Disclaimer: I'm Jewish, and think Judiasm is, overall, a good thing(tm).
But I'd have to seriously disagree with your statement that Judiasm doesn't have dichotomies or put things into boxes.
Of course any sweeping statement about a religion which is thousands of years old is difficult, but there are several areas where Judiasm is actually rather adamant about dichotomies. For example, the rituals around food. There are things you can eat. There are things you can't. Black and white. This comes straight out of the bible. (Of course, there are arguments about things, including which category the species Xiphius Gladius falls into. Or whether it's important to follow the rules. But they're there.)
The Rabbis also delighted into putting things into boxes. One thing they loved doing was making a grid. For example, there's trait A, B, !A (not A), !B. They then say that there are four types of people:
A !A
-------+-------+--------+
B : AB : !A, B :
-------+-------+--------+
!B : A, !B : !A, !B :
-------+-------+--------+
Hmm... an example might make this clearer. OK, from Pirke Avot[1] (Part of the Mishnah[2]): Ch. 5, #12: There are four character traits among people: Some say: "Mine is mine and yours is yours" - this is the average trait. (However, some say this trait is characteristic of Sodom[3].) "Mine is yours and yours is mine" - this is the trait of a peasant[4]; "Mine is yours and yours is yours" - this is the trait of the saintly; "Yours is mine and mine is mine" - this is the trait of a scoundrel.
(Translation from Siddur Sim Shalom). This pattern isn't isolated -- chapter 5 of Pirke Avot has several other examples of this kind of thinking.
Now, I don't want to say that Judiasm is all about dividing things into distinct categories. There are definitely examples of things which have shades of gray - for example, there were many different levels of holiness in the time of the temple, ranging from the "so Holy that people can't go there" all the way down to "not really holy, but not really not holy". And something that I love about the Rabbinical way of thinking is that they were quite happy holding two contradictory statements in their heads simultaneously. But I don't think it's fair to ignore the urge to categorize in Judiasm from the most ancient days to the present.
[1] Commonly translated as "Sayings of the fathers" or "Ethics of the fathers" [2] The Mishnah's from about 200 CE; it's among the earliest Rabbinic works we have. [3] Sodom is mentioned in Genesis; the people there weren't very nice. [4] The hebrew is "Am ha aretz", which literally means "man of the earth"
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Re: Well it's just so much EASIER to ignore the [confusing] facts
Date: 2003-06-30 10:21 pm (UTC)But I'd have to seriously disagree with your statement that Judiasm doesn't have dichotomies or put things into boxes.
Of course any sweeping statement about a religion which is thousands of years old is difficult, but there are several areas where Judiasm is actually rather adamant about dichotomies. For example, the rituals around food. There are things you can eat. There are things you can't. Black and white. This comes straight out of the bible. (Of course, there are arguments about things, including which category the species Xiphius Gladius falls into. Or whether it's important to follow the rules. But they're there.)
The Rabbis also delighted into putting things into boxes. One thing they loved doing was making a grid. For example, there's trait A, B, !A (not A), !B. They then say that there are four types of people:
A !A -------+-------+--------+ B : AB : !A, B : -------+-------+--------+ !B : A, !B : !A, !B : -------+-------+--------+Hmm... an example might make this clearer. OK, from Pirke Avot[1] (Part of the Mishnah[2]): Ch. 5, #12: There are four character traits among people: Some say: "Mine is mine and yours is yours" - this is the average trait. (However, some say this trait is characteristic of Sodom[3].)
"Mine is yours and yours is mine" - this is the trait of a peasant[4];
"Mine is yours and yours is yours" - this is the trait of the saintly;
"Yours is mine and mine is mine" - this is the trait of a scoundrel.
(Translation from Siddur Sim Shalom). This pattern isn't isolated -- chapter 5 of Pirke Avot has several other examples of this kind of thinking.
Now, I don't want to say that Judiasm is all about dividing things into distinct categories. There are definitely examples of things which have shades of gray - for example, there were many different levels of holiness in the time of the temple, ranging from the "so Holy that people can't go there" all the way down to "not really holy, but not really not holy". And something that I love about the Rabbinical way of thinking is that they were quite happy holding two contradictory statements in their heads simultaneously. But I don't think it's fair to ignore the urge to categorize in Judiasm from the most ancient days to the present.
[1] Commonly translated as "Sayings of the fathers" or "Ethics of the fathers"
[2] The Mishnah's from about 200 CE; it's among the earliest Rabbinic works we have.
[3] Sodom is mentioned in Genesis; the people there weren't very nice.
[4] The hebrew is "Am ha aretz", which literally means "man of the earth"