Today I went to the tomb of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi. He was a Rabbi. He was a Rabbi who lived during the 2nd century CE. He was a Rabbi who lived during the 2nd century CE and compiled the mishnah. Over all I did not like this trip. I really hate it when I go to a cemetery and I feel that the mood is not respectful. The grave of Rabbi Yehuda is definitely not a very respected place. Yes, the trees are all trimmed nicely, but all of the graves there have been removed and the whole ancient cemetery has been turned into a tourist attraction.
Afterwords we went to the ancient town of Tzipori, this is the town in which Rabbi Yehuda died. This town is also talked about in the Talmud a lot. This archeological site was cool because it was an example of how Jews lived peacefully with Romans. The Jews in this town even adopted some of the Roman culture. We went to the synagogue and saw a really neat and beautiful mosaic on the floor there. However, this got me thinking, exactly how much should Jews assimilate?
The more I thought about this the more I came up with reasons that Jews should not assimilate. I looked at how today assimilation has caused Jews to splinter off into different groups and how some Jews today don’t know any Torah. But there is also the other side, the non-Jewish world offers many improvements into our everyday lives. So over all my opinion is that Jews should assimilate but they should only do it as long as they still retain their Judaism.
(yes you did just read a homework assignment.[I'm using my blog for my Journals. Journals are summaries that I have to write of each trip. In these summaries I am supposed to include my opinion of the things that we did. I get graded on Journals.])