For Jews it’s 5771, for Christians (and the world) it’s 2010.  For the Chinese it’s 47098.  It’s 1431 Hijrea (after the migration of Muhammad PBUH from Mecca to Al-Madina ) for the Islamic calendar.  And for the Jain’s it’s going on 75,000 years.

The conversation arose during a celebration of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year that took place on September 9 this year.  “What year is it? And why are our years different, again?” my sister asked.

Really because different cultures started counting (or started counting over) the beginning of time based on the most important event…to them.  In fact, if we were looking at the beginning of earth time, the year is more like 4,600,000…now that’s a party!

While many may take this opportunity to argue the most significant event in history, most will agree to the 2010 year for practical, pluralistic purposes.

My sister’s father-in-law, however, was eager to use the discussion to open up a whole new view.

“I’m a Jain now,” he announced, “a Jewish Jain,” as he produced a book that cited 75,000 years of history (although religioustolerance.org cites the “first Jina” the roots of Jain, as a “giant who lived 8.4 million years ago.”)  He then began to delve into the practice of “salekhana,” which is fasting to death and Jain ideas of freeing the soul by conquering love and hate, pleasure and pain…”

At this point we tuned him out in favor of sitting down to dinner, but even this last act is a little bit like how ethnocentrism defines who we are:  different cultures with completely different histories, from 2,000 years to millions: Do we think about the ideologies behind our traditions and views of history?  Which one is the “right one?”

So, La Shana Tova…A sweet new year.  I just can’t tell you which year.

Can you?

Having weathered trying to denounce a few over the years in real life, not sure how I feel about his enthusiasm for “crazy Jewish conspiracy theories as entertainment,” but the ‘scientific evidence’ in the clip does go beyond the “big nose on ancient mask must be Kind David.”

As someone Jewish, I’m curious as to my Rabbi’s thoughts on this, and, too, wonder what someone from Japan might think (of course duly noting that one person’s opinion does not represent the whole).

My own reaction?  Skeptical, mainly because it’s new information, never seen before.  But I always say “I’m from Missouri, you have to Show Me.”  Maybe there’s something to it.  

What do you think?

Photo:  Tony Cenicola, The New York Times, 5/22/09

In setting up a web-presence for your company via social media, there’s an obvious time money continuum:  Either you’ll spend oodles of time creating profiles, links, etc. at low or no cost to you, or you can save time and pay someone else to do it.  Basically, when one goes up, the other goes down. 

I’ve noticed the same continuum between Familiarity/Assumptions as relates to Intercultural Communications, (particularly after a comment on a post a few weeks ago about Indian Model/Actress Padma Lakshmi eating a hamburger in a Hardee’s TV ad, pointing out that I had included an unintentional assumption that all Hindus are the same.)

The first rung on my empathy barometer is to change the race/ethinicity/religion in question to Jewish (my own heritage) in the ’story’ to see how it would feel to me.  The parallel image that came to mind was that of an an Hasidic Jew eating ribs. 

While I could see something like that intended as humor on the cover of the irreverent and funny Heeb Magazine (sort of the Jewish version of MAD Magazine), I also realized, as a Reformed Jew (as in the Reform Movement of Judaism, not that I was bad and now I’m nice), I’m the first to want to clarify distinctions with more traditional (aka Orthadox) expressions of Judaism.  In fact, I was the one who, as part of an interfaith family, couldn’t host the Synagogue’s Parents Club Meeting at our house in December, because we would still have our Christmas Tree up!

I understand that individuals relate to their Judaism, Catholicism, Christianity, etc., differently, because I know the basic tenets of those religions as a point of departure, and know people of those religions to see their own self-reflection.  With Hindu, my familiarity barometer was low, allowing assumption to fill the void. 

Ahhh…gotta love the old adage about you, me and assume.  But even more so, you have to love our ability to continually learn and grow throughout our lives.  Every day and every encounter is a chance for new dialogue.

Photo from post on Hindu-Jewish Collaboration from the blog “Portal to the Hindu World.”

Thanks to Gori Girl for starting my thoughts brewing on this subject.