Apparently, the pic was real.This is one of the more embarrassing elements of Judaism. According to this article (in Hebrew), the man is a cohen (כֹּהֵן “priest” [a son of Aaron]) who was concerned when it was reported that the flight that he had been moved to would be flying over a cemetery. This is a basic explanation of the situation.
Leviticus 21:11 has the following prohibition for cohanim (כֹּהֲנִים – plural of cohen):
וְעַ֛ל כָּל־נַפְשֹׁ֥ת מֵ֖ת לֹ֣א יָבֹ֑א לְאָבִ֥יו וּלְאִמּ֖וֹ לֹ֥א יִטַּמָּֽא׃Since a cemetery is the place where we bury the dead, it has long been the traditional understanding of this prohibition that a cohen cannot enter a cemetery.
And he shall not approach dead bodies, nor shall he be made unclean for his father or his mother.
The man in the picture above was worried about the fact that the flight path would pass over a cemetery, so he consulted a rabbi. The rabbi told him that if he wrapped himself in a plastic bag, then he would not be contaminated and could pass over the cemetery.
So, tell me... Is the metal casing of the plane not enough to keep out the impurity (טֻמְאָה)? Would he really be “approaching” a dead body by flying over it? Is not the distance enough to keep away the dirty spirits of a dead body – whether that distance is vertical or horizontal? If the dirty germy ghosts attached to a corpse shoot straight up in the air and can penetrate the casing of the plane, why wouldn’t they shoot left or right? And does the cohen think that the walls of the cemetery or the dirt above the body is enough to keep them back?
This level of superstition does nothing but show the basic irrationality of the entire enterprise of religion. The world today is passing this picture around and laughing at the silliness of this man. The fact is, though, that our derision should not be reserved for this. We have so many things that have been accepted as “normal” that should also be objects of our criticism and laughter. Why don’t we laugh when we see people carrying large crosses or falling “in the spirit” or whatever? Why don’t we treat religion as the nonsense that it is?
I was allowed to live in delusion my whole life because no one had the courage to tell me that I was being led around by my nose. Why didn’t someone tell me?! Was there no one out there who was really willing to lead me from A to Z and bring me out of religion? I feel like I missed out on so much.
I saw this in the paper the other day
ReplyDeleteand chuckled. Just how overly stringent
can some people be when it comes to the
Jewish Halacha. There are thousands of
devout orthodox Jews with the Cohen family
name who've never put on a plastic bags over
while flying.
Believing that the impurity of the dead can
be "shot" upwards 30,000ft in the air is rather
ridiculous. The cruising speed of a commercial
airplane would be fast enough as to not consider
this brief proximity to the dead -- however
absurd a notion it may be -- as grounds for
impurity.
I would think the worry that surrounds the situation itself would be more harmful. I've noticed that Halacha has a tendency to take away from the intent of mitzvot which I personally see as assignments that aid in understanding higher concepts. I don't see them as black and white laws.
ReplyDelete@Nathan: Well, I imagine that the flight path would have crossed the cemetery during the climb, not during cruising. That means that it wouldn’t really be at 30,000 ft. but could possibly be at a height of like 500 ft. or something minimal like that. Still, it’s not prohibited for a cohen to walk on the other side of the street (at a distance of some 50 meters or so) from a cemetery, so why would 500 feet (about 150 meters) in the air be any different? I mean, what is the difference between horizontal distance (allowed) and vertical distance (apparently forbidden), between brick wall partitions (allowed) and metal casing partitions (apparently forbidden)? The type of reasoning that led to this plastic bag ruling is just ridiculous.
ReplyDelete@Wunly: I’m really not sure who came up with halachah (הלכה), so I would find it impossible to speak of a “purpose” behind it. If we assume that it was invented by God, then we’re assuming way too much. Early Israelite religion did not encase itself in terms of legal rulings and definitions of what is allowed and what is forbidden. It was much more superstitious even than what is seen in the Talmud (which itself is superstitious by our standards today). It cannot be assumed either that Israelites believed only in one God, as I stated in a previous post. They believed in many gods, but they generally adhered as a group to the idea of Yahweh being their patron deity and the one to whom their allegiance was due. That is, they were monolatrous, not monotheist, in their outlook.
ReplyDeleteMaybe with the age of the internet and the availability of easy access for researching, extreme religious behavior such as what this man is doing will begin fading away with time. Advances made in biblical as well as archeological studies will force those who care about truth to make decisions that they would not otherwise have been able to make, such as learning whether or not their belief is factual or not.
ReplyDeleteUntil the monotheistic religions are taught only as an ancient, historical, and academic study rather than divinely inspired we will not likely move away from this irrational type behavior such as what this man and other religious fanatics display. Although harmless as it is what he is doing, there are centuries of irrational and superstitious Christian behavior rooted in a harmful and violent past along with modern day practices being carried out in the name of Islam by many practicioners who hold to an ideology rooted in what they believe is inspired straight from God.
Science, reason and rational thought with a healthy dose of ridiculing religion just may be what it takes to speed up that process.
@Sheila: I try to share your optimism. I'd like to think that the accessibility of information today is enough to put a stop to irrational behavior. However, it does seem that irrationality just grows as people deny reality and seek to strengthen their faith. Most of the people who have these types of practices (extremely odd practices to the rest of us) live in communities that have been willfully cut off from the rest of the world. They don't have access to the Internet, have איסורים (bans/prohibitions) placed on certain types of reading, and they live in very closed and walled-off communities. I don't know how we can get through to those within those communities who really seek a way out. I've heard that there are movements, but they are certainly not very strong at this point.
ReplyDelete