And I think that the focus on this commandment or this utterance in the portion of Yitro from God is about modesty, but which we call Sniyu in Hebrew. But it's also a focus on body parts. You might wonder, well, whose nakedness are they talking about? Who would be ascending the altar, the temple by steps, who potentially could expose their nakedness. And I wasn't there
Welcome, Sydney. Okay. I have a few questions. First. My brain is sort of stuck on logistics. The translation you gave us says, do not ascend my altar. And I found another that says, do not go up to my altar. Logistically, if it's up to my altar, when you get to the top of those stairs, you're going to be on the same level as the altar as you would have been if the altar was on the ground with no stairs
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 3:37
But in terms of the accepting of all kinds of people in their magnificence, there are times when you could say we have a restriction here and here's. The restriction. The restriction is you can't show your nakedness in these times to show your reverence for a sacred thing. So you're trying to draw a parallel between two worlds that are not as reverent as each other
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
But my initial interpretation of the passage you pointed out and the contemporary context that you mentioned, I'm a poet, so I don't know if I'm going to be reading this literally. When I see the word nakedness, it makes me think of vulnerability. And so it has me thinking that in this contemporary context, this could mean that vulnerability is inevitable. That seems to be the case because I think it was Deborah who said that most people during this time were naked under the clothing
Sydney Mintz
@Rabbi · 1:23
But modesty does have to do with respecting ourselves and others, our bodies, their bodies, our gender, their gender, sexuality. And it's an interesting term today. And I have found myself at age 54, sometimes looking at what kids young people are wearing and thinking kids these days. But Nevertheless, I'm really glad that Biden listed all those bands