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u/GingerGrindr · 1 pointr/ReformJews

>“the scientific study of what goes right in life [and] those things that make life most worth living,”

That is an odd way to define Positive Psychology but I guess it's a fairly accurate summation. Positive Psychology was a reaction to the large amount of attention that has been paid on abnormal psychology- essentially what is "wrong" with people and how to fix it. This leads an absence in what people can do to better themselves beyond the realm of mental illness. How can we improve and enrich our lives, starting from a neutral baseline.

I actually find it very funny that I'm reading an article on religion and positive psychology as I took issue with Martin Seligman's position on religion in his book Authentic Happiness which is the primer for studying this branch of psychology. I don't have anything against having religion in your life (obviously) but I also don't feel like it's necessary. I align more with Daniel Gilbert's approach that you can get the same results when you fill your life with the same things that religion provides you regardless of whether or not you ascribe to any religious practice. A strong passion in something shared by others, closeness with a community, etc are components of religious practice that can enrich your life with or without religion.

All that being said, I do agree that Positive Psychology and Judaism go hand in hand very well together. I would say that as of the last time I really studied positive psych, the research was largely done on Buddhists. I'm very excited to hear about the merger of positive psych and Judaism which is another reason I'm excited to study Mussar.

If you would like to get acquainted with Positive Psychology, I will leave some recommendations below:

As I stated earlier, Authentic Happiness is the primer for learning about this branch. I do take issues with certain elements of the book but I still think it's an incredibly worthwhile read.

I would also recommend to you Stumbling On Happiness as it explores the more scientific approach to the study.

*I would also recommend you start studying it by studying yourself. Martin Seligman is still conducting research to this day. I would recommend taking a look at the Questionnaires section of his website. There's a ton of tests and surveys you can take but I recommend you start off with the Signature Strengths VIA Survey. Note, you do have to make an account but it's worth it. Once you've determined your top 5 character strengths, you can start trying to strengthen those traits and make them more prominent in your life.

u/ToAskMoreQuestions · 1 pointr/ReformJews

I spent a good part of the day reading Christine Hayes' "What's Divine About Divine Law?" It's a fascinating work on the conflict between the Greco-Roman and early rabbinical definitions of divine law.

Amazon: http://smile.amazon.com/Whats-Divine-about-Law-Perspectives/dp/069116519X/

u/jacobandrews · 3 pointsr/ReformJews

Yes, yes, and more yes! I was going to write something with the same thrust, but you put it better than I could have. Authenticity in Judaism, in my experience and understanding, comes from figuring out how to do your Judaism your way. Being able to explain to others why you are doing what you are doing will go much farther for a sense of personal identity and connection to Judaism then erring on the side of Orthopraxis and doing it just because "it's how it's done." For anyone looking to form a stronger personal connection to Judaism, I always recommend Jewish With Feeling by Rav Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (z'l).

u/uhohspaghettiohnos · 3 pointsr/ReformJews

While it is not reform, one book I really enjoyed was Exploring Judaism: A Reconstructionist Approach by Rebecca T. Alpert. I think it might be good to take a broad look at different approaches to Judaism to find one of best fit before conversion process. Rabbi Kaplan's teachings were a radical departure from Orthodox in his day, while often conflated with Reform its lineage is actually quite different.

u/remembertosmilebot · 1 pointr/ReformJews

Did you know Amazon will donate a portion of every purchase if you shop by going to smile.amazon.com instead? Over $50,000,000 has been raised for charity - all you need to do is change the URL!

Here are your smile-ified links:

Authentic Happiness

Stumbling On Happiness

---

^^i'm ^^a ^^friendly bot

u/sabata00 · 1 pointr/ReformJews

JPS's Jewish Study Bible is a great choice.

Link

u/YoniBenAvi · 3 pointsr/ReformJews

This is a decent intro. I also suggest Judaism as a Civilization. It lays out Kaplan's understanding of Judaism pretty thoroughly, and what he thinks the other denominations get wrong.

As for their services, I've heard everything from indistinguishable from Conservative to hippies completely disconnected from tradition. From what I read in the book I just suggested, a large amount of their membership is observant, just not in an Orthodox way. (For example, something like 30% say they keep kosher, but their understanding of kosher may be more lenient (don't need two sets of dishes), disregard certain Rabbinic restrictions (like poultry and dairy mixtures), or include environmental or animal rights provisions that would make Orthodox kosher food treif to them.) I think if you wanted to be traditional in your observance in a Recon setting, you'd be able to, assuming you found a congregation on the more traditional side liturgically.

u/gimbeljeremy · 10 pointsr/ReformJews

Rabbi here. This is my go-to: Jewish Living: A Guide to Contemporary Reform Practice https://www.amazon.com/dp/080740702X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_.zSCCbXM6R98T

Fair warning, read the first bit to make sure it’s not too technical.

And Mazal tov on your journey!

u/menuchababy · 2 pointsr/ReformJews

I feel like the sermon ended with a question that Reconstructionist Judaism attempts to answer, but I've never actually been to a Reconstructionist shul before (too far), soo I'm saying this based off the book I'm reading, Exploring Judaism.

u/LayEavesdropper · 3 pointsr/ReformJews

My wife and I use this book for Shabbat. It's for little kids, but since I grew up nearly secular, my wife is non-jewish(may convert, but not till phd cmplt) , and we'll have kids soon enough (hopefully) it's been nice. We're expanding the song selection (the book just give suggestions, not actual lyrics), soI'm making side-by-side-by-side translations/transliteration so our families will be able to keep up when visiting. We also don't work on Shabbat, but that's about as much progress as we've made thus far. Still a huge leap from completely ignoring Shabbat like when I grew up.

Kashrut right now just means no pork, no shellfish, no meat and milk (but where meat only means animals that produce milk). Not perfect by far, but still moving in the right direction.

u/ThisisAUsernameOkay · 2 pointsr/ReformJews

This will be my first year fasting.

I'm also starting this book:

https://www.amazon.com/This-Real-Completely-Unprepared-Transformation/dp/0316739081/

that I'll be reading with a chavruta between Tisha B'Av and Sukkot.

u/Sansophia · 1 pointr/ReformJews

You know that is totally fair

The Big Yikes is the Wikipedia page on the Sampson Option:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option

The Martin van Creveld quote is in the page, but here it is for effect:
We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: 'Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.' I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.[32]

If say the European powers actively joined in an Arab war against Israel I could understand nuking European cities as part of self defense against a planned genocide, but it sounds like certain parts of the Israeli government see Europeans are enemies not by virtue of active arms but past persecution, which does not go on today and not being pro-Zionist enough in the present.

And as much as this may sour things, if the Sampson Option goes down, and the Europeans are nuked while technically neutral, the world will band together to wipe the Jews off the face of the earth. Not in vengeance, but simply for survival. Because despite this supposed quote for Moshe Dayan, mad dogs don't EVER get left alone, they get PUT DOWN, it's simple public safety.

An to be fair if the US somehow suddenly took down China or Russian second strike capacities and nuked either of those two countries while not being at war or directly threatened by them, I would denounce my American identity and declare it is time for the American to end. We are now the enemies of all humanity. Using a nuclear weapon on a populated area is genocide. If Genocide needs to happen, it is a control measure, that the people there are so dangerous they cannot be allowed to live. Genocide as vengeance, genocide as retribution, these are concepts that will either leave humanity dead in short order, or the ethnic groups that practice them dead in short order.

As for God being put on trial:
https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/wiesel-yes-we-really-did-put-god-on-trial-1.5056

Orthodox violent hostility to Jewish Christians:
https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/israel/2019/june/jewish-protesters-assault-messianic-believers-christians-some-were-cut-in-the-face

Another Article wherein rabbis denounce Messianic Jews as not real Jews:
https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/jewish-groups-decry-messianic-jewish-rabbis-prayer-pence-rally

Article of Jewish Atheism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_atheism

One of the more gentle arguments on Jewish forgiveness, by a Jewish woman:
https://forward.com/opinion/163365/we-dont-do-forgiveness-well/

Oh and this lovely article from a Holocaust Survivor:
https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/1.5134117

And let's not mince words with this one. Hating he Nazis that committed these horrible deeds is justified, even proper. Refusing to make a distinction between the movement that was ideologically responsible for the horror-show (Nazism) and the ethnicity of the perpetrators (Germans) is a gross miscarriage of justice, and then to hold the grudge not to that generation of Germans but to three generations down the line?

Shit that sounds like Blood Curse doesn't it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_curse
And further it open up hatred and unforgiveness directed to Jews by survivors of Communist atrocities, because Ms. Epstein, makes no distinction between Germans and Nazis, then neither do victims of Communism need to make a distinction between Communists and the ethnic identities of the Communists.

Now you might argue that for this to hold you need hold ALL of the ethnicities of the Communists involved, in which case a Ukrainian peasant survivor of the Holodomor might be morally required to hate Russians, Georgians other Ukrainians AND Jews, but that still doesn't do much to decrease hatred of Jews in the world.

This line of thinking directly plays into the hands of both Nazis and Neo-Nazis. Why bother to empathize or try and build bridges with Jewish people when they will never forgive you of your grandparents sins?

Worst of all the utter self conceit and lack of empathy. Has this woman never thought in her long life, if I were in their position, told what they were told would I have done any different? If my grandchildren were in a similar situation as these Germans, could I count on them to act any differently, and if they didn't would I need to hate them?

If I were a German woman born after the war, how would I feel to know people hated me because of what I am rather than what I personally did, or could even have been around to be even tangentially been a part of? But these are questions she does not ask.

Now I know it is tacky to quote scripture at a non believer, but even if I thought Jesus was nothing more than charismatic clinically insane schizophrenic, I would take his words in Mathew to heart:
And you say,

‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!"

Those are not words just for the hoity toyty of his day, it is a reminder to all of those who would claim righteousness not to get a big head about ourselves.

On a personal, as an Evangelical I was raised to hate Gay people. I always considered Transgender issues to be something else, namely an issue of the soul versus a sexual proclivity. I was told if the gay people were not stopped and suppressed an angry God would rain fire and brimstone down on our cities, destroying our civilization as thoroughly as he did Sodom and Gomorrah.

I never committed an act of violence against a gay person, but that is by chance. I loved in America in the 1990s not say Iraq in the 2010s or Germany in the late 1930s and 40s.

I had to come to terms with my views on homosexuality when I had to transition. And when I found out how badly I was lied to, I wept bitterly without tears and to some degree I still do. Maybe I could have known better earlier, I don't know.

But if I were a Muslim man in ISIS territory I would have thrown gay people off the top of buildings too, convinced this was the morally right and the will of God. That is why I refuse to hate them, no matter how angry I am at them. Because I know I have no right at all to point the finger and hold the grudge.

I'm not especially singling out Jewish people for this behavior, because I see in every group I have ever heard of. But here, because it is in this article, I need to call it out.

As for the thing about Holocaust Theology, I may need to backtrack on that, maybe not. I know the terms don't technically apply to Jewish terminology but or less the more clerical (rabbinical) response seems to have been far less misotheist than I thought. The Jewish laity maybe more.

My chief source on this IIRC is Harold Kushner's commentary on the Book of Job, which is one of the most soulful and moving things I have eve read.
https://www.amazon.com/Book-Job-Things-Happened-Encounters/dp/0805242929

Oh and if you wanna check it out, get the audio book from the library, Rabbi Kushner read it himself and his voice is sonorous. It's a treat.

In any case I would be utterly hypocritical to being up Holocaust Theology without mentioning the similar movement in mainline Protestantism called Death of God theology. And this impiety has been amply rewarded with the wasting death of mainline Protestantism. Just to show I'm not completely unself-aware.

I can probably find more, but I think these sources cover things as I understand them and if you want to start educating me on where I am mistaken, my ears and heart are as open as I can make them.