- published: 07 Aug 2014
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Halakha (Hebrew: הֲלָכָה) (Sephardic Hebrew pronunciation) (ha-la-chAH) — also transliterated Halocho (Ashkenazic Hebrew pronunciation) (ha-LUH-chuh), or Halacha — is the collective body of Jewish religious law, including biblical law (the 613 mitzvot) and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions.
Judaism classically draws no distinction in its laws between religious and ostensibly non-religious life; Jewish religious tradition does not distinguish clearly between religious, national, racial, or ethnic identities.Halakha guides not only religious practices and beliefs, but numerous aspects of day-to-day life. Halakha is often translated as "Jewish Law", although a more literal translation might be "the path" or "the way of walking". The word derives from the Hebrew root that means to go or to walk.
Historically in the diaspora, Halakha served many Jewish communities as an enforceable avenue of civil and religious law. Since the Age of Enlightenment, emancipation, and haskalah in the modern era, Jewish citizens are bound to Halakha only by their voluntary consent. Under contemporary Israeli law, however, certain areas of Israeli family and personal status law are under the authority of the rabbinic courts and are therefore treated according to Halakha. Some differences in Halakha itself are found among Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, Sephardi, and Yemenite Jews, which are reflective of the historic and geographic diversity of various Jewish communities within the Diaspora.
you're alive
thanks to a strange chain of events
that started with the death of elvis
and yes,
all the wars and their warriors
wanted a piece of you
in your living room.
i'm alive
after a time of riots and rides
that ended with smack
of gates into theirs clasps.
all the dates that they throw at you
were somebody else's stab
at your lineage.
we're alive
thanks to a light
shone in the night
that found an airship in its sights.
in the crossfire
your grandfather cried to your mother.
all the bombs that avoided you
had somebody else's name
drawn on the chalkboard in haste.
it was a clerical mistake.
when you first saw it you were in a stroller,
flailing your arms at the dogs and the bees.
they could have bit you but you looked so happy.
they could have snapped but they showed you mercy.
and come to think of it, i never once heard, "no."
from the day you were called you've been walking through the walls.
shot through a canon, you've landed in a flowerbed.
guarded by invisible friends.