Myers-Briggs is too broad. Astrology is bunk. The only valid way of discretely sorting all people is into the houses of Harry Potter’s alma mater: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, or Slytherin. And who hasn’t tried to sort not only all of their real-life acquaintances, but also fictional and/or literary characters outside of the Harry Potter franchise? So, why not folks from Jewish religious lore?

Here are some Biblical male characters, and you can read Part 2 about the women here. To keep us from going totally overboard, we’ll limit it to the Torah for now, and get to the rest of the Bible another time. (Update: Another time has occurred. Men. Women.)

Here we go:

Noah had to organize his family to spend ages working on a structure to God’s exact specifications, and to gather two of each animal. He had to stay laser-focused as the world around raced towards destruction. He had to employ lots of Ravenclaw skills there.

Abraham is a bit more complicated, even if you ignore Midrash and go strictly with stories that appear in the Torah. Here you have a man who can at times be cautious, or not protect those he loves (like when he pretends Sarah’s not his wife, or almost sacrifices his son). But, ultimately, Abraham is a man of clear vision and purpose, who sticks it through tough times because of a balance of a strong sense of self and, ultimately, a strong moral compass.

It’s a tough call, and maybe you can make an argument for Slytherin, but 1) Abraham’s argument with God on behalf of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah and 2) His bold actions led purely by blind faith make him a Gryffindor.

Isaac is the patriarch who seems the least proactive, but that’s not why he’s a Hufflepuff. He’s a simple man whose main concern is his family (playing favorites notwithstanding). He’s kind, trusting, dedicated to his father’s legacy and, well, nice. Which is more than you can say about a lot of men in the Bible.

Jacob is such a Slytherin. We could sit here coming up with examples all day: Getting Esau’s birthright, his personal and professional dealings with Laban, how even his bold move of wrestling with an angel ends with him using his upper-hand as negotiating leverage. For good or for bad, there’s only one house for him.

Joseph always managed to rise to the top based on his own wits and the relationships to powerful men around him, from his father to the Pharaoh. Sometimes this meant alienating those around him and getting into trouble, but he always got out again. The kid’s obviously a Slytherin.

Moses is the big one! It’s tempting to just stick him into Gryffindor because he radiates “protagonist,” and he does belong there, but it’s more complex than that. He goes through a lot (down to fear of public speaking) to gain the courage to become the leader he was destined to be. But he also shows early signs of boldness and, frankly, disregarding of consequences due to his passion for justice. Killing the Egyptian taskmaster, even though it eventually means exile? Such a Gryffindor thing to do.

Even once he was leader of the people, Moses often lost his temper, and was shockingly outspoken to both the masses and God despite his position also being highly political. Between his occasional lapses in judgment based on his temper coupled with a strong sense of right-and-wrong and his overcoming his fears Neville-Longbottom-style, yes. Moshe Rabbeinu is a Gryff.

Aaron was also a leader of the people, but not as brash as his brother. As the High Priest, he was focused on ritual, on organization, on logistics. Aaron had to be a stickler for detail (failure in this regard cost two of his sons their lives).

No doubt about it; the man’s a Ravenclaw.

Joshua is also pretty clear cut. Even before he was Moses’s successor, Joshua makes a name for himself in the Torah by being the vocal minority among the spies. He had some of the same qualities as Moses, most importantly, a strong sense of right and wrong.

Plus, it’s post-Torah, but tearing down walls? Quintessential Gryffindor.

Think that we’re wrong about any of these? WANT TO HAVE A FIGHT? Tweet us your own arguments.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the Biblical ladies!

Source Images for this SPECTACULAR Photoshop job via Vimeo, Pottermore, and EBay

The post Sorting Biblical Characters in Hogwarts Houses (Part 1) appeared first on Jewcy.

This is episode 26.3 of OMGWTFBIBLE, featuring David Tuchman and Michael Schreiber—the last OMGWTFBIBLE in the U.S. for 2014. This time around, God responds to the Israelites’ “whining” by throwing food at them. As gods do. And we learned that Marx totally plagiarized the whole “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” schtick from the Torah.

Also, in this final piece of episode 26, David finally responds to all those religious guests who refuse to say God’s name. And Michael lets David know what he really thinks about the show. Listen to it all here!

David Tuchman translated the Tanakh as a comedy and called it OMGWTFBIBLE. Each month on his podcast, he calls up a different guest to read as many chapters of OMGWTFBIBLE as they can while they both make fun of it.

Jewcy is the proud (internet) co-host of OMGWTFBIBLE. Read more about the project here, and listen to previous episodes here.

Check back here in a week for the next installment of OMGWTFBIBLE. The next live show will be recorded at the Limmud conference in England in late December, but David will be hosting an open mic in New York before he departs for the U.K.! Bring your most horrible holiday stories to Beauty Bar on December 22 at 7:30 PM and share them with the world!

(Image: The Big Lebowski.)

The post OMGWTFBIBLE: A Great Jewish Tradition Begins—Kvetching About Food appeared first on Jewcy.

Here it is! The massive, water-filled set piece! One of the last action scenes in the Bible for a very long time! God murdering so many people! It’s all in episode 26.2 of OMGWTFBIBLE, featuring David Tuchman and Michael Schreiber.

This is the big event God’s been prepping for for centuries. It all goes down this week. But more importantly, Michael and David explore a problem with the casting of Christian Bale as Moses that hasn’t come up elsewhere. What’s the problem? Who would they cast? Listen to it all here!

David Tuchman translated the Tanakh as a comedy and called it OMGWTFBIBLE. Each month on his podcast, he calls up a different guest to read as many chapters of OMGWTFBIBLE as they can while they both make fun of it.

Jewcy is the proud (internet) co-host of OMGWTFBIBLE. Read more about the project here, and listen to previous episodes here.

Check back here in a week for the next installment of OMGWTFBIBLE. The next live show will be recorded at the Limmud conference in England in late December, but David will be hosting an open mic in New York before he departs for the U.K.! Bring your most horrible holiday stories to Beauty Bar on December 22 at 7:30 PM and share them with the world!

(Image: Christian Bale as Moses in Exodus: Gods and Kings, duh)

The post OMGWTFBIBLE: High Drama on the Reed Sea appeared first on Jewcy.

Have you ever set a plan in motion and slowly watched the pieces move into place? Did that plan involve pretty much murdering a country’s entire army in cold blood? If so, you’re just like Yehovah in episode 26.1 of OMGWTFBIBLE, preparing the Reed Sea (A.K.A. the Red Sea) for his planned drowning of the Egyptians.

This episode, host David Tuchman is joined by ad exec and Modern Orthodox Jew Michael Schreiber to read “Beshalach,” the fourth portion in the book of Exodus. The Reed Sea is about to split in two, and Michael has a lot to say about the forces that are dividing the Jewish community. Listen to it all here!

David Tuchman translated the Tanakh as a comedy and called it OMGWTFBIBLE. Each month on his podcast, he calls up a different guest to read as many chapters of OMGWTFBIBLE as they can while they both make fun of it.

Jewcy is the proud (internet) co-host of OMGWTFBIBLE. Read more about the project here, and listen to previous episodes here.

Check back here in a week for the next installment of OMGWTFBIBLE. The next live show will be recorded at the Limmud conference in England in late December, but David will be hosting an open mic in New York before he departs for the U.K.! Bring your most horrible holiday stories to Beauty Bar on December 22 at 7:30 PM and share them with the world!

(Image: Moses splitting the Reed/Red Sea in The Ten Commandments)

The post OMGWTFBIBLE: God Plans to Obliterate Egypt’s Entire Army in Cold Blood appeared first on Jewcy.

Upon hearing the biblical casting news out of Hollywood this summer that Russell Crowe was cast as the title character in Darren Aronofsky’s epic film Noah, I immediately thought that Crowe was a great choice. His skill set and experience—both in B.C. and A.D.—qualify him to build the ark on the big screen. However, after seeing a picture of Crowe in character, I started to question whether he was the right choice visually.

I’m skeptical because Aronofsky’s vision of Noah doesn’t really match with my vision of Noah, shaped over years of hearing and reading the story of the biblical ark builder. The first images of Crowe in character reveal a middle-aged Noah: a man of thick stock who’s a bit muscular and rugged, with a beard that’s not quite biblical length. (I define biblical length as a very long beard. I know that’s vague, but it makes sense to me.) My vision of Noah is a much older man, lean with a long white flowing beard, dressed in a white tunic or a cloak-like outfit (I think it may have been more of a brown color when I was younger.)

In Aronofsky’s defense, it’s possible that as the film progresses, Crowe ages and develops into the Noah I’ve always imagined. Another possibility is that my vision is just that: my own conception of a biblical figure. Better yet, maybe Aronofsky’s characterization will ultimately change how I picture Noah. But for now, something just seems off.

If Aronofsky and I have such a major difference in our visions of Noah, what does it say about the personalization of Biblical figures on a wider scale? What roles do our Jewish upbringings and imaginations, as well as outside forces, have in developing and influencing these images? My biblical visuals are rooted in a combination of Hebrew School lessons, d’var Torah passages, and good old-fashioned daydreaming. I remember being a kid listening to the stories told from the bimah and the front of the Hebrew School classroom. As the details of the story were read aloud, I would begin to visualize everything: I would picture the people, in varying degrees of detail, and the settings.

I distinctly remember envisioning Abraham when I was younger. I remember picturing him breaking his father’s idols as a skinny, average-height boy. Older Abraham has the ultimate biblical beard, though I’m not sure whether it’s salt-and-peppered or completely white. I think I usually give him a white beard, but I can’t remember for sure. He wears long tribal garb, and as of press time I still can’t picture his face. He’s more of a figure seen from behind or the side.

When it comes to Moses, there’s no need for imagination. Hollywood gave me Moses in the form of Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments. There is no other Moses. When I hear the name Moses, I see Heston. His face, beard, build, garb, even his voice are as they should be. But are they as they should be because I have fully accepted and internalized director Cecil B. DeMille’s image of Moses? Or is there a chance that his vision supports a preexisting notion of Moses in my head? It’s so ingrained in my consciousness at this point that I can’t know for sure.

Since Hollywood has clearly had a profound impact on my conception of Moses, I wonder if Aronofsky’s blockbuster will have a similar effect with Noah. Will this Hollywood depiction reinforce aspects of my Noah or completely replace him? Moses was offered to me when I was young–DeMille’s film, released in 1956, had already become a classic by the time I was born—but I’ve had twenty-plus years of picturing some form of a Noah without any big screen influence. If anything, Hollywood only confirmed that vision with Steve Carrell’s Noah-esque character in 2007’s less-than-stellar Evan Almighty.

I’ll have to wait until Noah is released in 2014 to see if Aronofsky can replace my vision of this particular biblical figure. Perhaps when I see Crowe, staff in hand, leading the animals two by two into the ark, everything will change. There’s a chance that Crowe could even become my Noah. But I’m pretty sure that Crowe won’t ever be my Noah the way Heston is my Moses.

The post Can Russell Crowe do for Noah what Charlton Heston did for Moses? appeared first on Jewcy.

Rosh Hashanah is over, and it’s time to start acting on your new year’s resolutions. Although you might have decided to stop smoking under the heady influence of too much honey and/or red wine, the time has come to put down your final cigarette, throw out the pack, and start afresh. Of course, as we all know, this is easier said than done. How will you survive the next few weeks? My suggestion: Since every second you are not smoking will feel like a thousand years anyhow, why not look back through the ages for some Jewish motivation? Below are some reasons to quit smoking that draw on our Jewish heritage.

1. Feel close to the suffering of your forefathers. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are all about feeling the sting of sacrifice; as you sit in a semi-catatonic state and contemplate which of your fingers would be most painful to gnaw off (and therefore most distracting from the nicotine cravings), imagine what our forefather Isaac must have felt, about to be sacrificed like a goat. Then imagine you are the goat. See? Life could be worse!

2. Finally be able to sit through a holiday meal. At long last, you will be able to sit from gefilte fish to rugelach, without taking a suspiciously long “bathroom break” in the middle of an interminable holiday meal. However, even quitting smoking does not guarantee that you will be able to sit through another one of your Uncle Morris’ tirades on politics without feeling restless and irritable.

3. Save money. Yes, this plays into a lot of Jewish stereotypes, but our wandering people have certainly required fiscal responsibility to ensure that they would get through the tough times (and there have been a lot of tough times). Protect your wallet like a true member of the Chosen People. Plus, the money you save on cigarettes can buy a lot of kosher pizza and prayer books and things!

4. One less thing to make Yom Kippur torturous. ‘Nuff said.

5. You will no longer smell. Throughout Jewish history, anti-Semites have claimed that Jews smell; one Medieval writer even cautioned that you can “identify the Jew by his reek of garlic,” according to the Wikipedia page on anti-Semitism. While stopping smoking will have no effect on your garlic consumption (and in fact might increase it due to the compensatory munchies), you will no longer make strangers’ noses wrinkle up on the subway, or announce your entrance with an overwhelming stench of smoke.

6. Things will become slightly less awkward with your relatives. At family shivas, for example, your aunts and uncles will no longer glare at you and mutter, “You’ll be next if you keep smoking!” Your mother will stop worrying about your habit, although she will probably find other things to worry about (have you considered announcing your intent to stop smoking at your wedding? Oh, you’re not getting married this year? Why not?)

7. You will suddenly have new reasons to pray. Informal, meditative prayers are a great way to get through the ordeal of quitting smoking; plus, your interior monologue will already sound pretty close to the Book of Job at this point anyhow (“Dear God, help me get through this day without murdering anyone in cold blood.”) (“Dear God, was nicotine another one of your cruel jokes, like this pounding headache?”). When your prayers become indistinguishable from kvetching, rest assured that this is also a Jewish art, one that it definitely serves your interests to perfect. If you are considering joining a minyan to help break up your suddenly smoke-free days, remember to brush up on your pronunciation; it is “shema,” not “shemarlboro,” Yisrael; likewise, “camelluyah” is not the opening to any of the psukei d’zimra.

8. Food will taste and smell better. The Jewish culinary tradition is as vast and wide-ranging as our peripatetic history. Blast your newly sensitive taste buds with some Teimani jachnun or kibbeh, or stick close to Eastern European comfort food like cholent, and the ubiquitous chicken soup. Bonuses of cholent: if you eat enough of it, you will still be emitting clouds of gas like you did when you smoked!

9. Increase your lung capacity. While this is a general health benefit, it will also increase your ability to do all kinds of Jewish things, like blowing shofar (it’s well known that heavy smokers can produce only like three seconds of a tekiah gedola, which hardly counts) and, later on in the year, saying the names of all the sons of Haman in one breath.

10. Better your odds of living to 120. 120 is the age Moses lived to according to the Bible, and “may you live to 120” has been a traditional Jewish blessing ever since. While it’s a long shot for any of us, stopping smoking will certainly increase your chances of arriving at this august milestone; plus, you will live longer in general, and don’t you want to live long enough to spoil/guilt/annoy/smother/dandle/embarrass/tell stories to your many bouncing Jewish grandchildren?

(Image via Shutterstock)

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Everything’s Coming Up Moses is a musical retelling of the Jews’ flight from Egypt as seen through the larger-than-life journey of Moses, the original pushy stage mother. Through an irresistible blend of theatrical razzle-dazzle, old fashioned show biz moxie and soon-to-be classic show tune spoofs, Moses tirelessly shepherds the Children of Israel to the Promised Land—whether they like it or not.

The show is Wednesday, April 4 at 7:30 p.m. You can buy tickets here. As they say, “Lift the staff! Part the sea! We got nothin’ to do but be free!“

The post Everything’s Coming Up Moses! appeared first on Jewcy.

At the first planning meeting for a new project examining Jewish leaders in their twenties and thirties, Shaul Kelner, himself a young-ish  sociologist, threw down the gauntlet: “Maybe we ought to study older leaders to find out why they are so worried about Jewish youth. What might explain the hand-wringing of the baby-boomers?”Shaul, of course, had a point:  it had become a commonplace to bemoan “helicopter” parents who continually hover over their college-aged children.  Perhaps, a study of younger Jews would merely perpetuate an irrational anxiety.

Nonetheless, the project to study younger Jewish leaders proceeded. Some of the impetus for the research did come from worries. Like quite a few earlier generations, today’s older leaders are concerned about their successors. Are enough younger people sufficiently dedicated to Jewish life to invest themselves in professional and volunteer work in behalf of Jewish causes? And will those who choose to get involved be up to the job?

Our research was primarily motivated, though, by sheer curiosity about three big questions: How do younger leaders think about Jewish issues? What have been the formative experiences shaping these leaders? And where do they seem to be leading their followers?

These are not hysterical questions, but rather stem from a number of new realties.  Just before we launched the project, Robert Wuthnow, one of the leading sociologists of religious life in America, had published his study, After the Boomers: How Twenty and Thirty-Somethings are Reshaping American Religion. Wuthnow argued that large numbers of college grads defer the large questions of career and family formation until they are well into their thirties, with the result that when they make life-course decisions, they do so without benefitting from strong connections with their parental home and house of worship. The social settings that in the past had helped shape decisions no longer have nearly the same influence.

As ever larger numbers of younger Jews live their twenties and part of their thirties as odyssey years, they too are disengaged from Jewish institutional life, with many not setting foot in a synagogue from the time of their Bar/Bat Mitzvah to well into their late thirties or early forties. This reality renders the panoply of start-ups, initiatives and programs created by and for Jews in their twenties and thirties all the more important. Our project wanted to learn where younger Jews do connect with some form of organized Jewish life and who the leaders are who develop programs for their peers.

It is also no secret that major shifts in technology and communication are reshaping how younger Jews find means to connect.  Organizations no longer require a large infrastructure and budget to engage younger people. This has opened up new opportunities for start-ups operating on modest budgets. It also has created opportunities for creative people to rise rapidly by sheer dint of their smarts and energy.  Conventional Jewish institutions have been slow to come to grips with the fact that their expectations no longer work for younger people: Why bother with the laborious process of moving up step-by-step in a large bureaucracy like a Federation when start-ups offer fast track opportunities? Our project wanted to understand how younger Jews are adapting to the new realities.

The extent to which a generational divide is opening has also preoccupied us. Is it true, we wondered, that Jews in their twenties and thirties share a fairly uniform set of views on Jewish issues? And is a rift opening in the community between younger and older leaders on core questions of Jewish policy?

Once our research commenced, it became dramatically evident that younger leaders are not a monolithic  population. In fact, a great many of them move easily between long-established institutions and recent start-ups. Some, in fact, play leadership roles in both types of organizations. One of the founders of E-3, a social and cultural program in Denver, which reaches hundreds of young people, also happens to hold a professional leadership position in the local federation. A woman in Chicago who founded Club 1948, an Israel-oriented cultural start-up, also works for the American Zionist Movement. In some localities, to be sure, lines between mainstream and non-conventional organizations are quite rigid, but in others there is open collaboration, so that social events will be co-sponsored by a range of organizations whose leaders fan out to recruit attendees sympathetic with their own particular cause.

This suggests that attitudes toward establishment institutions vary greatly. True, significant percentages of younger leaders express distant and critical views of the mainstream organizations and synagogues. But other younger people work for these institutions, often trying to reshape them as more hospitable places for their peers.  The more honest non-establishment leaders will also concede that they depend heavily on financial support from organizations and foundations run by older leaders.

Nor is it true that younger leaders share the same perspectives on Jewish issues. Israeli policies toward the Palestinians are perhaps the most contentious question–so contentious, in fact, that some groups explicitly shy away from discussions about those policies, lest the event implode. But that does not mean younger Jews do not enjoy programs about other aspects of Israeli life, such as its cinema, foods, and environmentally-conscious efforts.

It is also evident that social position is an important variable when considering the attitudes of younger leaders: non-establishment leaders in their twenties do not hold the same views as their thirty-something counterparts, and young leaders who work in the not-for-profit sectors tend to think differently from their peers who work as lawyers and business people.  Rather than think about the entire mass of younger Jewish leaders, the project scrutinized trends within sub-populations.  How do younger leaders working in establishment organizations differ from those in non-establishment groups? Where are the fault lines? And which leaders are most influential?

On this last question, the six members of the research team draw different conclusions.  Some regard the non-establishment types as the leading edge. Everyone wants to know where they are headed, which suggests that they are the most influential. Others, and I am party to this perspective, see far more interplay between younger leaders who are involved in establishment and non-establishment organizations, with reciprocal influences and changing family and economic circumstances likely to modify views.

Over the coming weeks, readers of Jewcy will have the opportunity to examine first-hand some of the rich findings of this project and the range of perspectives it has generated among the research team.  An article at this site by Ari Y. Kelman, of UC Davis, will argue that based on a new map of Jewish sites on the internet, the time has come to reconsider the nature of Jewish community.  A second article by Sylvia Barack Fishman of Brandeis University looks at how younger Jewish leaders think about family formation. Like much else about this project, both are likely to provoke strong responses.

Jack Wertheimer, a professor at JTS, directed the project on Young Jewish Leaders under the auspices of the Avi Chai Foundation.  His Jewcy dialogue with Joey Kurtzman on “The End of the Jewish People” can be found here. His report, Generation of Change: How Leaders in their Twenties and Thirties are Reshaping American Jewish Life, is available here.

The post Why Study Young Jewish Leaders? An Introduction. appeared first on Jewcy.