Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

GDB2222

LydiaJ wrote: »

Thank you. If I may continue with my curiosity...
Among Jews who are sufficiently observant not to cook on Shabbat (is that just Hasidim or other Orthodox too?) what happens if a feast day falls on Shabbat?

I don't think that happens. The festival just starts immediately after the sabbath. However, in any case, you can still have a festival and abide by the sabbath rules.

Not just Hasidim.

Hope you get completely better soon.

LydiaJ

GDB2222 wrote: »

I don't think that happens. The festival just starts immediately after the sabbath. However, in any case, you can still have a festival and abide by the sabbath rules.

Not just Hasidim.

Hope you get completely better soon.

Thank you. I find it very interesting - and lovely to have NP to explain it to me.

ivyleaf

I'm a Christian, but several years ago I was on an OU module where one of the other students was Jewish. When I wished her a Happy Chanukah, she explained that she was "a truly secular Jew" and didn't bother about Chanukah now her children were grown up.

I suppose I had assumed that secular Jews would still "do Chanukah" in the same way that most people who are only nominally Christian nevertheless observe Christmas, albeit as a "family time" rather than as a religious festival.

As LydiaJ says, it's really interesting

LydiaJ You poor love, I hope you're all better in plenty of time for Christmas and that the children don't get it <blows a kiss from a safe distance>

Maggie So sorry you didn't get better news! I really think these "mandatory reconsiderations" are a complete waste of time :mad: I saw on the B & W website that DWP are proposing some changes so that people waiting for an appeal to be heard can keep their Motability car in the meantime (though obviously that's no help to you at present). and also suggesting that perhaps there might be a way to change things so that people on standard rate may be able to access the Motability scheme, though I can't imagine how.

PasturesNew

Well, I'm now the "proud owner" of a brand new fence, that's double-posted and (finally) actually reaches the end of the plot (it used to be loose/flap ... and at the other end of the garden it replaces a grotty/tatty ancient fence.

Trying to guesstimate, I'd say this is about 60' long.

All for free.

WIN!

silvercar

LydiaJ wrote: »

Thank you. If I may continue with my curiosity...
Among Jews who are sufficiently observant not to cook on Shabbat (is that just Hasidim or other Orthodox too?) what happens if a feast day falls on Shabbat?

Time switches on ovens, hot plates to keep things warm are the norm among orthodox jews who keep the rule about not cooking and not directly turning on electricity on Shabbat. Particularly in winter. That way you still enjoy hot food all day.

All festivals start at nightfall, so for a festival that starts Saturday night, you would cook after Shabbat ends (at night fall).

We traditionally light candles at nightfall each night of chanukah. So to avoid breaking Shabbat rules, you light Friday night's candle early and Saturday night late.

CKhalvashi

LydiaJ wrote: »

Christmas is always on 25th December - so at the same point on Earth's orbit round the Sun, regardless of the day of the week or phase of the moon.

Can I just add to that, in the Orthodox calendar, it isn't.

Christmas is celebrated on the end of the 12 days, not the beginning.

zagubov

These calendar facts are fascinating. I remember reading somewhere that the Romans kept forgetting to add leap days to their years and eventually an emperor had to add about 80-odd days to a year to bring the seasons back in line with anything thta would work for the farmers, so they ended up with a 445-day year (46 BC it would be called in the Christian calendar).:eek:

Pyxis

Yes, January 6th is Christmas in The Eastern Orthodox churches, I believe, but that's more to do with the old calendar before it was reformed.

Even in Southern Italy until fairly recently, January 6th was the Important Day, the day you got your presents on, from La Befana, (the 'good' witch or crone), not Father Christmas or Santa Claus, which is a more recent/more northern Italian thing.
Christmas itself, on 25th December, was far more of a religious festival, rather than the present-giving thing.

La Befana was an old woman who was cleaning her house when the Three Wise Men came to call, asking if she knew where The Child was, and then as she didn't know, they asked her if she'd like to accompany them to search for him?

She grumpily retorted that she had to clean her house and didn't have time to go looking for random Christ-children. So the Three Wise Men left without her.

Then she became repentant at having been so sharp and hasty, and decided to go looking for The Child herself.
So every January 6th, she visits all the children, to see if they are The Child. She takes presents for the good ones, in case they are The Child, but if someone has been bad, she just leaves them coal.

I like that story.

The name, La Befana, is thought to derive from L'Epifania, or, the Epihany.




As a personal thing, I much prefer the green Father Christmas, who is a slightly darker character than the 'jolly' Santa Claus/St. Nicholas idea, and is based more on 'Old Father Time', the year's end, with a dash of the Green Man and the Winter Solstice to boot.
The green Father Christmas is always called Father Christmas and never Santa Claus.
It suits my humanist, tree-hugging tendencies! :rotfl:

LydiaJ

CKhalvashi wrote: »

Can I just add to that, in the Orthodox calendar, it isn't.

Christmas is celebrated on the end of the 12 days, not the beginning.

Good point. It's still on a constant date from the point of view of a solar calendar, though, isn't it?

CKhalvashi

LydiaJ wrote: »

Good point. It's still on a constant date from the point of view of a solar calendar, though, isn't it?

Yes, January 6th if you're OH, 7th if you're me.

As above, this is more due to date shifting than anything else unless you're OH, but that's because Armenians are weird.