An Interfaith Pesak Din From Yours Truly, Part 2

Tonight, I saw the Ethiopian Christian woman mentioned in this post. If I understood her correctly, she told me that her priest told her to finish the rest of the fast and then make up the complete fast another day. In other words, their ritual law and our halakha coincide on this one.

Comments

[Jim the Catholic]

Ethiopian Christianity is for all intensive purposes the remnant of ancient Nazarene Jewish Christianity.

[Anonymous]

What's the point? Does Shmarya want a medal? Is a party being thrown to celebrate this?

[Yochanan Lavie]

Anonymous: Shmarya was being compassionate to someone in distress. What's wrong with that? If he wants to blow his own horn, it's his blog after all.

Jim: The Ethiopian Orthodox Coptic church is very Judaistic. Some scholars theorize that the Jewish community there is a breakaway from the church that converted, perhaps under the influence of Jewish refugees from Egypt. That doesn't make them any less Jewish, in my eyes. (The Subotniks of Russia are a similar, white, group).

The Rastafarians of Jamaica were inspired by Heile Selassie, and are also Judaistic. That's one reason I like there music, even though I don't believe Ras Tafari (Selassie) was the messiah. Bob Marley was actually received into the Ethiopian Coptic Orthodox Church shortly before his death.

(I also like Mattisyahu, even though I don't believe the late Rebbe is the messiah).

[ben yomo]

great - so you can make a seamless transition

[moshe]

all these rules regarding fasting, rituals, holidays, etc. are MAN MADE. Do as you wish; without causing another distress.

God has better things to worry about than what you ate.