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".. other content inappropriate for children"

Curiously they do not block web sites of places like http://www.catholic.org/, https://www.churchofengland.org/, http://www.jewfaq.org/index.shtml, http://www.islamreligion.com/ ... all purveyors of ideas that really screw kids up: make them feel guilty of normal feelings, make them do strange things, ... If they insist on a banned list it would be good to see this sort of site added.

The Torah is the Bible. http://www.jewfaq.org/m/torah.... well genesis at least

I bet he doesn't know the answer. Your particular religious convictions on the matter are not well-known.

To the anonymous coward: this is typically a Jewish thing. There's a description here: http://www.jewfaq.org/name.htm. Basically, when you write "God" in some permanent form on something, you aren't supposed to ever let it be defaced or erased, so if you want to write something down that you aren't keeping forever you should use a euphemism like "the lord" or "G-d". Forum posts aren't permanent, but if any slashdot user hits print then it becomes permanent, so they wrote "g*d" to prevent their words from being eventually made permanent and defaced without their knowledge. It's kind of like how some people, particularly older people, in the US want to burn a flag as a sort of ritual purification if it accidentally touches the ground (although the flag thing actually arises from a misunderstanding).

If that's *not* why BrokenSoldier did it, then I'm one more person who didn't "already know the answer".

It's my understanding that for Jews, the 10 Commandments are ten among 613.

http://www.jewfaq.org/10.htm

You must be using "distinguish" to mean "identify exactly" but I'm obviously not -- that should have been clear from my argument about hair color. Nobody said it had to be or could be 100% accurate, and arguing such is simply a straw man argument.

The company that performed the test claimed that they could completely rule out the possibility that the MP had a Jewish ancestor, so no, this is not a "straw man," it is exactly what was claimed in TFA. Your hair color example is equally flawed; unless you are claiming that dark hair is more common among Jews than it is among other populations (which is almost certainly false, since the proportion of dark hair is highest in Asia), it is a poor way to guess whether or not a person is Jewish.

If you want to see how true that is, just do an experiment -- gather a random sample of 1000 Jews and 1000 non-Jews, and record their hair color. If you can show a non-negligible difference in the proportions of hair color observed in Jews and non-Jews, I will be convinced. I have my doubts that you will find such a result, but go ahead and prove me wrong.

Anyway, I've never thought of Ethiopian Jews as part of "the Jews" when thought of as a race, because yeah, they are not really genetically related to the Jewish race

So you basically throw away any counterexamples to your theory that there is a "Jewish race."

Look at this page: http://www.jewfaq.org/judaism.htm#Race

I did, and this is what I saw:

"But setting aside the emotional issues, Jews are clearly not a race. "

"Common ancestry is not required to be a Jew"

yet it also shows that in the 1980s the Supreme Court ruled that Jews are a race

For the purposes of applying an anti-discrimination law. The Supreme Court also ruled that tomatoes are a "vegetable" for legal purposes, even though botanically tomatoes are a fruit. Supreme Court rulings are not definitions of the world, they are just rulings on how the law should be interpreted.

It also gives the example of Nazi Germany classifying Jews as a race.

What a compelling example to point to...

Now.. regardless of how you feel about that, you have to admit that many people recognize the Jewish race

Many people think that the Earth is flat, but their views have just as little merit as the views of people who think that there is a "Jewish race."

The article says there is a genetic test

No, the article says that "many Jews have a common ancestry," a fact that was demonstrated through genetic analysis. That does not mean that there is a test that can demonstrate that someone is or is not Jewish since (a) it says nothing about whether or not other people may share that ancestry with Jews (all human beings share at least some common ancestry) and (b) it leaves room for a large number of Jews who do not share a common ancestry with other Jews. At best, you could use those markers to say, "This person shares a common ancestry with some Jews," which is a very weak statement.

that identifies at least part of that traditional Jewish race

You have yet to say what exactly the "Jewish race" even is. It seems to have nothing to do with a person's physical appearance, it seems to be loosely connected to genetics, and it seems to have no practical significance. Judaism itself was not started by some particular tribe, it was a collection of regional practices that coalesced several thousand years ago, likely due to the dictates of an ancient Israeli king. It would be somewhat interesting to see if this hypothetical "Jewish race" is nothing more than a subset of a broader "middle eastern race," that includes Muslims and Christians (and other, smaller religious movements) fr

Prove it. How will you distinguish Jews from non-Jews, other than by religion and culture?

You must be using "distinguish" to mean "identify exactly" but I'm obviously not -- that should have been clear from my argument about hair color. Nobody said it had to be or could be 100% accurate, and arguing such is simply a straw man argument.

Analogy -- pregnancy. By your logic, pregnancy has no biological basis because pregnant women can't be picked from a lineup with 100% success. Does that make sense? No. I don't know about you, but given a random sample of women, my performance in picking the pregnant women would be better than a random selection, therefore I feel comfortable saying yes, there is a visual difference in pregnant women, and therefore, yes, it has a real biological basis.

My only point was that some physical features that have a genetic basis distinguish Jews from the general population, so your aside of "hint: not at all" or whatever was in fact wrong. A visual assessment would not be 100% accurate. I admit that.

Except that the Ethiopian Jews' genetics were closer to the general population Ethiopia than to any other Jewish population. So much for using genetics to test whether or not someone is Jewish.

What about how close Ethiopian Jews' genetics are to each other relative to the general Ethiopian population?

Anyway, I've never thought of Ethiopian Jews as part of "the Jews" when thought of as a race, because yeah, they are not really genetically related to the Jewish race. I would be surprised if there weren't such thing as the "Ethiopian Jewish race" though, because if the Ethiopian Jews were as insular as other Jews, there is simply bound to be some genetic distinction among them.

Look at this page: http://www.jewfaq.org/judaism.htm#Race

It echoes your argument that you can't become black, but blacks can become Jewish. And yet it also shows that in the 1980s the Supreme Court ruled that Jews are a race. It also gives the example of Nazi Germany classifying Jews as a race.

Now.. regardless of how you feel about that, you have to admit that many people recognize the Jewish race in addition to the Jewish religion. The article says there is a genetic test -- not 100% accurate -- that identifies at least part of that traditional Jewish race. I don't see why you have a problem with that. Is it because you feel like the test might exclude you? Yeah, it might. So what? You will still be Jewish, just not necessarily part of the Jewish race as defined by the test.

Can you please tell me who does believe that?

The big three monotheistic religions all believe in an invisible man in the sky. You're not the first person to raise objections to that description of the entity also known as God/Jehovah/Yahweh/Allah, but it is an accurate one nevertheless.

You clearly are either:

1) trolling 2) completely ignorant of the beliefs of monotheistic religions.

For example the word "invisible" is meaningless when applied to God, who is incorporeal, as is "in the sky". Man is also not applicable, unless you can reasonably define a being who exists outside time and space, is sexless (except for Christians, and then specifically only to one person of the trinity when incarnate), etc.

Opps! It looks like every single word of your description is wrong. How is that accurate?

Assuming you are ignorant, rather than trolling, I suggest you either desist from making comments about things you do not understand, or you take the trouble to learn about the subject. I suggest reading this, this, this, and this. They are all IMO simplistic or flawed, and it is much better explained in books than anything I can find online.

Judaism does not interpret the written Torah (what you call the Old Testament) literally. Instead, one uses the oral Torah (oral tradition passed down through the generations) to interpret it. Wikipedia explains this in greater detail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_Torah

The main point is that some passages, such as "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" are not meant to be interpreted literally. Also, more importantly, it is nearly impossible to carry out a death sentence in Judaism because you have to:

1) Have two unbiased witnesses that saw a person do something wrong
2) Went up to him and warned him what he is doing is wrong
3) He acknowledged he is aware what he is doing is wrong and acknowledge he is aware of the consequences
4) The witnesses report this to the Sanhedrin (Supreme Court) and if the person is found guilty, the witnesses must be the ones to carry out the sentence -- this made most witnesses reluctant to report.
5) Rabbinic attitudes concerning the death penalty are also reflected in statements such as "a Sanhedrin that effects an execution once in seven years is branded a destructive tribunal." Rabbi Elizer Ben Azariah said "once in seventy years." Source: http://www.tikkun.org/rabbi_lerner/Death%20Penalty

I could go on. In short, Judaism does not take the attitude you mentioned above.

My understanding is that the main problem of Islam is their attitude towards people of differing religions. Specifically, Jews don't go out of their way to convert non-Jews to their faith nor do they hold non-Jews in some form of disdain. They don't believe that non-Jews go to hell or that they are immoral in any way. Jews believe that they have been assigned extra responsibilities above and beyond other religions -- so Jews are supposed to follow the 613 laws whereas non-Jews are supposed to follow only a subset of those laws (7 to be exact). This is discussed in more detail here: http://www.jewfaq.org/gentiles.htm

It is my understanding that Muslims who convert away from the faith (even to securalism) are sentences to death. I find that kind of problematic. It is also my experience that Muslims do not believe the Koran is open to interpretation, and this rigid mentality leads to some problematic results. It's fine and good so long as everyone holds a moderate interpretation of the Koran, but radical Islamists are going around preaching their violent interpretation instead and telling their followers that anyone who interprets it differently is committing Blasphemy and must be killed.

Islam is a very young religion in the grand scheme of things so maybe it just needs to be given time to mature. Hopefully one day it will be more accepting of "the other" and put this conflict to rest. Until that day (which could be thousands of years away) we're going to need to take more proactive measures to defend ourselves. Islam's "silent majority" is either unwilling or unable to crack down on its extremists.

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Update 14 April 2004

• Let us all take a moment to ponder the meaning of "Jew", and perhaps peruse the Jew FAQ. It's for a good cause, after all.
• Rereading this page today made me realize that my offhand comment about the Santa Cruz Operation in Reason #9 was weirdly prescient. Note that this remark dates at least to Nov. 1 2000, from the very first version of this page that archive.org possesses (Actually I'm pretty sure I made this page in Feb. 2000, but archive.org didn't spider it till later.)

Update 28 Oct 2001:

• 3000+ hits this week due to BBSpot.com listing.
• As several visitors noticed, We're Number 1.

Update 20 May 2001: 14,000+ hits last week, due to memepool and the inevitable fan-out effect. Notes:

• Thanks to all who wrote with positive comments (surprisingly, not one flame!). Unfortunately I'm really busy with end-of-quarter work right now (hey, work is the whole reason I quit Slashdot), so I can't reply/link to everyone. But, best wishes, and I hope quitting Slashdot brings the same benefits to your life that it has to mine.
• Weblogs reveal that this page has been submitted to Slashdot several times. Please do not do this. I have no desire to get a firestorm of screeching Slashdotter mail in my inbox. I have real work to do.
• Does anyone else suspect that the death of Eazel may have been partly due to employees reading Slashdot instead of coding? Save open source now! Quit Slashdot today!

Update 15 May 2001: Moving up! This page is now number 4 on Google searches for the phrase "Jon Katz idiot". Additionally, memepool.com has decided to link here as a public service. Welcome memepool readers! Pro-/. flames will be piped to /dev/null. Also, please note this e-mail, edited to deter spam-bots; (hey, they've got a sense o

Sounds to me like ....

Aliens built it, told the people how to make them.

Either they slowly forgot how to build them well, or the tools used to build them gradually broke down.

Thats why the first generation was the best and they got worse as time went on till they completely gave up because all their
alien tools broke down or ran out of power source (darn nuclear batteries)

And I bet the Egyptian govt knows this and 100% blows the religeons out of the water, and yes that means all , Islam to Christianity to Judaism, all alien based from the kabbalah http://www.jewfaq.org/kabbalah.htm

lol.. No it goes from the V or something similar. The uasage of w is commonly VV or a accented v. In the strange linguistic model, it really boils down to this, w is two v that make something that sounded different so some languages so they add a the VV to distinguish form the V sound that was expected when pronouncing the word correctly needed a W.

Are you new to the internet or something? This thing made it's rounds several time in the past. I think sometime around 95 or so is when I first heard of it. It has changed several times from it getting discounted and then I though the reference to I mean God doesnt own a computer geez ,,every good christians knows that, machines are evil was a play on this joke.

BTW, WWW doesn't equal 666 because the numbers when presented together get added similar roman numerals do so www or vvv should be 18 or so which according to Hebrew jews is the value of life or something.

Here are a few links to the disclaiming of it . I just thought everyone on the net has been exposed to this and this was a joke about god and computers are evil was playing on it.

Yes, Mohammed took very young girls as wives

He's only alleged to have taken one young girl as a wife.

Why doesn't this make him a pedophile? Why is it hateful to suggest it? Line up any other big figure in politics or religion and show him or her having sex with a 12-year old and tell me they wouldn't be judged a pedophile.

Surely you'd rather compare an event of 1400 years ago with the cultural norms of that period? Let's try Jewish Law (which is still in effect, by the way).

Now ask the question: why do we forbid this judgement because a person was the founder of a religion? Why should he be immune from common sense?

I don't know about forbidding judgement, but I do know it makes no sense to judge his actions of almost 1500 years ago with today's norms (ignoring for the fact that the age of consent is 13 in Spain/Japan/other places).

Quite eloquent...

How about using facts, references or links? As we can see far too much harm has come from people speaking up without actually considering the history or factual data behind what they are saying...

to quote http://www.jewfaq.org/torah.htm

To Jews, there is no "Old Testament." The books that Christians call the New Testament are not part of Jewish scripture. The so-called Old Testament is known to us as Written Torah or the Tanakh.

The site goes on to relate the hebrew writings to the christian texts:

This is a list of the books of Written Torah, in the order in which they appear in Jewish translations, with the Hebrew name of the book, a translation of the Hebrew name (where it is not the same as the English name), and English names of the books (where it is not the same as the Hebrew name). The Hebrew names of the first five books are derived from the first few words of the book. The text of each book is more or less the same in Jewish translations as what you see in Christian bibles, although there are some occasional, slight differences in the numbering of verses and there are a few significant differences in the translations.

The site includes the list. Check it out, and know something about what you post before you do so.

Sorry, but you're mistaken. Jews don't write out or say G-d's titles outside of a prayer (or religious teaching) context. Take a look http://www.jewfaq.org/name.htm

Ah, you're right. I concede this point. But note that it is not because because of the commandment, but rather because the Name might be defaced or erased later.

Because of not wanting to promote false gods! It's not a matter of fear. It's just like Mac people not wanting to promote Windows.

Just as writing "Windows sucks" doesn't promote Windows, writing the name of a false god does not promote that god if the context makes it clear that you believe the god to be false.

Sorry, but you're mistaken. Jews don't write out or say G-d's titles outside of a prayer (or religious teaching) context. Take a look http://www.jewfaq.org/name.htm

Finally, why shouldn't non-Christians refer to the Name of a God they don't believe in? They need something to call Him, and if they don't believe in Him, they have no reason to fear using His name, in vain or otherwise.

Because of not wanting to promote false gods! It's not a matter of fear. It's just like Mac people not wanting to promote Windows.

And this from other belief systems differs... how?

1. Your claim of the jewish stereotype of victimization was refuted, and you can only latch onto me not included the Jewish homeland defn of Zion, which is moronic because if you knew anything about Jews you would know that.

2. You do not prove your extraordinary claim that the majority of Jews are racist, latching onto some false defn of goy.
The real defn is here, and here, and webster.com disagrees with the dictionary.com defn
webster.com goy nation sometimes disparaging
dictionary.com goy Used as a disparaging term for one who is not a Jew.
Since the two Jewish sites and webster.com disagree with dictionary.com, I'd say dictionary.com is wrong.

Since you then go own to claim that Jews were the first to practice genocide, and you do not have the reading comprehension skills to understand that the sentance "I must conclude that you were either trolling, or a moronic "activist" whining about the plight of the Palestinians or Mumia Abu-Jamal" never mentions you whining about the Palestinians or Mumia Abu-Jamal, only putting you in the same class, my points stand, and my conclusions are now competely proven

Judaism does not claim that. From JewFAQ:

Judaism maintains that the righteous of all nations have a place in the world to come. This has been the majority rule since the days of the Talmud. Judaism generally recognizes that Christians and Moslems worship the same G-d that we do and those who follow the tenets of their religions can be considered righteous in the eyes of G-d.

Contrary to popular belief, Judaism does not maintain that Jews are better than other people. Although we refer to ourselves as G-d's chosen people, we do not believe that G-d chose the Jews because of any inherent superiority. According to the Talmud (Avodah Zarah 2b), G-d offered the Torah to all the nations of the earth, and the Jews were the only ones who accepted it. The story goes on to say that the Jews were offered the Torah last, and accepted it only because G-d held a mountain over their heads! (In Ex. 19:17, the words generally translated as "at the foot of the mountain" literally mean "underneath the mountain"!) Another traditional story suggests that G-d chose the Jewish nation because they were the lowliest of nations, and their success would be attributed to G-d's might rather than their own ability. Clearly, these are not the ideas of a people who think they are better than other nations.

Because of our acceptance of Torah, Jews have a special status in the eyes of G-d, but we lose that special status when we abandon Torah. Furthermore, the blessings that we received from G-d by accepting the Torah come with a high price: Jews have a greater responsibility than non-Jews. While non-Jews are only obligated to obey the seven commandments given to Noah, Jews are responsible for fulfilling the 613 mitzvot in the Torah, thus G-d will punish Jews for doing things that would not be a sin for non-Jews.

There was a big tempest in a teapot about the fact that if you google Jew, the first thing you get is jewwatch.com.

People tried to get "Jew" and similar things to rank higher (and push JewWatch off the first page of search results. This worked for a while (JewWatch.com was down when the googlebot swept through), but JewWatch is back on top and things like Who is a Jew have fallen behind.

(1) Bush may have speech impediments, but so did Enoch and Moses. If you take the time to listen to Bush's message and see what he things and he feels, you'd be surprised at how absolutely brilliant he is.

Are you out of your mind? "Brilliant"? BRILLIANT? Have you ever actually listened to Bush? Speech "impediment" (if by "impediment" you don't mean it in the traditional sense-- ie, slurring, stuttering, lisping, etc.) aside, the man speaks only in soundbytes-- he says the same pre-cooked phrases over and over. He does not respond directly to challenging questions. He does not provide thoughtful answers. He is smug. There is no clarity of thought and he does not demonstrate any depth or familiarity with issues. He repeats the same surface slogans again and again and again. GENIUS? Are you mad?

According to biblical tradition,

One traditional story tells that when he was a child, sitting on Pharaoh's knee, Moses took the crown off of Pharaoh's head and put it on. The court magicians took this as a bad sign and demanded that he be tested: they put a brazier full of gold and a brazier full of hot coals before him to see which he would take. If Moses took the gold, he would have to be killed. An angel guided Moses's hand to the coal, and he put it into his mouth, leaving him with a life-long speech impediment (Ex. 4:10).

Unlike Moses, Bush wore his gold crown on his head and a silver spoon in his mouth from the day he was born and hasn't yet taken it off. Look at the demeaning way he talks to people. I've literally seen him wipe his hands on other people's clothing. He's a prick.

Instead, you focus on his speech impediment and you can't get into his message.

He's a terrible speaker, we agree. But he also represent shallow self-serving, hypocritical, elitist, and compassionateless ideas.

To criticize Bush's critics for poking fun at his "speech impediment" is a serious underestimation of how and why he's going to lose this election, God willing.

(2) Sure, let Ashcroft speak. Maybe he can teach you a thing or two about real justice, how to end the racial divide and the cultural divide in America, how we can really change the tide of the sickening plague of divorce and marital problems and hopefully encourage people to get and stay married for the right reasons. I believe Ashcroft is one of the great visionaries on the cultural / religious debates. He is redefining what it means to be a religious, yet tolerant and just, public official.

Sometimes it's not worth responding to the insane, but because there's a chance impressionable children are reading, I guess I'll indulge you.

Explain to me-- where's the real justice in arresting and holding American citizens without trial or even representation for years? Where's the end of the cultural divide when innocent, loyal, and patriotic immigrants to this country are arrested and deported without any kind of due process? How has the "plague of divorce" been stemmed when Republican mouthpeice FOX promotes show after show that view exploiting marriage as entertainment, when at the same time Bush wants to amend our sacred Constitution so that two people who have love each other for years can't get married?

Where is the Republican outcry about the sanctity of marriage when Bush supporters get married on a whim in Las Vegas for the hell of it and then get annulled hours later?

You have no idea what the Republican party stands for, because you get all your information second-hand. We stand for racial equality.

Yeah right. While fighting affirmitive action. While fighting a living minimum wage so that people can raise their families. Who do you think you're fooling? If Republicans were concerned about racial

The really weird thing is, the Februrary issue of Analog has a story called "Distance" by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff which deals with exactly this subject: an unexpected, unsolicited message from Pioneer 10. And the story must have been written at least six months ago, right?

Coincidence ...? You decide.

(Sorry, but since it's in the February (print) issue, it's not up on the web site yet. Go buy a copy and say Kaddish for a tree.)

About that, see What should be the Response to Violence? .

A quote:

"The money donated by the U.S. government to Israel is like fuel thrown on a fire. The amount is said to total about $5.25 billion per year, when all amounts are considered. This is an enormous amount of money to a prosperous country of well-educated people. The population of Israel is about 5.8 million people (1996), so Israel receives from the U.S. government an astounding $905 per year for every man, woman and child who lives there. (In the entire world, there are only about 14,000,000 Jews.)"

Actually both, the Torah (Bible), and the theory of evolution are both true.

According to the Kabbalah and the teachings of Chassidut
the theory of Evolution (Earth's age is Billions of years)
and
Bible / World was created 6000 years ago
are true.

G-d created the world 6000 years ago (actually 5,753 years to be exact, see a Hebrew Calendar) and made it appear as if it existed 16+billion years ago.

Simple explanation: Creation is such a supernatural phenomenon, to create something from nothing (as opposed to humans who can only create something from something, like create a table from wood, a fire from existing brimstone, a computer from existing metal and silicon parts, etc)- it is not beyond the creator to create something with a past, to create the world 5,753 years ago and make it appear to (or really) have existed 16+billion years ago. So when G-d created the world 5,753 years ago, G-d created the world, and science, to (appear to have) existed billions of years ago.

Further explanation: Lets suppose today is the first week of creation. You are Adam, the first man, and you look around at the beautiful world. You walk to a nearby field and pick up a rock, and examine it.
You ask yourself "Has this rock existed for only 6 days?"
According to the Bible, the world was created only 6 days ago, so yes, it only existed for 6 days.
But then ask the rock, how long have you existed?
And the rock would conteplate for a moment, and then say "well, i've been here today, i've been here yesterday, and the day before, and the week before, and last year" ad infinitum.

And the truth is, the rock is right, as well as Adam is right.
According to Adam (and the Torah [= bible]), the world was created 6 days before.
According to the rock's best knowledge, he was always here, at least thats what the rock feels.
Because there is no _Scientific_ reason why the rock would not have existed billions of years before.

That is because G-d, with creation, created everything including the laws of science, and according to science, there is no reason why that rock would not have existed the day before, and the day before that too ad infinitum.

However, one must always realize and remember that science is also a creation from G-d, and when the Torah states (and is often repeated in Kabballah:) "God looked in the Torah and created the World, one must remember that Torah is the reality, and science is only as real as the Torah has set forth for it.

You can and should rightfully believe that the world existed 16+billion years ago, because in a way it is true, G-d made it so that one would draw a scientific conclusion that the world existed 16+billion years ago.

But when speaking of such a wonderous thing such as creation, the act of creating something from nothing, one cannot suppose that with our limited intelligence we can grasp the concept of creation from nothing and decide that it must have been 16+billion years ago in order to appear to actually have been created billions of years ago.

According to Judaism, Torah dictates reality.
But the Torah states that according to non-jews, science dictates their reality, therefore it is not wrong for non-jews to believe that the world began to exist 16+billion years.

-Ari Feinstein

May the year 5763 be a happy and healthy year for all the Jews,
and for that little bit of Jew in each and every one of us!

May the year 5763 be a happy and healthy year for all the Jews,
and for that little bit of Jew in each and every one of us!

May the year 5763 be a happy and healthy year for all the Jews,
and for that little bit of Jew in each and every one of us!

May the year 5763 be a happy and healthy year for all the Jews,
and the little bit of Jew in each and every one of us!

Here's an answer from jewfaq.org.

In short, Orthodox Jews can not print the name of God on paper (actually, they can, but then they are forbidden from destroying or defacing that paper). Recent decisions from whoever it is decides these things state that writing on a computer is not considered permanent (so, for example, you could type "GOD" on a computer and backspace over it), but observant Jews like to write "G-D" even so, because it's possible that someone else will print out the page/message and deface or destroy it

However, there are numerous situations where making fire can be considered play.

Not by orthodox jews. "Work" is probably a poor translation into English of what is forbidden on the Sabbath. For example, a Rabbi and his staff are permitted to do their jobs on the Sabbath (it is their job). Likewise, there are several leisure activities which are forbidden. So the distinction isn't "fun vs. not fun" or "making money vs. not making money". Even if you like playiung video games or want to watch the hockey game, you can't.

"Doing Work" really means "using technology" or "doing creative things" or "transporting large objects outdoors", etc.

Note that I'm not Jewish either, but for 2 1/2 years I rented a basement apartment from an Orthodox Jewish family and learned a lot about the religion at that time.

An excellent read is Judaism 101

Since Jewish people don't work a lot of them work as normal or go and eat Chinese Food because the Chinese don't celebrate Christmas either. For more information on the Jewish faith in general and what Jewish people do during Christmas go here Hope this helps. Merry Christmas and remember the people that don't celebrate Christmas are people just like you and should be treated with kind tolerance.

Well I definitly don't value something only by the money in generates. But the Talmud does devides the levels of charity into a list and the Rambam ordered them from lowest to hightest, at the top of his list he puts those acts which enable another to become self reliant. For more info see this Page

That being said not everyone is cut out to start or run a business. And in a business even if you do everything right it is still posible to fail.

• Aish HaTora
  
• Chabad of Cyber Space
  
• Being Jewish
  
• Jewdism 101
  
• Young Israel
  
• A Chasidic FAQ Site, Rooster 613
  

Well as a brief summary on Shabbos you are forbiden to do "work" which is defined as one of the 39 catagories of acts required to build the Temple. Writing and lighting fires are amoung them, as are by extention turning electric lights on and off as well as using a computer.

For a more detailed explanation see this page:
Jewdism 101, Shabbat page

Shabbos and Shabbat are different pronunsations of the same word.