Dear All, Saturday through Sunday evenings -- right after the Sabbat/Shabbat -- is a fast day for Jews.  On that day on the Jewish calendar (the 9th of the month of Av), both the First Temple & the Second were destroyed.  Babylonians destroyed th First Temple in the year 586 BCE (before the Common Era), & the Romans destoryed the Second in the year 70 AD.  Tradition ascribes the making of the Golden Calf idol by the Israelites in the Wilderness (40 years' wandering after being freed from Egyptian slavery) to the same day.

The holy day is a fast day, different from Yom Kippur only in that work is permissable.  (The synagogue services are much shorter, too.) 

If you have any questions, i'm all ears!

Because of this holiday, I will not be on the Forum on Sunday (or on Shabbat, as usual).

Shalom, Deb. Don't know how Tisha B'Av got here so quickly...wasn't Pesach yesterday? ;)

 Since you're not on on Shabbat, is it a safe guess that you're shabbat shomer? 

Dear Hofmama, Shalom!

And it will be High Holy Days before we turn around ....

I'm a Conservative Jew, & I'm Shomer Shabbos within those guidelines.  However, due to my disability, I have home health care aides daily (who happen to all be from the Phillipines, & are lovely Roman Catholic women), so they are able to cook for me or run errands if need be.  I walk home from shul/synagogue, & when I get an early start, I walk there as well.  (Conservative Jews can ride to synagogue.  I have "taxi scrip.")  Franz Rosensweig, writing about the turn of the 20th Century, answered all these kinds of questions with, "Not Yet."   ('Not yet, but I'm working on it' is the meaning.)

L'hitarot ("until we meet again"), Yours in Him, Deb

Dear Deb,

 I don't follow all of the threads, but do your scriptures not allow to cook on shabbat. I live in the northern part of Holland and in a town nearby a lot of Jewish people lived before WW ll, but I do not know a lot of their way of living. As I saw somewhere else on the forum your lastname seems Dutch of German to me, so I am curious, if you don't mind.

Love Dutch Treat

Dear Dutch Treat, Thanks for your good question.

Jews don't turn flames on or off on Shabbat.  SO, warming trays of one sort or another are used.  We also don't turn on/off electricity like lightbulbs.  As I mentioned before, as a practical matter, none of htis impacts my life, as my aides take care of all of this for me, & it is considered that if a non-Jew does these things for a Jew, there is no problem.  The Bible prohibits "work" on the Sabbath.  The Rabbis who lived at around the time of Jesus, who wrote commentary, explained all the things that constittue "work," & to this day Rabbi's make rulings as new technologies arise.  Yours in Him, Deb

I love the diversity of Judaism...we're very Reform, but in my conversion studies, I understood that the Rabbis prohibited all things that were done to construct The Temple on Shabbat...although maybe that was how they were defining "work." Despite being a lawyer, I was much more taken with the Pirke and other ethical works over the Talmud. (I married a secular Israeli, and am in the process of converting, although the more traditional branches of Judaism, like the Conservatives, wouldn't consider me a convert).  But it shall be interesting to get to know your perspective and share thoughts with you, Deb!

Also, Dutch Treat, my beloved Father-in-Law is Dutch...hubby was born in Alphen aan de Rijn :) 

Shalom v'amen,

Darra 

Dear Hofmama Darra, Have your rabbi help you to look into the character-building tradition of Mussar.  I love it, & I'll bet from what you saythat you will, too.  Before my brain injury, I was a lawyer, & I studied Jewish law as a law school class (UC Berkeley).  I love Jewish law AND understand that teh ethical laws are part & parcel of the whole religion.  But it takes all kinds to make a world, so I accept your disagreement.  For Heaven's sake, disagreement  is part of what this Forum is for!  Yours in Him, Deb

Thanks, Deb, I will definitely look into that. I don't in anyway claim to have an extensive knowledge, just enough to know that I want to know more! :)