Reply #17: Again

[Meshuga]

So fucking what? Who cares whether the stories are not real? Or older or more recent? Why would you care if I put stock in tradition and why would I care if you don't put stock in tradition? I don't expect tradition to float anybody's boat much less Jewish tradition which is for the members of the Jewish people to decide whether Jewish tradition is meaningful to them or not. Some think it is shit, others are indifferent, and the "geeks" love it.

There is Torah and there is Judaism. Studying Torah is only one of the components of Judaism. Judaism is a complex beast and it doesn't limit itself to the written Torah. There are a couple of millennia worth of commentary and responsa of responsa of responsa and that developed into an enormous body of work that we use as reference for Judaism today. This huge body of work is used to guide Jewish geeks so they can follow a meaningful Jewish life. And "Jewish life" has a different meaning to each individual Jew, explaining the different movements. And the Jewish geek doesn't limit his/her study to Torah but also study Jewish history, Jewish mysticism, Jewish ethics, Jewish religious practices, Jewish holidays, Jewish food, Jewish music, Jewish literature, Hebrew, Jewish humor or whatever floats the person's boat. So if one compares the study of Harry Potter to Judaism as a whole I would say it's not a really a good comparison. Actually, it would be a rather ignorant comparison. But if the comparison is the study of Harry Potter with the same goal as Torah study and commentary then I would say it is a good comparison.

Harry Potter and LOTR use their fictional characters and stories to bring us their message. Torah study does something similar but using Jewish mythology instead. The tradition says that Torah has 70 facets (each time you read it you get a different perspective) and that it should be read like a shirah (a poem). So, Jewish geeks study torah every week. Some people might think it is stupid and ridiculous to study torah, but again, so fucking what?