Synagogue

Religion is like opera — it loses something in translation.

Today, we went to the Liberal minyan at our synagogue while our son was in a kid’s session.  One of the verses of the Torah portion provided that if a man “seduces” a virgin, he must still pay the bride price to her father as if they were married.   Ok, in ancient times, a “virgin” — likely, a young girl — would not be in the company of a man unless coerced, because girls were not free to come and go unattended.

So, the girl gets hurt and the father is made whole.  Grrrreat.  There is one Hasidic interpretation that says this passage means that ideas are like virgins and must be put into action or something like that.  Ok, I suppose the rabbi who wrote that interpretation meant that only good ideas should be put into action and not bad ideas like men seducing virgins.

Like I said, it sounded fine when it was being chanted in Hebrew.  The translation, however, made my head hurt.