budgie's squawks - The danger with rhetorical questions...

09:07 pm October 1st, 2008




			budgie's squawks - The danger with rhetorical questions... online random ravings

budgie_uk


	The danger with rhetorical questions...
	...is that someone won't realise they're rhetorical. Took Phil to synagogue this morning for Rosh Hashana and, as usual, there's a drosha (closest thing a rabbi does to a sermon, but since a rabbi is, literally, a teacher, it's more like trying to teach the congregation something relevant about our religion). This morning, it was delivered by a trainee rabbi, and while in my opinion it wasn't quite as inappropriate as the one I witnessed where the rabbi delivered a drosha mentioning Jesus, it came close a couple of times. At one point towards the end, when discussing how we're judged on our behaviour, he said that it can cause constant second-guessing, "should I speak up? Should I be silent?" I'm sure I wasn't the only one who, for a split second, wanted to cry out in answer to the second question,"Yes, for the love of G-d, yes!"

3 squawks in response or squawk at me


	Comments

	From: idsharman	Date: October 1st, 2008 08:14 pm (UTC)		(Link)

But...a sermon should be trying to teach the congregation something relevant about the religion...

Of course that something is usually that the congregation would be better off if the money in their pockets was in the church's coffers...but hey...

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	From: jen_vm	Date: October 3rd, 2008 05:06 am (UTC)		(Link)
	Ours was nice

Took the kids to the 'family service' at our shul; Greg got to carry the Torah around, leading a parade of happy kids; I got to help undress and dress the Torah. it was awesome. Our Rabbi, whom our children regard with a personal awe and fandom I reserve for David Bowie, had all the kids gather to see the scroll up close and watch as she ran the yod along the words. She read the bit about Abraham jumping up and inviting the three strangers into his tent; her drosha for the kids was about how Abraham saw God that day, because when he saw three hungry people and cared for them without hesitation, he was seeing God in them. She closed by saying that when we see another person and recognize that God had a hand in making him or her as well as us, we get a chance to see God too.
I thought it was very nice, and spent a lot of time after thinking about how truly fucking hard it is for me, sometimes, to see the made-by-Godness in most people, let alone myself. Work worth doing, I suppose.

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