Such a silly holiday. For all the married people everyday should be v-day.I don't know. With all the challenges married couples face on a daily basis, sometimes you need to be reminded to let the ones you love know.
Such a silly holiday. For all the married people everyday should be v-day.I don't know. With all the challenges married couples face on a daily basis, sometimes you need to be reminded to let the ones you love know.
In most couples both parties work and when children come along, that old Valentine's feeling, every day, goes right out the window.
You're very lucky if every day feels like Valentine's Day to you, Dr Dan. May you feel that way all your married years.
Happy V!That is great! I hope your entire family had a wonderful Valentine's Day.
I'll throw in my numbers: 10 years of marriage. Together for 16 Years.
From: Shira in Chicago
Dear Rabbi,
I was wondering if it’s OK to do Valentine’s Day or if there’s anything about the day that is against Judaism?
Dear Shira,
First of all, formally the day is called Saint Valentine’s Day, which clearly shows the Christian, non-Jewish character of the day. Furthermore, like other Christian holidays, the day may have roots in pagan rituals observed by pre-Christian Europeans. Finally, the themes of the day, namely public expression of “love” with erotic under/overtones, centered around indulgent consumption, are antithetical to Judaism.
Allow me to elaborate.
Christianity, in what’s known as The Calendar of Saints, commemorates the martyrdom of its holy ones by declaring a feast on the day the saint was killed. First decreed in 496 by Pope Gelasius I, the feast of Saint Valentine was celebrated on February 14 by the Roman Catholic Church in commemoration of one (or all) of three men named Valentinus, who lived in the late third century and were martyred during the reign of Emperor Claudius II. Accordingly, the day is named and celebrated after either a priest in Rome, a bishop of Interamna (modern Terni) or a martyr in the Roman province of Africa who were all named Valentine, a popular name in those times derived from “valens” (meaning worthy) in approximately 270 C.E. However, in addition to the day being a Christian holiday, it may have pagan origins.
In Ancient Rome, February 14 marked the festival of Lupercalia (lupa meaning wolf) in honor of the she-wolf who legendarily suckled the infant orphans, Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. Priests of the Roman god Faunus sacrificed two male goats and a dog whose blood was wiped off the knife and smeared on the foreheads of two young men. After a feast, the skins of the sacrificed goats were cut into straps to be used in a ceremony that was an omen for marriage and fertility. The nominally Christian Roman populace still observed Lupercalia as late as the end of the fifth century when, after a long contest, it was finally abolished by Pope Gelasius. Interestingly, this is the same Gelasius who first proclaimed February 14 as Valentine’s Day.
How did the day come to be associated with love and romance? If viewed as an originally Christian holiday, legend says that when Claudius II purportedly outlawed marriage for young men hoping to groom better soldiers, Valentine continued to perform marriages in secret. When he was discovered, he was put to death. A feast was proclaimed to commemorate his death. If viewed as an originally pagan holiday, the source of the feast is the meal after the goat sacrifice, while the ceremony that served as an omen for marriage and fertility is the origin of the day’s sentimental nature. Accordingly, these themes may have been “Christainized” by the church to wean the early Europeans away from paganism by supplanting Lupercalia with St. Valentine’s Day. Others posit that the day’s romantic character was introduced much later in the Middle Ages’ lore and literature of “courtly love”.
Either way, the public demonstration connecting indulgence and romance is antithetical to Jewish values. In fact, the icon of Valentine’s Day, Cupid, in Roman mythology is the god of love and intimate relations, which in turn is based on the Greek god Eros. This means that the cupid-love of Valentine’s Day is essentially a modern form of ancient eros. In Judaism, true love and its expression not only on a physical level, but also on an emotional, intellectual and spiritual level as well, is very important and central. However, it is something that is shared privately and intimately between two people in the nurturing and elevating context of marriage. To cheapen it through public, commercialized and hollow expressions of infatuation is indeed against Judaism’s notion of true love and its proper demonstration.
So whether Valentine’s Day is Christian, pagan or immoral, one thing it’s not is Jewish.
Try 27 years to alcoholic (2nd marriage) happily separated, divorce pending! ;D
My cousin gave me heads up on the holidays. I guess I can't claim ignorance anymore! :'(
Try 27 years to alcoholic (2nd marriage) happily separated, divorce pending! ;D
My cousin gave me heads up on the holidays. I guess I can't claim ignorance anymore! :'(
Valentine's Day was our 23 year anniversary! 2nd time around for both of us.Congratulations!
Valentine's Day was our 23 year anniversary! 2nd time around for both of us.Congratulations!
It does?
What is wrong with me.....
:'(Try 27 years to alcoholic (2nd marriage) happily separated, divorce pending! ;D
My cousin gave me heads up on the holidays. I guess I can't claim ignorance anymore! :'(
So sorry you went through so many years of it Pennyjangle. My first time around was like that, and to be honest, I don't even feel like I was ever married to the SOB. Time really does heal!
Happy V!That is great! I hope your entire family had a wonderful Valentine's Day.
I'll throw in my numbers: 10 years of marriage. Together for 16 Years.
It does?
What is wrong with me.....
:'(Try 27 years to alcoholic (2nd marriage) happily separated, divorce pending! ;D
My cousin gave me heads up on the holidays. I guess I can't claim ignorance anymore! :'(
So sorry you went through so many years of it Pennyjangle. My first time around was like that, and to be honest, I don't even feel like I was ever married to the SOB. Time really does heal!
It really does Hanna. Hang in there, you're still young!
I have a little question for all the religious Jews here, isn't there a ''Jewish Valentine''?
I've heard there's some holiday they call ''Tu be'Av''.... What is it?
Thanks in advance.
-a non-religious jew.
"Tu B'Av" - The Fifteenth of Av
Nowadays, on the Fifteenth of Av, we observe a partial holiday; we don't say "Tachanun," a daily plea for Divine mercy, on the day itself, nor even in the Afternoon Service of the day preceding the fifteenth, similar to a full-scale holiday. Bride and groom also do not fast if the fifteenth is the day of their marriage.
These customs commemorate many happy events which occurred at various times over the history of the Jewish People. Some of these events were associated with the Temple; in the present temporary absence of the Temple, the degree of observance is (temporarily) somewhat diminished. A partial listing follows:
The last Mishnah in Masechet Taanit says, "There were no holidays so joyous for the Jewish People as the Fifteenth of Av and Yom HaKippurim, for on those days, daughters of Yerushalayim would go out dressed in borrowed white clothing (so that they would all look the same).
The King's daughters would borrow from those of the High Priest. Daughters of the High Priest would borrow from the Assistant High Priest's daughters; daughters of the Assistant would borrow from the daughters of the Priest designated to lead the People in times of War, the Kohen Anointed for War's daughters would borrow from the daughters of the Ordinary Priest. And the daughters of the rest of the Jewish People would borrow from each other, so as not to embarrass those who didn't have."
"And the daughters of Jerusalem would go out and dance in the vineyards located on the outskirts of the city. And everyone who didn't have a wife would go there." (Notice the relative lack of concern about controlling the situation when the opposite sexes are mixed, perhaps because the recent fast (in the case of Tu B'Av) and the fast on that very day in the case of Yom Kippur, have triggered a sense of self-control, which would not ordinarily necessarily be present.)
"And what would they say?"
"Young man, lift up your eyes and choose wisely. Don't look only at physical beauty - look rather at the family - 'For charm is false, and beauty is vanity. A G-d - fearing woman is the one to be praised...' ("Mishlei"/Proverbs 31:30)"
This focus on women and on marriage in the celebration of the day is based on two enactments which were made on the Fifteenth of Av, in favor of women:
The Torah tells us in Parashat Pinchas of the complaint to Moshe of the daughters of one Tzelafchad regarding the seeming inequality in Jewish Law, in the case where a man dies without sons, that his daughters seem to be bypassed in the chain of inheritance with regard to acquiring property in the Land of Israel (Some commentators suggest, based on this complaint, that if the "Meraglim" (Male Spies) had been "Meraglot" (Female Spies) there would have been no problem, because women have a greater love for the Land of Israel than men, and would never have slandered it). Hashem "steps in," so to speak, and informs Moshe that the daughters should not be excluded in favor of the sons, but that the daughters must be required to marry within their tribe.
This limitation on the marital prospects of Jewish woman was lifted once the Jewish People actually were settled in Israel; and it was lifted on the Fifteenth of Av.
Another case where a limitation on Jewish women was lifted on the Fifteenth of Av came in the Period of the Judges, in the wake of a punishment directed against the Tribe of Benjamin. The last chapters of the Book of Judges, which deals with the period of time approximately 1395 B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) - 1060 B.C.E.), the earliest period in the settlement of the Jewish People in the Land of Israel, described in that Book as basically a period of weak central control, when "there was not yet a king in Israel" (Shoftim 19:1), and "a person would and could do whatever he wanted to do," tell the story.
An account is found there of the Tribe of Benjamin acting in accordance with the description assigned it by the father Yaakov as a "wolf which tears its prey" (Bereshit 49:7; this is certainly not a complete description of the characteristics of that Tribe, because it was in their section of the Land of Israel (along with the Tribe of Yehudah) where the Holy Temple would be built). In any case, a man and a woman traveling in the area of Benjamin were taken in as a neighborly gesture by an elderly man. The Binyaminites acted in a manner indistinguishable from the manner in which the residents of Sodom greeted the guests of Lot, (Bereshit 19:1-10) except that in this case, the victims were defenseless human beings and not angels, with super- powers. In short, the woman was abused and killed by the men of the Tribe of Benjamin.
The reaction of the other Tribes was to make Civil War against Benjamin, and to enact that none of their daughters would be allowed to marry a man from that tribe.
But the enactment which prohibited a Jewish girl from marrying a man from the Tribe of Binyamin, like the earlier enactment against the orphan daughter of a man who died without sons marrying outside her own tribe, was cancelled at a later time, on the Fifteenth of Av.
Angry Chinese kahanist,
You and your wife are missing the enzyme that allows a person to metabolize alcohol? That is very common among Asians and Native Americans.
Angry Chinese kahanist,
You and your wife are missing the enzyme that allows a person to metabolize alcohol? That is very common among Asians and Native Americans.
Yes, sir! Exactly.
Try 27 years to alcoholic (2nd marriage) happily separated, divorce pending! ;D
My cousin gave me heads up on the holidays. I guess I can't claim ignorance anymore! :'(
So sorry you went through so many years of it Pennyjangle. My first time around was like that, and to be honest, I don't even feel like I was ever married to the SOB. Time really does heal!
:o Why do you need to make heads or tails out of EASTER, JESUS, CHOCOLATE EGGS OR EGG HUNTS?Angry Chinese kahanist,
You and your wife are missing the enzyme that allows a person to metabolize alcohol? That is very common among Asians and Native Americans.
Yes, sir! Exactly.
Saki is Japanese, and Soju is Korean; do the Chinese have any similar drinks which can be digested w/o problems? My excellent [Japanese] friend gets a RED face if he partakes in red wine... he explained it has to do with sulfates [?].
Perhaps many Asian people live such long healthy lives partly because alcohol consumption is lessor than other cultures?
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I have been told mixed things about other cultures holidays. One view expressed, I forget which book it was, but Jews are forbidden to CELEBRATE others holidays, but are allowed to participate in the celebration to some degree [seems iffy, and I am not a rabbi]. V-day has disgusting origins [evidenced above, thanks for schooling me!], and seems like a very commercialized event. Perhaps Feb 15th is the day we go out and buy all the discounted chocolate and then melt it down into Chanukah gelt for later in the year. lol...
Jews have PLENTY of holidays to celebrate without adding to the stack, and offending G-d is never a risk worth taking. Not celebrating a non-Jewish holiday is such a tiny/easy thing to do to please G-d.
Easter strikes me as another holiday I cannot make heads or tails out of... Jesus came back from the dead and then... started eating chocolate rabbits and going on egg hunts?
I do like the high spirits my righteous Gentile friends are in around their holidays. Seeing people in good spirits always gladdens my heart.
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Are we allowed to let others celebrate with us on our holidays? My x-roomate made me soooo much latke this past Chanukah, and she won all of my gelt with dreidl [but shared, for she is righteous]. She is a Buddhist/Christian, and she feels OK with participating in Jewish holidays because Christianity started with a Jew. Have I committed any error? She doesn't believe in Jesus being part of G-d, so she strikes me as more of a Ben-Noah than a Christian, and she uses only the meditation taught in Buddhism... not a very religious girl really.
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Chanukah dreidl history struck me as interesting. The game can last forever, and I understand while being oppressed Jews could congregate in a "harmless" dreidl game and teach Torah secretly as the main activity. I realize much of Chanukah has been corrupted to be a Jew Christmas, but the dreidl history is something I wish to impart on my kids when I have a family. Like I told my roommate, "look how long this game lasts, if an evil Roman sat in on a game they would find out that there is a good chance the game may never end, and if chocolate is prohibited from being eaten until a winner is established... they get bored, move on, never having an interest in the game again... and it's back to Torah for us".
:)