<$BlogRSDURL$>

Wednesday, July 02, 2014

Torah too R-rated for some Hasidim, so they edited it 

For some Hasidim, the Torah is too hot to handle.

A recently published Bible study guide in use in a Hasidic village in suburban New York omits certain risque passages and entire passages of the Book of Genesis, according to Israeli scholar and blogger David Assaf of Tel Aviv University.

The censored chumash, or Bible, was printed for Beit Tziporah, a girls school in New Square, a village of Skverer Hasidim in New York State’s Rockland County.

For example, the chumash edits out a section at the end of Genesis 19 in which Lot’s two daughters get their father drunk and sleep with him so they can get pregnant. The chumash also omits the entire first two parshas, or Torah portions, of Genesis, cutting out the story of the world’s creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the Tower of Babel, beginning instead at the story of Abraham.

Is this because the first two portions are about non-Jews?

Among other omissions in the chumash: The story of Onan, who spilled his seed rather than impregnate Tamar; Judah’s sexual encounter with his daughter-in-law Tamar disguised as a prostitute; and Potiphar’s wife’s attempted seduction of Joseph.

Meanwhile, other seemingly risque stories are left in, such as the tale of Dina’s rape, Assaf notes.

To be fair, this edition clearly is intended as a study guide, rather than a full account. Each of the verses intentionally leaves one word blank, for the girls to fill in from memory.

I suppose the girls aren’t expected to commit to memory the wholesale passages that have been omitted.

http://www.jta.org/2014/07/02/news-opinion/united-states/torah-too-r-rated-for-some-hasidim-so-they-edited-it-1

Comments:
Whoever does this is doing lots of harm! What guy thinks he knows better than God? It's kosher enough for God, do you think you r on a higher level than him?

 

Wow! I knew things were moving to the right, & I've thought of new chumros that would eventually take effect (it's coming soon so be prepared, No padded toilet seats on Tisha B'Av, & aren't toilets to high to sit on in the 1st place? Maybe that's why when I drove by the Shul in KJ there were a bunch of men squatting behind it Shmefing away). But editing the Torah??? That's one I never thought of. Last I heard, us Frum Jews believe G-d himself wrote & gave the Torah to Moshe. Not Prophecy, Not Divine Inspiration, Not a group of Bedouins in a tent in the desert. But, G-d himself, gave it to Moshe word for word, letter by letter, with Moshe being nothing more then G-d's scribe. It's bad enough to think one could even consider contradicting Moshe, but here we're talking contradicting G-d! & what's next? Now we get to decide which parts of Tanach we do & don't like? I guess Shir Hashirim will be the first to go! & Esther married a Goy rather then kill herself?, surely we can't teach that to our Heilige Yiddishe Maidlach, think what it will lead to? Are there any Trademark Lawyers reading this that know if I can trademark "Reform Orthodox"? All I can say is, may G-d have mercy on the souls of those that think they know better than him! All kidding aside, this is some serious stuff that needs to be nipped in the bud ASAP!

 

Post a Comment

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

Google
Chaptzem! Blog

-