A gentile asked where to buy a sefer

GramaNewYork

Mon, Apr 14 2008, 1:55 pm

A born-again gentile colleague of mine asked where she could buy Psalms in Hebrew w/English translation. I am so sorry to say that I told her the name of the bookstore. I didn't want to, I wanted to say "will you use it to try to missionize Jews?" but I just couldn't say what I wanted to say. I feel terrible. I doubt that the people in the bookstore will be able to say "we don't sell holy books to gentiles". Yeah, right. Maybe in Williamsburg or Meah Shearim.

NotInNJMommy

Mon, Apr 14 2008, 2:02 pm

...some people have really well tuned Jew-dar.

And, even though I do not, during my brief stint in a judaica store, I always knew the born agains almost right away...

GramaNewYork

Mon, Apr 14 2008, 2:10 pm

About 15 years ago when Soviet Jewish emigration was at a high point in the U.S. I attended an on-going shiur in which a born-again also attended. I didn't know he was a gentile until many months later. The rabbeim who gave the class (on a rotating basis) did know that he was a born-again gentile and they didn't say anything to him even though he was carrying around books on learning Russian (any question why he attends Jewish classes and wants to learn Russian?). Of course I'm not judging the rabbeim one way or the other but it is annoying that we are teaching them stuff so they can arm themselves against our people.

chaylizi

Mon, Apr 14 2008, 2:13 pm

marina wrote:

Why shouldn't gentiles say tehillim?

let's turn it around. why should they? especially if there might be a chance they might use their knowledge to missionize. There was a huge full page ad in the NYT several weeks ago- about how we love jews & think past religious persecution is terrible. Then came the good part. After all that is said and done, all the jews still have to convert or our "messiah" can't return. The ad was signed by a whole bunch of evangelical churches, ministers, etc...

chaylizi

Mon, Apr 14 2008, 2:28 pm

so let them do it in english. It was tragedy when the torah was translated. Giving it to them in hebrew is just ammunition against yidden who don't know better. Missionizing is a huge business. But don't feel bad you showed it to this person, they could have walked into any judaica store to find it.

marina

Mon, Apr 14 2008, 4:35 pm

I'm still not understanding. I am in stupid mode today, please excuse. Do you think the only way the gentiles have to get hebrew books is through sefarim shops? You can get it at Target or even full text online Do you think that knowing the Hebrew of a possuk is going to make any difference in missionizing? How?

chaylizi

Mon, Apr 14 2008, 4:41 pm

b/c to ignorant or searching jews they look knowledgable & this has caused many problems and lost neshamos. we could disagree on this point all day, but it doesn't change the fact that there are full time organizations working to combat these people who prey on inzere. yes they probably can get them on amazon, just like I could get a koran there in arabic if I so desired. but obviously this person didn't know that or she wouldn't have asked.

Zus

Mon, Apr 14 2008, 4:58 pm

I have nothing at all against gentiles praying/reciting psalms in hebrew. If that's the only thing they do with it.
But some (not all!!) missionizing xtian individuals (ab)use certain prakim in tehillim to 'prove' Yoshke's authenticity. And if one doesn't know any better, this 'proof' can be *very* convincing.

Ruchel

Mon, Apr 14 2008, 5:05 pm

Zus wrote:

ditto to all

greenfire

Mon, Apr 14 2008, 7:21 pm

you would be totally wrong if you think that there are not faithful christians and others who pray with the psalms of david ... aka tehillim ... we are looking for the world to be a better place where we all pray to god - why would you abhor that ?!?!?!

chaylizi

Mon, Apr 14 2008, 7:32 pm

if some of them didn't use it as ammunition- we wouldn't mind at all. but it is very offensive when they go and learn it in hebrew to trip up people. otherwise we really couldn't care less.

mimivan

Mon, Apr 14 2008, 10:25 pm

greenfire wrote:

but as someone mentioned before...they have their English version..they don't need to use Hebrew..

chaylizi

Mon, Apr 14 2008, 10:32 pm

greenfire wrote:

perhaps they feel it's holier ... I know of people who think it's a blessing to have a mezuzah on their door ...

there's great tourist trade in car mezuzos too.

BeershevaBubby

Tue, Apr 15 2008, 1:14 am

chaylizi wrote:

if some of them didn't use it as ammunition- we wouldn't mind at all. but it is very offensive when they go and learn it in hebrew to trip up people. otherwise we really couldn't care less.

So basically you're penalizing the vast majority because of a few fanatics?

NatureiKartaBurkaRebbetzinMehadrinBuses I can go on...

GramaNewYork

Tue, Apr 15 2008, 9:39 am

My best friend is a practicing xtian. She is a mainstream spiritual person and is not "born again". She hates the concept of missionizing. She loves the concept of her relationship with Gd. If she was to learn Hebrew so that she could read The Bible in the original, for example, that wouldn't bother me at all.

Personally, it happened to me a few times that born-agains with whom I worked kept on asking me loads of Jewish questions including Hebrew translations and finally came out and tried to "save" me. In one case it was my boss and in another case it was a coworker. I work with a born again now but I set her straight preemptively because I didn't want to go through that again. Thankfully she got the message and we are "friends". I just use the quotation marks because we are work friends rather than true friends.

I don't think anyone is condeming every gentile who wants to learn Hebrew. But I feel that I have a right to be suspicious when a born again wants to learn Hebrew.

BeershevaBubby

Tue, Apr 15 2008, 9:42 am

GramaNewYork wrote:

I don't think anyone is condeming every gentile who wants to learn Hebrew. But I feel that I have a right to be suspicious when a born again wants to learn Hebrew.

Because they want to be able to pray or recite Psalms in the original language (and not Latin)?