Beit She'arim

  While in Beit She’arim, we learned in our Jewish History Class about the significance of the spot. The time period is 400 CE. During this time, the Sanhedrian, a group of 70 Rabbis and 1 Nassi who interpreted the laws for the Jews, was disbanded from Jerusalem and have been travelling around the North of Israel. One of the places they stopped to do their travels was in Beit She’arim.

  Here in Beit She’arim there is a tomb full of a bunch of Rabbis and their loved ones. In the tomb we saw a bunch of sarcophaguses with not only Hebrew writings but different drawings of gods and goddesses and some pictures of lions. These depictions and drawings brought up questions of  if the Jews and Rabbis at the time were fully committed to Judaism. Much like today, people still don't know how to define when someone is not Jewish. Today in class we discussed how we define people as being Jews. The majority of the time we talked about the bare minimum a Jew should do to consider themselves Jewish. Some said that going to the high holidays is the bare minimum while others said that knowing the history of the Jewish people is enough. Many people especially in Reform Judaism, don't really know what to think of when they are confronted with the idea that they may not be Jewish. Which to some being told they are not Jewish is not a shocker or a total shock.