I'm an Orthodox Jewish Woman, ask me anything.

[Jewishbookwork]

On the thread @Israelilefty started, people were asking about Orthodox Judaism. So I am starting (another) one here. Other Orthodox Jewish women are welcome to answer too, so we have more of a range of answers.

I am Chabad Chasidic, we are very religious - I wear a wig, my husband wears black and white and we have lots of books in hebrew in our house.

The Shtreimals are worn by Hassidic men on Shabbos and special occasions. I'm not chassidic so I don't know all the nuances of the different shtreimal options. I don't believe they are passed from father to son. Only married men wear it and I know that they get their first shtreimal for their wedding.

I have a question.

Can you use alexa on Shabbos? I know you can have gentiles do things, a distant relative used to have a job keeping coal fires lit in Jewish homes in the 1950s

I'm guessing telling Alexa to turn lights on / off isn't but can you have a routine set up where the lights are automatically turned off at a set time?

Hi @sashh you’re correct, we can’t use Alexa on Shabbos. They need to be unplugged before shabbos so we don’t inadvertently set them off. I went to a family one Shabbos who forgot to unplug it and we were avoiding saying “Alexa” in case it triggered it accidentally.

yes we would use a time switch on the house lights where possible. I’ve lived in many places where the house didn’t have the lights on a timer so we just left on a couple of important ones (bathroom hall light kitchen and lounge/dining room) . My current apartment has a time switch which is very helpful.

@Jewishbookwork I have a Chabad specific question. If Jews are not concerned with evangelizing, why is it so important to religiously 'revive' those who are ethnically Jewish? Surely if numbers matter, just encourage everyone to be Jewish? The lack of wanting converts dare I say it, seems to be rooted in racism? Ie someone born a Jew ethnically is more worthy than someone with a different ethnicity. I don't mean that in a provocative way BTW.
You could have someone who has Jewish heritage 4 generations ago but zero knowledge or interest in religion, but you invest your time/money into them over someone who is genuinely interested in being a religious Jew. Sorry if I have that wrong, I was browsing Chabad pages today and may have misunderstood.

I'm not Chabad but I can attempt to answer until @Jewishbookwork gets to it.

The idea is that historically at Mount Sinai the Torah was given to Moses and the Jews. The souls of all Jewish people were present at Mount Sinai and they all accepted the Torah. This includes that souls of all future Jews and many sources say that the souls of converts were also there. Since all Jewish souls were there we are now all obligated to follow the Torah's rules.

When a Jewish person get disconnected from observance of the Torah it doesn't make them less Jewish, and Chabad have made it their mission to try reconnect these Jews back to the Torah.

Thank you for that. It does seem though that there is something a bit 'inclusive' regarding religion in Judaism? I was reading up more about this last night and it said about how the Jewish soul is passed from mother to child. It's not possible for a Jewish father to pass this on. How does that work in terms of people converting? I read a comment online where a rabbi insulted someone by saying "one of your ancestors must be a convert" ie your blood line isn't pure Jewish and this is why you are behaving in a bad way. Do you have the concept of 'the sins of the father' coming down generations to punish like some Christians do?

Chabad believes that anyone with a Jewish soul wants to connect to G-d by doing mitzvot.

Judaism also believes that non-Jews are able to connect to G-d by doing the 7 Noahide laws, so they don't need to become Jewish. (non- Jews get to connect with G-d AND eat bacon! Lucky them)

I don't know any Chabad people who believe converts are a lower status. Every Shavuot we read the story of Ruth, a convert, who was the great grandmother of King David, to remind us that ALL jews are converts (we took on Judaism at Mount Sinai) and that great people come from converts.

The only time I have seen negative attitudes towards converts it is from non religious Jews who are less educated.

One of my parents is a convert in fact, and I never got any negativity from people about it. I think one of my parents in law thought is was cool when our shidduch was suggested.

Once in school a girl came up to me and asked 'Is it true that your parent is a convert?' and I said yes. Only time I remember it being raised.

I once got a really stupid reaction that came back to me - it was not said to me. Somebody heard my parent is a convert and said, Oh, that is why Jewishbookwork is so pretty! (this was back when I was a lot slimmer!!!)

Really makes me angry that attitude, that Jewish women are not pretty. (as seen in hollywood movies where the Jewish heroine is NEVER played by a Jewish actor) I think I look pretty Jewish anyway, athough I do resemble my convert parent.

My understanding is that is a child of a Jewish father wanted to convert, the Beit DIn makes it a lot easier for them.

Hi, I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "inclusive" regarding Judaism. Can you elaborate?

Jewish ethnicity according to Judaism is passed down through the maternal line so you're correct a father doesn't pass it on.
A Rabbi using converts as an insult is appalling! There is actually a specific commandment in the Torah for us to love a convert so that would be wholly shameful.

I really mean exclusive, as in 'we are born Jews and we don't want/need you to be practising our faith'. It's not possible to not pass on ethnicity, that is a DNA issue. If your parent is African/European etc you can't say my father is African but I'm not of African ethnicity because it doesn't pass through the father. Obviously how it's viewed ^religiously* is another matter. I suppose it depends on whether you consider being Jewish to primarily be a religion or ethnicity?
From what I read Chabad are the most open and accepting, and it seems that that is a reason they get criticism from other strictly orthodox groups?

The crux is whether you are viewing this through a religious angle or not. Obviously genetically if either of your parents/ancestors were Jewish you would be genetically Jewish, its in your dna. Some would call this ethnically Jewish.

However, if you'd like to know what Judaism defines as Jewish, it'd only be through a clear maternal line, or by converting.

(I think Chabad accepts this view too. Am I correct @Jewishbookwork ?)

Yes I totally appreciate that from a religious POV someone is only considered a Jew if the mother was Jewish.
Re clothing, do men dress formally all the time, even at home (ie black trousers, shirt etc), or is that an outdoor uniform only? If you had lots of boys I can't imagine how many white shirts you'd have to wash a week 😅

I know a Chabad family where one of the parents is a convert. Their children and grandchildren have still managed to get married to others within Chabad so it clearly hasn't been an issue that there is a convert in the family.

Doesn't Islam pass down via the father? With Judaism it's through the mother. It's just the way it is, I don't think there's anything particularly strange about it. We have a couple of family members who have 'married out' - one where the Jewish mother married a Muslim man and one the other way around. In one case the children were technically both Jewish and Muslim and in the other neither 😅 Religion is weird like that.

@Humdingerydoo hope it's ok to answer the Islam question that was asked to the other poster. So in Islam our lineage is passed down through our father. So for example if my name was Aishah and my father's was Yusuf then my name would be Aishah bint Yusuf which translates as Aishah the daughter of Yusuf.

But the child is considered Muslim whether the mother or father is Muslim in Islam. So it doesn't depend on which parent is.

Oh ok, I guess it was just one of those exaggerated stories that gets passed around! Thank you for explaining.

Just to clarify, the kids of both families have been welcomed by both communities. One of the families chose to embrace Islam more rather than Judaism and the other does both equally. The kids are still young but 100% identify as belonging to both religions and celebrate all the major holidays for both. They love it as they end up with so much family time! And so, so much food 😅

I thought technically we were all considered to be born Muslim, which is why converts are referred to as reverts?

Edit: though presumably there must be more to it than that in practice, especially in countries like Malaysia, where Muslims are subject to Sharia courts for some matters, while non-Muslims aren't.

@Humdingerydoo sorry you are going to have to refresh me on which story 😂 I have read the last two posts
Oh yes the food! Lucky them, it's lovely to hear how they have been accepted by the different families

Just wondering what your children were called, or just a rough idea of you'd rather not say. All the Jewish people I have heard of (admittedly that isn't many) call their children names like David, Isaac, Rebekah etc. But then I watched Stacey Dooley sleeps over with the Jewish family and they had very different names. So I wanted to know if your children had traditional names from the Torah?

@Raxacoricofallapatorian yes that's why it doesn't matter whether its the mother or father who is Muslim, although I suppose couples from different religions must mutually decide on which faith they want to bring their child up in

@Humdingerydoo it's ok I went back and read it

@elliejjtiny - I’m Jewish but not orthodox, although I was brought up keeping Shabbat and kosher.
One if my children has a biblical first name, the other as a second name. All Jewish babies have a ‘Hebrew’ name as well as English. The Hebrew version of say, a biblical name like Joseph, would be Yosef or Rachel would be Rochel. Normally Jewish babies are named after a deceased relative either using their given or Hebrew name, they don’t have to correspond with the English name, but often do.
More Orthodox Jews will call their children by the Hebrew version - so Yaakov instead of Jacob

We would use the hebrew version of biblical names - so Chana rather than Hannah, Yitzchak rather than Isaac etc. And maybe shortened into a nickname. Like Yitzi for Yitzchak or Suri for Sarah. (i remember the family in that TV show have some funny nicknames for their kids) We might also use Yiddish names like Shaina, Mushka, Liba or Mendel. (Mushka, or Mushkie or Mussya is a very popular Chabad name - after the Rebbe's wife, Mendel is after the Rebbe - Menachem Mendel)

Some of my kids have some of those names mentioned in the paragraph above.

Israelis tend to use more unusual biblical names or modern hebrew words although there are some classic ones that remain popular. Why Yonathan (Jonathan) is popular and not Moshe (Moses) , I don't know. Names off the top of my head Orthodox Israelis use - Natan, Naama, Shira, Yahav. There are naming trends though so those might be out of date by now lol.

In general I find more religious/ultra-Orthodox people will choose a name based on who they are naming after, (Usually great people or relatives) or for a specific reason, Modern Orthodox people will choose a name because they like it, maybe with some link to a grandparents name like same first letter or similar meaning.

my kids all have two Hebrew names. Only one child has a middle name that is named after a close relative. It’s a Hebrew version of my great grandfather’s name (his was Yiddish). One has 2 names from holy rabbis from the Gemara; one was chosen because we liked it, the other means ‘praise’ and we added it in gratitude as he was nearly stillborn but survived thank Gd. The other boys names all come from tenach, we thought about the meaning of the names in Hebrew, and also who were the figures in tenach that we named after. All the boys go by their Hebrew names
my daughter’s Hebrew name is meaningful to me because of the translation. Her middle name, Chaviva, means beloved and her first name has a special meaning for me and DH. She actually goes by an English name though that My dh wanted for no reason except he likes it!

Dh wears jeans and t shirts when he wfh, and smarter clothes for the office (short/chinos). He and my oldest wear a white shirt and smart suit (not black necessarily) on Shabbat. Neither wear black hats, but that is very typical for our community.
he has family who wear black suit and white shirt and black hat and aside from the hat yes they wear that all day long, at home as well.
I used to have a lot of shirts to wash from school uniform, no different really!