Borderline Izaya

abomination-of-gender:

abomination-of-gender:

christianity: the lord is my shepherd and i am a lamb whom He will guide to safety

judaism: we call ourselves “the god-punchers”, bc we like to remind Him of that time He lost a fight against our great-great-great-granddad

i see a lot of confusion in the tags so here’s an explanation of the joke!

the joke of this post is referencing the story of Jacob in Genesis. Jacob is one of the legendary Patriarchs of Judaism whom all non-convert Jews claim descent from, so he technically is my great-great-….-granddad.

At one point, Jacob meets a stranger on the road, who he ends up fighting for a reason the text is unclear about. Jacob wins the fight, and the angel reveals that he was actually a holy spirit in disguise.

The precise identity of the man is a point of contention in all traditions- there’s an even split between if it’s God himself or an angel sent as an emissary.

Regardless, the man blesses Jacob and names him Israel- ישראל, yisra’el. The name is complicated to translate, but one popular one is “he who wrestles with God”. His descendants adopted this as one of their ethnonyms- בני ישראל, b’nei yisra’el, the children of Israel, the Jewish people.

So saying we Jews call ourselves “the god-punchers” is a loose translation, definitely, but I’d give an honest argument that it accurately portrays the spirit of the phrase, especially by giving it a glib and boastful modern phrasing.

for the nitpickers: yes, “The Lord is my shepherd” is a part of Jewish belief too! It’s from a passage in Psalms, which is a book that Jews and Christians do share.

But the relationship that we Jews have with HaShem is complicated and occasionally even adversarial. The Christian relationship, on the other hand, is much more, well, patriarchal. Jesus is a father figure who is always good and never needs a stern talking-to from His creations.

In contrast, the Torah and Talmud are full of stories of Jews arguing with HaShem- and winning, and HaShem being ecstatic that He lost the argument. Bickering with our deity is a sacred Jewish tradition that continues to the present day.