Orthodox Judaism

While reading The Ladies Auxiliary it occurred to me that although I know a good bit about Orthodox Judaism the vocabulary escapes me. ( I know that this is true for those outside of my faith as well.) Judaism has it's own words and phrases to describe EVERYTHING.

I thought that it might be helpful to read up on Orthodox Judaism. I even found information on the Memphis community that Tova Mirvis uses as her setting for this book.

As I read the book I kept running to the internet to look for definitions or images to better understand the things that are being described. Everything from places to feasts could be new or not fully understood so I am going to attempt to place some information here in an effort to allow us to be able to discuss this book with more understanding.

Definitions & Images: (Just click the word as I have hyperlinked them to sites explaining them.)

MIKVAH

Modern Mikvah

Ancient Mikvah

JEWISH FEASTS

Purim (it's like Jewish Mardi Gras, who knew)

Sukkot (the tent is called a Sukkah)

(image taken from http://coejlblog.blog.com/tag/jewish-life/)

SHEITEL

HERE is an interesting blog post about the topic of married women covering their hair from a Jewish woman.

If I have missed anything PLEASE leave a comment so that we can all learn and be more aware of this interesting sector of our society.

Finally, in case you don't watch the Hallmark Hall of Fame movies there was one that you may want to check out after reading this. Loving Leah may give you an even better perspective of what it means to be a modern Orthodox Jew.