Posted by:
Tevai
(
)
Date: September 20, 2017 09:51PM
catnip Wrote:
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> Has anybody pointed out that gazing over a
> cemetery is not the same as looking at dead
> people, because the vast majority of them are
> boxed and buried?? Out of sight and all that.
The man in the plastic bag is Ultra-Orthodox, and is also (obviously) a kohain (the hereditary Israeli priesthood going back to ancient times). Put these two together, and the result (in this case, anyway) is a man totally encased in a plastic bag because of the knowledge, or the possibility, that the airplane would be flying over one or more cemetaries.
Like pork (for example), dead bodies are a source of ritual impurity. This is why observant Orthodox Jewish kohain males cannot become rabbis: rabbis are regularly made ritually impure by their proximity to dead bodies (mostly: the members of their congregations, when those members die, and are then buried).
The ultra-Orthodox are quite rigid about this kind of ritual impurity, the "merely" Orthodox not quite so much (though it is still observed by many "merely" Orthodox Jewish males too)...
...and there has been (in the past) legal argument about whether Conservative Jewish males who are kohainim should go into the rabbinate. (Conservative Judaism is between all of the various kinds of Orthodox Judaism on the one side, and the other Jewish movements/"denominations" on the other side; Conservative Judaism is not exactly a "midway" point, but it is a kind of "center," and it serves as "the center" in the line of Jewish movements.)
It would be unusual for a Reform ["liberal"] Jewish male who is a kohain to NOT go into the rabbinate because of their future, virtually certain, proximity to dead bodies. (Reform Judaism is generally acknowledged to be the "most" liberal Jewish movement, although there are newer contemporary movements that are more "liberal" than Reform is: Jewish Renewal, and Secular Jewish Humanism, to name two of them.)
Ritual impurity from dead bodies extends both "up" and "around"---to the point where highly-observant Orthodox Jews will not use certain bridges because they are built over cemeteries (and if I am remembering correctly, some of these bridges are in the greater New York City general area).
I have never before heard of someone sitting inside a closed plastic bag in an airplane, but it does make Jewish legal sense.
At least the man is not demanding that the airline certify that it will not fly over any cemeteries, or allow the aircraft to wander over any unanticipated cemeteries below, and there was no demand that the flight pattern of the aircraft be changed to insure that these outcomes occur. I think credit should be given where credit is due: the guy just individually made sure, for himself, that he WOULD be protected from any stray ritual impurity that the plane might inadvertently pass through. [My first sarcasm tag EVER... /s !!! :D ]
Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/2017 02:48AM by Tevai.