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Androgynos
In Jewish tradition, the term ''androgynos'' (אַנְדְּרוֹגִינוֹס in Hebrew, translation "intersex") refers to someone who possesses both male and female sexual characteristics. Due to the ambiguous nature of the individual's sex, Rabbinic literature discusses the gender of the individual and the legal ramifications that result based on potential gender classifications. In traditionally observant Judaism, gender plays a central role in legal obligations. Biological basis During the development of the embryo into a fetus, a specific process occurs that determines the physiological properties of the fetus. In other words, there is a point in time where the fetus exists without male or female genitalia. Eventually, due to the release of hormones in one part of the fetus and the recognition of these hormones in another, the fetus either develops male genitalia or female genitalia. This process occurs roughly a month and a half after conception, and occurs completely s ...
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Gender And Judaism
Gender and Jewish Studies is an emerging subfield at the intersection of Gender studies, Queer studies, and Jewish studies. Gender studies centers on interdisciplinary research on the phenomenon of gender. It focuses on cultural representations of gender and people's lived experience. Similarly, Queer studies focuses on the cultural representations and lived experiences of queer identities to critique hetero-normative values of sex and sexuality. Jewish studies is a field that looks at Jews and Judaism, through such disciplines as history, anthropology, literary studies, linguistics, and sociology. As such, scholars of gender and Jewish studies are considering gender as the basis for understanding historical and contemporary Jewish societies. This field recognizes that much of recorded Jewish history and academic writing is told from the perspective of “the male Jew” and fails to accurately represent the diverse experiences of Jews with non-dominant gender identities. History J ...
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Intersex People And Religion
Intersex people are born with sex characteristics, such as chromosomes, gonads, or genitals that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies". Intersex people were historically termed hermaphrodites, "congenital eunuchs",Mason, H.J., Favorinus’ Disorder: Reifenstein’s Syndrome in Antiquity?, in Janus 66 (1978) 1–13. or even congenitally "frigid". Such terms have fallen out of favor, now considered to be misleading and stigmatizing. Intersex people have been treated in different ways by different religions and cultures, and numerous historical accounts exist. Judaism The Talmud contains extensive discussion concerning the status of two intersex types in Jewish law; namely the ''androginus'', which exhibits both male and female external sexual organs, and the ''tumtum'' which exhibits neither. The nature of the ''androgynous'' is a topic first expanded upon explicitly in the Mishna, where d ...
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Tumtum (Judaism)
Tumtum ( he, טומטום, "hidden") is a term that appears in Jewish Rabbinic literature. It usually refers to a person whose sex is unknown because their genitalia are covered or "hidden" or otherwise unrecognizable. Although they are often grouped together, the tumtum has some halachic ramifications distinct from those of the ''androgynos'' (אנדרוגינוס), who has both male and female genitalia.Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Hagigah, 4a. Although ''tumtum'' does not appear in the Scripture, it does in other literature.Avraham Steinberg. Fred Rosner, translator. "Ambiguous genitalia (tumtum)." ''Encyclopedia of Jewish Medical Ethics.'' Jerusalem, Israel: Feldheim Publishers, 2003. Page 50-53. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Encyclopedia_of_Jewish_Medical_Ethics/aaklGZAID08C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22tumtum%22%20jewish&pg=PA51&printsec=frontcover&bsq=%22tumtum%22%20jewish Reform Rabbi Elliot Kukla writes, "The ''tumtum'' appears 17 times in the Mishna; 23 times in t ...
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Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The people of the Kingdom of Israel and the ethnic and religious group known as the Jewish people that descended from them have been subjected to a number of forced migrations in their history" and Hebrews of historical Israel and Judah. Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion are strongly interrelated, "Historically, the religious and ethnic dimensions of Jewish identity have been closely interwoven. In fact, so closely bound are they, that the traditional Jewish lexicon hardly distinguishes between the two concepts. Jewish religious practice, by definition, was observed exclusively by the Jewish people, and notions of Jewish peoplehood, nation, and community were suffused with faith in the Jewish God, the practice of Jewish (religious) la ...
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Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the centerpiece of Jewish cultural life and was foundational to "all Jewish thought and aspirations", serving also as "the guide for the daily life" of Jews. The term ''Talmud'' normally refers to the collection of writings named specifically the Babylonian Talmud (), although there is also an earlier collection known as the Jerusalem Talmud (). It may also traditionally be called (), a Hebrew abbreviation of , or the "six orders" of the Mishnah. The Talmud has two components: the Mishnah (, 200 CE), a written compendium of the Oral Torah; and the Gemara (, 500 CE), an elucidation of the Mishnah and related Tannaitic writings that often ventures onto other subjects and expounds broadly on the Hebrew Bible. The term "Talmud" may ref ...
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Androgyny
Androgyny is the possession of both masculine and feminine characteristics. Androgyny may be expressed with regard to biological sex, gender identity, or gender expression. When ''androgyny'' refers to mixed biological sex characteristics in humans, it often refers to intersex people, who are born with congenital variations that complicate assigning their sex at birth. In comparison, hermaphroditism is the possession of both male and female reproductive organs. Regarding gender identity, androgynous individuals may identify with non-binary identities. Others may identify as transgender. As a form of gender expression, androgyny has fluctuated in popularity in different cultures and throughout history. Physically, an androgynous appearance may be achieved through personal grooming, fashion, or hormone treatment. Etymology The term derives from grc, ἀνδρόγυνος, from , stem - (''anér, andro-'', meaning man) and (''gunē, gyné'', meaning woman) through the ...
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Tzitz Eliezer
Eliezer Yehuda Waldenberg ( he, הרב אליעזר יהודה וולדנברג; December 10, 1915 – November 21, 2006) was a rabbi, posek, and dayan in Jerusalem. He is known as a leading authority on medicine and Jewish law and referred to as the Tzitz Eliezer after his 21-volume halachic treatise covering a wide breadth of halacha, including Jewish medical ethics, and daily ritual issues from Shabbat to kashrut. Biography Waldenberg was born in Jerusalem in 1915 to Rabbi Yaakov Gedalya who immigrated from Kovno, Lithuania to pre-Mandatory Palestine in the early 1900s. He studied in the Etz Chaim Yeshiva and was a student of the rosh yeshiva, Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer. Waldenberg wrote his first book, ''Dvar Eliezer'', at age 19 in 1934. For many years, Waldenberg served as a community rabbi at a small synagogue on Jaffa Road adjacent to the Shaare Tzedek Hospital. Many doctors prayed at the synagogue and brought their questions to the rabbi. Waldenberg began to answer the ...
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Eliezer Waldenberg
Eliezer Yehuda Waldenberg ( he, הרב אליעזר יהודה וולדנברג; December 10, 1915 – November 21, 2006) was a rabbi, posek, and dayan in Jerusalem. He is known as a leading authority on medicine and Jewish law and referred to as the Tzitz Eliezer after his 21-volume halachic treatise covering a wide breadth of halacha, including Jewish medical ethics, and daily ritual issues from Shabbat to kashrut. Biography Waldenberg was born in Jerusalem in 1915 to Rabbi Yaakov Gedalya who immigrated from Kovno, Lithuania to pre-Mandatory Palestine in the early 1900s. He studied in the Etz Chaim Yeshiva and was a student of the rosh yeshiva, Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer. Waldenberg wrote his first book, ''Dvar Eliezer'', at age 19 in 1934. For many years, Waldenberg served as a community rabbi at a small synagogue on Jaffa Road adjacent to the Shaare Tzedek Hospital. Many doctors prayed at the synagogue and brought their questions to the rabbi. Waldenberg began to answer the ...
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Moishe Sternbuch
Moshe Sternbuch (or Moishe / Moses Shternbuch, he, משה שטרנבוך) is a Haredi rabbi. He serves as the ''Ra'avad'' (Chief) of the Edah HaChareidis, vice-president of the Rabbinical Court in Jerusalem, and the rabbi of the Gra Synagogue in the Har Nof neighbourhood. Early life Moshe Sternbuch was born on 15 February 1926 (24 Shevat) in London, one of 9 children of Osher Sternbuch, an Orthodox Jewish merchant, and Devorah. His parents hosted numerous rabbis who came to London to raise money for their yeshivas, among them Elchonon Wasserman, who after learning with Sternbuch declared that he was a ''davar sheyeish bo mamash'' (a boy of substance). He was tested in learning every Shabbat by Yechezkel Abramsky, who predicted he would one day become a ''moreh hora'ah'' (posek). Before long he was known as the ''Londoner Illui'' (prodigy). Osher died in 1939 at the age of 39, leaving behind his eldest child of 18 years, the 10-year-old Sternbuch, and the youngest only two. In ...
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Halakha
''Halakha'' (; he, הֲלָכָה, ), also transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws which is derived from the written and Oral Torah. Halakha is based on biblical commandments (''mitzvot''), subsequent Talmudic and rabbinic laws, and the customs and traditions which were compiled in the many books such as the ''Shulchan Aruch''. ''Halakha'' is often translated as "Jewish law", although a more literal translation of it might be "the way to behave" or "the way of walking". The word is derived from the root which means "to behave" (also "to go" or "to walk"). ''Halakha'' not only guides religious practices and beliefs, it also guides numerous aspects of day-to-day life. Historically, in the Jewish diaspora, ''halakha'' served many Jewish communities as an enforceable avenue of law – both civil and religious, since no differentiation of them exists in classical Judaism. Since the Jewish Enlightenment (''Haska ...
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Mitzvah
In its primary meaning, the Hebrew word (; he, מִצְוָה, ''mīṣvā'' , plural ''mīṣvōt'' ; "commandment") refers to a commandment commanded by God to be performed as a religious duty. Jewish law () in large part consists of discussion of these commandments. According to religious tradition, there are 613 such commandments. In its secondary meaning, the word ''mitzvah'' refers to a deed performed in order to fulfill such a commandment. As such, the term ''mitzvah'' has also come to express an individual act of human kindness in keeping with the law. The expression includes a sense of heartfelt sentiment beyond mere legal duty, as "you shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18). The opinions of the Talmudic rabbis are divided between those who seek the purpose of the ''mitzvot'' and those who do not question them. The latter argue that if the reason for each ''mitzvah'' could be determined, people might try to achieve what they see as the purpose of th ...
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Posek
In Jewish law, a ''Posek'' ( he, פוסק , pl. ''poskim'', ) is a legal scholar who determines the position of ''halakha'', the Jewish religious laws derived from the written and Oral Torah in cases of Jewish law where previous authorities are inconclusive, or in those situations where no clear ''halakhic'' precedent exists. The decision of a posek is known as a ''psak halakha'' ("ruling of law"; pl. ''piskei halakha'') or simply a "psak". ''Piskei halakha'' are generally recorded in the responsa literature. Orthodox Judaism Poskim play an integral role in Orthodox Judaism. * Generally, each community will regard one of its ''poskim'' as its ''Posek HaDor'' ("Posek of the present Generation"). * Most rely on the rav in their community (in Hasidic communities, sometimes the rebbe) or the leading posek. Poskim will generally not overrule a specific law unless based on an earlier authority: a posek will generally extend a law to new situations but will not ''change'' the H ...
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