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Thursday, December 24, 2009

Slate tells the world about nittle nacht

From here:
'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, Jews were playing dreidel, being celibate, and tearing toilet paper. Allow me to explain. Please. More
My own previous post on this hysterical subject here

CA Writes:

I have read the summary of the Toledot Yeshu in the Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledot_Yeshu
http://www.essene.com/History&Essenes/toled.htm

(The Toldedot Yeshi is some sort of Jewish anti-Christian polemic of unknown origin, traditionally studied on Nittel Nacht.)

The storyline is kind of interesting. It claims that the conceptions of Jesus (Yeshu) was the result of Mary (Miriam) being raped by Joseph. (Now there's a Christmas story for you.) Also, Mary was betrothed to someone else and a niddah at the time she was raped, so not only is Jesus a mamzer, he's a ben-niddah. This might be worth discussing -- After all, it wasn't Jesus' fault that he was the product of a rape or that his motherwas niddah, so why should that make hom the evil character that he was portrayed in this book? (This has some personal interest to me, becuase I suspect that I am a ben-niddah, as are neasrly all non-Orthodox Jews. Does that mean the frummers think folks like us are evil? Or is this plotline developed just becuase of what Jesus' follwers became?)

Enquiring minds want to know!

Search for more information about Nittle Nacht and Niddah at 4torah.com.

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