Reformed Jews
Brett Carrington
Hello. My name is Brett Carrington and I am a reformed Jew. I am
currently pondering over the question if it is "okay" to reformed, and
not keep kosher? Please send me your input, I'd like to hear what other
people who have asked this question before have to say. Thanks.
Robert Kaiser
Technically speaking, Reform Jews consider themselves above
the law, and claim that they no longer are obliagted to follow any
Jewish law at all. However, they also claim that one is obliagted
to study Jewish law, and that a Reform Jew can voluntarilly choose to
follow any - or even all! - Jewish rituals, if they feel that will a
add holiness to their lives.
Today, a small but growing number of Reform Jews are beginning
to keep kosher, observe Shabbat, study Jewish works, and observe other
aspects of Judaism. A small number of Reform rabbis, such as Richard
Levy and Eugene Borowitz, even encourage Reform Jews to reclaim
Jewish tradition.
Unfortunately, a much larger segment of American Reform
considers it absolutely unacceptable for Reform Jews to follow any
Jewish rituals; while this is not an official position in any way,
shape or form, it is the feeling of most American Reformers. I am
enclosing a letter (below) on this subject.
Shalom,
Robert Kaiser
**********************************************
12/3/98
Last month the official magazine of Reform Judaism published
an article on a new suggested platform for Reform Judaism. Entitled
"Ten Principles of Reform Judaism", this suggested platform (which is
only under study) seeks to set guidelines for how North America's
Reform Jews should practice their faith in the 21st century.
It offers ten non-binding suggestions, encouraging Reform Jews
to take Jewish ritual more seriously, including following Shabbat,
keeping kosher to some degree, and even using the mikveh (ritual bath).
However, none of these ten principles mandates any of these as
halakha (law). While much more friendly to Jewish tradition than past
Reform platforms, it still claims that halakha is not binding, and that
none of these traditions would be required - only promoted in a
suggested, non-binding fashion.
The cover of the magazine shows the author wearing a tallit.
The response by Reform laity and rabbis?
"People freaked out" when they saw the cover, said one New York
Reform rabbi. "This is not where they are at."
"They felt betrayed by their own leaders," said a Reform leader from
the Midwest.
On the official reform Judaism website, there is a place for
Reform Jews to write their comments on the proposed non-binding
suggestions, and the response has been full of anger and bile. While
a few people have had some positive things to say, most are incredibly
angry. The predominant mood among the majority if Reform Jews is this:
Even *suggesting* a Jewish practice is being labeled as "Orthodox",
"fundamentalist", and a "betrayal" of true Reform Judaism.
Mind you, nothing at all in these ten new principles asks for
Reform Jews to accept halakha as binding. Yet even *suggestions* are
now considered coercive fundamentalism? And people are freaked out
because a Reform rabbi wore a tallit in public? People have even stated
that they will leave Reform Judaism, because even _suggesting_ such
practices now "turns Reform into Orthodoxy".
Rabbi Eric Yoffie said he was shocked by the level of criticism of
the published platform. (The platform has since been amended but has not
been distributed publicly.) "What surprised me is there seems to be
opposition coming from all quarters," Rabbi Yoffie said. "It's not only
from the right or the left. This has generated some discomfort among
laypeople, rabbis, faculty at HUC, among those more classically inclined,
but also among those more traditionally inclined. I must admit I'm a
bit perplexed."
One Reform rabbi even went so far as to have a lenghty rebuttal
article published in the same issue of the magazine, referring to his
Reform collegue as pushing "fundamentalism".
Personally, I am horrified by this response. I really cannot
imagine a spectacle of self-loathing more horrible than this. Who would
imagine that a Reform rabbi would attack another as "fundamentalist"
simply because he offers non-binding suggestions? And worse yet, the
official Reform magazine saw fit to print this attack?
Never in a hundred years would I have predicted the angry invective
that most of Reform is hurling at these suggestions. (Which you can see
for yourself; check out the WWW sites)
See an article on this subject at:
http://www.thejewishweek.com/jwcurr.exe?98120418
To see the Reform movement's new suggested principles, see:
http://uahc.org/rjmag/1198tp.html
To read what some of the Reform laity have to say about this, see:
http://uahc.org/cgi-bin/msgs.pl?dir=/home/reform/tenpri&action=display&max=3000
reporting this news with great sadness,
Robert Kaiser
******************************************************
Shelly
Brett Carrington wrote in message <78fsej$q...@nntp.seflin.org>...
>
> Hello. My name is Brett Carrington and I am a reformed Jew. I am
>currently pondering over the question if it is "okay" to reformed, and
>not keep kosher? Please send me your input, I'd like to hear what other
>people who have asked this question before have to say. Thanks.
Brett, it is Reform, not reformed. What were you doing so bad before that
you are now "reformed"? (I am giving you the benefit of the doubt but your
misuse of the very name of the branch to which you profess to belong,
combined with the nature of the text of the message has caused me to raise
my antennae).
So, yes, it is OK to be Reform. It is also OK to be Conservative or
Orthodox.
It is _not_ OK to be Orthodox and not keep kosher. Officially, that is the
same for Conservative, but that is honored more in the breach than in the
observance. As for Reform, it is OK to not keep kosher. It is also OK for
Reform to keep kosher.
Sidebar to Robert Kaiser: Reform does not "put itself above the law".
Reform does not recognize the binding nature of what you _call_ the law
(halacha). Reform uses that as a guide, not an absolute. Putting ourselves
"above the law" would necessitate our recognition of it _being_ the law and
then choosing to disregard it. We do _NOT_ so recognize. And, Robert, I
absolutely refuse to get into a shouting match with you about this so go
ahead with all your "liar", etc. rantings. I don't care.
Shelly
Zvi the Fiddler
Brett Carrington wrote in message <78fsej$q...@nntp.seflin.org>...
>
> Hello. My name is Brett Carrington and I am a reformed Jew. I am
>currently pondering over the question if it is "okay" to reformed,
and
>not keep kosher? Please send me your input, I'd like to hear what
other
>people who have asked this question before have to say. Thanks.
What are you reformed from??
Oh -- I get it -- you are a REFORM Jew. Well, put on your asbestos
skivvies, cause your gonna get LOTS of mail telling you your religion
is not Judaism at all. Now, assuming you are not a troll, why don;t
you ask your rabbi this question?
Zvi the Fiddler
Joe Slater
>It is _not_ OK to be Orthodox and not keep kosher. Officially, that is the
>same for Conservative, but that is honored more in the breach than in the
>observance.
"Honored more in the breach than in the observance" really means that
it's better to break the custom than to keep it. For instance, the
proper response to "Did you get drunk on New Year's Eve?" is "That's a
custom which is more honored in the breach than in the observance."
jds
Robert Kaiser
"Shelly" <shel...@earthlink.net> says:
>Sidebar to Robert Kaiser: Reform does not "put itself above the law".
>Reform does not recognize the binding nature of what you _call_ the law
>(halacha). Reform uses that as a guide, not an absolute. Putting ourselves
>"above the law" would necessitate our recognition of it _being_ the law and
>then choosing to disregard it. We do _NOT_ so recognize. And, Robert, I
>absolutely refuse to get into a shouting match with you about this so go
>ahead with all your "liar", etc. rantings. I don't care.
Huh? What in the world are you talking about? The only "lie",
to use your term, is that no one has called you a liar. No one. Look
Shelly, if you have received hate-mail calling you that, ostensibly from
me, please forward me this right away. I have had some person forge posts
in my name recently.
But if not, why are you writing such a hostile, divise, and
anger filled letter? Yes, I disagree with Reform Judaism. Why does that
automatically make me a ranting lunatic who think that you are a "liar" ?
I'm sorry, but Conservative Jews strongly disagree with what Reform
Judaism has done to halakha; You have no right to attack the opinion of
1.5 million of us like this. Do we not deserve the same respect that
you ask for yourself?
Look, maybe someone else here is sending you lots of hate-mail
saying what you alluded to, but I have not sent *any*. Please do not
attack me for things I have never said; Is that so much to ask?
As for the substance of your post, I do not understand your
point. I pointed out that Reform Jews still consider themselves above
the law, and you claimed that you disagreed with me. But then you
stated - and I quote -
Reform uses that as a guide, not an absolute. Putting ourselves
"above the law" would necessitate our recognition of it _being_
the law and then choosing to disregard it. We do _NOT_ so recognize.
Uh, Shelly? This *is* the definition of putting onesself above
the law. This in fact is the dictionary definition. We are thus in
100% agreement; you simply prefer to phrase it in a different manner.
Even if we did disagree on how to interpret the halakha, why would that
be cause for you to write such an angry tirade against me?
Shelly, what's up? I get the feeling that something else must
be bothering you, because you have written a very angry letter to me
and about me, that is not based on anything I wrote at all! So what is it?
Robert
Robert Kaiser
>Sidebar to Robert Kaiser: Reform does not "put itself above the law".
>Reform does not recognize the binding nature of what you _call_ the law
>(halacha). Reform uses that as a guide, not an absolute. Putting ourselves
>"above the law" would necessitate our recognition of it _being_ the law and
>then choosing to disregard it. We do _NOT_ so recognize. And, Robert, I
>absolutely refuse to get into a shouting match with you about this so go
>ahead with all your "liar", etc. rantings. I don't care.
As I pointed out earlier, no one is calling you a liar, no one
is ranting at you, and no one is involved in a shouting match with you.
I really have no idea what you are responding to; I am only able to
discuss the philosophy of the subject.
I suspect that you may not be as familiar with the details of
Reform theology concerning halakha as you think you are. Below are
some right-wing Reform Jewish opinions - and note that they are by the
most extreme right-wingers in the American Reform movement. Everyone
else in the movement is far to the _left_ of these rabbis.
**********************************************
The following is excerpted from "Who is a Jew?' by Jacob
Immanuel Schochet.
The only theological principle, policy, or doctrine recognized and
affirmed by Reform Judaism is that "there is no such thing as a Jewish
theological principle, policy, or doctrine." Let some of their most
prominent leaders speak for themselves: [6]
W. Gunther Plaut is a former president of the CCAR, a leading historian,
scholar and representative of the Reform movement. He is generally
regarded to belong to the very moderate, right-of-center (if not
rightist altogether) Reformers. According to Plaut, "the average Reform
Jew, like the average Reform rabbi, considers any mention of halacha or
its equivalent as the expression of Orthodoxy or Conservatism. " [7]
Plaut argues consistently that the 'Reform movement' should have some
guidelines, some form of 'code' of practices incorporating selected
mitzvot, customs and rituals. But he qualifies immediately that any
such 'code' or 'guide' must "most important of all, accept the
fundamental principle of Liberalism: that the individual will approach
this body of mitzvot and minhagim in the spirit of freedom and choice.
Traditionally Israel started with harut, the commandment engraved upon
the Tablets, which then became freedom. The Reform Jew starts with herut
the freedom to decide what will be harut - engraved upon the personal
Tablets of his life. [8]
Plaut recognizes that this liberal anarchy of Reform means that
traditional Jews "and the membership of Reform congregations no
longer speak the same language." [9] This does not seem to worry
him. His major concern, it would appear, is with self-preservation,
the survival of Reform:
"One cannot escape the concomitant conviction that Reform Judaism
in its present non-or even anti halachic form does not possess
the key to the total Jewish future. If the movement does not now
turn decisively away from its post-classical, radical phase, then
indeed, its critics will probably be right: it will have no future...
Without a recovery of the sense of halacha, Reform Judaism will
dissolve into a shallow post-Einhornian ethicism. We may not go
as far as Einhorn's son-in-law Emil G. Hirsch and remove the Sifrei
Torah from the ark, but we will be assisting at the final surgery
which removes the marrow from Jewish existence." [10]
But even as moderate a thinker as Plaut is not prepared to return to the
roots of Judaism, to the three concepts of God, Torah and Israel, which
have forever been the foundation of the Jewish faith and the force that
bound all Jews together: "The traditional trilogy of 'God, Israel,
and Torah' is no longer operative as a Liberal consensus. As for Torah,
the early Liberals excluded from it the oral law, and the latter-day
Liberals, because of eclecticism abetted by biblical criticism,
reduced Torah to a symbolic accouterment of the service and little else.
...
Plaut's search for a new 'halacha' that can accommodate the majority
of the Reform movement concludes with the categorical imperative that
"neither God nor Torah can be considered as universally commanding
sources for Reform halacha!" [12]
{* Shelly, this is exactly what I have been telling you* }
The traditional trilogy 'God, Israel, and Torah' "must be supplanted
by a spectrum that ranges from Israel to man to self... where all who
count themselves as part of this fellowship agree that, through Israel,
individual as well as human uniqueness is validated in a special way
and that whatever Judaism has to say must speak to and of and through
this uniqueness." [13]
With this new Torah-less Judaism," Plaut and Reform have come full
circle to what he calls the "transmutation of non-halachic Judaism into
ethical culture," flourishing as a "Jewishly inspired Unitarianism,
spread as a broad and pleasant middle-class establishmentarianism,
with American or Canadian banners gaily affixed to it," albeit by
adding or restoring some moorings in Jewish history. [14]
"But whatever Reform halacha will be, it will not be law in the old
sense... With the demise of the operational quality of Torah law in
our liberal world, halacha as law has become a skeletal term. " [15]
Another scholar of the Reform movement, at least as moderate and
right-of-center as Plaut, was Jakob Petuchowski, senior professor
of Rabbinic and Jewish Theology at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish
Institute of Religion in Cincinnati. He, too, is disturbed by the
chaos and anarchy governing Reform beliefs and practices. He anticipated
most of the weaknesses in Plaut's approach and confronts them in a
frank and honest way:
"The endeavor to foster Jewish observance by a 'sales appeal,'
in imitation of the marketing of cigarettes and soap ('Five
hundred congregations from coast to coast can't be wrong!')
is merely further proof of the fact that, judging only by the
official statements of Reform doctrine, there can be no halacha
for Reform Judaism!
Where individual rabbis encourage 'ceremonies,' they do so either
because they have Reconstructionist leanings and treasure
'folkways,' or because modern educational theories have opened
their eyes to the necessity of audiovisual aids, or again;
because they feel the need to lend a certain warmth and
emotional appeal to an otherwise 'cold' worship service. All
these reasons and motivations are good for an ad hoc 'ritualism.'
But it will be conceded that we are dealing with 'religious
pageantry' - not with halacha" [16]
Petuchowski is one of the first to recognize and admit the striking
similarity between the theology of unbridled 'Reform unversalism' and
Christian theology. The Columbus Platform of 1937, still the standard
Reform revelation to this day, defined God as the One in Whom "all
existence has its creative source and man kind its ideal of conduct."
Revelation is defined as "a continuing process, confined to no one
group and to no one age."
Petuchowksi cogently notes:
"It may well be that many Reform Jews view with favor this (backward)
progress from Sinai to the elementary morality of the 'Seven Laws
of the Sons of Noah,' whereas traditional Judaism knows of
progress in the opposite direction. Paul, too, was fired by the
thought of the pre-Sinaitic Patriarchs who were 'saved' without
the law, and, in this sense, the new dispensation he preached
was a return to pristine simplicity. There is, therefore, no need
for halacha in circles where Sinai is either deplored or rejected,
and where Torah simply means respectability and good will. " [17]
As Plaut rightly observed, traditional Jews and the membership of Reform
congregations no longer speak the same language. Petuchowksi writes:
"Historically speaking, halacha was the norm of Jewish life -
either found in the Scriptures or deduced from them by a
universally accepted system of hermeneutics. Where, as in
the case of the Karaites, the hermeneutics or the authority
of the interpreters was rejected, an attempt was made to base
Jewish practice on the literal meaning of the Bible. But both
Rabbanite and Karaite Jews submitted to their respective
versions of Jewish law, because they believed that in observing
it they were fulfilling the will of God, and that this will was
expressed - directly or indirectly - in the pages of the Hebrew
Bible." [18]
The above is not an 'orthodox' evaluation of 'Reform Judaism,' nor an unrepresentative
sampling of their radicals. These are the thoughts and statements of prominent and
moderate leaders, teachers and spokesmen of the Reform movement.
6. The quotes following are taken from Bernard Martin, ed., CONTEMPORARY Reform JEWISH THOUGHT, Quadrangle Books: Chicago 1968. This book, sponsored and copyrighted by the CCAR, is a collection of essays by "rabbis who are alumni of the HUC-JIR, which is the fountainhead of Reform Judaism in America. Three of the authors serve as professors at their alma mater;" p. V.
7. Ibid., p.89.
8. Ibid., p.100.
9. Ibid., p.90.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid., p.96-7.
12. Ibid., p.97.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid., p.89.
15. Ibid., p.98.
16. Ibid., p.114.
17. Ibid., p.115 (see there also p.113).
18. Ibid., p.111.
********************************
Please note that Gunther Plaut and Jakob Petuchowski are two
of Reform Judaism's most respected rabbis; Thus it would be wise to
hestiate before accusing them of wanting to get into a "shouting match"
with Reform Judaism,nor are they calling any Reform Jews liars!
Shalom,
Robert
Brett Weiss
the law, and claim that they no longer are obliagted to follow any
Jewish law at all. However, they also claim that one is obliagted
to study Jewish law, and that a Reform Jew can voluntarilly choose to
follow any - or even all! - Jewish rituals, if they feel that will a
add holiness to their lives. <<
As I understand it, Reform Jews do not consider themselves *above* the law,
merely not bound by halacha.
--
Brett
Richard Schultz
: Reform does not recognize the binding nature of what you _call_ the law
: (halacha). Reform uses that as a guide, not an absolute. Putting
: ourselves "above the law" would necessitate our recognition of it
: _being_ the law and then choosing to disregard it. We do _NOT_ so
: recognize.
Which leads to the aspect of Reform philosophy that most confuses me.
How does one retain a particularly Jewish ethical/moral system if the
fundamental Jewish legal works, which were traditionally believed
to the basis of the Jewish ethical system as well, are only "advisory"?
For example, Reform Judaism has de facto (possibly de jure as well, I
don't follow everything the CCAR does) accepted that homosexual acts
explcitly proscribed by the Bible are permissible. But the same
passage that forbids male homosexual acts also forbids various incestuous
relationships, and I have yet to find a Reform Jew who either (a) accepts
that there is nothing wrong with incest between consenting adults or
who (b) agrees that incest should be forbidden and can explain how a
specifically *Jewish* ethic forbids it. Actually, I have yet to find
one who can explain why incest between consenting adults is fundamentally
any more immoral than homosexuality between consenting adults from any
kind of fundamental ethical or moral principles.
-----
Richard Schultz sch...@mail.biu.ac.il
Department of Chemistry tel: 972-3-531-8065
Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel fax: 972-3-535-1250
-----
"an optimist is a guy/ that has never had/ much experience"
Herman Rubin
Robert Kaiser <kai...@biosys.net> wrote:
> d051...@dc.seflin.org (Brett Carrington) says:
>> Hello. My name is Brett Carrington and I am a reformed Jew. I am
>> currently pondering over the question if it is "okay" to reformed, and
>> not keep kosher? Please send me your input, I'd like to hear what other
>> people who have asked this question before have to say. Thanks.
> Technically speaking, Reform Jews consider themselves above
>the law, and claim that they no longer are obliagted to follow any
>Jewish law at all. However, they also claim that one is obliagted
>to study Jewish law, and that a Reform Jew can voluntarilly choose to
>follow any - or even all! - Jewish rituals, if they feel that will a
>add holiness to their lives.
They do not claim that they are above Torah law. What they claim is
that we are not sure what Torah law is, and that the ancient approaches
to understanding it do not take into account what we know of the
real physical universe, and even of the ancient history of Judaism.
Not only Reform Jews, but many Conservative Jews, do not believe that
God wrote, or dictated, the Torah to anyone. Understanding the Torah
requires understanding the nature of the physical universe, and of the
social and political situation at the time of its writing, and at the
times at which the events were supposedly happening. As unlearning is
extremely difficult, I suggest that this be the approach, not attempting
to understand Torah first.
> Today, a small but growing number of Reform Jews are beginning
>to keep kosher, observe Shabbat, study Jewish works, and observe other
>aspects of Judaism. A small number of Reform rabbis, such as Richard
>Levy and Eugene Borowitz, even encourage Reform Jews to reclaim
>Jewish tradition.
I disapprove of the order of your listing. As I see it, Shabbath is
the one feature which most clearly separates Judaism from the other
ancient religions. But I do not see it as the Orthodox remade it.
I have posted on this before, and I very definitely consider using
tradition for the sake of tradition to be idolatry itself.
Study the works of people, because this is all we have, and try to
extract from them the ideas which come from God, and follow those.
> Unfortunately, a much larger segment of American Reform
>considers it absolutely unacceptable for Reform Jews to follow any
>Jewish rituals; while this is not an official position in any way,
>shape or form, it is the feeling of most American Reformers. I am
>enclosing a letter (below) on this subject.
Many Reform Jews feel this way to some extent; part of this is because
of the attempts to force it on them. Few consider it "mandatory" not
to observe Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Few consider it mandatory
not to observe Shabbath, and I believe more would if they did not
consider this to the the Orthodox version or nothing. I believe that
rituals have the purpose of bringing those who perform them closer to
God, and that just doing them because it is traditional, or because
the rabbis say so, is bordering on idolatry.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
hru...@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
greg_...@my-dejanews.com
kai...@biosys.net (Robert Kaiser) wrote:
>
>
> As for the substance of your post, I do not understand your
> point. I pointed out that Reform Jews still consider themselves above
> the law, and you claimed that you disagreed with me. But then you
> stated - and I quote -
>
> "above the law" would necessitate our recognition of it _being_
> the law and then choosing to disregard it. We do _NOT_ so recognize.
>
> the law. This in fact is the dictionary definition. We are thus in
> 100% agreement; you simply prefer to phrase it in a different manner.
Um, no, that *is not* the definition of putting oneself "above the law."
Putting oneself above the law would mean claiming that the law is valid,
binding, and in this case straight from God's own mouth, and then ignoring or
changing it at will. That is called "Conservatism." (After that shot you
will hopefully understand why Shelly was ticked off.) Reform considers the
halachah to be a man-made invention and therefore not law at all.
Greg
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
shel...@earthlink.net
greg_...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> In article <36abf...@news.ic.sunysb.edu>,
> kai...@biosys.net (Robert Kaiser) wrote:
> >
> >
> > As for the substance of your post, I do not understand your
> > point. I pointed out that Reform Jews still consider themselves above
> > the law, and you claimed that you disagreed with me. But then you
> > stated - and I quote -
> >
> > Reform uses that as a guide, not an absolute. Putting ourselves
> > "above the law" would necessitate our recognition of it _being_
> > the law and then choosing to disregard it. We do _NOT_ so recognize.
> >
> > Uh, Shelly? This *is* the definition of putting onesself above
> > the law. This in fact is the dictionary definition. We are thus in
> > 100% agreement; you simply prefer to phrase it in a different manner.
>
> Um, no, that *is not* the definition of putting oneself "above the law."
> Putting oneself above the law would mean claiming that the law is valid,
> binding, and in this case straight from God's own mouth, and then ignoring or
> changing it at will. That is called "Conservatism." (After that shot you
> will hopefully understand why Shelly was ticked off.) Reform considers the
> halachah to be a man-made invention and therefore not law at all.
>
> Greg
>
Well said (though I have no wish to take "shots" at any denomination). BTW,
it wasn't just me that was "ticked off" judging by the number of rebuttal
posts.
Robert, try to understand simple English. To put oneself above the law, one
must agree that it _IS_ the law that one is ignoring. When it comes to
murder, robbery, etc. we can all agree. When it comes to halacha, WE DO NOT
RECOGNIZE THIS AS THE LAW. Ergo, your statements are nonsense and we are in
total DISAGREEMENT. Try to grasp that SIMPLE concept. Now, as an exercise
for the student, go back and reread what I wrote and possibly, just possibly,
you will begin to understand the English sentence.
Fact 1: halacha=law, according to Orthodox and Conservative. Fact 2:
halacha=detailing of traditions and customs, according to Reform. So, you
would correct in saying that Reform puts itself above the detailing of
traditions and customs but TOTALLY incorrect in saying Reform puts itself
above the law.
Shelly
P.S. Just in case you detected a rather nasty tone, it is there. When you
make such ridiculous statements about the denomination to which I belong, I
will react accordingly.
P.P.S. Yes, I know I violated my own statement of last words, but this truly
represents the last I will say on this here.
Robert Kaiser
hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) says:
>
>> Technically speaking, Reform Jews consider themselves above
>>the law, and claim that they no longer are obliagted to follow any
>>Jewish law at all. However, they also claim that one is obliagted
>>to study Jewish law, and that a Reform Jew can voluntarilly choose to
>>follow any - or even all! - Jewish rituals, if they feel that will a
>>add holiness to their lives.
>They do not claim that they are above Torah law. What they claim is
>that we are not sure what Torah law is, and that the ancient approaches
>to understanding it do not take into account what we know of the
>real physical universe, and even of the ancient history of Judaism.
I respectfully disagree. I have never come across this in the
Reform writings published by the Reform movement. Instead, they state
quite forwardly that the system we call halakha is _not_ binding.
Really, one cannot claim that they do not know what Torah law
is. That is pretty much set in black ink on parchment. And these laws
are clarified in explicit detail in the Mishna, Tosefta, Talmud
Yerushalmi, and Talmud Bavli. Is there room for debate and flexibility
in most areas of law? Sure. But saying that the law can be flexible
is totally different than claiming that the law no longer is normative.
I think you mean to say that Reform Jews are sure what God's
own Will is, and thus do not accept the Torah or Talmud as being
representative of God's will. Conservative Jews take a position that
is intermediate between Reform and Orthodoxy: We do believe that the
Torah and Talmud represent the work of people divinly inspired by God,
and that the process of halakhic development does indeed reveal the
hand of God in the world, even today.
This is obviously a liberal heresy to many people here. Yet,
ironically, it also seems fundamentalist to many others!
>Not only Reform Jews, but many Conservative Jews, do not believe that
>God wrote, or dictated, the Torah to anyone. Understanding the Torah
>requires understanding the nature of the physical universe, and of the
>social and political situation at the time of its writing, and at the
>times at which the events were supposedly happening. As unlearning is
>extremely difficult, I suggest that this be the approach, not attempting
>to understand Torah first.
I agree, but while this is true, this is not the issue at hand.
Whether or not God dictated the Torah to Moses in a verbal fashion is
irrelevent to whether or not halakha has any normative [binding] authority.
After all, the Constitution of the United States was not
dictated by God to Jefferson,but Americans consider it binding, right?
So obviously, a law does not need Divine dication to be legitimate.
There are _many_ reasons that laws are considered good and normative
besides this one point.
>> Today, a small but growing number of Reform Jews are beginning
>>to keep kosher, observe Shabbat, study Jewish works, and observe other
>>aspects of Judaism. A small number of Reform rabbis, such as Richard
>>Levy and Eugene Borowitz, even encourage Reform Jews to reclaim
>>Jewish tradition.
>I disapprove of the order of your listing. As I see it, Shabbath is
>the one feature which most clearly separates Judaism from the other
>ancient religions. But I do not see it as the Orthodox remade it.
>I have posted on this before, and I very definitely consider using
>tradition for the sake of tradition to be idolatry itself.
I understand your point; Just to clarify, there was no intended
order in my listing at all. It was just which words came to mind first.
>> Unfortunately, a much larger segment of American Reform
>>considers it absolutely unacceptable for Reform Jews to follow any
>>Jewish rituals; while this is not an official position in any way,
>>shape or form, it is the feeling of most American Reformers. I am
>>enclosing a letter (below) on this subject.
>Many Reform Jews feel this way to some extent; part of this is because
>of the attempts to force it on them.
I agree. I think the attitude of "enforcement" is precisely
what scares so many people away from Judaism.
>Few consider it "mandatory" not
>to observe Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Few consider it mandatory
>not to observe Shabbath, and I believe more would if they did not
>consider this to the the Orthodox version or nothing. I believe that
>rituals have the purpose of bringing those who perform them closer to
>God, and that just doing them because it is traditional, or because
>the rabbis say so, is bordering on idolatry.
This is a good presentation of the difference between Reform
and Conservative ideology.
Shalom,
Robert
Robert Kaiser
kai...@biosys.net (Robert Kaiser) says:
>
> Really, one cannot claim that they do not know what Torah law
>is. That is pretty much set in black ink on parchment. And these laws
>are clarified in explicit detail in the Mishna, Tosefta, Talmud
>Yerushalmi, and Talmud Bavli. Is there room for debate and flexibility
>in most areas of law? Sure. But saying that the law can be flexible
>is totally different than claiming that the law no longer is normative.
> I think you mean to say that Reform Jews are sure what God's
>own Will is, and thus do not accept the Torah or Talmud as being
>representative of God's will.
Oops! I meant to say that "Reform Jews are NOT sure what God's
own will is..."
Robert
Robert Kaiser
greg_...@my-dejanews.com says:
>> Uh, Shelly? This *is* the definition of putting onesself above
>> the law. This in fact is the dictionary definition. We are thus in
>> 100% agreement; you simply prefer to phrase it in a different manner.
>
>
>Um, no, that *is not* the definition of putting oneself "above the law."
>Putting oneself above the law would mean claiming that the law is valid,
>binding, and in this case straight from God's own mouth, and then ignoring or
>changing it at will.
I have never heard ofthis definition before. Obviously, English
is not your native language.
That is called "Conservatism." (After that shot you
>will hopefully understand why Shelly was ticked off.) Reform considers the
>halachah to be a man-made invention and therefore not law at all.
Once again, someone starts out by claiming that they disagree with
me, yet by the end of their message they say *exactly* what I said! I
don't understand the logic of this at all...
By the way, how does your false "shot" against all Conservative
Jews justify Shelly's mistaken claims of a personal attack against him?
[I still have not seen any post attacking him, getting into a fight
with him, or calling him a liar. ]
Further, I would suggest that instead of speaking for reform
Jews, you actually *read* some works by the Reform movement and its
most respected and prominent theologians. It is embarassing to see
someone so ignorant spout such nonsense.
Robert
Robert Kaiser
shel...@earthlink.net says:
>> Um, no, that *is not* the definition of putting oneself "above the law."
>> Putting oneself above the law would mean claiming that the law is valid,
>> binding, and in this case straight from God's own mouth, and then ignoring or
>> will hopefully understand why Shelly was ticked off.) Reform considers the
>> halachah to be a man-made invention and therefore not law at all.
>>
>>
>
>Well said (though I have no wish to take "shots" at any denomination). BTW,
>it wasn't just me that was "ticked off" judging by the number of rebuttal
>posts.
>
>Robert, try to understand simple English. To put oneself above the law, one
>must agree that it _IS_ the law that one is ignoring.
This is your own personal definition, and not one I have ever
heard in my entire life before yesterday. As such, I do not accept it.
>When it comes to
>murder, robbery, etc. we can all agree. When it comes to halacha, WE DO NOT
>RECOGNIZE THIS AS THE LAW. Ergo, your statements are nonsense and we are in
>total DISAGREEMENT.
No, you are just using some English words in a way that I have
never seen them used before.
>Try to grasp that SIMPLE concept. Now, as an exercise
>for the student, go back and reread what I wrote and possibly, just possibly,
>you will begin to understand the English sentence.
>Fact 1: halacha=law, according to Orthodox and Conservative. Fact 2:
>halacha=detailing of traditions and customs, according to Reform. So, you
>would correct in saying that Reform puts itself above the detailing of
>traditions and customs but TOTALLY incorrect in saying Reform puts itself
>above the law.
Shelly, I don't have time for these word games. Read some works
from the Reform movement,especially the ones I quoted.
Robert
Robert Kaiser
shel...@earthlink.net says:
>Robert, try to understand simple English. To put oneself above the law, one
>murder, robbery, etc. we can all agree. When it comes to halacha, WE DO NOT
>RECOGNIZE THIS AS THE LAW. Ergo, your statements are nonsense and we are in
>for the student, go back and reread what I wrote and possibly, just possibly,
>you will begin to understand the English sentence.
>
>Fact 1: halacha=law, according to Orthodox and Conservative. Fact 2:
>halacha=detailing of traditions and customs, according to Reform. So, you
>would correct in saying that Reform puts itself above the detailing of
>traditions and customs but TOTALLY incorrect in saying Reform puts itself
>above the law.
The angry tone of your letter bothers me. When I wrote about
the Reform movement, there was no anger or hate. In fact, I posted a
lenghty piece concerning the attitude of the Reform movement towards
halakha in the words of Reform Judaism's own rabbis
I made certain that everyone on this newsgroup could see for
themselves what the official positions were, and gave sources for
further reading. And it was all polite.
I do not appreciate your response, which is mostly based on word
games and personal attacks against me. You used to be able to do better
than this, Shelly.
http://www.shamash.org/lists/scj-faq/HTML/rl/jlu-belief.html
Shalom,
Robert Kaiser
Delia Candle
greg_...@my-dejanews.com wrote in message
<78if0p$1qs$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>In article <36abf...@news.ic.sunysb.edu>,
> kai...@biosys.net (Robert Kaiser) wrote:
>>
>>
>> As for the substance of your post, I do not understand your
>> point. I pointed out that Reform Jews still consider themselves above
>> the law, and you claimed that you disagreed with me. But then you
>> stated - and I quote -
>>
>> Reform uses that as a guide, not an absolute. Putting ourselves
>> "above the law" would necessitate our recognition of it _being_
>> the law and then choosing to disregard it. We do _NOT_ so recognize.
>>
>> the law. This in fact is the dictionary definition. We are thus in
>> 100% agreement; you simply prefer to phrase it in a different manner.
>
>
>Putting oneself above the law would mean claiming that the law is valid,
>binding, and in this case straight from God's own mouth, and then ignoring
or
>changing it at will. That is called "Conservatism." (After that shot you
>will hopefully understand why Shelly was ticked off.) Reform considers the
>halachah to be a man-made invention and therefore not law at all.
>
>Greg
>
Why would something that's man-made not be law?
DC
NYC
Herman Rubin
Robert Kaiser <kai...@biosys.net> wrote:
>greg_...@my-dejanews.com says:
.............
> Further, I would suggest that instead of speaking for reform
>Jews, you actually *read* some works by the Reform movement and its
>most respected and prominent theologians. It is embarassing to see
>someone so ignorant spout such nonsense.
You will find Reform theologians with widely differing opinions.
But what, more than anything else, "unites" Reform Jews is that these
theologians still only advise, and it is the right and duty of the
individual Reform Jew to decide.
Robert Kaiser
"Delia Candle" <cand...@mindspring.com> says:
Greg Lamont says:
>>Um, no, that *is not* the definition of putting oneself "above the law."
>>Putting oneself above the law would mean claiming that the law is valid,
>>binding, and in this case straight from God's own mouth, and then ignoring or
>>changing it at will. That is called "Conservatism." (After that shot you
>>will hopefully understand why Shelly was ticked off.) Reform considers the
>>halachah to be a man-made invention and therefore not law at all.
>Why would something that's man-made not be law?
Good point. I have been bringing up this point for years, and
I have never been given an answer a good answer.
Do Americans claim that they will refuse to follow any and all
laws; and will only follow those laws that they feel are useful in
their own lives? Nope. Do Candians, Australians or the British do
this? Of course not.
All over the world, people respect their legal systems, and darn
few of them claim that their laws come direct from God! So why should
we Jews have any less respect for our own laws?
There is wide range between instrangient fundamentalism and
absolute lawlessness and anarchy; Why is the existence of a middle
ground - a flexible and tolerant middle ground - so hard for people
to accept?
Robert
Brett Weiss
Australia. It was not adopted by *our* representatives and therefore is not
binding on us.
If halacha is God-made law, a belief if God would seem to require the
recognition and observance of that law (OJ). Working from the assumption
that halacha is man-made, rather than God-made, law however, allows for
change (CJ) or even rejection (RJ).
--
Brett
Robert Kaiser <kai...@biosys.net> wrote in message
news:36ad2...@news.ic.sunysb.edu...
Brett Weiss
Many morality-related prohibitions have at their heart a very practical
basis. Prohibitions against homosexuality work towards perpetuation of the
group, since few children are born of homosexual unions. <g> Incest has a
great tendency to produce genetic abnormalities. Adultery results in
uncertainty as to the parentage of children, with all of the implications of
that to a culture in which certain rewards are predicated on knowing
parentage and order of birth.
--
Brett
*****************************************************************
Richard Schultz <sch...@gefen.cc.biu.ac.il> wrote in message
news:78hg2c$ch2$1...@cnn.cc.biu.ac.il...
>Shelly (shel...@earthlink.net) wrote:
>
>: Reform does not recognize the binding nature of what you _call_ the law
>: (halacha). Reform uses that as a guide, not an absolute. Putting
>: ourselves "above the law" would necessitate our recognition of it
>: _being_ the law and then choosing to disregard it. We do _NOT_ so
>: recognize.
>
Shelly
Joe Slater wrote in message <36b3e6bd....@news.onaustralia.com.au>...
Did you ever hear of poetic license. What I _clearly_ meant was that while
Conservative Jews officially profess that they should keep kosher, the
majority don't (as taken from my experience among them).
Shelly
Shelly
Robert Kaiser wrote in message <36abf...@news.ic.sunysb.edu>...
>
> "Shelly" <shel...@earthlink.net> says:
>>Sidebar to Robert Kaiser: Reform does not "put itself above the law".
>>(halacha). Reform uses that as a guide, not an absolute. Putting
ourselves
>>"above the law" would necessitate our recognition of it _being_ the law
and
>>absolutely refuse to get into a shouting match with you about this so go
>>ahead with all your "liar", etc. rantings. I don't care.
>
>
>
>to use your term, is that no one has called you a liar. No one. Look
>Shelly, if you have received hate-mail calling you that, ostensibly from
>me, please forward me this right away. I have had some person forge posts
>in my name recently.
>
> But if not, why are you writing such a hostile, divise, and
>anger filled letter? Yes, I disagree with Reform Judaism. Why does that
>automatically make me a ranting lunatic who think that you are a "liar" ?
Since this is not a direct response to your nonsense statement, let me
explain. No one has called me a liar. It was simply a prediction. Had I
gone back and forth with you at least twice on this, then judging by your
past performance on this news group to just abount everyone -- me
included -- you would have wound up calling me a "liar" for something or
other. I simply short-circuited it and said "go ahead".
>I'm sorry, but Conservative Jews strongly disagree with what Reform
>Judaism has done to halakha; You have no right to attack the opinion of
>1.5 million of us like this. Do we not deserve the same respect that
>you ask for yourself?
Please come in from left field Robert and try to put some reason between
your ears. Never once had I attacked the opinion of Conservatives in that
they disagree with our not accepting halacha as LAW. Please cite even one
instance of EXACTLY WHAT I HAVE JUST SAID and not some contortion to fit
your image. On the other hand, YOU have attacked Reform by making your
ridiculous statement.
>
> Look, maybe someone else here is sending you lots of hate-mail
>saying what you alluded to, but I have not sent *any*. Please do not
>attack me for things I have never said; Is that so much to ask?
I attacked you for what you DID say in public.
As for your "not understanding" (in this case, simple English), I can only
say "come and learn".
Shelly
Shelly
>>From: shel...@earthlink.net
>>Date: 1/25/99 1:01 PM Pacific Standard Time
>
>>When it comes to halacha, WE DO NOT
>>RECOGNIZE THIS AS THE LAW.
>
is
>that from the point of view of the Reform denomination Judaism has no
national
>law, and thus no political identity as a nation.
Jews are a people. Some Jews live in a nation called Israel. That nation
has laws. Some Jews live in the U.S. That nation has laws. There is no
"law" for the people. The "law" is in the nation where they reside.
There are traditions and a commonality of belief of practice. That, too, is
part of the people called Israel (not the nation Israel).
If cannot understand this simplicity, then I fear you cannot be helped.
>
>>Ergo, your statements are nonsense and we are in
>>total DISAGREEMENT.
>
>Technically true, I believe it is clear that many criminals who feel
themselves
>above the law, also feel that law abiding folks are suckers; the criminals
>hardly respect or really believe in the law at all. In this sense one
could
>read the Reform movement as seeing itself above the law.
>
>Halevalaw
Look, halacha is not the law. _YOU_ consider it as law for yourself, but it
is not the law. You "analogy" breaks down totally and, in fact, supports my
contention. The criminals _recognize_ the _fact_ of the law. They choose
to violate it, but they still recognize its existence as law. Reform does
not recognize the legitimacy of the position that halacha is law.
In any event, to liken Reform to criminals is insulting. I won't trot out
returning insults because
(a) I have too many O friends who would be insulted and
(b) I try to live by a certain standard, part of which is not to throw
avoidable insults (I think I was told that this was one part of halacha,
come to think of it -- but you should know better than I do, shouldn't
you?).
Shelly
Halevalaw
>Date: 1/25/99 1:01 PM Pacific Standard Time
>When it comes to halacha, WE DO NOT
>RECOGNIZE THIS AS THE LAW.
True enough. Perhaps what he meant to say, and this is only my conjecture, is
that from the point of view of the Reform denomination Judaism has no national
law, and thus no political identity as a nation.
>Ergo, your statements are nonsense and we are in
shel...@earthlink.net
"Delia Candle" <cand...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> greg_...@my-dejanews.com wrote in message
> <78if0p$1qs$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
> >In article <36abf...@news.ic.sunysb.edu>,
> > kai...@biosys.net (Robert Kaiser) wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> As for the substance of your post, I do not understand your
> >> point. I pointed out that Reform Jews still consider themselves above
> >> the law, and you claimed that you disagreed with me. But then you
> >> stated - and I quote -
> >>
> >> "above the law" would necessitate our recognition of it _being_
> >> the law and then choosing to disregard it. We do _NOT_ so recognize.
> >>
> >> the law. This in fact is the dictionary definition. We are thus in
> >> 100% agreement; you simply prefer to phrase it in a different manner.
> >
> >
> >Putting oneself above the law would mean claiming that the law is valid,
> >binding, and in this case straight from God's own mouth, and then ignoring
> or
> >changing it at will. That is called "Conservatism." (After that shot you
> >will hopefully understand why Shelly was ticked off.) Reform considers the
> >halachah to be a man-made invention and therefore not law at all.
> >
> >
>
> Why would something that's man-made not be law?
What he clearly meant was "not the law as dictated/instructed by God the
way halacha is considered to be by Orthodox and Conservative". Obviously,
nations make laws.
Hope that helps.
Shelly
shel...@earthlink.net
"Brett Weiss" <law...@erols.com> wrote:
> Perhaps it is analogous to those of us in the US not following the law of
> Australia. It was not adopted by *our* representatives and therefore is not
> binding on us.
>
> If halacha is God-made law, a belief if God would seem to require the
> recognition and observance of that law (OJ). Working from the assumption
> that halacha is man-made, rather than God-made, law however, allows for
> change (CJ) or even rejection (RJ).
>
> --
> Brett
Extremely well put. Qualification: the rejection is in the equating it with
law.
greg_...@my-dejanews.com
kai...@biosys.net (Robert Kaiser) wrote:
>
> greg_...@my-dejanews.com says:
> >> Uh, Shelly? This *is* the definition of putting onesself above
> >> the law. This in fact is the dictionary definition. We are thus in
> >> 100% agreement; you simply prefer to phrase it in a different manner.
> >
> >
> >Um, no, that *is not* the definition of putting oneself "above the law."
> >Putting oneself above the law would mean claiming that the law is valid,
> >binding, and in this case straight from God's own mouth, and then ignoring or
> >changing it at will.
>
> is not your native language.
>
Hmm, you are ignorant, therefore I can't speak English? I don't think so.
> That is called "Conservatism." (After that shot you
> >will hopefully understand why Shelly was ticked off.) Reform considers the
> >halachah to be a man-made invention and therefore not law at all.
>
> Once again, someone starts out by claiming that they disagree with
> me, yet by the end of their message they say *exactly* what I said! I
> don't understand the logic of this at all...
No, you said that Reform Jews considered themselves "above the law." I (and
others) said it is not law to begin with. Think hard. Think slow. One
cannot be above the law if there is no law to be above.
>
> By the way, how does your false "shot" against all Conservative
> Jews justify Shelly's mistaken claims of a personal attack against him?
> [I still have not seen any post attacking him, getting into a fight
> with him, or calling him a liar. ]
>
An attack against Reform Judaism is an attack against Reform Jews. Your post
was filled with snide slurs and oily innuendos against Reform, yet when
someone calls you on it you cry like a colicky baby.
> Further, I would suggest that instead of speaking for reform
> Jews, you actually *read* some works by the Reform movement and its
> most respected and prominent theologians. It is embarassing to see
> someone so ignorant spout such nonsense.
Apparently you have a short memory. You might try and recall that you started
out this post about my views by saying that "by the end of their message they
say *exactly* what I said!" Now you say that I "spout nonsense." So which is
it?
Greg
greg_...@my-dejanews.com
> > >Reform considers the halachah to be a man-made invention and therefore not
> > >law at all.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Why would something that's man-made not be law?
>
> What he clearly meant was "not the law as dictated/instructed by God the
> way halacha is considered to be by Orthodox and Conservative". Obviously,
> nations make laws.
>
> Hope that helps.
>
> Shelly
Oops, I was too busy being a smart-ass to be clear. Shelly's interpretation
is right; I should have said "divine law" or "Law." As it not divinely
authored (in the general Reform view) it is not eternally binding and
therefore subject to change or rejection, as are basically all human laws.
Simcha Streltsov
: contention. The criminals _recognize_ the _fact_ of the law. They choose
: to violate it, but they still recognize its existence as law. Reform does
I dont think it is always true - in many countries, the law is disregarded
by masses for whatever reasons. For example, South African government can
not collect the rent, utilities, etc because noone pays them - the "tradition"
started as a protest against the white government, and now the black
government can not convince people to pay - everyone feels comfortable
the way they are now.
--
Simcha Streltsov disclaimer, as requested by Mo-he S-rr
simc...@juno.com all punctuation marks in this article
http://cad.bu.edu/go/simon are equivalent to (-:
Halevalaw
>Date: 1/25/99 7:58 PM Pacific Standard Time
>Jews are a people. Some Jews live in a nation called Israel. That nation
>has laws. Some Jews live in the U.S. That nation has laws. There is no
>"law" for the people. The "law" is in the nation where they reside.
Maybe according to your weltanschaung.
However, this is not the traditional view.
When ten penniless and barefoot Jews
escaping the inquisition in Brazil petitioned
Peter Styvesant to enter Nieuw Amsterdam,
they did so in the name of the "Jewish Nation"
-- a political entity.
The nineteenth century emancipation of Jews
in Europe required the abandonment of the political dimension of Israel.
For obvious reasons the Sepharadim in France
opposed such ideas, and boycotted the Paris
Sanhedrin for precisely these reasons.
Jewish literature is full of references
to the political dimension of Israel.
>There are traditions and a commonality of belief of practice. That, too, is
>part of the people called Israel (not the nation Israel).
Thus the only unity is via theology or philosophy;
somewhat hard -- as the increasing disunity among
Jewish groups indicates -- to implement.
>If cannot understand this simplicity, then I fear you cannot be helped.
>
You know, I sure can accept that you have
a different point of view. But I simply do not share it.
I'll bet I have every right to my ideas as you do to yours. Why sly
invectives when someone disagrees?
Helped in what sense? I am not asking for any help.
The phrasing suggests that you know the "truth" and
I am damned to my own delusions,
beyond the reach of well meant and
generously offered " help." Is it so hard to
perceive the point of view of the "other"? Or at
least to recognize that other points of view are
possible?
Ever see Dances with Wolves? Some "white folks"
would simply rather be "Indians." The other "white folks"
call such people "beyond help;" the Indians call them "on
the path to becomig real human biengs."
>Your "analogy" breaks down totally and, in fact, supports my
>contention. The criminals _recognize_ the _fact_ of the law.
They recognize that "suckers" follow the law, and they
do not have to. They recognize that in some spheres
those who control the "suckers", i.e. politicians,
police, etc., are in power, and thus have to be
maneuvered. I do not see that they give it the
credence or philosophical underpinings that you
suggest. Reform Jews recognize that halakha
is there, and was there. They say it is not at all
binding, but it comes up often in their writings.
My analogy is an analogy. Like it or do'nt like it.
But it is not beyond the pale of the reasonable.
>In any event, to liken Reform to criminals is insulting.
Oh come on. I think you may have too thin skin or are looking for insults
where none lie. It was an example, not a metaphysical definition where all
attributes of the one class are projected to the other. It is an illustration
of what "above the law" can mean. Let's think for a moment. Where exactly
does one find illustrations of how the idea "above the law" is used
semantically. Does not crime (by definition an act "above the law") seem a
likely candidate? Am I all that unreasonable?
>(b) I try to live by a certain standard, part of which is not to throw
>avoidable insults (I think I was told that this was one part of halacha,
>come to think of it -- but you should know better than I do, shouldn't
>you?).
What I do know is that law is not a collection of philosphical abstractions and
general platitudes to be trotted out like so many slogans. Law has a context.
It has elements, details, and minutiae, and each case is specific.
"[T]hrow out avoidable insults" is not very precise, in a legal sense. What is
avoidable? What is an insult? Who decides?
What type of speech is protected (academic debate, for instance)? Is there a
requisite mental element?
An example came to my mind, I wrote it. Simple.
I did not intend to inslult you or anyone. If we are going to
quote Rabbinic maxims here's one: "(When in doubt) one
should always judge every man positively."
Please bear in mind that I find no psychological
satisfaction in insult rejoinder or verbal diatribe. I
participate here to measure my own views and
underlying assumptions against those of others.
I also do not feel any need to apologize for a
traditional point of view or to walk on eggshells if
I disagree. I sense a notion here that to be a truly
modern and scientific Jew is to not to be a traditional
Jew. It is almost like being politically correct.
Obviously, I have little interest in such notions.
I try to see ramifications of certain points of view.
I am not unaware that what motivates many in the Reform movement is the desire
to keep the Tora from being static.
To be modern instead of medieval in a modern world.
To find meaning in ritual as opposed to monotony.
However, I also see that the Reform movement has contributed greatly to the
demise one of the fundamental aspects of Judaism, i.e. the political dimension.
I am not at all convinced that Judaism can or should
survive as a mere "religous persuasion" as opposed to a nation with its own
autonomous laws and institutions (and therefore its own weltanschaung). To me
peoplehood
is predicated on law.
Halevalaw
Robert Kaiser
"Brett Weiss" <law...@erols.com> says:
>
>Perhaps it is analogous to those of us in the US not following the law of
>Australia. It was not adopted by *our* representatives and therefore is not
>binding on us.
But these laws *were* adopted by our representatives. Our
ancestors were Jews just as we are. This is a historical reality.
Similarly, American citizens today did not vote for the US Constitution;
but their ancestors did.
Your reasoning only shows why _gentiles_ do not have to follow
our laws. They are not Jews, and their representatives never adopted the
Torah and Oral law as their legal system.
Shalom,
Robert Kaiser
Robert Kaiser
"Shelly" <shel...@earthlink.net> says:
>
>> But if not, why are you writing such a hostile, divise, and
>>anger filled letter? Yes, I disagree with Reform Judaism. Why does that
>>automatically make me a ranting lunatic who think that you are a "liar" ?
>
>Since this is not a direct response to your nonsense statement, let me
>explain. No one has called me a liar. It was simply a prediction. Had I
>gone back and forth with you at least twice on this, then judging by your
>past performance on this news group to just abount everyone -- me
>included -- you would have wound up calling me a "liar" for something or
>other. I simply short-circuited it and said "go ahead".
Huh? What gives, Shelly? Why are you trying to start a flame
war that does not exist? Why are you hurling multiple personal insults
at me?
Yes, Shoshana did lie, and she dishonestly censored a post
from a Conservative rabbi, and then attacked Conservative Judaism
based upon her faked post. That was, in my view, wrong, and I said so.
How do you twist this into an attack upon yourself? Why do you feel
so persecuted?
>>I'm sorry, but Conservative Jews strongly disagree with what Reform
>>Judaism has done to halakha; You have no right to attack the opinion of
>>1.5 million of us like this. Do we not deserve the same respect that
>>you ask for yourself?
>
>Please come in from left field Robert and try to put some reason between
>your ears. Never once had I attacked the opinion of Conservatives in that
>they disagree with our not accepting halacha as LAW. Please cite even one
>instance of EXACTLY WHAT I HAVE JUST SAID and not some contortion to fit
>your image. On the other hand, YOU have attacked Reform by making your
>ridiculous statement.
I am sorry if you think that the standard Conservative view on
this subject is an "attack". I dread to think what kind of fit you
wouldhave if you actually read any Conservative literature on this
subject.
Sadly, no one is attacking you, but if you wish to believe this,
there is nothing I can doabout it. Someday,though, you will have to
learn the difference between a disagreement and a personal attack.
Shalom,
Robert Kaiser
Robert Kaiser
greg_...@my-dejanews.com says:
>> >Um, no, that *is not* the definition of putting oneself "above the law."
>> >Putting oneself above the law would mean claiming that the law is valid,
>> >binding, and in this case straight from God's own mouth, and then ignoring or
>> >changing it at will.
>>
>> I have never heard ofthis definition before. Obviously, English
>> is not your native language.
>>
>
>Hmm, you are ignorant, therefore I can't speak English? I don't think so.
Greg, should I send you $5 to buy a dictionary? It is poor form
to write such hate mail; and even poorer when you are so totally wrong.
I wasn;t joking Greg - you really *are* wrong. You really dohave no
idea of what this phrase means and ho it used among English speaking
Americans. That is too bad, but it is not grouns for you to continually
write personal attacks on other people.
Look, Conservative Jews do not accept your understanding of
Jewish law. Deal with it. Stop pretending that the world is attacking
you, because it is not.
>> Once again, someone starts out by claiming that they disagree with
>> me, yet by the end of their message they say *exactly* what I said! I
>> don't understand the logic of this at all...
>
>No, you said that Reform Jews considered themselves "above the law." I (and
>others) said it is not law to begin with. Think hard. Think slow. One
>cannot be above the law if there is no law to be above.
This is a classic definition of someone considering themselves
above the law; It is also a classic definition of someone desperately
playing a childish word game.
>>
>> By the way, how does your false "shot" against all Conservative
>> Jews justify Shelly's mistaken claims of a personal attack against him?
>> [I still have not seen any post attacking him, getting into a fight
>> with him, or calling him a liar. ]
>An attack against Reform Judaism is an attack against Reform Jews. Your post
>was filled with snide slurs and oily innuendos against Reform, yet when
>someone calls you on it you cry like a colicky baby.
Folks, please ignroe Greg's hatemail. I never made an attack
against Reform Jews. In contrast to Greg's desperate and hateful lies,
Iin fact have repeatedly defended the legitimacy of Reform Judaism on
this newsgroup. For him to write such blatant fiction is nothing
short of astonishing, and shameful.
Robert
Brett Weiss
our "ancestors" for the purposes of the Constitution, we do not consider
them such for the purposes of, say, slave owning.
Likewise, those in CJ and RJ may not see the Jews involved in the writing
(or setting down, depending on your interpretation) of the Torah and Talmud
as our "ancestors" for the purpose of halacha, while they are viewed as our
ancestors for other purposes.
The two situations certainly aren't comparable, but the example reflects how
we will accept the ties to those who came before where we agree, and break
them where we disagree.
--
Brett
Robert Kaiser <kai...@biosys.net> wrote in message
news:36add...@news.ic.sunysb.edu...
Delia Candle
greg_...@my-dejanews.com wrote in message
<78kiud$pm4$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>
>> > >Reform considers the halachah to be a man-made invention and therefore
not
>> > >law at all.
>> > >
>> > >Greg
>> > >
>> >
>> > Why would something that's man-made not be law?
>>
>> What he clearly meant was "not the law as dictated/instructed by God the
>> way halacha is considered to be by Orthodox and Conservative".
Obviously,
>> nations make laws.
>>
>> Hope that helps.
>>
>> Shelly
>
>
>Oops, I was too busy being a smart-ass to be clear. Shelly's
interpretation
>is right; I should have said "divine law" or "Law." As it not divinely
>authored (in the general Reform view) it is not eternally binding and
>therefore subject to change or rejection, as are basically all human laws.
>
>Greg
Alright, so in other words, Reform considers halakha to be man-made, so
changeable.
What's wrong with that, as long as you have a good selection process as to
who is making the laws, and the laws are justly applied? Esp. since, in my
opinion, there is no divine mandate anyway?
DC
NYC
Shelly
Robert Kaiser wrote in message <36add...@news.ic.sunysb.edu>...
>
>greg_...@my-dejanews.com says:
>>> >Um, no, that *is not* the definition of putting oneself "above the
law."
>>> >Putting oneself above the law would mean claiming that the law is
valid,
>>> >binding, and in this case straight from God's own mouth, and then
ignoring or
>>> >changing it at will.
>>>
>>> I have never heard ofthis definition before. Obviously, English
>>> is not your native language.
>>>
>>
>>Hmm, you are ignorant, therefore I can't speak English? I don't think so.
>
>
> Greg, should I send you $5 to buy a dictionary? It is poor form
>to write such hate mail; and even poorer when you are so totally wrong.
He says you are ignorant. That is an insult (only to a degree because we
are talking about the knowledge of a specific meaning of a term). However,
this to you constitutes "hate mail"? First of all, it is not mail. Second
of all, it is not hate. Third, and most importantly, it nowhere even comes
close to the remotest neighborhood bordering the neighborhood that border
hate mail. go and learn what the term "hate mail" means -- IN COMMON
ENGLISH USAGE.
>I wasn;t joking Greg - you really *are* wrong. You really dohave no
>idea of what this phrase means and ho it used among English speaking
>Americans. That is too bad, but it is not grouns for you to continually
>write personal attacks on other people.
I am an English speaking American and I daresay that my vocabulary greatly
exceeds yours. Brett is an English speaking American. Show me one English
speaking American (who is not from the far right of the Orthodox spectrum)
who has supported "your" misunderstanding of "above the law".
BTW, you should be among the last to say others are issuing personal
attacks.
>
> Look, Conservative Jews do not accept your understanding of
>Jewish law. Deal with it. Stop pretending that the world is attacking
>you, because it is not.
THAT IS NOT THE ISSUE. Robert, read one more time -- THAT IS NOT THE ISSUE.
He is dealing quite well with that Conservative Jews do not accept Reform
understanding of Orthodox and Conservative call Jewish Law. What you simply
seem to be completely incapable of addressing or in the slightest
comprehending is that Reform does not consider halacha to be "Jewish Law".
Deal with it. When you can finally comprehend this simple fact, then you
might have a glimmer of a clue as to why your statement of "above the law"
was ridiculous.
Why do I even bother?
>
>
>>> Once again, someone starts out by claiming that they disagree with
>>> me, yet by the end of their message they say *exactly* what I said! I
>>> don't understand the logic of this at all...
>>
>>No, you said that Reform Jews considered themselves "above the law." I
(and
>>others) said it is not law to begin with. Think hard. Think slow. One
>>cannot be above the law if there is no law to be above.
>
>
> This is a classic definition of someone considering themselves
>above the law; It is also a classic definition of someone desperately
>playing a childish word game.
Whatever.
>
>
>>>
>>> By the way, how does your false "shot" against all Conservative
>>> Jews justify Shelly's mistaken claims of a personal attack against him?
>>> [I still have not seen any post attacking him, getting into a fight
>>> with him, or calling him a liar. ]
>
>
>>An attack against Reform Judaism is an attack against Reform Jews. Your
post
>>was filled with snide slurs and oily innuendos against Reform, yet when
>>someone calls you on it you cry like a colicky baby.
>
>
> Folks, please ignroe Greg's hatemail. I never made an attack
Saying you behaved like a colicky baby is "hate mail". What term have you
reserved for mail from Nazis and the like?
>against Reform Jews. In contrast to Greg's desperate and hateful lies,
You attacked Reform. We Reform _all_ saw it as an attack. Therefore it was
an attack. YOU are the only one lying here -- first to yourself and now to
everyone else.
>Iin fact have repeatedly defended the legitimacy of Reform Judaism on
We can do very well without your left-handed support, thank you.
>this newsgroup. For him to write such blatant fiction is nothing
>short of astonishing, and shameful.
That you do not see your "blatant fiction" slander of Reform as an attack on
Reform is "nothing short of astonishing, and shameful."
Shelly
Shelly
Halevalaw wrote in message <19990126101534...@ng99.aol.com>...
[skipping over most]
> I did not intend to inslult you or anyone. If we are going to
Fine.
>I try to see ramifications of certain points of view.
>I am not unaware that what motivates many in the Reform movement is the
desire
>to keep the Tora from being static.
True.
>To be modern instead of medieval in a modern world.
True.
>To find meaning in ritual as opposed to monotony.
True.
>
>However, I also see that the Reform movement has contributed greatly to the
>demise one of the fundamental aspects of Judaism, i.e. the political
dimension.
I disagree. Thre is virtual unanimous support for the state of Israel --
simply not much wish to move there and leave the US.
>
>I am not at all convinced that Judaism can or should
>survive as a mere "religous persuasion" as opposed to a nation with its own
>autonomous laws and institutions (and therefore its own weltanschaung).
To me
Why not both -- as it is now? This avoids, however, the issue. The "nation
with its own
autonomous laws and institutions" does not mean halacha. It means exactly
what is in quotes -- it is just that most of the people there are also
Jewish. Violating _those_ laws would be "putting yourself above the law"
because you recognize that they _are_ the laws. No so with halacha -- and
THAT is the key point that Robert (and perhaps you as well) fail(s) to
understand.
>peoplehood
>is predicated on law.
I believe that peoplehood may or may not incorporate law. They are
separate, intersecting concepts.
Shelly
Shelly
Brett Weiss wrote in message <78lpt4$ng$1...@winter.news.rcn.net>...
>Yes and no. While in the US we still consider Jefferson and Washington as
>our "ancestors" for the purposes of the Constitution, we do not consider
>them such for the purposes of, say, slave owning.
>
>Likewise, those in CJ and RJ may not see the Jews involved in the writing
>(or setting down, depending on your interpretation) of the Torah and Talmud
>as our "ancestors" for the purpose of halacha, while they are viewed as our
>ancestors for other purposes.
>
>The two situations certainly aren't comparable, but the example reflects
how
>we will accept the ties to those who came before where we agree, and break
>them where we disagree.
>
>--
>Brett
I really like the way phrase things.
Shelly
Shelly
>>
>>> But if not, why are you writing such a hostile, divise, and
>>>anger filled letter? Yes, I disagree with Reform Judaism. Why does that
>>>automatically make me a ranting lunatic who think that you are a "liar" ?
>>
>>Since this is not a direct response to your nonsense statement, let me
>>explain. No one has called me a liar. It was simply a prediction. Had I
>>gone back and forth with you at least twice on this, then judging by your
>>past performance on this news group to just abount everyone -- me
>>included -- you would have wound up calling me a "liar" for something or
>>other. I simply short-circuited it and said "go ahead".
>
>
> Huh? What gives, Shelly? Why are you trying to start a flame
>war that does not exist? Why are you hurling multiple personal insults
>at me?
Saying "go ahead and call me a liar" is "hurling multiple personal insults"
at you? Brooooothhheeeeeer. Why did I do what I did? Simple. You started
it by attacking Reform. When you attack, then you can expect
counter-attack.
>
> Yes, Shoshana did lie, and she dishonestly censored a post
>from a Conservative rabbi, and then attacked Conservative Judaism
>based upon her faked post. That was, in my view, wrong, and I said so.
>How do you twist this into an attack upon yourself? Why do you feel
>so persecuted?
What in the world are you talking about. Where did this come from? I have
absolutely _no_ idea what you are talking about. Are you trying to imply by
the above that this was _THE_ instance where you called someone a liar? If
is, then PLEEEASSSSEEE give me a break.
>>>I'm sorry, but Conservative Jews strongly disagree with what Reform
>>>Judaism has done to halakha; You have no right to attack the opinion of
>>>1.5 million of us like this. Do we not deserve the same respect that
>>>you ask for yourself?
>>
>>Please come in from left field Robert and try to put some reason between
>>your ears. Never once had I attacked the opinion of Conservatives in that
>>they disagree with our not accepting halacha as LAW. Please cite even one
>>instance of EXACTLY WHAT I HAVE JUST SAID and not some contortion to fit
>>your image. On the other hand, YOU have attacked Reform by making your
>>ridiculous statement.
>
>
> I am sorry if you think that the standard Conservative view on
>this subject is an "attack". I dread to think what kind of fit you
>wouldhave if you actually read any Conservative literature on this
>subject.
ROBERT, PLEASE.
READ READ READ READ READ READ READ READ READ.
I do not consider Conservative opinion to be an attack. I consider your
usage of "above the law" to be an attack and the total, abject failure to
recognize that it is only a law according to YOU (general) to be an attempt
to whitewash your attack. That Conservatives equate halacha with law is a
given. I recognize that. That Reform do NOT equate halacha with law is
also a given. Why can't you recognize that? Once you do, then you may
begin to see that you are arguing apples when the subject is oranges.
READ READ READ READ READ READ READ READ READ.
>
> Sadly, no one is attacking you, but if you wish to believe this,
>there is nothing I can doabout it. Someday,though, you will have to
>learn the difference between a disagreement and a personal attack.
Someday you will have to learn that your unique twistings are just that.
Shelly
greg_...@my-dejanews.com
kai...@biosys.net (Robert Kaiser) wrote:
>
>
> Look, Conservative Jews do not accept your understanding of
> Jewish law. Deal with it. Stop pretending that the world is attacking
> you, because it is not.
>
Apparently you have been reading some other post that only exists in
Kaiserland.
> Folks, please ignroe Greg's hatemail. I never made an attack
> against Reform Jews.
Nah, you just said that most American Reform Jews consider "it absolutely
unacceptable for Reform Jews to follow any Jewish rituals," that the current
debate over the proposed new priciples is "a spectacle of self-loathing more
horrible" than anything you could imagine, that we consider "even suggesting a
Jewish practice" as fundamentalist, etc. Nope, no attack there.
> In contrast to Greg's desperate and hateful lies,
The record's stuck, the record's stuck, the record's stuck...
> Iin fact have repeatedly defended the legitimacy of Reform Judaism on
> this newsgroup.
All while propagating ever negative Reform stereotype you could fit into each
post. With friends like you, who needs the Orthodox?
> For him to write such blatant fiction is nothing short of astonishing, and >
shameful.
>
> Robert
Ever notice how ever argument you enter ends up with you accusing the other
party of "hateful lies" and "blatent fiction"? Ever wonder why? Think it
might be you?
Post whatever tripe you want in response; I have wasted too much time on you
aready.
Robert Kaiser
"Brett Weiss" <law...@erols.com> says:
>Yes and no. While in the US we still consider Jefferson and Washington as
>our "ancestors" for the purposes of the Constitution, we do not consider
>them such for the purposes of, say, slave owning.
I agree that today American once viewed slavery as legal, yet now
view it as illegal; But this was not the point. The point was that the
Constitution is both valid and normative (legally binding). As you point out,
Americans believe that the law can change. Of course! And so do Jews.
>Likewise, those in CJ and RJ may not see the Jews involved in the writing
>(or setting down, depending on your interpretation) of the Torah and Talmud
>as our "ancestors" for the purpose of halacha, while they are viewed as our
>ancestors for other purposes.
>
>The two situations certainly aren't comparable, but the example reflects how
>we will accept the ties to those who came before where we agree, and break
>them where we disagree.
Which is exactly the way it has always been in both American law
as well as in Judaism. Note that I am not disagreeing with you at all.
Rather, I just wish to point out that there is a lot more similarity between
American Constituional law [or that of other countries] and Judaism than you
might have thought.
Rabbinic Judaism has always included revisions due to ethical
concerns; according to the rabbis, the development of halakha is in fact
one way that God can reveal His will. Rabbi Elliot Dorff wrote an article
which summarizes the approach taken by the rabbis when such conflicts existed:
(1) In areas where the Bible has little legislation, the Oral Law is
written and developed by the rabbis in a manner that is consonant with
halakha and ethical sensibilities, following the Torah mitzvah "Do what
is right and good in the sight of the Lord" (Deut. 6:18)
(2) At times the rules announced in the Bible are in conflict with the
moral sensitivities of a new generation. In such cases, in order to
retain the authoritaive link between Jewish law and divine authority the
rabbis tried as much as possible to link their laws to the Torah and
Mishnah, much as American judges and lawmakers did vis-a-vis the
Constitution. To get around a morally objectionable law, they used
various techniques:
(a) Surround the objectionable law with multiple restrictions, so
that it stays on the books, but in effect becomes inoperative.
(b) Deliberately give a new interpretation to a biblical verse.
(c) Create a legal fiction to circumvent a problematic law. The
most famous example of this is Hillel's prosbul, which circumvents
the Biblical cancelation of debts during the Sabbatical year so that
creditors would not be afraid of lending money to needy borrowers
in the 5th and 5th years of the Sabbatical cycle.
(d) Issue a takkanah, which basically is halakhic legislation which
openly and directly changes the existing halakha. This method is
dangerous, since it could undermine the law's authority by severing
its connection to its basis in the Torah. But when historical
circumstances required extraordinary measures, such decrees were
issued, more often than one might expect. See See Menachem Elon's
"Jewish Law: History, Sources and Principles" for many such examples.
These halakhic strategies are authentic Jewish imperatives based in
the Oral law. Talmud Yerushalmi notes:
If the Torah had been given in a fixed form, the situation would
have been intolerable. What is the meaning of the oft recurring
Phrase "The Lord spoke to Moses" ? Moses said before God, Lord
Of the Universe, cause me to know what the final decision is in
each manner of the law. God replied: "The majority must be
followed. When the majority declares a thing permitted, it is
permitted, and when the majority declares a thing forbidden, it
is forbidden, so that the Torah may be capable of interpretation
With 49 points pro and 49 points contra." [Sanhedrin, 22a]
Note that the rabbis were aware that many positions could be justified
within the law, and the legitimacy of a decision was based both on the moral
character of the judges, and the explicit condition that such judges
accepted that halakha was normative and binding.
[From the article "The Interaction of Jewish Law With Morality"
Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff, published in _Judaism_, Fall 1977,
Vol.26, No.104, , p.455-466 ]
I especially reccomend obtaining "The Dynamics of Judaism: A Study in
Jewish Law" by Robert Gordis, Pub. by Indiana Univ. Press, 1990. It has a
wonderful treatment of this issue.
Shalom,
Robert Kaiser
******************************************************************
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5+++ R G' tv+ b++ B-- e++++ u+ f+ r h+ y+
Yiddishkeit Code S+ SC Fa1,l NG+ M K+ H+ tI AT+ SY+,A Te+/Te++
P+ FO++= D+ Tz+ E+ L- Am hc I+ Ha+ FH- IPL T- JE+
Robert Kaiser
greg_...@my-dejanews.com says:
>> Folks, please ignroe Greg's hatemail. I never made an attack
>> against Reform Jews.
>Nah, you just said that most American Reform Jews consider "it absolutely
>unacceptable for Reform Jews to follow any Jewish rituals," that the current
>debate over the proposed new priciples is "a spectacle of self-loathing more
>horrible" than anything you could imagine, that we consider "even suggesting a
>Jewish practice" as fundamentalist, etc. Nope, no attack there.
Uh, Greg? Learn to read English. THIS COMES FROM THE LEADERSHIP
OF THE AMERICAN REFORM MOVEMENT. They themselves admit to being stunned
by the anti-tradition response. Do you really wish to claim that the
Reform leadership is attacking Reform Judaism? Do you really want to
insinuate that they are dishonestly making all this up?
Come on, there is a difference between disagreeing with a situation,
and denying its very existence. So I have a suggestion; why don't you
read a few books and a few Reform journals, and then *participate* in
the ongoing debate in American Reform. Do something productive to
promote what you believe in, instead of taking all of your frustrations
out on me.
>Post whatever tripe you want in response; I have wasted too much time on you
>aready.
Try spending some time _reading_, ok?
Shalom,
Robert
Robert Kaiser
Instead of attacking me yet again, I suggest that Greg spend a
few hours starting here:
Michael A. Meyer "A Response to Modernity : A History of the
Reform Movement in Judaism" pb, $20. Wayne State Univ Pr,1995
510 pages, (Orig. pub. by Oxford Univ. Press,1988)
W. Gunther Plaut "The Growth of Reform Judaism" World Union for
Progressive Judaism, 1965.
Eugene Borowitz "Reform Judaism Today", Behrman House, $15.95
(Originally published by UAHC Press, 1977) An omnibus volume of
three of R. Borowitz's essays, he discusses the evolution of
Reform Judaism as one of the predominant American forms of Jewish
life. Covers the Reform vision of God, Torah, and Israel; what it
means to be a Reform Jew today, and the place of Reform in the
spectrum of Jewish rituals and practices. Pb, $15.95
The official American Reform website: http://rj.org/
A full and detailed catalog of publications from and about the Reform
movement is available online at: http://ccarnet.org/press/cat.html
http://shamash.org./lists/scj-faq/HTML/rl/jlu-index.html
Shalom,
Robert Kaiser
Robert Kaiser
"Shelly" <shel...@earthlink.net> says:
>>However, I also see that the Reform movement has contributed greatly to the
>>demise one of the fundamental aspects of Judaism, i.e. the political
>dimension.
>I disagree. Thre is virtual unanimous support for the state of Israel --
>simply not much wish to move there and leave the US.
You are a lot more right than you have stated. You could have
responded by noting that even today, only about half of Orthodoxy is
actually Zionist; the rest is officially non-Zionist or anti-Zionist.
Compare that to Reform Judaism's new platform explicitly supporting Zionism!
Reform Judaism & Zionism: A Centenary Platform "THE MIAMI PLATFORM"
ACCEPTED BY THE CENTRAL CONFERENCE OF AMERICAN RABBIS
June 24, 1997, Miami, Florida
I think everyone on SCJ should read this.
http://www.ccarnet.org/miami.html
Robert Kaiser
"Shelly" <shel...@earthlink.net> says:
>>>An attack against Reform Judaism is an attack against Reform Jews. Your
>post
>>>was filled with snide slurs and oily innuendos against Reform, yet when
>>>someone calls you on it you cry like a colicky baby.
>>
>>
>
>reserved for mail from Nazis and the like?
>
>>against Reform Jews. In contrast to Greg's desperate and hateful lies,
>
>You attacked Reform. We Reform _all_ saw it as an attack. Therefore it was
>an attack. YOU are the only one lying here -- first to yourself and now to
>everyone else.
Shelly, it is true that I disagree with the way that Reform
Jews do not believe that the law applies to them. This is also the
mainstream opinion of Conservative Judaism. But why would label this
a "lie" ?
Please, man, calm down. As I said before, no one is attacking
you,and for no reason. Have you missed every post I sent to this newsgroup
over the past five years in which I _defended_ Reform Judaism from hatemail
and dishonest attacks? Shelly, what happened to your sense of *context* ?
You and Greg have been going off on me like nothing I have seen
before. Please chill out.
Robert
Richard Schultz
: Richard:
: Many morality-related prohibitions have at their heart a very practical
: basis. Prohibitions against homosexuality work towards perpetuation of the
: group, since few children are born of homosexual unions. <g>
Then why does Reform believe that male homosexual intercourse is not sinful?
: Incest has a great tendency to produce genetic abnormalities.
In the first place, inbreeding tends to produce abnormalities only in
the long run as the odds of being homozygotic (I hope I remember the
term correctly; it's been a long time since I took a biology class) for
a deleterious recessive gene increase. The odds of a single act of
incest producing abnormal offspring is not so large -- consider the
Ptolemies of Egypt who practiced incest for generations. And if
Cleopatra was famous for her genetic "abnormalities," they weren't
of the type that are normally considered to be deleterious.
Furthermore, we live in an era in which birth control is readily
available, safe, and ("if used properly" as the saying goes) virtually
guaranteed to work. Thus, if the only moral objection to incest is
that the children might be born abnormal, not only does this argument
go away if the two parties involved use birth control, or, for that matter,
if they agree to be sterilized. If "increased chances of genetic
abnormality" is a valid moral argument, then you should be taking a
stand against the increasingly common decision of upper-class women
to put off childbearing until the last possible moment; it is well
known that the odds of genetic abnormalities increase by orders of
magnitude for pregnancies when the mother is over the age of 35.
: Adultery results in uncertainty as to the parentage of children, with
: all of the implications of that to a culture in which certain rewards
: are predicated on knowing parentage and order of birth.
If that is your argument, then there is nothing immoral in adultery in
today's society either. I believe that a moral argument can be made
against adultery independent of the Biblical commandment: when to people
get married, they make a commitment to monogamy, and adultery is a
violation of that commitment.
-----
Richard Schultz sch...@mail.biu.ac.il
Department of Chemistry tel: 972-3-531-8065
Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel fax: 972-3-535-1250
-----
Look outside the window, there's a woman being grabbed.
They've dragged her to the bushes, and now she's being stabbed.
Maybe we should call the cops and try to stop the pain.
But Monopoly is so much fun, I'd hate to blow the game.
Brett Weiss
interesting. There is a great body of law in both that takes much study to
learn. There are heated disputes about virtually all aspects (outside of a
generally recognized core of agreement). They are each central in many
respects to our lives as Americans and our lives as Jews (regardless of
denomination). In fact, the analogies can be extended to great lengths--the
OJs are the "original constructionalists," RJs are "judicial activists" and
CJs are simply trying to walk the tightrope between the two. <g>
As a sideline, I am currently Rabbi Dorff's Matters of Life and Death, and
met and heard him lecture at a Seaboard Region function. He is absolutely
brilliant.
I will certainly look up the book you suggest--where might I be able to get
a copy?
--
Brett
Robert Kaiser <kai...@biosys.net> wrote in message
news:36ae9...@news.ic.sunysb.edu...
Brett Weiss
You misunderstand my point. It was not that the practical reasons for some
of the moral prohibitions are necessarily relevant today. But they *were*
relevant at the time the prohibitions were formulated.
Besides, if practical reasons were the *only* basis for moral codes, they
would have died out long ago.
--
Brett
Richard Schultz <sch...@gefen.cc.biu.ac.il> wrote in message
news:78m8i2$h6e$1...@cnn.cc.biu.ac.il...
shel...@earthlink.net
kai...@biosys.net (Robert Kaiser) wrote:
>
> "Shelly" <shel...@earthlink.net> says:
> >>>An attack against Reform Judaism is an attack against Reform Jews. Your
> >post
> >>>was filled with snide slurs and oily innuendos against Reform, yet when
> >>>someone calls you on it you cry like a colicky baby.
> >>
> >>
> >> Folks, please ignroe Greg's hatemail. I never made an attack
> >
> >Saying you behaved like a colicky baby is "hate mail". What term have you
> >reserved for mail from Nazis and the like?
> >
> >>against Reform Jews. In contrast to Greg's desperate and hateful lies,
> >
> >You attacked Reform. We Reform _all_ saw it as an attack. Therefore it was
> >an attack. YOU are the only one lying here -- first to yourself and now to
> >everyone else.
>
> Shelly, it is true that I disagree with the way that Reform
> Jews do not believe that the law applies to them. This is also the
No, it is not! _THAT_ is the point. The "law" applies to us as binding and
we accept that. "Halacha" does not. _THAT_ is the difference. "Halacha"
does not equal "law".
> mainstream opinion of Conservative Judaism. But why would label this
Agreed. Conservative Judaism equates halacha with [Jewish] law. So what?
> a "lie" ?
>
> Please, man, calm down. As I said before, no one is attacking
> you,and for no reason. Have you missed every post I sent to this newsgroup
> over the past five years in which I _defended_ Reform Judaism from hatemail
> and dishonest attacks? Shelly, what happened to your sense of *context* ?
Recognize your defacto attack on Reform and I will calm down. Persist in your
attack and I will not.
>
> You and Greg have been going off on me like nothing I have seen
> before. Please chill out.
[An aside: Wow, how soon you forget what just about everyone in this news
group has said to and about you. This is _extremely_ mild by comparison.
Perhaps it only feels that way to you because you get almost all your severe
criticism from the other side and so it hurts now all the more coming from
this side]
Then stop your attacks. Stop saying that I am attacking Conservative Judaism.
Stop responding to things that _YOU_ say as if _WE_ said them. Stop keeping
that twisted image of what you believe _IS_ the definition of things.
Start to realize that (using Halevelaw (sp???)):
Criminals flount the law and consider themselves "above the law" _BECAUSE_,
in part, because the recognize the law as _BEING_ the law and simply choose
to not follow it.
Reform Jews DO NOT RECOGNIZE HALACHA AS BEING THE LAW. Hence it is
impossible to say that we consider ourselves above the law when we don't
choose to halacha.
This cannot (as much as you would like to) be dismissed as a "word game". It
is crucial.
Now if you had said "Reform Jews consider themselves to be above what
Orthodox and Conservative consider to be Jewish Law", that would have been
much closer to the truth -- though not fully. It attributes an air of
superiority. That is not the case. We look at halacha, tradition, customs,
etc. and come up with what is (in our opinions) the best mode of Jewish
observance and belief _FOR US_. The keywords are the last two, and indicate
why even the "air of superiority" is incorrect.
Do these things and we can "chill out".
Shelly
Eliot Shimoff
Shelly <shel...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>You attacked Reform. We Reform _all_ saw it as an attack.
Brief comment from one who is _not_ a Reform Jew: For the record,
I too was struck by the "above the law" comment, but kept out of
the discussion; I was already involved in a debate with Robert,
and didn't want to appear as a person who picks fights with
Robert on every issue on which he posts.
My understanding of English is that "above the law" means that
there is a law, and that there are some people who consider
themselves exempt from compliance (e.g., because they are smarter,
richer, or stronger than the rest of us). Saying that someone
considers him/herself above the law is almost always a perjorative
statement.
R does not consider itself "above" halakha; it considers halakha to
be non-binding (at least in the sense that O and C consider halakha
to be binding).
--
Eliot Shimoff (shi...@umbc.edu) | Interested in Talmud study
Proud saba of Tani, T'mima, | by email?
Moshe, Hillel,Tsivia & Chani | Visit my website ...
(Space reserved for new entries) | http://www.umbc.edu/~shimoff
Eliot Shimoff
Robert Kaiser <kai...@biosys.net> wrote:
> You are a lot more right than you have stated. You could have
>responded by noting that even today, only about half of Orthodoxy is
>actually Zionist; the rest is officially non-Zionist or anti-Zionist.
>Compare that to Reform Judaism's new platform explicitly supporting Zionism!
There are indeed some antiZionist (in the sense of "political Zionist"
O Jews, but these seem to me to be a relatively limited (albeit very
visible) minority -- Satmar, Neturei Karta, and a few other fringe
groups.
If, on the other hand, platforms explicitly supporting Zionism
qualifies one as Zionist, then O men (and some women) recite the
platform three times a day in the Amidah.
On what basis, Robert, do you assert that half are non or antiZionist?
shel...@earthlink.net
shi...@umbc.edu (Eliot Shimoff) wrote:
> In article <78m2jp$9gc$1...@holly.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
> Shelly <shel...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> >You attacked Reform. We Reform _all_ saw it as an attack.
>
> Brief comment from one who is _not_ a Reform Jew: For the record,
> I too was struck by the "above the law" comment, but kept out of
> the discussion; I was already involved in a debate with Robert,
> and didn't want to appear as a person who picks fights with
> Robert on every issue on which he posts.
>
> My understanding of English is that "above the law" means that
> there is a law, and that there are some people who consider
> themselves exempt from compliance (e.g., because they are smarter,
> richer, or stronger than the rest of us). Saying that someone
> considers him/herself above the law is almost always a perjorative
> statement.
>
> R does not consider itself "above" halakha; it considers halakha to
> be non-binding (at least in the sense that O and C consider halakha
> to be binding).
>
Thanks Eliot. With the same statement coming from both the left and the
right I say this to Robert:
This discussion is hereby terminated.
Herman Rubin
Robert Kaiser <kai...@biosys.net> wrote:
>"Delia Candle" <cand...@mindspring.com> says:
> Greg Lamont says:
>>>Um, no, that *is not* the definition of putting oneself "above the law."
>>>Putting oneself above the law would mean claiming that the law is valid,
>>>binding, and in this case straight from God's own mouth, and then ignoring or
>>>changing it at will. That is called "Conservatism." (After that shot you
>>>will hopefully understand why Shelly was ticked off.) Reform considers the
>>>halachah to be a man-made invention and therefore not law at all.
>>Why would something that's man-made not be law?
> Good point. I have been bringing up this point for years, and
>I have never been given an answer a good answer.
What Reform Jews state is that they are not above the laws of God,
but that the laws of God are not what Orthodox (or Conservative)
rabbis say they are. This is the key point.
Man-made law can be law, but religious law?
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
hru...@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
Robert Kaiser
sch...@gefen.cc.biu.ac.il (Richard Schultz) says:
>: Many morality-related prohibitions have at their heart a very practical
>: basis. Prohibitions against homosexuality work towards perpetuation of the
>: group, since few children are born of homosexual unions. <g>
>Then why does Reform believe that male homosexual intercourse is not sinful?
Probably because they see no reason to label it as such? After
all, it is a consensual act of love between two adults. That hardly
falls into the same category as theft and murder.
Is it against the halakha as understood by the written and oral
law? Yes. But so is writing on Shabbat - and few people here spend
months obsessing about the millions of Jews who break this halakha. So
why the double standard, in which homosexual Jews are held up for special
ridicule?
Shalom,
Robert
Robert Kaiser
"Brett Weiss" <law...@erols.com> says:
>The choice of the Constitution as an analogous document to halacha is
>interesting. There is a great body of law in both that takes much study to
>learn. There are heated disputes about virtually all aspects (outside of a
>generally recognized core of agreement). They are each central in many
>respects to our lives as Americans and our lives as Jews (regardless of
>denomination). In fact, the analogies can be extended to great lengths--the
>OJs are the "original constructionalists," RJs are "judicial activists" and
>CJs are simply trying to walk the tightrope between the two. <g>
>
>As a sideline, I am currently Rabbi Dorff's Matters of Life and Death, and
>met and heard him lecture at a Seaboard Region function. He is absolutely
>brilliant.
>I will certainly look up the book you suggest--where might I be able to get
>a copy?
"The Dynamics of Judaism: A Study in Jewish Law"
by Robert Gordis, Pub. by Indiana Univ. Press, 1990.
This book is usually available from Amazon.Com, but for a limited
time overstock of this book is available *cheap* at Hamiltonbook.Com
They are selling copies of this hardcover book for only $5 each. (They
sell lots of overstock, Judaica, all religions, and every other topic
under the sun.)
Also consider "A Living Tree: The Roots and Growth of Jewish Law"
by Elliot N. Dorff and Arthur Rosett, published by SUNY Press, NY.
This book examines biblical and rabbinic law as a coherent,
continuing legal tradition. It explains the relationship between religion
and law and the interaction between law and morality. Abundant selections
from primary Jewish sources, many newly translated, enable the reader to
address the tradition directly as a living body of law with emphasis on
the concerns that are primary for lawyers, legislators, and judges.
Through an in-depth examination of personal injury law and marriage
and divorce law, the book explores jurisprudential issues important
for any legal system and displays the primary characteristics of Jewish law.
Brett, they made this book for people like you! :)
"This book is terrific. It provides the relevant legal sources for
comprehending Jewish law and additional information (historical, socio-
logical, etc.) for understanding the evolution of Jewish Law. The authors'
comments are invariably clear and helpful and frequently insightful. The
manuscript is not only interesting but it is exciting. The topic is
important to Judaic studies and to historical studies in general. It
is the best collection of material on Jewish law available in the
United States."
-- Martin Edelman, State University of New York at Albany
"What I like most about this book is the breadth of treatment without
sacrifice of depth or sophistication. This is a fine English language
introduction to Jewish law."
-- David Goodblatt , University of Maryland at College Park
"A Living Tree is, in our opinion, from both a pedagogical and a scholarly
perspective, the finest book of its kind available today. The unique
features of this book make it a valuable contribution to the scholarship
of the field. Indeed, in many ways, we would expect that this book will
become the standard English work on Jewish law."
-- Rabbi David Saperstein and Sherman L. Cohn, Georgetown University
Law Center
680 pages August 1987
paperback ISBN 0-88706-460-4
This pb version is available from Amazon.Com for $22
Shalom,
Robert Kaiser
******************************************************************
E-mail me for info on the comprehensive on-line Jewish History
Timeline...or Conservative Judaism...or the Jewish Theology FAQs
....or classic 8-bit home videogames, especially the Odyssey^2!
Robert Kaiser
shi...@umbc.edu (Eliot Shimoff) says:
>
>> You are a lot more right than you have stated. You could have
>>responded by noting that even today, only about half of Orthodoxy is
>>actually Zionist; the rest is officially non-Zionist or anti-Zionist.
>>Compare that to Reform Judaism's new platform explicitly supporting Zionism!
>
>There are indeed some antiZionist (in the sense of "political Zionist"
>O Jews, but these seem to me to be a relatively limited (albeit very
>visible) minority -- Satmar, Neturei Karta, and a few other fringe
>groups.
>
>If, on the other hand, platforms explicitly supporting Zionism
>qualifies one as Zionist, then O men (and some women) recite the
>platform three times a day in the Amidah.
Not at all. There is a huge difference between loving
"Eretz Yisrael" [the biblical land of Israel] and "Medinat Yisrael]
the actual state of Israel, the political reality.
Satmar Jews hate Medinat Tisrael with a passion, but they
still say the Amidah.
>On what basis, Robert, do you assert that half are non or antiZionist?
I do not have a source at hand; this comes from a number of
conversations with Orthodox laypeople and rabbis. Also, it comes from
the fact that the largest Orthodox group in the world is *explicitly*
non-Zionist, Agudat Yisrael.
You can get some rather detailed information on this from Prof.
Eli Segal, an expert on Orthodox Judaism[and an Orthodox Jew], who teaches
at the Univ. of Calgary, in Canada.
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal
Shalom,
Robert
Herman Rubin
Delia Candle <cand...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>greg_...@my-dejanews.com wrote in message
><78kiud$pm4$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>>> > >Reform considers the halachah to be a man-made invention and therefore
>not
>>> > >law at all.
>>> > >Greg
>>> > Why would something that's man-made not be law?
>>> What he clearly meant was "not the law as dictated/instructed by God the
>>> way halacha is considered to be by Orthodox and Conservative".
>Obviously,
>>> nations make laws.
>>> Hope that helps.
>>> Shelly
>>Oops, I was too busy being a smart-ass to be clear. Shelly's
>interpretation
>>is right; I should have said "divine law" or "Law." As it not divinely
>>authored (in the general Reform view) it is not eternally binding and
>>therefore subject to change or rejection, as are basically all human laws.
>>Greg
>Alright, so in other words, Reform considers halakha to be man-made, so
>changeable.
>What's wrong with that, as long as you have a good selection process as to
>who is making the laws, and the laws are justly applied? Esp. since, in my
>opinion, there is no divine mandate anyway?
I cannot see that a good selection procedure for the makers of man-made
laws would include those who would argue that the basic parts came
verbatim from God. This has been explicitly stated by the Orthodox as
being the case for not only the Written Torah, but also the Oral Law.
Robert Kaiser
Shelly, you are still attacking me just because you do approve
of my choice of words. Come off it. I posted a huge letter on this
subject, with detailed quotes and sources. As such, there is no way that
my phrase can be taken out of context.
You know exactly what I mean by that phrase, and you are choosing
to ignore it, and choosing to still act as if it is an attack on every
Reform Jew. That is wrong.
I don'tknow what else to do. I have given _detailed_ explanations
and sources, from Reform authorities. Yes, you can diaagree with my
choice of words, but it is well beyond the point where opne can claim
that they do not know what I mean. You _do_ know, and it is crystal
clear that I am not attacking Reform Judaism. Not unless you consider
the Reform rabbis I quoted to also be attacking Reform.
Yes, feel free to disagree with my choice of words. But do not
attribute a position to me that I clearly do not maintain.
Shalom,
Robert
Richard Schultz
: What Reform Jews state is that they are not above the laws of God,
: but that the laws of God are not what Orthodox (or Conservative)
: rabbis say they are. This is the key point.
Do you have an authoritative Reform source (e.g. a statement from the
CCAR or even a passage from a book by someone like Borowitz, Plaut, or
Petuchowski) for this contention?
-----
Richard Schultz sch...@mail.biu.ac.il
Department of Chemistry tel: 972-3-531-8065
Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel fax: 972-3-535-1250
-----
"an optimist is a guy/ that has never had/ much experience"
Brett Weiss
--
Brett
Daniel P Faigin
> Hello. My name is Brett Carrington and I am a reformed Jew. I am
> currently pondering over the question if it is "okay" to reformed, and
> not keep kosher? Please send me your input, I'd like to hear what other
> people who have asked this question before have to say. Thanks.
First, it is Reform, not Reformed.
Second, Reform does not mandate following the laws of Kashrut; therefor, it is
OK from the point of view of Reform.
As to whether it is "OK" to be Reform, that all depends on who you ask.
Truthfully, God only knows.
Daniel
--
W/H: fai...@aero.org/fai...@pacificnet.net http://www.pacificnet.net/~faigin/
Mod., Mail.Liberal-Judaism (.../~faigin/MLJ) Advisor, s.c.j.Parenting
Maintainer, S.C.J FAQ/RL (.../~faigin/SCJ) Daddy to Erin Shoshana
Maintainer, Calif. Highways List (.../~faigin/CA-HWYS)
Robert Kaiser
>
>In article <78n4kt$v...@umbc7.umbc.edu>,
> shi...@umbc.edu (Eliot Shimoff) wrote:
>> In article <78m2jp$9gc$1...@holly.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
>> Shelly <shel...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>> I too was struck by the "above the law" comment, but kept out of
>> the discussion; I was already involved in a debate with Robert,
>> and didn't want to appear as a person who picks fights with
>> Robert on every issue on which he posts.
>>
>> My understanding of English is that "above the law" means that
>> there is a law, and that there are some people who consider
>> themselves exempt from compliance (e.g., because they are smarter,
>> richer, or stronger than the rest of us). Saying that someone
>> considers him/herself above the law is almost always a perjorative
>> statement.
>>
>> R does not consider itself "above" halakha; it considers halakha to
>> be non-binding (at least in the sense that O and C consider halakha
>> to be binding).
>>
>
>Thanks Eliot. With the same statement coming from both the left and the
>right I say this to Robert:
>
>This discussion is hereby terminated.
Sorry Shelly, but its NOT over,because I will not let you get
away with publicly attacking me for a position that I do not hold.
If you wish to disagree with what I believe fine, but do NOT
go around attackinh positions that I don't have. I really have had
enough of that kind of nonsense from Jon and Elliot; Whya re you
playing these games now? This is _not_ funny.
As you well know, I have said exactly what you and Elliot just
did, and you still are attacking me. That is not only ignorant, it
shows that you are still trying to start a flame war.
Stop it NOW. No one here is inventing positions that you do not
hold, and attacking you for it. So don't do this yourself.
Further, I backed up everything I said with official quotes from
Reform Jews, including leaders of the movement. And you didn't disagree
with -any- of the quotes I posted on the Reform concept of halakha,
by Reform rabbis themselves. So call them whatever you wish, but don't
pretend this has anything to do with me. rather, this is all one big
long personal attack on me because you didn'tlike my choice of words.
Robert
Herman Rubin
Richard Schultz <correct address in .sigfile> wrote:
>Herman Rubin (hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu) wrote:
>: What Reform Jews state is that they are not above the laws of God,
>: but that the laws of God are not what Orthodox (or Conservative)
>: rabbis say they are. This is the key point.
>Do you have an authoritative Reform source (e.g. a statement from the
>CCAR or even a passage from a book by someone like Borowitz, Plaut, or
>Petuchowski) for this contention?
Is there an authoritative Reform source?
In fact, CAN there be an authoritative Reform source?
Herman Rubin
SailorBob <sai...@netvision.net.il> wrote:
>Brett Carrington wrote:
>> Hello. My name is Brett Carrington and I am a reformed Jew. I am
>> currently pondering over the question if it is "okay" to reformed, and
>> not keep kosher? Please send me your input, I'd like to hear what other
>> people who have asked this question before have to say. Thanks.
>Reform Judaism is not a valid form of relisious observance. It
>doesn't even really qualify as a religious movement. It's
>simply a social club for non-Religious Jews. If you have
>any interest at all in Jewish culture or religion stay
>away from the Reform movement.
I would say that Reform Judaism is MORE concerned with true religion
than Orthodox. The prophets loudly proclaimed against sacrifices
without meaning, ritual for the sake of ritual. Those who equate
religion with the observance of requirements and taboos are like the
early people for whom the sacrificial cult was a necessity because
they could not understand a God who did not demand them.
The social activities of our congregation are social activities,
not considered religious. Some participate, and some do not.
That "SailorBob" cannot understand this is his loss, not ours.
If you think that being kosher is a legitimate interpretation of
what God wants, you will try to keep kosher. If it will not
bring you closer to God, you will not. In either case, Reform
Jews like me will welcome you.
Robert Kaiser
hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) says:
>
>>Do you have an authoritative Reform source (e.g. a statement from the
>>CCAR or even a passage from a book by someone like Borowitz, Plaut, or
>>Petuchowski) for this contention?
>
>Is there an authoritative Reform source?
>
>In fact, CAN there be an authoritative Reform source?
There are many authoritative Reform sources, which give the
American Reform view on any given subject. Unfortunately, they are
not considered normative even by the people who write them, which
leads to considerable confusion, to say the least.
But the Reform platforms are authoritative, and the Reform
movement itself maintains a press which predouces materials according
to its worldview.
Shalom,
Robert Kaiser
Delia Candle
Micha Berger wrote in message <78ogvo$1uo$2...@news1.deshaw.com>...
>On Tue, 26 Jan 1999 21:51:59 -0800, Delia Candle <cand...@mindspring.com>
wrote:
>: Alright, so in other words, Reform considers halakha to be man-made, so
>: changeable.
>: What's wrong with that, as long as you have a good selection process as
to
>: who is making the laws, and the laws are justly applied?
>
>believed otherwise.>>
You'll have to explain this to me. Did the people who "wrote the law"
believe that they were taking down heavenly dictation, or were they inspired
by a God-induced feeling? Is it possible that some of them were actually
skeptical about the divine source, but had no actual vocabulary or means to
express such skepticism? How can we be sure what they believed?
>
>By parable, is there any meaning to the US Constitution as a basis for
national
>law for people who deny its assumptions? What if you could prove, to your
own
>satisfaction, that democracy doesn't work. What validity do the ideas of
the
>framers and subsequent judicial interpreters have for you?
>
>What value does extending, modifying, or even using as a launching point, a
>system whose assumptions you do not hold?
>
>-mi>>
Very good questions. I'll answer them when you clarify the issue of belief.
DC
NYC
Brett Weiss
to observe, how can any source be other than reflective of the group that
creates it? While something may be reflective of the RJ leadership, they
really do not speak for RJ, do they?
--
Brett
Robert Kaiser <kai...@biosys.net> wrote in message
news:36afd...@news.ic.sunysb.edu...
Shelly
Robert Kaiser wrote in message <36af4...@news.ic.sunysb.edu>...
I swore to end this, so I won't explain anything to you. I am only going to
ask you a simple question because I am confused by what you wrote in _this_
post.
Here it is:
Since you say your choice of words did not convey what you meant, and that I
should understand the real meaning of your position, do you now choose to
retract the words that "Reform Jews consider themselves to be above the
law"? Yes or no. No "yes, buts" or "no, buts". Simply yes or no. A one
word answer to my question will suffice and anything else will be ignored as
a non-answer.
Shelly
Shelly
Robert Kaiser wrote in message <36af8...@news.ic.sunysb.edu>...
>In article <78nrkp$ibv$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, shel...@earthlink.net says:
>>
>>In article <78n4kt$v...@umbc7.umbc.edu>,
>> shi...@umbc.edu (Eliot Shimoff) wrote:
>>> In article <78m2jp$9gc$1...@holly.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
>>> Shelly <shel...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>
See my question to you in another reply. Aside from that discussion
(discussion means more than one party participating), is terminated. There
is absolutely _no_ way you can "not let me [stop]". BTW, I _did_ counter
your quote. Go look for it in another reply. I won't comment on that reply
any more with you either. I have had enough of you on this thread. [refer
to Danny Glover's famous quote in "Lethal Weapon"].
Input from me, other that a thank you for a yes response to my question to
you, is terminated.
Shelly
Brett Weiss
national
>law for people who deny its assumptions? What if you could prove, to your
own
>satisfaction, that democracy doesn't work. What validity do the ideas of
the
>framers and subsequent judicial interpreters have for you?
There is a difference--in the US, the Constitution is "the supreme law of
the land." IOW, whether you agree or disagree with it, it is binding and you
can be punished for disobeying it (just ask Clinton). Halacha, OTOH, is
binding on OJ, but not so (at least in the same way) on CJ and not at all on
RJ.
The closest analogy would be if Israel were to become a wholly religious
state, with halacha replacing civil law. Then the two situations would be
equivalent.
As a sideline, is there any intuitional punishment for disobeying halacha
for OJs? I can understand that there might be ostracism, but is there really
any formal judicial proceeding?
--
Brett
Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote in message
news:78ogvo$1uo$2...@news1.deshaw.com...
>On Tue, 26 Jan 1999 21:51:59 -0800, Delia Candle <cand...@mindspring.com>
wrote:
>: Alright, so in other words, Reform considers halakha to be man-made, so
>: changeable.
>: What's wrong with that, as long as you have a good selection process as
to
>: who is making the laws, and the laws are justly applied?
>
>The problem is that the fundamentals of the law were written by people who
>believed otherwise.
>
>By parable, is there any meaning to the US Constitution as a basis for
national
>law for people who deny its assumptions? What if you could prove, to your
own
>satisfaction, that democracy doesn't work. What validity do the ideas of
the
>framers and subsequent judicial interpreters have for you?
>
>What value does extending, modifying, or even using as a launching point, a
>system whose assumptions you do not hold?
>
>-mi
>
>--
>Micha Berger (973) 916-0287 Help free Yehuda Katz, held by Syria 6073
days!
>mi...@aishdas.org (11-Jun-82 - 27-Jan-99)
>For a mitzvah is a lamp, and the Torah its light.
>http://www.aishdas.org -- Orthodox Judaism: Torah, Avodah, Chessed
greg_...@my-dejanews.com
correct address in .sigfile wrote:
> : basis. Prohibitions against homosexuality work towards perpetuation of the
> : group, since few children are born of homosexual unions. <g>
>
> Then why does Reform believe that male homosexual intercourse is not sinful?
>
It doesn't, necessarily. The most recent Reform responsa concerning gay
marriages is cited below; it ends up deciding against allowing Reform rabbis
to officiate at such marriages. It winds its way to this position only after
considerable hand wringing and uncertainty, and also contradicts the Ad Hoc
Committee on Sexuality at various places. Most of the issues concerning
homosexuality are unsettled within the movement (one exception being that
anti-gay discrimination is clearly condemned) and there has been a general
desire to keep them on the back burner to avoid another serious split within
Reform or with the other movements.
Greg
http://ccarnet.org/cgi/respdisp.pl5?file=8&year=5756
SailorBob
>
> Hello. My name is Brett Carrington and I am a reformed Jew. I am
> currently pondering over the question if it is "okay" to reformed, and
> not keep kosher? Please send me your input, I'd like to hear what other
> people who have asked this question before have to say. Thanks.
Reform Judaism is not a valid form of relisious observance. It
doesn't even really qualify as a religious movement. It's
simply a social club for non-Religious Jews. If you have
any interest at all in Jewish culture or religion stay
away from the Reform movement.
SailorBob
Micha Berger
Susan Cohen
Herman Rubin wrote:
> In article <36AFAB1E...@netvision.net.il>,
> SailorBob <sai...@netvision.net.il> wrote:
> >Brett Carrington wrote:
>
> >> I am
> >> currently pondering over the question if it is "okay" to reformed, and
> >> not keep kosher?
>
> > It's
> >simply a social club for non-Religious Jews.
>
> I would say that Reform Judaism is MORE concerned with true religion
> than Orthodox.
I'd say you're both wrong.
Susan
Richard Schultz
: > Then why does Reform believe that male homosexual intercourse is
: > not sinful?
: It doesn't, necessarily. The most recent Reform responsa concerning gay
: marriages is cited below; it ends up deciding against allowing Reform
: rabbis to officiate at such marriages.
"Homosexual marriage" and "homosexual sex" are not the same thing. I
know for a fact that HUC will ordain men who openly proclaim their
homosexuality. Are you telling us that HUC requires these men to agree
to be celibate?
-----
Richard Schultz sch...@mail.biu.ac.il
Department of Chemistry tel: 972-3-531-8065
Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel fax: 972-3-535-1250
-----
"Life is a blur of Republicans and meat." -- Zippy
Richard Schultz
: I would say that Reform Judaism is MORE concerned with true religion
: than Orthodox. The prophets loudly proclaimed against sacrifices
: without meaning, ritual for the sake of ritual. Those who equate
: religion with the observance of requirements and taboos are like the
: early people for whom the sacrificial cult was a necessity because
: they could not understand a God who did not demand them.
In the above paragraph, you manage to reveal your ignorance (a) of
Orthodox Judaism (b) of Reform Judaism and (c) what the prophets
actually said (although I hope Zvi the Fiddler sees your post).
One of the many questions that you consistently refuse to answer
or even to acknowledge is how you manage to reconcile your claims
about the prophets with, for instance, Isaiah 56:1-2.
: If you think that being kosher is a legitimate interpretation of
: what God wants, you will try to keep kosher. If it will not
: bring you closer to God, you will not. In either case, Reform
: Jews like me will welcome you.
What is your metric for determining whether a particular action brings
one closer to God or not? How can you be so sure if the act of
keeping kosher is not in and of itself a means of bringing one
closer to God? I know that there is at least one traditional (i.e.
Orthodox) opinion that there is no fundamental reason why pork is
forbidden and beef permitted and not the other way around: the point
is that by agreeing not to eat one, we acknowledge God's role in our
lives every time we perform the mundane act of eating. A "religious"
act is thus *not* one that makes a person feel a certain way (although
it certainly could affect one's feelings), but an act that by its
nature forces the person to acknowledge his duties to God.
-----
Richard Schultz sch...@mail.biu.ac.il
Department of Chemistry tel: 972-3-531-8065
Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel fax: 972-3-535-1250
-----
"How many boards would the Mongols hoard if the Mongol hordes got bored?"
greg_...@my-dejanews.com
correct address in .sigfile wrote:
>
> : > Then why does Reform believe that male homosexual intercourse is
> : > not sinful?
>
> : It doesn't, necessarily. The most recent Reform responsa concerning gay
> : marriages is cited below; it ends up deciding against allowing Reform
> : rabbis to officiate at such marriages.
>
> "Homosexual marriage" and "homosexual sex" are not the same thing. I
> know for a fact that HUC will ordain men who openly proclaim their
> homosexuality. Are you telling us that HUC requires these men to agree
> to be celibate?
>
No, of course not. My point was simply that there is still considerable
controversy over homosexuality and lack of agreement within the Reform
movement on its related issues. Saying that Reform believes such-and-such in
this case is not accurate. (Not that is ever is, of course.)
Greg
greg_...@my-dejanews.com
correct address in .sigfile wrote:
>
> : I would say that Reform Judaism is MORE concerned with true religion
> : than Orthodox. The prophets loudly proclaimed against sacrifices
> : without meaning, ritual for the sake of ritual. Those who equate
> : religion with the observance of requirements and taboos are like the
> : early people for whom the sacrificial cult was a necessity because
> : they could not understand a God who did not demand them.
>
> In the above paragraph, you manage to reveal your ignorance (a) of
> Orthodox Judaism (b) of Reform Judaism and (c) what the prophets
> actually said (although I hope Zvi the Fiddler sees your post).
> One of the many questions that you consistently refuse to answer
> or even to acknowledge is how you manage to reconcile your claims
> about the prophets with, for instance, Isaiah 56:1-2.
>
How do Mr. Rubin's comments contradict Isaiah's call to do justice and keep
the sabbath? Could you explain your point further?
> : If you think that being kosher is a legitimate interpretation of
> : what God wants, you will try to keep kosher. If it will not
> : bring you closer to God, you will not. In either case, Reform
> : Jews like me will welcome you.
>
> What is your metric for determining whether a particular action brings
> one closer to God or not?
> <Snip>
> A "religious"
> act is thus *not* one that makes a person feel a certain way (although
> it certainly could affect one's feelings), but an act that by its
> nature forces the person to acknowledge his duties to God.
>
> -----
> Richard Schultz sch...@mail.biu.ac.il
This is an excellent statement of what a religious act is, but is it not also
an answer to your own question? A particular action brings a person closer
to God when it forces that person to acknowledge his duties to God (including
the duty to pursue justice for one's fellow man).
Eliot Shimoff
Robert Kaiser <kai...@biosys.net> wrote:
>
>shi...@umbc.edu (Eliot Shimoff) says:
Robert:
>>> You are a lot more right than you have stated. You could have
>>>responded by noting that even today, only about half of Orthodoxy is
>>>actually Zionist; the rest is officially non-Zionist or anti-Zionist.
>>>Compare that to Reform Judaism's new platform explicitly supporting Zionism!
Eliot:
>>There are indeed some antiZionist (in the sense of "political Zionist"
>>O Jews, but these seem to me to be a relatively limited (albeit very
>>visible) minority -- Satmar, Neturei Karta, and a few other fringe
>>groups.
>>
>>If, on the other hand, platforms explicitly supporting Zionism
>>qualifies one as Zionist, then O men (and some women) recite the
>>platform three times a day in the Amidah.
Robert:
> Not at all. There is a huge difference between loving
>"Eretz Yisrael" [the biblical land of Israel] and "Medinat Yisrael]
>the actual state of Israel, the political reality.
>
> Satmar Jews hate Medinat Tisrael with a passion, but they
>still say the Amidah.
Agreed. There are several different kinds of Zionism, among
them religious Zionism, political Zionism, ideological Zionism ...
And there are lots of ways of expressing that Zionism:
adopting position papers, reciting prayers, political activism,
financial support, visiting Israel, moving to Israel, etc.
--
Eliot Shimoff (shi...@umbc.edu) | Interested in Talmud study
Proud saba of Tani, T'mima, | by email?
Moshe, Hillel,Tsivia & Chani | Visit my website ...
(Space reserved for new entries) | http://www.umbc.edu/~shimoff
Herman Rubin
Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:
>On Tue, 26 Jan 1999 21:51:59 -0800, Delia Candle <cand...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>: Alright, so in other words, Reform considers halakha to be man-made, so
>: changeable.
>: What's wrong with that, as long as you have a good selection process as to
>: who is making the laws, and the laws are justly applied?
>The problem is that the fundamentals of the law were written by people who
>believed otherwise.
>By parable, is there any meaning to the US Constitution as a basis for national
>law for people who deny its assumptions? What if you could prove, to your own
>satisfaction, that democracy doesn't work. What validity do the ideas of the
>framers and subsequent judicial interpreters have for you?
>What value does extending, modifying, or even using as a launching point, a
>system whose assumptions you do not hold?
It is necessary for people living in a country to have a law code; those
who wrote our Constitution thought it should be much less restrictive.
It is not necessary for those not living in a physical region to have
that detailed a code. Also, those who wrote the Jewish law claimed that
most of its principles were derived from the literal word of God; it is
this claim which is being challenged. How many of today's rabbis would
sustain the present Orthodox halakhah about a woman getting a divorce if
they did not consider the requirement that a man "voluntarily" give the
decree to be from God?
Except for murder and kidnapping, the only crimes in the Torah which
called for death or whipping were crimes against God; crimes against
man, including crimes against sacred property, called for compensation.
Was this merely a widespread belief among people that their deities
would not treat them well unless the people enforced their religion
against all trespasses, including by strangers? Few of us believe that
God needs us to protect Him.
What does God require of us?
Robert Kaiser
"Shelly" <shel...@earthlink.net> says:
>
>Here it is:
>Since you say your choice of words did not convey what you meant, and that I
>should understand the real meaning of your position, do you now choose to
>retract the words that "Reform Jews consider themselves to be above the
>law"? Yes or no. No "yes, buts" or "no, buts". Simply yes or no. A one
>word answer to my question will suffice and anything else will be ignored as
>a non-answer.
I gave a 100 line post explaining my position in extreme detail,
and I agree with the official statements I have read from the Reform
movement. It is reproduced below. I have even agreed with you. So
I do not understand what you are so confused about. Again, the "yes"
or "no"answer you are asking for is irrelevent, because I have already
said "yes" several times, and you ignored me every time. You just
are hung up on one phrase.
If you ignore the fact that I agree with you time after time,
what else can I say?
W. Gunther Plaut is a former president of the CCAR, a leading historian,
scholar and representative of the Reform movement. He is generally
regarded to belong to the very moderate, right-of-center (if not
rightist altogether) Reformers. According to Plaut, "the average Reform
Jew, like the average Reform rabbi, considers any mention of halacha or
its equivalent as the expression of Orthodoxy or Conservatism. " [7]
Plaut argues consistently that the 'Reform movement' should have some
guidelines, some form of 'code' of practices incorporating selected
mitzvot, customs and rituals. But he qualifies immediately that any
such 'code' or 'guide' must "most important of all, accept the
fundamental principle of Liberalism: that the individual will approach
this body of mitzvot and minhagim in the spirit of freedom and choice.
Traditionally Israel started with harut, the commandment engraved upon
the Tablets, which then became freedom. The Reform Jew starts with herut
the freedom to decide what will be harut - engraved upon the personal
Tablets of his life. [8]
Plaut recognizes that this liberal anarchy of Reform means that
traditional Jews "and the membership of Reform congregations no
longer speak the same language." [9] This does not seem to worry
him. His major concern, it would appear, is with self-preservation,
the survival of Reform:
"One cannot escape the concomitant conviction that Reform Judaism
in its present non-or even anti halachic form does not possess
the key to the total Jewish future. If the movement does not now
turn decisively away from its post-classical, radical phase, then
indeed, its critics will probably be right: it will have no future...
Without a recovery of the sense of halacha, Reform Judaism will
dissolve into a shallow post-Einhornian ethicism. We may not go
as far as Einhorn's son-in-law Emil G. Hirsch and remove the Sifrei
Torah from the ark, but we will be assisting at the final surgery
which removes the marrow from Jewish existence." [10]
But even as moderate a thinker as Plaut is not prepared to return to the
roots of Judaism, to the three concepts of God, Torah and Israel, which
have forever been the foundation of the Jewish faith and the force that
bound all Jews together: "The traditional trilogy of 'God, Israel,
and Torah' is no longer operative as a Liberal consensus. As for Torah,
the early Liberals excluded from it the oral law, and the latter-day
Liberals, because of eclecticism abetted by biblical criticism,
reduced Torah to a symbolic accouterment of the service and little else.
...
Plaut's search for a new 'halacha' that can accommodate the majority
of the Reform movement concludes with the categorical imperative that
"neither God nor Torah can be considered as universally commanding
sources for Reform halacha!" [12]
{* Shelly, this is exactly what I have been telling you* }
The traditional trilogy 'God, Israel, and Torah' "must be supplanted
by a spectrum that ranges from Israel to man to self... where all who
count themselves as part of this fellowship agree that, through Israel,
individual as well as human uniqueness is validated in a special way
and that whatever Judaism has to say must speak to and of and through
this uniqueness." [13]
With this new Torah-less Judaism," Plaut and Reform have come full
circle to what he calls the "transmutation of non-halachic Judaism into
ethical culture," flourishing as a "Jewishly inspired Unitarianism,
spread as a broad and pleasant middle-class establishmentarianism,
with American or Canadian banners gaily affixed to it," albeit by
adding or restoring some moorings in Jewish history. [14]
"But whatever Reform halacha will be, it will not be law in the old
sense... With the demise of the operational quality of Torah law in
our liberal world, halacha as law has become a skeletal term. " [15]
Another scholar of the Reform movement, at least as moderate and
right-of-center as Plaut, was Jakob Petuchowski, senior professor
of Rabbinic and Jewish Theology at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish
Institute of Religion in Cincinnati. He, too, is disturbed by the
chaos and anarchy governing Reform beliefs and practices. He anticipated
most of the weaknesses in Plaut's approach and confronts them in a
frank and honest way:
"The endeavor to foster Jewish observance by a 'sales appeal,'
in imitation of the marketing of cigarettes and soap ('Five
hundred congregations from coast to coast can't be wrong!')
is merely further proof of the fact that, judging only by the
official statements of Reform doctrine, there can be no halacha
for Reform Judaism!
Where individual rabbis encourage 'ceremonies,' they do so either
because they have Reconstructionist leanings and treasure
'folkways,' or because modern educational theories have opened
their eyes to the necessity of audiovisual aids, or again;
because they feel the need to lend a certain warmth and
emotional appeal to an otherwise 'cold' worship service. All
these reasons and motivations are good for an ad hoc 'ritualism.'
But it will be conceded that we are dealing with 'religious
pageantry' - not with halacha" [16]
Petuchowski is one of the first to recognize and admit the striking
similarity between the theology of unbridled 'Reform unversalism' and
Christian theology. The Columbus Platform of 1937, still the standard
Reform revelation to this day, defined God as the One in Whom "all
existence has its creative source and man kind its ideal of conduct."
Revelation is defined as "a continuing process, confined to no one
group and to no one age."
Petuchowksi cogently notes:
"It may well be that many Reform Jews view with favor this (backward)
progress from Sinai to the elementary morality of the 'Seven Laws
of the Sons of Noah,' whereas traditional Judaism knows of
progress in the opposite direction. Paul, too, was fired by the
thought of the pre-Sinaitic Patriarchs who were 'saved' without
the law, and, in this sense, the new dispensation he preached
was a return to pristine simplicity. There is, therefore, no need
for halacha in circles where Sinai is either deplored or rejected,
and where Torah simply means respectability and good will. " [17]
As Plaut rightly observed, traditional Jews and the membership of Reform
congregations no longer speak the same language. Petuchowksi writes:
"Historically speaking, halacha was the norm of Jewish life -
either found in the Scriptures or deduced from them by a
universally accepted system of hermeneutics. Where, as in
the case of the Karaites, the hermeneutics or the authority
of the interpreters was rejected, an attempt was made to base
Jewish practice on the literal meaning of the Bible. But both
Rabbanite and Karaite Jews submitted to their respective
versions of Jewish law, because they believed that in observing
it they were fulfilling the will of God, and that this will was
expressed - directly or indirectly - in the pages of the Hebrew
Bible." [18]
The above is not an 'orthodox' evaluation of 'Reform Judaism,' nor an unrepresentative
sampling of their radicals. These are the thoughts and statements of prominent and
moderate leaders, teachers and spokesmen of the Reform movement.
6. The quotes following are taken from Bernard Martin, ed., CONTEMPORARY Reform JEWISH THOUGHT, Quadrangle Books: Chicago 1968. This book, sponsored and copyrighted by the CCAR, is a collection of essays by "rabbis who are alumni of the HUC-JIR, which is the fountainhead of Reform Judaism in America. Three of the authors serve as professors at their alma mater;" p. V.
7. Ibid., p.89.
8. Ibid., p.100.
9. Ibid., p.90.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid., p.96-7.
12. Ibid., p.97.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid., p.89.
15. Ibid., p.98.
16. Ibid., p.114.
17. Ibid., p.115 (see there also p.113).
18. Ibid., p.111.
********************************
*This* is my view of Reform halakha. I do not understand why
it is so offensive, as it also is as official a Reform position as one
can possible get.
Shalom,
Robert
Zvi the Fiddler
Richard Schultz wrote in message <78ovhu$ngs$1...@cnn.cc.biu.ac.il>...
>Herman Rubin (hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu) wrote:
>
>: I would say that Reform Judaism is MORE concerned with true
religion
>: than Orthodox. The prophets loudly proclaimed against sacrifices
>: without meaning, ritual for the sake of ritual. Those who equate
>: religion with the observance of requirements and taboos are like
the
>: early people for whom the sacrificial cult was a necessity because
>: they could not understand a God who did not demand them.
>
>In the above paragraph, you manage to reveal your ignorance (a) of
>Orthodox Judaism (b) of Reform Judaism and (c) what the prophets
>actually said (although I hope Zvi the Fiddler sees your post).
;-)>
I admit it -- I've been skimming a lot lately.
>One of the many questions that you consistently refuse to answer
>or even to acknowledge is how you manage to reconcile your claims
>about the prophets with, for instance, Isaiah 56:1-2.
What is there to reconcile? The prophets have always emphacized
Shabbat -- but they do not go into a lot of detail as to what one
should do. Which is proper observance -- to emotuionally set the day
aside as a rest from the mental and physical toil of the week -- or to
be careful not to activate and electric switch or carry your child
beyond a string between two houses? Which are the prophets talking
about? And how do you know -- without using a circular argument that
defines your source as the only valid source?
I don't say that Reform is more religious than Orthodox. I will say
that it approaches the concepts in a different way, a way which I
personally find attractive in many respects, and which I suspect is in
many ways closer to what the prophets taught.
>What is your metric for determining whether a particular action
brings
>one closer to God or not? How can you be so sure if the act of
>keeping kosher is not in and of itself a means of bringing one
>closer to God?
The basic question -- how do we know that what we beleive is correct?
Some people are willing to accept -- simple on the basis of
authority -- what an authority tells them (or course you then have to
choose which authority to accept.) Some are not.
Zvi the Fiddler
Simcha Streltsov
: beyond a string between two houses? Which are the prophets talking
: about? And how do you know -- without using a circular argument that
: defines your source as the only valid source?
it seems that there are only two possibilities: a halachik version, or
nothing. If we dont trust our traditional sources to understand what the
prophet mean - we have no sources at all - and thus we can only guess
and suspect, as you say:
: personally find attractive in many respects, and which I suspect is in
: many ways closer to what the prophets taught.
now, why are your suspicions better than my suspicions of the priest
from your local church - I dont know. IMVHO, these suspicions become
so vague that we can not base our religion on that. Thus, we have to
follow the same hard way that Avraham followed: build our religion
without the Torah and if we are correct, we can hope to hear some
response from above (of course, this response can be "why didn't you
look at the Rashi?!")
: The basic question -- how do we know that what we beleive is correct?
indeed, here is one way to look at this question:
if we come with a certain well-defined tradition, we can test it -
for consistency, for logic, for quality of prediction during centuries
of human history, for our pwn sense of justice, etc, etc. These tests
will not be 100% clear, of course, but at least some judgment can be
made.
OTOH, if we start with no tradition, we need to consider all possible
theories that can satisfy our tests. The problem is that a
possible number of theories we can construct is very large - often
larger than the number of tests we can invent. In this case, it
is easy to find a "theory" that fits the tests but does not explain
anything else. (the classical example is the tribe on an island that
saw a plane landing with food during WW2. They figured out all logical
connections - now evey time they wanted to eat, they would make
the fires near the landing site - as they saw before. Their theory
was perfect on the facts, but not very helpful in the future).
as a result, as we as Jews are so lucky to have a tradition that
survived thru so many centuries, it seems that we can achieve much more
by analyzing that tradition instead of coming up with our own
theories and suspicions.
--
Simcha Streltsov disclaimer, as requested by Mo-he S-rr
simc...@juno.com all punctuation marks in this article
http://cad.bu.edu/go/simon are equivalent to (-:
Halevalaw
>Date: 1/28/99 11:51 AM Pacific Standard Time
>Message-id:
>What is there to reconcile? The prophets have always emphacized
>Shabbat -- but they do not go into a lot of detail as to what one
>should do. Which is proper observance -- to emotuionally set the day
>aside as a rest from the mental and physical toil of the week -- or to
>be careful not to activate and electric switch or carry your child
>beyond a string between two houses?
> Which are the prophets talking
>about? And how do you know -- without using a circular argument that
>defines your source as the only valid source?
Posessing a tradition is not circular. How do I know what notes correspond to
markings on lines?
Tradition.
How do I know today is Thursday?
Tradition.
How do I know the interpretation of markings on a
page as being writing and what that writing means?
Tradition.
Say it again!
Tradition.
Do I hear an amen brother?
Amen! Tradition! Praise the Lord!
All of these arguments, posited ad naseum, frankly,
refuse to deal with the simple fact that a book, any book, must be interpreted
according to the culture which produced it.
If you have no access to a trsdition regarding these books, fine. But your
arguments about some type of objective
(do Jews believe in objectivity anyway? No. Amen!)
proof are in fact equivalent to asking French people why they talk funny. You
impose the values of your culture onto that of the Hebrews/Rabbis.
How do you know how to pronounce the Bible? How do you know what the dots and
symbols mean?
There is no proof thet its Moshe as opposed to "Misho" "Meshe" etc.
> I will say
>that it approaches the concepts in a different way, a way which I
>personally find attractive in many respects, and which I suspect is in
>many ways closer to what the prophets taught.
Based on absolute conjecture, biased by your cultural code and personal style.
Persuasive?
Halevalaw
Shelly
Halevalaw wrote in message <19990128183857...@ng-fu1.aol.com>...
Does anyone else see the humor in this response to Zvi the _Fiddler_? I
about ready to break out into song!
Shelly
Shelly
Robert Kaiser wrote in message <36b0a...@news.ic.sunysb.edu>...
>
>"Shelly" <shel...@earthlink.net> says:
>>
>>Here it is:
>>Since you say your choice of words did not convey what you meant, and that
I
>>should understand the real meaning of your position, do you now choose to
>>retract the words that "Reform Jews consider themselves to be above the
>>law"? Yes or no. No "yes, buts" or "no, buts". Simply yes or no. A one
>>word answer to my question will suffice and anything else will be ignored
as
>>a non-answer.
>
>
> I gave a 100 line post explaining my position in extreme detail,
>and I agree with the official statements I have read from the Reform
>movement. It is reproduced below. I have even agreed with you. So
>I do not understand what you are so confused about. Again, the "yes"
>or "no"answer you are asking for is irrelevent, because I have already
>said "yes" several times, and you ignored me every time. You just
>are hung up on one phrase.
Non-answer! One last and final time, there won't be another:
Do you now choose to retract the words that "Reform Jews consider themselves
to be above the law"? Yes or no.
Shelly
Shelly
>>Subject: Re: Reformed Jews
>>From: "Shelly" <shel...@earthlink.net>
>>Date: 1/26/99 8:11 PM Pacific Standard Time
>
>
>Halevalaw:
>
>>>However, I also see that the Reform movement has contributed greatly to
the
>>>demise one of the fundamental aspects of Judaism, i.e. the political
>>dimension.
>>
>
>Shelly:
>
>>I disagree. Thre is virtual unanimous support for the state of Israel --
>>simply not much wish to move there and leave the US.
>>
>
>Now that it exists. But when it did not, where was the Jewish Nation as a
>political entity? Did it assert its rights to self governance and the land
of
>Israel as superior to the laws of any other nation, even a nation
occupying
>Israel?
>Without its political dimension, the Jewish claim to Israel is legally
subject
>to a boon from some other sovereign, say Cyrus, the UN, etc.
>
>What would Bar Kokhba say to such an argument?
>
>What if Germany, say, made it the law of the land that Jews have no rights?
>Does the Jew follow such a law? Does he admit its "legality"?
>
>Can the Jew have true autonomy without self governance according to its,
not
>some derivative of Great Britain's, constitution? Only if the "Jew"
abandons
>the values of his constitution and calls the transformed, left to the
>individual whim of the modern citizen of Mosaic persuasion, result Judaism.
>
>All this talk of what does God want from us, etc. phrases Judaism as
>philosophical, or theological perhaps, but ignores the political dimension
of
>Israel. If there is no political dimension of Isreal, then either (i)
Messiah
>does not exist, or (ii) he is metaphysical, as was Jesus, Sabbetai Sebi,
and,
>according to some, the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
>
>I find it interesting that the modern morphs of Judaism all were created in
>Western and nominally Christian environments, and that Christianity itself
>borrowed the "religous/personal" side of Judaism but rejected the political
>dimension completely (rendering to Caeser what is
>Caesar's).
>
>Is there an unconcious borrowing?
>
>Halevalaw
I won't get into this with you. I can see the ugliness just around the
corner and I choose to continue on and avoid it.
I have just _one_ question for you. Your address is "AOL". From this I
assume that you live in the US. Given your discourse above, why is that?
Shelly
Robert Kaiser
"Shelly" <shel...@earthlink.net> says:
>
>Non-answer! One last and final time, there won't be another:
I do what you say - or else what? Shelly, don't make a statement
like that ever again. That was beyond the line! Ultimatums are for
dealing with violent criminals - they are not for civilized discussions.
This is even worse than Harry's "blood libel" comments. At least I
never saw him give anyone here ultimatums.
By the way, I answered your question THREE TIMES now. In
explicit detail. With quotes and references. And you still show no
evidence that you have ever read _any_ books on the subject at all.
I am sorry that you are so pissed off, but that is no reason to
pretend that I refuse to answer the question. I DID answer it, three
times. Of course I stated that Reform Judaism considers itself about
the law, and because you were so insulted by that, I explained exactly
what I meant. In detail. Because you asked me to, I then changed course
and described the Reform position without that terminology. Why do you
still act as if that never happened?
Yes, I do believe that my views on Reform theology cannot fairly
be expressed in one word. That is why I did you the favor of looking
up a quote to post. This way there could be no possibility of confusion
at all. And I stated that agreed 100% with what the Reform sources
stated. Why do you keep asking me a question that I already answered?
Unfortunately, the deeperproblem is this: You incorrectly assumed
that either (a) I hate Reform Judaism, or (b) I fully agree with you.
You simply cannot understand that there are positions in between these
two.
>Do you now choose to retract the words that "Reform Jews consider themselves
>to be above the law"? Yes or no.
Shelly, you never answered any of _my_ questions. Do you disagree
with the Reform rabbis I quoted? I already told you that I agree with
those rabbis, but you always ignore this and pretend I never replied.
I look forward to speaking to you again when you are able to
compose a message without rude ultimatums.
Shalom,
Robert
Shelly
Robert Kaiser wrote in message <36b12...@news.ic.sunysb.edu>...
>
>"Shelly" <shel...@earthlink.net> says:
>>
>>Non-answer! One last and final time, there won't be another:
>
>
> I do what you say - or else what? Shelly, don't make a statement
Then what? I don't ever ask again. That's what. Also I assume that by
your persistent non-answer you mean that you do _NOT_ wish to retract that
statement.
Since you still have not answered the specific question, my confusion is
cleared up (which was why I asked the question) and I withdraw with my
conclusions as stated.
[rest on non-response snipped]
BTW, whether you respond to this or not, the contributions to this exchange
can only be one way -- posting by you. It's over.
Shelly
Halevalaw
Zvi the Fiddler
Halevalaw wrote in message
<19990128183857...@ng-fu1.aol.com>...
>>From: "Zvi the Fiddler" <Fiddl...@worldnet.att.net>
>> Which are the prophets talking
>>about? And how do you know -- without using a circular argument
that
>>defines your source as the only valid source?
>
>Posessing a tradition is not circular. How do I know what notes
correspond to
>markings on lines?
>Tradition.
>
>How do I know today is Thursday?
>Tradition.
>
>How do I know the interpretation of markings on a
> page as being writing and what that writing means?
>Tradition.
>
How do I know that Washington was the first US president -- tradition.
Opps -- no. It IS a tradition, but it is also a historical fact
supported by contempory documentation.
Whether we call a day Thursday or Yom Hamishe is tradition -- i.e. a
way of doing things which is neither right or wrong -- AND which has
no objective correlates -- e.g. whether the prophets REALLY called the
day Thursday.
Zvi the Fiddler
Zvi the Fiddler
Simcha Streltsov wrote in message <78qke1$r7n$1...@news1.bu.edu>...
>
>it seems that there are only two possibilities: a halachik version,
or
>nothing. If we dont trust our traditional sources to understand what
the
>prophet mean - we have no sources at all
plain meaning? I think that only two posibilites is not realistic.
> - and thus we can only guess and suspect, as you say:
And you can only guess and suspect that the halacik version is
correct. Well, you can have faith, but you can also have faith in
your own reading of the text.
>: personally find attractive in many respects, and which I suspect is
in
>: many ways closer to what the prophets taught.
>
>now, why are your suspicions better than my suspicions of the priest
>from your local church - I dont know.
Huh? What priest in which church? What does that have to do with the
price of herring on a cold winter day in Kiev?
As for whose suspicions are better? Hey -- to each their own. I
would think mine are better, but obviously you would think yours are
better.
>IMVHO, these suspicions become
>so vague that we can not base our religion on that.
IMVHO opinion strict aherence to Halaka is so rigid that we cannot
base our religion on that.
>Thus, we have to
>follow the same hard way that Avraham followed: build our religion
>without the Torah and if we are correct, we can hope to hear some
>response from above (of course, this response can be "why didn't you
>look at the Rashi?!")
It can also be -- why didn;t you trust the direct words of the
prophets?
>
>: The basic question -- how do we know that what we beleive is
correct?
>if we come with a certain well-defined tradition, we can test it -
>for consistency, for logic, for quality of prediction during
centuries
>of human history, for our pwn sense of justice, etc, etc. These tests
>will not be 100% clear, of course, but at least some judgment can be
>made.
I agree. However, I think Halaka does not measure up exceptionally
well by these standards. It has staying power -- but not the other
thigs you mentioned.
>OTOH, if we start with no tradition, ...
"No tradition" is not what I'm talking about.
>as a result, as we as Jews are so lucky to have a tradition that
>survived thru so many centuries, it seems that we can achieve much
more
>by analyzing that tradition instead of coming up with our own
>theories and suspicions.
You are entitled to your opinions.
;->
Zvi the Fiddler
Halevalaw
>Date: 1/28/99 6:14 PM Pacific Standard Time
>I won't get into this with you. I can see the ugliness just around the
>corner and I choose to continue on and avoid it.
>
Okay.
I think people can disagree without ugliness, and I think there are certain
issues that have yet to be breached (perhaps indeed to avoid some ugliness) as
regards the theological-political two dimesnional Judaism. Perhpas one day
they will be discussed.
>I have just _one_ question for you. Your address is "AOL". From this I
>assume that you live in the US. Given your discourse above, why is that?
>
Many Jews lived in the Galuth even when the commonwealths existed. Rome,
Alexandria, Babylonia, etc. It is a misvah to live in Israel of course, and
we try to do what we can. We cannot all do every misvah unfortunately.
This does not in any way diminish the political dimension of Judaism.
Halevalaw
Halevalaw
>From: "Zvi the Fiddler" <Fiddl...@worldnet.att.net>
>How do I know that Washington was the first US president -- tradition.
>Opps -- no. It IS a tradition, but it is also a historical fact
>supported by contempory documentation.
Okay, but I used all examples without tangible,
corroborative documentary evidence.
I do not mean what label Thursday has, I mean how do you know that it is the
fifth day of the week, from whenever they began counting.
Whatever the prophets did or did not do, one must choose a metric to decide the
meaning of their words. Some people would go outside the culture and try to
find "objective" evidence. Others, myself included, would argue that whatever
metric is chosen is culture dependent. "There is no immaculate perception" as
certain enlightened scientists have said. It is thus futile to measure one
culture by the metric of the other. I thus argue that it is irrelevant what
the prophets "really" meant as it is irrelevant if our Thursday is not "really"
Thursday; but then one must trust tradition as the ultimate metric, and be
ready to abandon objectivity in the humanities (as said scientists have done in
the natural sciences).
Halevalaw
Zvi the Fiddler
Halevalaw wrote in message
>
>Whatever the prophets did or did not do, one must choose a metric to
decide the
>meaning of their words. Some people would go outside the culture and
try to
>find "objective" evidence. Others, myself included, would argue that
whatever
measure one
>culture by the metric of the other.
culture which differed in many crucial ways from the culture of the
prophets.
>I thus argue that it is irrelevant what
>the prophets "really" meant as it is irrelevant if our Thursday is
not "really"
>Thursday; but then one must trust tradition as the ultimate metric,
and be
>ready to abandon objectivity in the humanities (as said scientists
have done in
>the natural sciences).
You seem to be saying that the Halukic interpretation of the meanings
of the words of the prophets is im0ortant, but that the actual
meansing are not. If that is your point, I certainly disagree.
If you point is that we cannot know what the prophets meant, I ask
why. Their words seem reasonably clear in most aspects.
Zvi the Fiddler
Herman Rubin
>Zvi the Fiddler (Fiddl...@worldnet.att.net) wrote:
>: about? And how do you know -- without using a circular argument that
>: defines your source as the only valid source?
>it seems that there are only two possibilities: a halachik version, or
>nothing. If we dont trust our traditional sources to understand what the
>prophet mean - we have no sources at all - and thus we can only guess
>and suspect, as you say:
Even the rabbis do not take that strong a position. My position is
that we need to look at all the information and assess it.
There is much for which what we have, which is CLAIMED to be based on
previous material, often stated to be from God, and there is nothing
other than tradition to even indicate this. Tradition is a very poor
basis, and should only be used if there is nothing else to go on, and
something has to be done.
Also, it is not what the prophet meant, but what God meant. Did that
prophet 2500 years ago get it right?
Also, how do we tell if it a correct prophecy? The prophecy may even
be the cause of its undoing; for example, assuming that it was not
merely a legend, Jonah's prophecy succeeded in causing it not to come
to pass.
................
>: The basic question -- how do we know that what we beleive is correct?
>indeed, here is one way to look at this question:
>if we come with a certain well-defined tradition, we can test it -
>for consistency, for logic,
For consistency and logic, halakhah comes does very poorly. if it
is logical, it can be so stated one can mechanically follow the logic,
and using the same rules will not produce anything which disagrees
with it. This is very definitely not the case. If rabbinical
interpretation is involved, it is not logic.
...................
>OTOH, if we start with no tradition, we need to consider all possible
>theories that can satisfy our tests. The problem is that a
>possible number of theories we can construct is very large - often
>larger than the number of tests we can invent.
So? This is how scientists work all the time.
Simcha Streltsov
: >nothing. If we dont trust our traditional sources to understand what
: the
: >prophet mean - we have no sources at all
: How about scholarly research? How about reading the text for the
: plain meaning? I think that only two posibilites is not realistic.
"plain meaning" is fine if it is 100% clear. And even that is not clear.
I think I had previously suggested you a mental exercise - imagine
we have no Judaism, and suddenly scholars find Qumran with a perfect
copy of the whole Tanach - would you care? I would not.
: As for whose suspicions are better? Hey -- to each their own. I
: would think mine are better, but obviously you would think yours are
: better.
I repeat my argument. Halakha represent a consistent system that can be
verified to a certain degree. Your suspicions reflect your own wishful
thinking that was based on very incomplete information - with all due
respect, the amount of my attention to the two hypotheses will be
proportional to possible information existing in each of these two sources.
: I agree. However, I think Halaka does not measure up exceptionally
: well by these standards. It has staying power -- but not the other
: thigs you mentioned.
I assume this opinion is based on careful research and you can elaborate
Simcha Streltsov
: Also, how do we tell if it a correct prophecy? The prophecy may even
: be the cause of its undoing; for example, assuming that it was not
: merely a legend, Jonah's prophecy succeeded in causing it not to come
: to pass.
absolutely, that's why under an assumption that our tradition is
erroneous, one should not bother reading those legends at all. Thus,
it only makes sense to analyze the traditional version.
: For consistency and logic, halakhah comes does very poorly. if it
: is logical, it can be so stated one can mechanically follow the logic,
: and using the same rules will not produce anything which disagrees
: with it. This is very definitely not the case. If rabbinical
: interpretation is involved, it is not logic.
: >OTOH, if we start with no tradition, we need to consider all possible
: >theories that can satisfy our tests. The problem is that a
: >possible number of theories we can construct is very large - often
: >larger than the number of tests we can invent.
: So? This is how scientists work all the time.
between you and me (sorry, Zvi) - what would be a VC dimension
of such approach - can you guesstimate it, or any other measure
of the degrees of freedom. My intuition tells me that given a vague
problem, incomplete data, and opinionated people, if you try to
build a theory from the scratch, you will inevitably bias your
results.
as an example, take a DH: it started with a nice reading that
Deut was found, and the more facts we had, the more detailed the
theory becomes in order to explain all of them - but there is
no way to guarantee that these changes are not simply the bias
towards a small set of randomly u8ncovered facts.
OTOH, tradition presents you one (more or less) system that is
being tested and competed against by other theories for centuries.
Any Bayesian should be impressed (-: