finally posting my full contribution to the CARTOON PUNK zine i organized with @gchoule and @mortalityplays! it’s about growing up Jewish and not realizing it was A Thing until young adulthood. i hope u guys enjoy!
so exodus says that aaron stretched out his hand over the waters and the frog came up and covered the land of egypt and while english translators usually render “frog” as “frogs,” today at shul the rabbi challenged us to consider whether it could in fact have been one giant frog so we spent literally forty-five minutes arguing about whether there were swarms of frogs from the beginning or rather a single monstrous godzilla frog that split into multiple frogs once people started trying to destroy it and the congregation got so worked up that even after we’d sung aleinu and were heading out of the sanctuary people were still excitedly debating the moral implications of one frog versus many so what i’m trying to say is @judaism never change
I’d never heard of this before, so I looked it up.
The reason we’re certain it says “frogs” singular rather than just being an irregular noun (which was my first thought, especially since my dad was just lecturing me a few weeks ago on how Biblical Hebrew plurals aren’t nearly as regular as Modern Hebrew plurals because Modern Hebrew is more or less a conlang) is because in the first part of the passage God commands Aaron to call forth frogs, plural, but then the passage ends with Aaron calling forth frog, singular. So both forms are right there, they both exist.
The authority is considered to be Rashi (an 11th century French rabbi). He gives two explanations. 1) That a giant frog was called forth that covered all of the land of Egypt, and whenever the Egyptians struck it, it split into multiple frogs. 2) In some languages, some animals have both a regular plural form and a plural that’s the same as the singular (e.g. “fish” in English), so maybe that was the case for frogs in Biblical Hebrew.
The counter-argument to (2) is that the regular plural was used in the very same passage, which is why we need both explanations.
Rashi apparently gets this argument from the following Midrash (Biblical quotation in all-caps, Midrash in regular text)
AND THE FROG(S) CAME UP, AND COVERED THE
LAND OF EGYPT. Rabbi Akiva said: It was only one frog, but this bred so
rapidly that it filled the land of Egypt. Rabbi Elazar Ben Azariah said
to him: ‘Akiva! What business have you with Haggadah? Leave homiletical
interpretations and turn to Neg’aim and Ohalot! Indeed, there was one
frog at first, but it croaked to the others and they came.’
The upshot of all of these interpretations is Aaron summoned one frog, but God provided many.
[I got so into reading about this I forgot I had water boiling on the stove, and it all boiled off and I didn’t notice until I smelled the pan burning. I feel like this might be one of the most Jewish moments of my life.]
I love that this is basically the equivalent of the “would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck” debate.
Love the idea that Aaron was told to summon a plague of frogs but he either 1) accidentally summoned a single frog instead due to mishearing or misspeaking or better yet 2) thought to himself, you know what would be really great though, is just one GIANT FROG PIÑATA
Trans-inclusive language in religious texts is SO IMPORTANT. There is nothing in some young people’s lives that can either validate or dehumanize them so quickly as how they see themselves represented in the words of their religion.
I feel like the reason there aren’t any ‘Jewish hero fights the Fair Folk’ stories is because we’d easily get out of that situation.
Like, put Hershel of Ostropol in any situation involving the Fair Folk and bro would talk his way out.
This is why I’m not really scared of paranormal beasties. But yes, I’d enjoy reading this happen.
Names have power? Give them your secular name and not your Hebrew one.
If you eat their food you’re trapped? It’s not kosher anyways.
They speak in riddles? What, and you didn’t grow up answering a question with a question?
Confuse the Fair Folk with impossible halachic questions: if a man falls off a roof and onto a woman and as a result she becomes pregnant, is he obligated to marry her and is the child a mamzer? If meat is grown in a laboratory from a mix of various animal cells is it kosher, and is it even meat, and what bracha would you even say on it? Is a unicorn permitted to cleanse a poisoned stream on Shabbat using the innate purifying powers of its horn or does it count as work? Can it be justified as pikuach nefesh? Can necromancy be justified as pikuach nefesh, if one approaches necromancy with the understanding that it is just delayed medical assistance?
And if all else fails, you can always get out a fleischig pan, kick ass and take names, and don’t forget to say the blessing for fucking someone’s day up:
THINGS THEY WON’T SHOW YOU ON THE NEWS Because media likes to pit people against each other, enraging people, make people look bad and make more money for themselves.
Because GOD FORBID, Muslims, Arabs and especially Palestinians be showed in positive light.
When my cat lays down in loaf position, is she leavened or unleavened? Is my cat kosher for Passover?
Last I checked, cats contain no wheat, barley, rye, oats, or spelt. Neither does it contain anise, ascorbic acid, aspartame, beans, black eye peas, buckwheat, canola (rapeseed) oil, caraway, cardamom, carob, citric acid, chickpeas, coriander, corn (maize) and corn products, cottonseed, cumin, dextrose, erythrobic acid, fennel, fenugreek, flaxseed and flaxseed products, hemp, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, kasha, kimmel, lecithin, lentils, licorice, locust bean gum, lucerne, lupine, malto-dextrins, millet, MSG, mustard, peas, peanuts, polysorbates, poppy seeds, rice, safflower, saffron, sesame seeds, snow peas, sodium citrate, sodium erythorbate, sorbitol, soybeans and soy products, string beans, sunflower seeds, teff, vetch, vetching, wild rice, or xanthan gum, so they should be 100% okay no matter what.
Might check the cat food to be sure.
Whooo boy did this post inadvertently throw me down a rabbit hole.
As a non-Jew, I got curious how pet food works with Passover. If you’re also a non-Jew who’s interested, I learned the following:
Only humans have to follow kosher rules. Pets *explicitly* can eat non-kosher foods.
Feeding one’s pet is considered an activity from which one benefits, and thus pet foods used by Jewish pet owners must follow some restrictions. For example, a Jewish pet owner cannot deliberately feed their pet a cheeseburger, but there’s no problem (religiously, at least!) if that pet ate a cheeseburger that had fallen on the sidewalk or if a non-Jewish person fed that pet some of a cheeseburger without seeking permission from the pet’s owner.
It is not permitted to eat, own, or derive benefit from chametz during Passover, so pets should not eat foods that contain chametz unless they are so inedible-looking and -smelling no human would ever consider eating it (the example I saw was some fish foods, but apparently not all fish foods).
For Ashkenazi people, it is not permitted to eat kitniyot during Passover, but it is permitted to own and gain benefit from it, so pets can be fed foods that contain kitniyot.
There is a kosher-for-Passover dog and cat food line which has been verified to contain no chametz (some do contain kitniyot, but again, kitniyot is completely fine to own and to feed to one’s pets, just not to eat oneself if one is Ashkenazi).
I was kinda curious what would happen if you had a pet that would only eat a chametz-containing food. The only answer I found–sell the pet and its food to a trusted friend who will care for the pet and hopefully let you buy the pet back after Passover–
seemed to be somewhat sarcastic in its delivery, so I don’t know.
Erm. My cat is on prescription kibble and I consider not feeding the prescription kibble to be harming the animal, AND since he’s semi feral sending him to live with someone else is also harming him. So I feed him the kibble.
You can call me insufficiently observant if you like. I’m okay with that.
(Also I’m vegetarian so his prescription kibble DOES look unappetizing. I can’t speak to whether anyone else wants to eat it.)
Paging @lauraantoniou and @anauthorandherservicedog–I think the sell your pet and buy it back thing is legit? That is, it’s a ritualized way of putting your pet in someone else’s care temporarily and then getting them back that was done by some Jewish people in some places at some times.
I’m pretty sure that you “sell” your pet the same way you “sell” any chametz still in your possession—by giving your Rabbi a power of attorney to sell it for you. There’s a handy mail blast that goes out about the chametz; I’m basically too slackerly to discuss my pets with him.
Also, see above.
Yeah, if I were in your position re: a pet, I wouldn’t want to hand it off to someone else, either.
As a Jewish kid whose education was heavy on “the rules” but never went into the reasons behind the rules, this was INCREDIBLY traumatic to discover. “What? We have to SELL THE DOG?” I mean sure, I was like eight and didn’t particularly *like* the dog, but seriously WTF WAS THIS NONSENSE?
And yep. We had to “sell” the dog to the temple, and then we’d “buy” the dog back after Passover. The dog never left the house and he kept eating the same food, but we had to go through what seemed, to my child’s mind, like a REALLY shady deal to loophole our way around the rules.
FYI this is literally from an episode where Lois and Clark fight actual Nazis. That little punk was a NAZI working undercover at The Daily Planet.
This was like 1995.
Not that it should be in question at all but Superman and his wife fucking hate Nazis. They hate them. If you are a Nazi sympathizer, Superman hates you.
superman was created by two jewish men. like i feel that’s an important thing missing from this post. there’s a lot of analysis out there that showcases superman exploring judaic themes. nazi newspapers denounced superman and his creators.
jack kirby and joe simon (captain america), bob kane (batman), stan lee (god, how do you boil him down to one iconic creation?), joe schuster and jerry siegel (superman), will eisner (the spirit) — all were jewish.
and like i’ll delete this comment if i’m swerving out of my lane as someone who isn’t jewish, but i feel like it’s important to note that mainstream comics were created by jewish people and that “superman hates nazis” is not something to say without giving historical context. superman isn’t just some nazi-fighting ally fantasy from people who probably wouldn’t actually call out antisemitism — let alone fight it — but who want to look like they’re actually doing something with empty threats; superman is, by existing and thriving, actively fighting antisemetic ideas and white supremacy. he is one of the most important pop culture characters in the world and his origins are judaic, and i think it’s a great disservice to not inform people about this so they don’t get to think they’re equal to superman when they reblog a post saying “punch nazis” but never bother to actually do or say anything when they’re confronted with white supremacy and antisemitism and the influences of both in their lives.
i don’t want to talk over jewish people, so i’ll totally delete this comment if it seems like i am. but i just wanted to take a moment to rant because i love comics and i see people excluding the origins of this industry and its creators so often in the community.
wupacing 