Talk:Shabbat

As of 12 July 2013, this article is a good article. (compare to current). This means the community feels it is written well. You may see the discussion that promoted the article here.

Introduction

The old page "Shabbat" has now been split. This page will be about Shabbat in Judaism. The page Sabbath will be about the Sabbath in Christianity. There is also a page Sabbath (disambiguation) for other customs of Sabbath.

This page is being improved. You can look at the sandbox here. StevenJ81 (talk) 17:17, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not change it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No more changes should be made to this discussion.

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The following discussion happened before the old "Shabbat" page was split.

Complexity

There are a lot of words here (listed below) that are not simple English. In most cases you should use other, simpler words, and where that is not possible, either link to an article or wiktionary. Everything else is looking good.--Peterdownunder (talk) 04:47, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I completely agree with you.

If you look, those words are found (I think) only in the portion of the article that I inherited—see the current article Shabbat. I must say that I do not have a great deal of interest in rewriting the Christian part of the article, at least not right now. (I did rewrite the lead so that the article can stand on its own.) I am interested in separating the articles. And right now, the Christianity part of the article on its own would be no worse than it is now.

So I'd like to go ahead and propose we do the separation now, along the lines I laid out in Simple Talk. Give me a couple of hours to check the "What Links Here" to make sure everything points to the right place, then I'll let you know how I'm thinking to do it.

Many thanks for your help. StevenJ81 (talk) (a newbie at Simple) 15:39, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

OK. I checked the "What Links Here" for Shabbat. I think I have edited all the links so they go to the appropriate one among the following choices:

1. Shabbat
2. Sabbath
3. Sabbath (disambiguation)

Exception: Seventh-day Adventist; I wasn't quite sure how to handle. I think Sabbath, but I could be persuaded otherwise.

As an admin, can you create a complete duplicate of a page, including its history? If so, then I think the way to do this would be:

1. You: Create a complete copy of the "Shabbat" article at "Sabbath" in place of the current redirect.
2. You or me: Copy and paste the new lead to the Christianity article (from the sandbox) in place of everything above "Differing views" in the "Sabbath" article. (But this keeps all of the old history of the Shabbat article, much of which is about Christianity, in place.)
3. You or me: Copy and paste the new lead to the Judaism article in place of the entire article at "Shabbat". (But still keeps all the old history in place.)

After that, what do you think? Leave Christianity at "Sabbath" and disambiguation page as is? Or move Christianity to "Sabbath (Christianity)" and disambiguation to "Sabbath"?

At the end I need to add back in a reference to the Muslim Friday on the disambiguation page.

Many thanks. StevenJ81 (talk) 16:50, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Examples

obligation, ordinance, worship, literally, identical, valid, surviving, creation, conservative, tradition, revoked, disciple, apostle, assembled, preaching, maintained, restriction, originate, specifically, explicit, rejection, commandment, memorial, majority, thereafter, opposition, gradually, regardless, suppression, conspiracy, pagans, clergy, regardless, criminalization, hatred, apparent, portion heretic, unleavened, partaker, impiety, Judaize,

Page moves

I have completed the basic moves. I have not moved Sabbath to Sabbath (Christianity) yet. I think it is a good idea looking at the en page on sabbath which is quite extensive. This would give scope to develop the disambig page further.--Peterdownunder (talk) 04:08, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Peter. I did a little straightening up. I took the sections of Shabbat after the lead out; they're not ready for the article yet. I also marked that article stub. I will add a complexity tag to Sabbath. In Wikidata, I linked Shabbat to Shabbat and Sabbath to "Sabbath in Christianity".

I am happy to get to the disambig page further over time. Something I wonder, though: How much information is too much information for an article in simple? In principle, you can write an article just as thorough (more or less) as in en, at least if the subject matter is not too technical. In practice, I wonder if there is still an information overload question for people using this wikipedia (vs. en). Any thoughts? StevenJ81 (talk) 15:43, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not change it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No more changes should be made to this discussion.

Recent edit based on NPOV

182.249.186.139 (talk · contribs), please discuss your recent change here. I do not believe that my version violated WP:NPOV. I think yours might.

The only word of mine that is arguable is the use of "story". I think that is a neutral term. It does not always refer to fiction. I would prefer narrative as more neutral, but narrative is not Simple English. StevenJ81 (talk) 20:12, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

"Work"

As I understand it, Shabat is a day of rest. There are exceptions though:

• If there is an immediate threat to the life of a person (and sometimes: animal, as in cattle), the rules do not apply.
• Eating/drinking and elementary hygiene are permitted; this does not include getting or giving medical treatment, when the life is not in danger.
• Some argue that getting/giving medical treatment is permitted; iirc. the rationale for that is, that in the opposite case, a life-threatening condition may develop.
• There does not seem to be agreement over whether it is permissible to start work that continues by itself, such as eg. dying cloth.

Since all I have to write this is a Wikipedia article, perhaps someone more involved should look at extending the article in that direction...--Eptalon (talk) 16:22, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

You're 100% right. I intend to do just that. I've taken a start on it at my sandbox, which you're welcome to have a look at. But I'd rather build it there, so that whatever is here remains coherent and balanced at its current stage of development.

BTW, if you're curious where this is going, you can look at en:Shabbat, and also en:Jewish holidays#work, the second of which I wrote. I will include a reference to medical treatment, which in fact I should (and will) add to the Jewish holidays discussion, too.StevenJ81 (talk) 15:44, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

 Done Taken care of at en:Jewish holidays#work. StevenJ81 (talk) 16:49, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Comments

• Rather than giving an explanation of a word (that is not encyclopedic), you should link such words to Simple English wiktionary. The people who know the word already are only distracted by the explanation they don't need.
• In the article, you link creation to Creationism. I think this may be problematic as Creationism is a movement that started to be able to teach the kids in school about religion, in the US. Creationism is often opposed to Darwinism, or the idea of Evolution. I don't know, whether the idea that organisms adapt to their surroundings is problematic in Judaism.

Other than that the article looks fine--Eptalon (talk) 08:44, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks very much. First of all, I must credit Creol (talk · contribs) with some important simplification work a couple of days ago. I created a .pdf of his changes (vs. previous) to help guide me in future efforts here at simplewiki.
• Mostly, I did link to simplewikt. The only times I didn't were when (a) there was no definition there, and (b) I didn't see one likely to appear any time soon. I suppose one answer to that is, "Well, write it yourself, dummy." But I don't have as much experience writing dictionary definitions, I don't know how complete I need to be (verb, adjective, etc.), and just didn't want to commit myself to that route immediately--especially because I see a lot of work needing to be done on Judaism here at simplewiki.

The only such parenthetical definition left, I think, is "wick", in the section on Havdalah, and I'm inclined just to leave it there now.

• I will de-link Creationism. I think I inherited that link from the mostly-Christian Sabbath article.
• I also responded to your other comment at WP:Simple talk#Shabbat article.

Many thanks for your help. I'm going to give this "comment period" another week (until after the holiday of Shavuot on Wednesday and Thursday). Then I will probably ask for your help to move the article in a way that will keep the edit history intact. StevenJ81 (talk) 16:49, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Links to the Torah

Start here: Modern English Bible translations. I wrote the section on Jewish translations myself. I am simply not aware of a Jewish translation in anything resembling Simple English, and I've tried to find one. (I could explain to you why there isn't actually that kind of need, but I'll reserve that for another day.) Most Jewish translations, except for JPS 1917, remain under copyright. (Judaism doesn't have "official bodies" quite the same way Christianity does, and publishers of new translations do defend their copyrights.) So ...

• I used links to JPS 1917 (at mechon-mamre.org, an Israeli institution for study of sacred texts) as the basic links. Problem with JPS 1917 is that it is not only not Simple English, but a little on the archaic side. On the other hand, that translation is available in {{bibleverse}}. It's the only Jewish translation there, and it makes doing citations much easier. (It also includes the original Hebrew, which is accessible to many Jewish readers.) My other two Jewish candidates (see below) would be much harder to use.
• There are websites with Judaica Press and JPS 1985 available. They are probably a little easier for this wiki's audience than JPS 1917, but neither one comes to the level of Simple English. I'd have to create each citation by hand, and JPS 1985 is on a website requiring registration. Both remain under copyright, so I don't know how much I'm allowed to use them here anyway.
• I could simply have made all the links go to the Bible in Basic English. Like with Judaica Press and JPS 1985, I'd have to manually create each citation. The problem with that approach is that those web pages are full of Christianity, even where the translations themselves are reasonable. And I'm just viscerally uncomfortable with that approach when writing on a Jewish topic.

So I chose to stick with JPS 1917, while giving an option to those wanting a true Simple English translation.

Now: here's a question for you: Were you suggesting that at each citation, I simple-fy the translation cited? I can do that, but I'm not an "official" translation, and I thought that might be considered original research. (I know that in general straight translation of a source is exempted from being considered original research, but is English to Simple English a translation?)

Your thoughts would be most welcome. StevenJ81 (talk) 17:54, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

As long as you stick to the source, "paraphrasing"/"summarizing" what the source says is fine. In that way, as you long as you give reference to JPS 1917 (or whatever translation you choose), replacing the words used with others with "similar meaning" is fine.--Eptalon (talk) 19:32, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

All of my links are in this form: {{bibleverse||Genesis|1:1|HE}}. That parses out like this: Genesis 1:1. If you click on that link, you'll see (probably in a new tab/window) a page with Hebrew on one side and English (JPS 1917) on the other. So what I would propose (and this would be in the sources/footnotes, not in body text) is something like this:

Note 2. Bible sources below include a Simple English version of the Jewish Publication Society's 1917 English translation. Click on the link for the 1917 translation and the original Hebrew text.

...

Genesis 1:1. The first thing G-d did was to create heaven and earth.

Does that work? StevenJ81 (talk) 20:15, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I think that is a workable approach. --Eptalon (talk) 20:31, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I greatly appreciate your advice. Shabbat, as it happens, starts where I live any second now. I'll get on this afterwards. StevenJ81 (talk) 23:45, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not change it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No more changes should be made to this discussion.

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Red links as of 17:31, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Excludes red links in Jewish holidays template

1. Eliminated

• Reconstructionist Judaism: In the context of this article, it's not meaningfully different from other Progressive Judaism. The differences between it and other movements within Progressive Judaism are subtle and complex, and it is a small movement. It probably deserves an article someday, but I see many more high-priority targets for Judaism on this wiki, and I doubt this article will happen so fast.

2. Can be addressed reasonably completely with short articles.

They won't be exhaustively complete when I write these articles, but I don't really expect them to be "just stubs," either. High priority.

• Kiddush  Done 20:54, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
• Havdalah

2a. Wiktionary

Loaf doesn't have an article, or a Wiktionary definition, or even an explanation within bread. [Added 16:05, 4 July 2013 (UTC)]  Done Created at wikt. 13:56, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

3. Somewhere in between 2. and 4.

• Amidah  Done 16:08, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
• Torah portion (or Weekly Torah portion)
• Siddur  Done (stub created) 20:56, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
• Shulchan Aruch  Done (stub created) 03:52, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

4. Cannot be reasonably completely addressed with short articles.

Would really prefer to try to get Shabbat to WP:GA status without writing these. Will write willfully brief stubs if I must.

• Jewish holidays
• Jewish prayer services  Done For now, piped to Prayer service. 16:08, 4 July 2013 (UTC) Added Jewish content to above. StevenJ81 (talk) 16:30, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

5. Covered so as not to be a red link, but really deserves own article

• 39 prohibited categories of work (or 39 melachot)
• shevut (maybe)

Comments on the above are welcome. StevenJ81 (talk) 17:31, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I created a stub for Reconstructionist Judaism. I don't know the exct figures, but dewp lists 6% as Orthodox Judaism, 35% Conservative Judaism, 38% Reformed Judaism, 2% Reconstructionist, and the remaining 19% as outside these categories. Looking at this, it would probably be good to have stubs for the two largest movements, if they do not exist already. This is however unrelated to this article. --Eptalon (talk) 09:34, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks very much, Eptalon. I really appreciate that.

BTW, with respect to the Jewish movement (as opposed to the Calvinist church), the usual nomenclature is "Reform," not "Reformed." StevenJ81 (talk) 14:00, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

And to answer your specific comments/requests:

• To the best anyone has reliable data, the figures you cite above are probably approximately correct, at least for the US. The global picture is less well defined, for a variety of reasons not worth stopping for right now.
• Reform Judaism is included in Progressive Judaism, and Reform Judaism redirects to there. If you look at the corresponding enwiki articles, you'll see that the two are not quite synonymous, and Reform is probably the single biggest group under the umbrella of Progressive Judaism.
• There is a stub on Conservative Judaism here already. It's pretty odd, and not very accurate, and eventually I'll circle back there. Hard to know what to do first with respect to Judaism here, if you get my meaning. StevenJ81 (talk) 14:12, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Aiming for GA

This article was promoted on 12 July 2013 (UTC). Thanks to all for your assistance and support! StevenJ81 (talk) 12:54, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Eptalon, and anyone else watching. I'd really like to push this page towards GA. Based on the GA criteria, it feels to me like there are really just a couple of things to do:

1. Add another picture or two, or maybe another type of media file.
2. Turn red links blue.

The former should be easy enough. The latter is what I'm wondering about. In particular, how many red links are "too many" on this wiki?

If this were enwiki, I could easily see taking a hard line on this. But here at simple, Judaism is (in my view) covered in a very spotty way. I really understand that there is a tradeoff. It's hard for something to be a GA if it depends too much on redirecting people to never-never-land. But we can't do everything at once, either. So ... what are your thoughts? StevenJ81 (talk) 16:28, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Can you fix the red-link in the "References", please? - Link 14 (At the end of "Other kinds of Celebrating") contains a red-link. This would definitely look ugly in a GA. Other thing: The infobox "Jewish and Israeli holidays and observances" is mostly made of red links. Either cut down on the links there, or create stubs? - An infobox mostly made of red-links simply doesn't look good.--Eptalon (talk) 21:40, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I can certainly fix the red-link in "References", at least with a stub. Probably will happen first of next week.  Done 03:54, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

As far as the template goes, I have an idea how to handle that. The tradeoff, of course, is that some of these articles, at least, really ought to be written, and until they are, it makes sense for them to appear as red-links. So the question is: how much is too much? I have an idea how to handle that, and again will probably try to tackle it first of next week.  Done See here.

I'll let you know when those are ready for perusal. StevenJ81 (talk) 12:59, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I would say that for the infobox, about two thirds of the items listed should exist. One option would be to "de-list" some, and at a later date when they exist, "re-list" them. I do ofc look forward to your solution...--Eptalon (talk) 13:07, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not change it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No more changes should be made to this discussion.

Red links, updated as of 13:10, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Excludes red links in Jewish holidays template

1. Can be addressed reasonably completely with a short article. High priority.

• Havdalah

2. Somewhere in between 1. and 3.

• Torah portion (or Weekly Torah portion)

3. Cannot be reasonably completely addressed with short articles.

• Jewish holidays

4. Covered so as not to be a red link, but really deserves own article

• 39 prohibited categories of work (or 39 melachot)
• shevut (maybe)

Comments on the above are welcome. StevenJ81 (talk) 13:10, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Brief note

This Simple English Wikipedia article has been translated into Ladino, or Judeo-Spanish, and Latin. StevenJ81 (talk) 00:13, 21 November 2013 (UTC)