Q&A with After Dinner Conversations

I recently did an interview with After Dinner Conversation Magazine - the awesome publication that published a few of my short stories! If you're interested, please check it out!

i think that when god made stealing a mortal sin he didn’t know that walmart would ever exist

I’m absolutely not a rabbi, but I’ve been thinking a lot about this, actually, and what stealing might mean to gd. and I know this post is probably a joke but like I said. been thinking about it a lot.

So what a lot of people may not know is that the Torah is mostly like. a farming manual. A day-to-day life guide for 6,000 years ago. And so it has instructions for harvesting, of course. But it says specifically that you shouldn’t reap all the way to the edge of your field, and that you should leave that for the poor. It also says that you shouldn’t take the fallen grapes from your vineyard, and to leave that also for the poor. And a lot more little things like that.

So why is it encouraged? Why doesn’t it count as stealing for the poor to take the food you grew?

I think that gd’s definition of stealing would, in this case, punish you if you did take the fallen food from your fields, because you’d be taking it from the mouths and bellies of people who clearly desperately need it. It’s not the poor who are stealing, because they are simply trying to survive. I think gd wants us to remember, in our harvests, in our successes, that we have a duty to give what we can to those who need it, and if we don’t, that’s stealing from our fellow human.

In other words, pouring bleach on edible food thrown in dumpsters is stealing, and a mortal sin.

From the Talmud

Pirkei Avos (Ethics/Chapters of the Fathers) 2:16 

(via arubasmusings)

That last bit –

Lo Alecha haM’lacha Ligmor, veLo Atah Ben-Chorin leHivatel Memenah / לֹא עָלֶיךָ הַמְּלָאכָה לִגְמוֹר, וְלֹא אַתָּה בֶן חוֹרִין לִבָּטֵל מִמֶּנָּה / It is not your duty to complete the task, but nor it is your freedom to withdraw from it

– is something which is not shared nearly enough, something which is not repeated nearly enough, something with is not SHOUTED FROM THE FREAKING ROOFTOPS nearly enough.

(via thetransintransgenic)

I think if I had to describe Jewish ethics, I would start with this quote.

(via martianaviator)

mmmm that’s good theology

(via elodieunderglass)