r/JewsOfConscience • u/AutoModerator • Jul 17 '24

AAJ "Ask A Jew" Wednesday

It's everyone's favorite day of the week, "Ask A (Anti-Zionist) Jew" Wednesday! Ask whatever you want to know, within the sub rules, notably that this is not a debate sub and do not import drama from other subreddits. That aside, have fun! We love to dialogue with our non-Jewish siblings.

21 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

108 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/thesistodo Palestine supporter Jul 17 '24

Hi, I've come across the following excerpt:

"Rava says: If one bound another and he died of starvation, he is exempt from execution, as it was not his action that caused the death of the victim."

and I think that starvation is being used as a mass weapon of war in Gaza precisely because of interpretations such as this one. My question is if anyone can put this quote into context and give the relevance of the ruling today. How are these rulings viewed today in mainstream Judaism?

8

u/ApplesauceFuckface Ashkenazi Jul 17 '24

mainstream Judaism?

I don't know that this is really a thing. You might be able to talk about mainstream Jewish ideas, beliefs, myths or something, to describe things that are held in some way by a majority of Jewish people, but even then I'm not sure.

Having said that, aside from Orthodox Jews, very few of the Jewish people I've known have given the slightest thought to Talmud. If you picked a Jewish person at random they probably wouldn't be able to tell you the difference between Mishna and Gemara.