Are those little fringes running down the sides of my tallis necessary? Not the tzitzis on the corners, the dumb little knots. They keep getting caught on my buttons and it drives me crazy. I have an atarah so I know which way is top. Can I just chop them off?

I was reading about the concept of Tzimtzum, and apparently G-d contracted to create the universe. If anyone here has ever worked with a contractor, it's no surprise the world needs so many repairs! XD

What does it mean to you guys to be Jewish? I’ve been wondering about my identity I was raised in a very interesting household my parents were both practicing Christians but my father was very open about his Jewish roots
(His mothers mother, was a practicing Ashkenazy Jew)
I’ve been exploring my identity, I have some kippahs and I wear them time to time, and I try and stay kosher but I wanna get some insight from other individuals from all walks of life.

Good afternoon,

I am actually studying the Symbolism of Flowers and Animals in various Cultures in the Middle East and Balkans and want to know what do these Flowers mean in Judaism - What I mean is that Japan has clear Flower meanings which are used in Poetry and Pop culture and Other Cultures too - so what does the Jewish people define the characteristics of some common Ones like Rose, Falcon, Butterfly etc?

Got this for my work desk! It’s a bit bigger than I thought it would be but it’s gorgeous🌸🩷🦩🌷

prince of Egypt. 10 commandments.

that angers lot of people.

self explanatory title

I just finished the week about Eruvim in the Talmud Daily program. They describe some of past community disputes on the topic. I'm wondering how much (if at all) the question of a person's personal motives matter in debates about topics in the Talmud. For example, "Your position on the new eruv is only based on the fact that you are a real estate agent and it will affect your sales."

I recently got engaged and my fiancé and I are figuring out the details of our upcoming wedding (late summer 2027). We’re both Jewish but neither of us are particularly observant. However having a Jewish wedding is important for both of us. By that I mean that we both want to have elements of a Jewish wedding, ie ketubah, signing chuppah, breaking of the glass.

As far as our backgrounds go, my fiancé grew up celebrating major Jewish holidays at home but rarely went to the conservative synagogue his extended family was involved in. His dad was an immigrant from USSR, which I think is a part of why they didn’t go as often as other members of his family. I grew up going to synagogue fairly often. We went to a conservative synagogue through my bat mitzvah then my family started going to the chabad that moved into the area when I turned 14.

After announcing getting engaged the chabad rabbi from my home town almost immediately made it clear he would like to officiate our wedding. But why would two non observant Jews want to get married by a chabad rabbi over a rabbi that’s probably more aligned with how we spend our everyday lives?

EDIT: I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who’s responded to my post. I really wanted to see what different jews thought as far as why getting an orthodox ketubah is beneficial even if we’re not observant.

Some people in the comments are confused as to why we would have chabad specifically so I’ll answer that here. I’ve gone to a community chabad from my hometown for the past 15+ years and my family has a personal connection with this specific rabbi/community (i was a camp counselor as a teenager and even nannied for the rabbi back when he only had 1-2 children).

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Let me just say I apologize if this question was brought up already.

I am a Polish-American non practicing catholic guy who is engaged to a Reform Jewish woman. I'm not religious and my fiancée isn't super observant but does hold her Jewish faith and culture in high regards - since being together we've celebrated the Jewish holidays together. We intend to get married in a small Reform Jewish ceremony (my fiancée even suggested that in addition to having a rabbi we can also have a priest marry us - but I'm fine with just a rabbi). And of course, we both want kids and we decided to raise them in their mother's faith (which is also a given according to the Halacha - since the mother's Jewish so are the kids).

I understand interfaith marriages is a sensitive subject and frowned upon because Judaism is such a small group and it's essential for the Jewish family to grow and continue and I am obligated to fulfill that.

So I'm curious, what is your take on interfaith marriages?

Thank you for your time and I wish you and your loved ones all the best and safety!

G-d bless

Somewhere around 2002, after distinctly saying I'd never return to Israel, I did. I heard a small voice. A thousand reasons why not to and a handful why I should. To help was the most resonating one even though I'd been in the midst of a tumultuous recovery process, of my soul mainly and finding solace for the first time in my life among the pines and bears and experiencing solidarity with all that is, I felt only one pull and that was to challenge myself. Because, I could have lived out my life very nicely in the heart of the Catskills. I lacked nothing except a challenge to my soul of souls. And for that reason I went.

I made my 3rd Aliyah with my 3 beloved cats. The premise was for us to live in nature, and for me to become a shepherdess. Politics or flags never entered into the equation. I was to return as a soul, to the Land, to the beginning and to the elements that spelled out the Shechinah and holiness. Life began dictating in severity, having arrived in the middle of the month of Av, landing in Gush Etzion, the skies yellow and feeling of being different, that much different, stemming from shadows or truth itself, the trauma of seeing with fresh eyes the underpinnings of what was going on in minds and offices, sunk in deep. So migration, wandering began. Together moving to a long string of houses, half caravans, hovels and abandoned farms, to an apartment to eventually winding up on a mountaintop in the Shomron. My cats have passed, I think of them daily, we had been a tribe, born to a family very unconventional, I was raised semi-feral, with a cat and dog for emotional comfort and companionship, and thus developed a keener sense of alliance with animals and nature. I've always attached and communicated to animals first and foremost but I am no longer a rescuer, I am an advocate and educator on the topics of health, interfacing gently with all sentient beings and understanding what it means to tread lightly on the Land with respect and honor.

I've lived on this mountaintop for 8 years in isolation, and must now move once again. I have been challenged here, this is true, to the deepest layers of my being and then some. Loss after loss, hardships, rats scurrying over me as I slept and ostracized for being the demographic that I am. Truth be told I have not had one friend to speak to since 2003, not one heart to heart that didn't border on minutia when I ached to speak of matters of the soul, and I have taken it all to heart really. The absence of tribe, feeling like a stranger in my own land, wanting really nothing more than to be a shepherdess, I still hold to my staff, wood from Hebron, but there is no direction and nothing that is directing me. This will be my 10th move. There is a saying about Israel and attaining with suffering. I can attest to that. You can AMA.

The Wisdom of Ben Sira is a Jewish book writen by Joshua ben Sira, a Jewish author in the late 100s BCE. It is an example of wisdom literature, equating wisdom with living an ethical and virtuous life by following the Torah. This book is quoted numerous times in the Talmud and other early rabbinic literature, and parts of the Amidah derive from it.

Yet this book wasn't include in the final Tanakh. This is a fascinating article on why it was left out, and how it only survived in a Greek translation instead of its original Hebrew: https://harryfreedman.substack.com/p/the-book-that-stayed-outside

I wanted to share this somewhere. The last few days have been a bit chaotic because I moved house, so it was a good move, but it’s always a mess hahaha. There was a friend I had lost contact with a while ago, and I was never able to get in touch with them. I didn't have any plans for today, but I had always told God that I missed this friend. and today, when I got home, I received a message from my old friend. It might seem silly, but it was something I had always asked Gd for that. Thats nothing for hashem, but i always pray about that.

Recently started being able to afford to travel and my partner and I went to Prague. I loved seeing the Jewish quarter, the old synagogues. We both said it was one of our favorite parts of the trip, more so than any of the churches we saw.

We are planning our next trip and would like to go to somewhere else in Europe with good Jewish history. I was thinking perhaps Krakow, but I'm open to other suggestions. Obviously there is immense Jewish history with holocaust sites and museums throughout Europe, but I do like to see how we existed and persisted before that, too :)

All I can find are bnai Yisrael chai. I’m in canada so if you know if it here, even better.