User talk:David Adam Lewis: Difference between revisions

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Welcome

Hello, David Adam Lewis, and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you are stuck, and looking for help, please come to the New contributors' help page, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! Or, you can just type {{helpme}} and your question on your user talk page, and someone will show up shortly to answer. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

We hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! By the way, you can sign your name on talk and vote pages using four tildes, like this: ~~~~. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 20:02, 8 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

JAO as a Jewish state

Please provide reliable sources for your statement that Jewish Autonomous Oblast is a Jewish state. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 20:18, 8 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

its jewish and is a state.

As in a sovereign state? Sources please. Please sign your posts at talk pages. Thanks. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 20:53, 8 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I need a source to say that the Jewish Autonomous Oblast is Jewish?

Ritual washing in Judaism

Hi! I'm writing this note as just another editor, not an administrator. I want to alert you that I disagree with the approach you'd taken to this article and plan to reorganize it. Perhaps we can come to an agreement: I'd encourage you to discuss these issues on Talk:Ritual washing in Judaism. Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy prohibits taking an editorial opinion on a religion's beliefs, practices, or view of its history, and this article is on a specifically religious subject. Likewise the attribution policy requires identifying who has what view, and in the not uncommon case of disagreements between traditional religious views and the views of academic scholars, both views need to be presented in a way that clarifies who has what view. Much of the material you added represents "outside" critical viewpoints as distinct from the views of any Jewish denomination. Views from outside of Judaism add appropriate counterpoints to the subject of ritual washing in Judaism and are appropriate article content; however, they shouldn't occupy the introduction and main sections. An example of a well-structured religion article which maintains WP:NPOV is Eucharist (Catholic Church), which starts by focusing on views within Catholicism and then brings in external views. The initial section states ~~churchings~~ church teachings straightforwardly and indicates they are religious beliefs without endorsing or criticizing them. "Historical development" (from various points of view) comes next, and this section would be appropriate for viewpoints criticizing the Catholic teaching that the Eucharist was instituted by Jesus etc. I believe WP:NPOV requires an approach like this for articles on religious beliefs generally, and Judaism articles as well. Note that the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia largely represented the viewpoint of classical Reform Judaism. Because Reform Judaism today has a much more tolerant attitude towards ritual than it did a century ago, the "taboo" views etc. don't represent the views of any Jewish denomination (not sure about Humanistic Judaism). Likewise, sources like [Peake's commentary on the Bible]] are not reliable sources for the beliefs and practices of contemporary Judaism, this article's stated subject. Great care needs to be taken to attribute views, to distinguish traditional religious views from academic and critical views, and not to present any view as fact. I am also concerned that you removed material on the contemporary laws of ritual washing in traditional Judaism. Note that sources by religious authorites are reliable for the religious beliefs of a religious denomination. Academic sources are generally not reliable for this purpose. Best, --Shirahadasha 22:03, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What's an administrator? And what are churchings? Maybe you are meaning the churching of women? I've read that neutral thing, someone sent me a link already, and I don't believe I am taking any editorial opinion. You write very long paragraphs, even longer than me. Theres also a difference between attribution to identify the holders of views that differ from consensus, and attribution for the purpose of making it look like its the only one or two named entities that hold the view. When the consensus view of scholars differs form the consensus view of traditional religious people then it suffices to say "scholars think... traditional religious people think...", and it is only when a there its clear that there isn't a scholarly consensus, or when its clear that there isnt a consensus among traditional religious people that further specification is needed; this applies both ways too, and you can argue just the same that specific people within Orthodox Judaism have to be identified as holding the certain views mentioned, rather than being able to just be stated as "THE orthodox view" - some Orthodox Jews might disagree; the point is that consensus exists, and when it does, "orthodox view" or "scholars", respectively, is sufficient. I do agree that it is important to clarify who has what view; I try to make clear that which view is the orthodox jewish view and which is the scholars view, and really wouldn't be comfortable if the article appeared to conflate the two when it isnt merited.

"Much of the material you added represents "outside" critical viewpoints as distinct from the views of any Jewish denomination". No it doesn't; you make the fallacious assumption that you can't be Jewish and hold the material critical viewpoints. You also make the fallacious assumption that a Jewish denomination is a monolithic block, and no-one within the denomination dissents in any way from the view of others in the denomination.

I agree that "Views from outside of Judaism add appropriate counterpoints to the subject of ritual washing in Judaism and are appropriate article content"

I do not agree that "they shouldn't occupy the introduction and main sections". I see absolutely no reason why not. You seem to think that one view is of less worth than another, despite being the academic consensus; in other words you seem to be trying to bias the article away from academic views.

I wouldn't say that "Eucharist (Catholic Church)" focuses on views within Catholicism in particular at the start. It starts just by defining what "Eucharist" is with respect to the Catholic Church. I'm not sure if you noticed but that article is called "Eucharist (Catholic Church)", but "Ritual Washing in Judaism" isn't "Ritual Washing in Judaism (Orthodox Judaism)".

You can't apply a "one size fits all" to articles; different subjects suit different structures. I really don't think splitting the "Historical development" material into one section would work in the "ritual washing..." article; it would look too awkward, and repeat too much material - it would almost be like an "us" vs "them" article, which (from various points of view) seems to be frowned upon by this manual of style thing (and I certainly agree that its bad style, and difficult to read, as well as far too polarised to be neutral).

As far as I'm aware, the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia largely represents the view of serious academic study. Just because many of the authors happen to have a certain religion has nothing to do with it. Its like refusing to respect a book because the author had red hair. It mentions what historic Jewish works, including the classical ones, like the talmud, say, and what scholars say; as far as I can see it doesnt try to state what jews do or should do at the present time (nor in 1906).

I'm sure Reform Judaism today has somewhat different views in many subjects, but that doesn't change the historic documents, because they are still at the end of the day historic. I'm not using Peake's to refer to practices in certain contemporary Jewish practices, I'm using it to refer to contemporary Academic views. Reading your statement seems to suggest to me you want to treat Academia like its just some other Jewish sect; its as bad as treating economic science as a random political party when it comes to discussion about how to reduce inflation.

"I am also concerned that you removed material on the contemporary laws of ritual washing in traditional Judaism". I'm not sure that I did; I did re-arrange some things, and I did write a new version of some of the material before deleting the old one, which, if you only looked at the deletion, may have confused you in that respect. "sources by religious authorites" are not reliable for the religious beliefs of an entire religious denomination; academic sources are reliable for this purpose - for example, an academic study of what the consensus religious beliefs of certain denominations are in general. Academic sources are always more reliable than unacademic ones. Peer review, for example, is heavily emphasised in the rules here; I'm not exactly sure where you think peer review exists with "religious authorities". I do agree that religious authorities are authoritative for telling you what the religious authorities have said.

-David

Hi! I'm really not making any of the assumptions you're attributing to me. As to the academic authority issue, while religious authorities probably aren't reliable sources for the beliefs of the general population on religious topics, it's not clear to me academics are any more reliable in this respect, given how often what scientists say on scientific issues is in discord with what the general population thinks. An approach based on a survey of the general population would likely come up with very different results from what's currently in most science articles. But nonetheless the academic point of view, like the points of view of major religions on their own beliefs and rituals, is considered notable and Wikipedia includes it. The philosophy of WP:NPOV is to include all notable points of view and not to take sides between different theories of existence or core methods of knowing about the world -- including between scientific and religious theories and methods. Best, --Shirahadasha 11:22, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ritual purification

I would encourage you not to use the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia as a source on contemporary Judaism. An example of how unreliable the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia can be is an edit you made to the Ritual purification article, which included the claim that full body immersion has largely gone out of practice in contemporary Judaism. Whatever its truth in 1906, no-one could reliably make such a claim today. Chabad-Lubavitch, among other Hassidic groups, practices daily full ritual immersion. They were a tiny obscure group in 1906, but their explosive growth has made their views and practices highly influential today. Best, --Shirahadasha 22:26, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hassidic Judaism

According to the article on Hassidic Judaism, "The Holocaust brought final destruction to all chasidic centers of Eastern Europe. Most survivors moved eventually to Israel or to America, ...". When I last looked, Israel and the US does not equate to "most of the world". And there are most definitely other Orthodox Jewish groups in the US and Israel, indeed, from what I can tell, the Sephardic group is bigger.

Just to satisfy my curiousity, could you tell me whether you are Hasidic, and therefore whether sexing-up the size of Hassidic Judaism constitutes a conflict of interest? -David.

Sorry, I thought you had finished editing the article on Mikveh. Thanks for your input and I hope you won't mind some other ideas in what this article should include. Good luck in your edits. Itzse 22:37, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Its fine, but I dont know what ur sorry about? -David

Its usually more appropriate to first wait out all the edits that someone wants to make, then to leave, debate or make any changes thought necessary. After all someone has given his time to enhance the article. In your case I had thought that you had finished, hence my apology. Itzse 23:06, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Showbread

I've reverted your edits to Showbread. Here, once again, you deleted legitimately sourced material and replaced it with material from the Jewish Encyclopedia. While much of the material added is legitimate and improves the article, the difficulty is with the material erased. The article subject has religious as well as historical status; and properly attributed material representing religious points of view is legitimate. In this respect, Wikipedia is different from other encyclopedias in that its neutral point of view (WP:NPOV) policy has been interpreted to permit material that an encyclopedia run by an academic institution might exclude. The Jewish Encyclopedia represents a particular point of view, and other points of view can't be excluded. Thus, for example, Jewish religious law from the Talmud etc. about how showbread should be prepared, divided, etc. represents a religious-law position with a status independent of what one one thinks about how it was prepared, divided, etc. at a particular time in the past. Aggadah in the Talmud, like stories about the House of Garmu, requires careful handling; nonetheless, they have homiletic religious significance and value important to a religous POV independent of what historians might think of their historical value. The Jewish Encyclopedia is written from the Classical Reform theological point of view which explicitly rejected the Talmud as having religious significance and regards it as having only historical value, and this point of view was often implemented in a rather heavy-handed way. It takes editorial stands on religious issues, and Wikipedia can't represent its religious positions as fact but must present them as the POV of the the Jewish Encyclopedia's editors.

Here, as in other places, I believe maintaining WP:NPOV requires dividing the article into sections, one containing religious perspectives and significance and one containing the perspectives of academic historians.

Now that you've been told this several times, if you plan to rewrite an article I would urge you to write in the article's talk page, and perhaps in relevant WikiProjects like Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism and WikiPedia Talk:WikiProject Bible, explaining what you plan to do.

I gather from some of the replies you've given on this talk page that you disagree with certain religious points of view, perhaps strongly; nonetheless, the encyclopedia's policies ask you to try to work with people that you disagree with. I want to emphasize again that I am not wishing to prevent you from adding additional material reflecting POVs you agree with, I'm only seeking to ensure that you don't remove material you disagree with.

I would urge you to discuss this with me if you disagree. You've done very diligent work and a good job with the material you've added, but it's very important not to delete material that represents other POVs and I feel I need, at this point, to remind you of our vandalism policy which prohibits this. Best, --Shirahadasha 10:48, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that the rules prohibit the reverting of material that isn't vandelism. So please stop it. --David.

And stop accusing me of deleting material, if you carefully go through the edits, you'll realise I've just been moving it around to more suitable locations, and sometimes rephrasing it to scan more easily. --David

In fact, in regards to Shewbread, I was putting in the material that someone else had removed because they disapproved of it. The original text was nearly identical to the Jewish Encyclopedia article, except that the Septuagint references, and linguistic analysis were mysteriously cut out; I put them back, and just re-arranged it to scan better. Now, if you want to criticise someone for deleting material, you should go after the guy that cut out the material from the Jewish Encyclopedia article that disagreed with their bias. --David

Yom Kippur

WP:Consensus is a core policy of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a group effort and its policies require you to work with other editors on articles. Please do not delete large amounts of existing material without discussing the matter with other editors. Repeated violations of WP:Consensus can lead to loss of editing privileges. Please work with us. Best, --Shirahadasha 22:05, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! I restored some of the material you had added to this article, to a new Yom Kippur#View of contemporary Biblical scholarship section. Again the issue is not the material you added, which was generally of good quality. It's the material you deleted. Best, --Shirahadasha 01:18, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BITE and WP:BOLD seem to be fairly important too. So do the following statements from WP:REVERT:

Do not revert good faith edits.

Do not revert changes simply because someone makes an edit you consider problematic, biased, or inaccurate.

--David.

Loans and interest in Judaism

In this article you deleted all the information about both contemporary interpretations and the practical problems Orthodox Jews have in attempting to apply the religious principles in daily business life, so the article as you rewrote it refers only to information up to the middle ages. The 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia predated the State of Israel and contemporary efforts at reviving certain ancient traditions, and simply is not a reliable source for current interpretations, issues, and practice in contemporary Orthododox Judaism. It often claims certain things are extinct or treats them as having only historical interest when they are now very much alive and have contemporary developments. Please see all my other comments. Best, --Shirahadasha 22:58, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you check out my edits in detail, you'll realise that I didn't delete anything. I just re-arranged it, and added the Jewish Encyclopedia information in. The article was barely a stub when I started, but after my edits its a decent article. Please remember to Assume good faith. --David

Mazzoth

Hi! This article was redirected to Matzot because it's on the same subject as and its content is currently covered by Passover, and the term Matzot is used in contemporary usage to describe the unleavened bread itself, not the holiday. Wikipedia's POVFORK policy prohibits creating a new article to present the same subject as an existing article, and Passover currently covers academic discussions and hypotheses about the holiday's origins and early practice. Please work with the Passover article's current editors to find a place to put any additional material on these subjects that you wish to add. Best, --Shirahadasha 17:25, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Its not on the same subject as Passover. Its about Mazzoth, the Festival of Unleavened Bread. I've never heard anyone use the word Matzot in english to refer to Unleavened Bread itself - they usually just say Unleavened Bread. Maybe that's a cultural thing? I've only ever heard and read people using Mazzoth to refer to the festival; the term is all over the academic literature, I'm not sure why you feel justified in ignoring that?

I've un-redirected, because it isn't really covering the same subject as Passover; its about a different event, that some modern Jews now treat as the same event, but academics do not.

--David

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism

Please see the discussion of your edits taking place on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism#recent changes. Best, --Shirahadasha 22:05, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not exactly sure what my edits have to do with Progressive Judaism? --David

(How do you get the date?)

@@ Line 96: / Line 96: @@
 In this article you deleted all the information about both contemporary interpretations and the practical problems Orthodox Jews have in attempting to apply the religious principles in daily business life, so the article as you rewrote it refers only to information up to the middle ages. The 1906 [[Jewish Encyclopedia]] predated the [[State of Israel]] and contemporary efforts at reviving certain ancient traditions, and simply is not a [[WP:RS|reliable source]] for current interpretations, issues, and practice in contemporary Orthododox Judaism. It often claims certain things are extinct or treats them as having only historical interest when they are now very much alive and have contemporary developments. Please see all my other comments. Best, --[[User:Shirahadasha|Shirahadasha]] 22:58, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
-If you check out my edits in detail, you'll realise that I didn't delete anything. I just re-arranged it, and added the Jewish Encyclopedia information in. The article was barely a stub when I started, but after my edits its a decent article.
+If you check out my edits in detail, you'll realise that I didn't delete anything. I just re-arranged it, and added the Jewish Encyclopedia information in. The article was barely a stub when I started, but after my edits its a decent article. Please remember to [[WP:AGF|Assume good faith]].
 --David