facebook that Togarmah (Armenia) is mentioned in Ezekiel 38. But I didn't ask ol' Mike Khandjian whether a disabled, mixed-blooded Jew is welcome to Chapelgate or not. Meanwhile, I take that apology for confronting him back. The Ark of the Covenant is no piece of furniture.

I also didn't ask the rest of the congregation whether a disabled, mixed-blooded Jew and child of divorce with an abusive and estranged dad could stay. I was already forced to run when I was in elementary school from Christ Episcopal Church in Columbia, Maryland over a whole bunch of issues that I later found out about, though I knew that the former interim pastor Peter was homosexual and actively homosexual. I'm not running from another church.

And I'm a coward for caving in to some family pressure by saying Kaddish and not talking about Dad, Pop-Pop, etc.. I'm not caving in on Chapelgate Presbyterian Church.

Fear vs. Fear: Fear vs. Dread

My cousin Jeff Vazzo recently wrote "I Will Not Fear". What is fear? According to Jeff, "The "Church" tells us to fear god even when God is in us, around us and works through us. Fear is the unbelief." This is the negative type of fear, known as dread.

Often, especially since we are in Laodicea, we are given this message by the Church: "[']May the God of Avraham and also the god of Nachor, the god of their father, judge between us.[']" The NKJV incorrectly translated this as "[']The God of Abraham, the God of Nahor, and the God of their father judge between us.[']" Nachor and Terach feared the g-ds of Ur, even if they feared G-d at the same time. But remember that a man cannot righteously serve two g-ds at once.

Positive fear is what Jeff described as "God’s Son is my fortifying power." Ya'akov himself "swore by the Fear of his father Isaac" (The CJB reads, "But Ya'akov swore by the One his father Yitz'chak feared.").

Ya'akov even understood, "It is a fearful [that is, dreadful] thing to fall into the hands of the living God." Understanding the dreadful side of G-d, he confidently told Lavan, "['] If the God of my father, the God of Avraham, the one whom Yitz'chak fears, had not been on my side, by now you would certainly have already sent me away with nothing! God has seen how distressed I've been and how hard I've worked, and last night he passed judgment in my favor.[']"

So, Ya'akov understood both sides of the Fear of G-d. Ya'akov feared G-d and only G-d-- for the most part, anyway; though he did sometimes dread-- e.g., Esav and Lavan.

"For God will bring to judgment everything we do, including every secret, whether good or bad. [Here is the final conclusion, now that you have heard everything: fear God, and keep his mitzvot; this is what being human is all about.]"

What I Want For Christmas From My Blogger Audience, Especially Family...

1. Comment on my posts. Please don't leave hate comments and similar types of comments (e.g., spam). You can agree to disagree with me respectfully, honestly, and intelligently, but not unfairly or unjustly.
2. Contact me. I said Kaddish for Dad already; so he's met to me, and you have nothing to dread.
3. Don't hold me to what Dad and the other metim, including Great-Grandma Gaydos, did.
4. Share (e.g., Tweet, Facebook share) these posts.

Don't Let Legalistic Grinches Steal Christ-Mass, Chag Mashiach

"Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free,[a] and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage." (Galtians 5:1, NKJV) If anyone gives you drek about Christmas (Chag Mashiach), Easter (Chag HaT'khiyah Mashiach), etc.; tell them to go do their homework and learn the actual origins, not the origins of what they were alternatives to.

Matters like this have "occurred because of false brethren secretly brought in (who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage), to whom we did not yield submission even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you." (Galatians 2:4-5)

Dr. Conrad Murray: Prison Is Enough? Maybe Loing His License Was...

And since losing a license means no income, the taxpayers will be taking care if Dr. Murray, anyway. Prison or welfare? Either way, he'll end up on welfare. So, with Dr. Murray, Michael Jackson already picked his poison (since he was a druggie, anyway). We may as well pick ours-- and not prison. Losing a license was enough for Dr. Murray.

Two Take-Home Essays For Corrections And a Sidenote

"What is 'corrections'?" is the descrpitive/informative essay. Reflecting on my experience in the Introductions to Corrections class is the obvious reflective essay. The descriptive essay will require some review. The reflective will not. I'm going to be frank about Dr. Traurig and what a macher he is, how I still stand by that Torah was the first lex talions, weirgild, and punishment to fit the crime, etc.. I'm going to tell how I didn't like that, for one matter, his language wasn't that of a doctorate scholar. I'm also going to state that I didn't like how he mocked religious belief, etc..

As for the sidenote: most or all of the views from Columbia, Maryland on my Feedjit feed are mine. I go to Howard Community College for the time being, and the browsers aren't automatically set up (unlike at home) to ignore my own views of my blog.

When Legalism Sprouts Up The Most

I notice that Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter are the times when legalism sprouts up the most; all because of what each originally historically coincided with and were in fact meant to be alternatives to-- the Celtic Pagan Fall Harvest, the believed-to-be Sukkot celebration of the Puritans gone wrong and long left un-recelebrated, the Greco-Roman Winter Solstice, and the likewise Spring Solstice.

The Early Church created Christmas as 'Am Yisra'el created Hanukah, both to counter the Winter Solstice. The Early Church also created Halloween and Easter to counter the Celtic Pagan Fall Harvest and Greco-Roman Pagan Spring Solstice.

Thanksgiving is another discussion.

Don't let P'rushim and other legalists streal your freedom to observe alternative-to-paganism, Christ-centered mo'edim v'chagim.

Are Christmas and Hanukkah Pagan? The Answer Is, Based On History and Other Factors...

Christmas and Hanukkah are both not pagan, and were actually created as alternatives to (respectively) the Winter Solstice and a Greek Pagan holiday. Google "Is Hanukkah pagan?", by the way. I once did after someone asserted that it may be or is. I was shocked.

Anyway, Christmas was originally "Christ-mass" or Chag Mashiach, created as an alternative by the Early Church to the pagan Winter Solstice and coinciding pagan holidays. Similarly, Hanukkah-- thought by some to be a late celebration of Sukkot-- was created to replace the celebration of the desecration of the Temple and a dedication to a pagan god. Some Hellinized and other Jews would only go so far in terms of Hellenization and toleration thereof, and would certainly not accept the Temple being destroyed.

Therefore, we have two Winter mo'edim v'chagim which are alternatives to Greco-Roman Pagan holidays.