Understanding Judaism

[bananabrain]

To me it's a matter of balance, remaining true to the core of the mitzvot while understanding them in a modern context and -- because I don't see them as divine -- understanding that some of them may have been wrong.

yeah, that's where i would part from you - why should modernity be in opposition to the core of the mitzvot? and how do you isolate and define the core of the mitzvot? using the tools of academia? for me, that's like dissecting someone to find out why they love you, if that's not too drastic a metaphor. only desacralisation (cf dehumanisation) would enable this.

could you give me an example of one that you think is wrong and then we can go into it in more detail rather than generalising?

But I do view the way Jews live today as something human that unfolded over time, the spiritual path for the Jewish people.

oh, so do i - i'm not the sort of person that thinks abraham wore a shtreimel. however, i find it difficult to conceive of a spiritual path that denies the Divinity of some of the mitzvot.

When I see Deut mirroring a Babylonian structure and preaching the same things as the Josianic Reforms, I begin to think that just maybe that's the scroll his people "found" when he was trying to pull the people together after the Babylonian Exile.

but that remains an assumption - and i think it doesn't make sense to preclude the metanatural; this for me is the problem with academia - it dismisses certain things as impossible out of hand, when they cannot be disproved!

Either the Torah is divine because G!D has set everything up so it would be written, or it is sacred because we say it is.

why can't it be both at the same time? after all, that is the basis of the mitzvot, that we can elevate things and actions to the status of holiness. for me it's about how far the sacred extends outside the Text - is a translation holy? is a commentary? is a halachic compendium? for example, it's one thing to consider the shulkhan arukh authoritative, but it's another thing to consider it to be a sacred text - although it may be considered to faithfully transmit the essence of de'oraita.

Isn't that practice pretty old? That sounds like giving new meaning to an older ritual.

or understanding why ceremonial aspects were designed the way they were - it is extremely unlikely that i am the first person to notice this. for me, arguing about how old ideas are is supremely unproductive and doesn't actually affect whether they speak to me or not.

It's like giving color to the black and white of my life.

why do you think people find shul so fecking boring? because there's no fecking *drama* - no sense of occasion. everything got demystified after shabbetai tzvi.

And I hear they actually pronounce all of the words instead of the leader going "Boruch renerfrenerleneredenrer."

soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo true!

b'shalom

bananabrain

[dauer]

Originally Posted by bananabrain

yeah, that's where i would part from you - why should modernity be in opposition to the core of the mitzvot? and how do you isolate and define the core of the mitzvot? using the tools of academia? for me, that's like dissecting someone to find out why they love you, if that's not too drastic a metaphor. only desacralisation (cf dehumanisation) would enable this.

Well, when I look into the past I see people adapting the mitzvot to the standards of their own generation -- although I do believe some of this may have been reflective of the way society had changed -- in the form of the Talmud. I have no problem engaging in dialogue with the mitzvot and the way they are followed and I have no problem using non-rabbinical methods to do so because to me the ways the tools of the rabbis when manipulating the text were theirs and not ancient, but I don't think they set a precedent either because to me it looks like the text sometimes addresses issues it has with laws stated earlier in itself. I am not one to say, "Well, originally people didn't eat anything but animals who had split hooves and chewed their cud because those were the types of animals readily available in their ownership" because that is not what the mitzvah came to mean. I'd much rather find meaning in something than let it go. I'd supposed some of what I do would look like a desacralization but to me it's more a matter of reshaping what is sacred just as I see it has happened many times before.

could you give me an example of one that you think is wrong and then we can go into it in more detail rather than generalising?

Certainly. I have an issue with the laws against homosexuality. There is an arguement on both sides of the issue, but having known some gay people very well I cannot even begin to consider what they are doing to be a sin. And I could be mistaken, but doesn't it render one kareit according to the Torah?

oh, so do i - i'm not the sort of person that thinks abraham wore a shtreimel. however, i find it difficult to conceive of a spiritual path that denies the Divinity of some of the mitzvot.

Well that's the thing. These days I'm thinking that anything that has spiritual significance only has that significance because we feel it does. I could just as easily consider Dune by Frank Herbert holy, maybe with the original trilogy like Torah, the second trilogy like the Nach, and the ones by his son having the status of midrash. However, what I see is that by making something holy we can offer ourselves a greater ability to encounter the Divine. I don't even see morality as absolute. The past few weeks I've been thinking that whater morality we cleave to is the one that is absolute for us. When we sway from it, we feel that we are doing wrong. If I am correct, there is nothing wrong with looking at Torah through modern eyes.

but that remains an assumption - and i think it doesn't make sense to preclude the metanatural; this for me is the problem with academia - it dismisses certain things as impossible out of hand, when they cannot be disproved!

Maybe it is an assumption. I'm open to the possibility the sea parted, the torah was handed down at Sinai, and plagues rained down on the Egyptians. I find it unlkely though. The text seems to be pointing in a certain direction when going beyond the intentions of the narrator. I trust the objective scholars more than the subjective one when trying to understand History. When I want Meaning I go to the subjective ones.

why can't it be both at the same time? after all, that is the basis of the mitzvot, that we can elevate things and actions to the status of holiness. for me it's about how far the sacred extends outside the Text - is a translation holy? is a commentary? is a halachic compendium? for example, it's one thing to consider the shulkhan arukh authoritative, but it's another thing to consider it to be a sacred text - although it may be considered to faithfully transmit the essence of de'oraita.

I think you were responding to my own quote of you because God was spelled G!D and I don't see it as one or the other. Because of how I consider the Torah, I consider exegetical works to all be potentially holy.

or understanding why ceremonial aspects were designed the way they were - it is extremely unlikely that i am the first person to notice this. for me, arguing about how old ideas are is supremely unproductive and doesn't actually affect whether they speak to me or not.

I agree with you, and I have no problem with that symbolism. I just don't think it's original. I would urge people to find new meaning in old rituals. I would also urge people to at some level be aware that it may not have been the original meaning, not that it actually matters to the way they experience the ritual. The danger of this that I see is things like "Messianic Judaism" which choose to find their own meanings everywhere. That's why to me it's important to keep an eye on History.

why do you think people find shul so fecking boring? because there's no fecking *drama* - no sense of occasion. everything got demystified after shabbetai tzvi.

I totally agree. Luckily, the hasidim maintained it and now it's spilling everywhere. There is hope for the Jewish people, yet. We just have to get beyond that intellectualism long enough to embrace God. I'm not condemning intellectualism, just saying that there needs to be a balance.

Dauer

[Phyllis Sidhe_Uaine]

Originally posted by dauer
Certainly. I have an issue with the laws against homosexuality.

I believe it is because of the "Go forth, be fruitful and multiply," directed toward Adam. Homosexual acts and masturbation (excuse my bluntness here, I, Brian, but I need to explain this) are considered a waste of a man's seed, as is having marital relations before a certain time in a woman's cycle. Please correct me here if I'm wrong, bb.

Phyllis Sidhe_Uaine

[bananabrain]

Well, when I look into the past I see people adapting the mitzvot to the standards of their own generation -- although I do believe some of this may have been reflective of the way society had changed -- in the form of the Talmud.

oh, yes, absolutely - this has always happened, but the point i am trying to make is that labels and systems can only stretch so far; beyond that the elasticity fails and you get a schism, as there was with christianity, karaism, sabbateanism and (more or less) reform. maimonides' genius was to identify the 13 principles which could not be discarded - although their interpretation remains elastic. remember judaism is actually about orthopraxy rather than orthodoxy for the most part; this is because whilst halacha constrains practice, many alternative and contradictory theological formulations are possible - thus you can have rationalist mystics like sa'adia ga'on, prophetic rationalists like maimonides, mystical grammarians like nahmanides, or even such opposed views as the chasidim, mitnagdim or the accommodations of s.r. hirsch's "torah im derech eretz". i guess what i am saying is that judaism allows a huge diversity as long as the 13 principles are recognisably intact.

I have no problem using non-rabbinical methods to do so because to me the ways the tools of the rabbis when manipulating the text were theirs and not ancient, but I don't think they set a precedent either because to me it looks like the text sometimes addresses issues it has with laws stated earlier in itself.

that's also true, like hillel's prosbul, but the difference between those guys and us is that they had the chain of authority and the Temple system still and we don't. in other words, in the absence of prophecy it's just too risky to challenge people that had access to it. i'm sorry if that seems craven, but i'm not confident we could dismantle this particular machine and even put it back together, much less improve it. however, this is not to say that we must therefore be as stringent and hardline as possible - i don't buy that conclusion at all.

Certainly. I have an issue with the laws against homosexuality. There is an argument on both sides of the issue, but having known some gay people very well I cannot even begin to consider what they are doing to be a sin. And I could be mistaken, but doesn't it render one kareit according to the Torah?

arg, trust you to pick a really hard one. this is particularly difficult for me to answer because it is an area so totally outside my experience and i think one must at least understand the nature of what is being prohibited; although i too have gay friends (many of whom are frum) i don't pretend to understand their drives. i haven't seen "trembling before G!D", but i understand it explores the issues much better than i can. i actually know steve greenberg and have done shiurim with him and have a lot of time for him as a rabbi. however, from my own PoV, first of all, i have to take a practical approach, which is to say that even if sodomy (as opposed to general gayness) is a capital sin, so is breaking Shabbat - their punishments are similar, which indicates that they are of comparable severity. now, if we do not publicly sanction people for hillul Shabbat, nor do we quiz them on their observance before allowing them participation in community observance (such as aliyot), we have no grounds whatsoever for singling out gay people - or people who don't keep kosher, or whatever. in other words, concentration on the issue of homosexuality is utterly, utterly discriminatory, because it singles it out as specially significant, which is not only not supported by the halacha but is illogical, as homosexuality is a "private" sin as opposed to a "public" one. in other words, you don't know what people do in their bedrooms unless they tell you, whereas breaking Shabbat is something which affects the whole community. and on a personal note, i have difficulty believing that G!D made people gay if it didn't serve some kind of deep purpose, although i don't pretend to understand how that can be reconciled with the prohibition.

These days I'm thinking that anything that has spiritual significance only has that significance because we feel it does.

that is certainly what people seem to think, but it doesn't make it valid. the line has to be drawn somewhere, but without an objective (ie non-human) standard, we will - and do - have difficulty.

The past few weeks I've been thinking that whater morality we cleave to is the one that is absolute for us. When we sway from it, we feel that we are doing wrong. If I am correct, there is nothing wrong with looking at Torah through modern eyes.

but that's precisely the issue for me - human reason is not enough and "feeling that we are doing wrong" is not reliable, otherwise atheists (like the chinese communist party, say) would not have been able to commit the atrocities they have committed.

I trust the objective scholars more than the subjective one when trying to understand History. When I want Meaning I go to the subjective ones.

i guess what i am saying is that your belief in the objectivity of scholarship is actually just that; a belief, albeit one that works on the balance of probabilities and the hypothesis-disproof empirical principle.

Because of how I consider the Torah, I consider exegetical works to all be potentially holy.

oh, me too, only i think that's still semantics.

agree with you, and I have no problem with that symbolism. I just don't think it's original.

but neither do i! if anything, i think we've actually *rediscovered* it. but either way, we can't actually verify that, even if you discovered an old document that specifically stated it was so.

b'shalom

bananabrain

[dauer]

Originally Posted by bananabrain

oh, yes, absolutely - this has always happened, but the point i am trying to make is that labels and systems can only stretch so far; beyond that the elasticity fails and you get a schism, as there was with christianity, karaism, sabbateanism and (more or less) reform. maimonides' genius was to identify the 13 principles which could not be discarded - although their interpretation remains elastic. remember judaism is actually about orthopraxy rather than orthodoxy for the most part; this is because whilst halacha constrains practice, many alternative and contradictory theological formulations are possible - thus you can have rationalist mystics like sa'adia ga'on, prophetic rationalists like maimonides, mystical grammarians like nahmanides, or even such opposed views as the chasidim, mitnagdim or the accommodations of s.r. hirsch's "torah im derech eretz". i guess what i am saying is that judaism allows a huge diversity as long as the 13 principles are recognisably intact.

And I have issues with some of those principles. I'm iffy on prophesy. I don't really believe in the divine origin of Torah, not that it hasn't been changed. I have no strong beliefs about if people will be divinely rewarded or punished and tend to have a fairly agnostic approach to life after death, if there is any. I find the coming of the messiah unlikely although I do think a utopian future is a good thing to work for. I don't have any strong beliefs about resurrection of the dead. I don't think the Rambam's 13 principles are a good judge of what is Jewish, but I do agree that it is possible to stretch things too far. I don't really disbelieve anything, but besides my strong belief in God I'm pretty agnostic.

that's also true, like hillel's prosbul, but the difference between those guys and us is that they had the chain of authority and the Temple system still and we don't. in other words, in the absence of prophecy it's just too risky to challenge people that had access to it. i'm sorry if that seems craven, but i'm not confident we could dismantle this particular machine and even put it back together, much less improve it. however, this is not to say that we must therefore be as stringent and hardline as possible - i don't buy that conclusion at all.

But here it's as if the two of us are speaking a different language, because all of the historically informed information coming to me tells me that smicha doesn't really connect those rabbis to Moses although I do see something extremely noble about trying to extend certain laws of purity beyond the priests. I understand your position and respect where you are coming from. If I shared your beliefs, I would feel the same way.

arg, trust you to pick a really hard one. this is particularly difficult for me to answer because it is an area so totally outside my experience and i think one must at least understand the nature of what is being prohibited; although i too have gay friends (many of whom are frum) i don't pretend to understand their drives. i haven't seen "trembling before G!D", but i understand it explores the issues much better than i can. i actually know steve greenberg and have done shiurim with him and have a lot of time for him as a rabbi. however, from my own PoV, first of all, i have to take a practical approach, which is to say that even if sodomy (as opposed to general gayness) is a capital sin, so is breaking Shabbat - their punishments are similar, which indicates that they are of comparable severity. now, if we do not publicly sanction people for hillul Shabbat, nor do we quiz them on their observance before allowing them participation in community observance (such as aliyot), we have no grounds whatsoever for singling out gay people - or people who don't keep kosher, or whatever. in other words, concentration on the issue of homosexuality is utterly, utterly discriminatory, because it singles it out as specially significant, which is not only not supported by the halacha but is illogical, as homosexuality is a "private" sin as opposed to a "public" one. in other words, you don't know what people do in their bedrooms unless they tell you, whereas breaking Shabbat is something which affects the whole community. and on a personal note, i have difficulty believing that G!D made people gay if it didn't serve some kind of deep purpose, although i don't pretend to understand how that can be reconciled with the prohibition.

I realize it's not something that should be singled out and I don't see that happening much in the Jewish community. That's not what I take issue with. It's that if a guy I know meets a guy I know and they know each other, according to the Torah God has a problem with that. It has nothing to do with them being ostracized by the community. This is about what is right according to the Torah. Phyllis, what you said was about right. I don't have issue with where the belief came from. I just don't view this as sacred law, anymore than I view the intense slander of Amalek -- akin to the New Testament's portrayal of the Pharisees if not worse -- as teaching an important lesson: Hate Amalek. That's another one perhaps you can explain to me better. I don't think I've heard any approach to that phrase that wasn't an apologetic.

that is certainly what people seem to think, but it doesn't make it valid. the line has to be drawn somewhere, but without an objective (ie non-human) standard, we will - and do - have difficulty.

Who decides which standard is the objective standard? To me it seems far more like society decides the standard and when societies clash it is because they have embraced different standards. When people have trouble in society it is because they are not meeting that standard. Some very basic morality seems intuitive to me but I'm not so sure.

but that's precisely the issue for me - human reason is not enough and "feeling that we are doing wrong" is not reliable, otherwise atheists (like the chinese communist party, say) would not have been able to commit the atrocities they have committed.

No, that is why there is also community, both ancestral and present, to weigh our actions against, along with the behavior of the rest of society. I have no problem coming to a new understanding of the motivations for a particular text and the support for continuing to follow it in light of changes in the way we understand each other and the world around us. But to me this can't be a free-for-all, because that is the abandonment of a basic approach to living shared by the members of a given group. There has to be an understanding of the middle so all of the people involved can find their place to the left or the right of it.

i guess what i am saying is that your belief in the objectivity of scholarship is actually just that; a belief, albeit one that works on the balance of probabilities and the hypothesis-disproof empirical principle.

I never mean that anything I say is more than a belief. Your beliefs and mine both come from subtle yet significant differences in the assumptions we make about the world. Based on these assumptions, we both build up complex systems of thought, but no matter what we do we're still just swimming in the human condition, whatever that is. Nobody ever has any more grasp than anyone else. I actually read an excellent challenge by Michael Lerner on the atheist mentality of superior understanding of the world the other day. To an atheist I'm sure it would seem a little weak, but he made an excellent show of it.

dauer

[bananabrain]

I don't really believe in the divine origin of Torah, not [nor?] that it hasn't been changed.

that would kind of put you into the reconstructionist camp i would have thought. what are your thoughts on whether it could have been Divinely inspired? the way i see it is that if G!D Exists, it is unreasonable to think that the Divine is incapable of revelation, or has chosen not to give any, especially given that so many people, not just us, believe in it. otherwise you're more like a deist than anything else; it's hard to imagine why you would do anything jewish other than "because it's tradition". sorry if i'm being obtuse, but i'm trying to understand your perspective. i was brought up in UK reform, but even there i was taught that revelation was possible, even if the Text itself was considered subsequently altered.

I have no strong beliefs about if people will be divinely rewarded or punished

actually, reward and punishment are considered to be a very much lower order of motivation by our sages, this is why the Mishnah says that we should not be like servants who serve in the expectation of a reward and why we are supposed to emphasise the zayin in the third paragraph of the shema - "lema'an tiZkeroo": ie we should remember why we're doing something, rather than expect to be rewarded or punished as per the second paragraph. basically we should aspire towards "ahavah rabbah" - receiving Divine love.

and tend to have a fairly agnostic approach to life after death, if there is any.

i have to say that i was in my mid-twenties before it occurred to me to ask what is supposed to happen after we die. the tradition says "look, we can't know anything for certain, so we have to find ways that work while we're alive". i would have thought that this was covered by the intrinsic goodness of achieving "ahavah rabbah".

I find the coming of the messiah unlikely although I do think a utopian future is a good thing to work for.

look, Moshiach is not expected to be able to have wings, or antennae growing out of his head or anything. they are both supposed to be great [religious/political] leaders. this is why various exceptional individuals, from cyrus the great to the lubavitcher rebbe, have been considered potential messiahs. is it possible you're being overly influenced by the supernatural nature of christian messianic thought? naturally, the utopian future is an intrinsic good too and part of the traditional approach. i guess that i'm saying that it's not all that radical an idea - i mean, gene roddenberry's earth is pretty bloody utopian and messianic if you ask me.

I don't have any strong beliefs about resurrection of the dead.

again, it's not something that most people can get that excited about, as it doesn't exactly impact on your daily life.

I don't think the Rambam's 13 principles are a good judge of what is Jewish

aha! well, i'd be really interested to know what 13 principles you'd choose - not in a "well, mr clever-pants" kind of way, but 'cos i'm genuinely interested. i never used to think much of them, but nowadays i think they have much to recommend them.

But here it's as if the two of us are speaking a different language, because all of the historically informed information coming to me tells me that smicha doesn't really connect those rabbis to Moses

where is this historically informed information? have they really disproved moses' existence, or that of joshua, the prophets and the "men of the great assembly"? this is what i don't get, how people think it's possible to disprove something like that.

It's that if a guy I know meets a guy I know and they know each other, according to the Torah God has a problem with that. It has nothing to do with them being ostracized by the community.

in practical terms, it really does. Torah is meant to be lived and to affect your entire life and, frankly, apart from the Text itself, there's actually nothing to suggest G!D disapproves, even biologically. HIV, for example, is far from being the "gay plague" that was suggested by bigots. there is also a distinction drawn between sins that are "person-to-person" and sins that are "person-to-G!D" and person-to-person ones are considered to be far worse. the "wasting sperm" thing is a different (person-to-G!D) prohibition and affects heterosexual males equally. so in terms relative to the Text itself, it's not so much that homosexuality is a sin, but that there is a practical penalty.

I view the intense slander of Amalek -- akin to the New Testament's portrayal of the Pharisees if not worse -- as teaching an important lesson: Hate Amalek. That's another one perhaps you can explain to me better. I don't think I've heard any approach to that phrase that wasn't an apologetic.

i'll do my best. i think you're starting from a weird position, basically. for a start, slander is only slander if it's not true - and the reason for the proscription of amalek is in the text, namely that they attacked us from behind, going for the women and children first, when we were wandering and vulnerable in the desert. in response to this particularly, hate is a real human emotion and cannot be repressed, only managed. the way the tradition does this is by directing it towards an appropriate target, which means that it is necessary that the aforementioned target actually exists in some form. practically speaking, the best metaphor is the nazis, i suppose - am i not entitled, even obliged to hate fascism and nazism? the state obliges us to condemn racism and bigotry - is this not in a sense "commanded hatred"? however, to be a little more true to the plain meaning of the Torah, the text actually says that we must "remember" amalek, at the same time that we must "blot out the memory" of amalek. so you have a designed-in paradox there to resolve. going back to the nazis, i would therefore say that this would translate into "remember what happened" as well as "do not allow it to happen again" - and if that's an apologetic, i am unapologetic. i don't see why i should feel some kind of guilt for how i feel about this. continuing on into the practical application of the mitzvah, we learn that even an amalekite can be converted if he repents. similarly - and even more practically - we learn that there are no longer identifiable members of the *tribe* of amalek (haman, i believe, was the last descendent of agag) or indeed any of the seven canaanite nations we were commanded to get rid of, so this can no longer be observed except metaphorically, with those who behave in an amalekite way, like the nazis. similarly, the taint is not on modern germans who do not commit amalekite acts.

Who decides which standard is the objective standard? To me it seems far more like society decides the standard and when societies clash it is because they have embraced different standards.

so that's a clash between two relative, subjective viewpoints, then. furthermore:

When people have trouble in society it is because they are not meeting that standard.

yes, but that is a social sanction and condemnation according to the subjective viewpoint of the society, not an objective condemnation. i just don't believe that human beings can possibly describe anything they do as objective.

Some very basic morality seems intuitive to me but I'm not so sure.

this is the basic difference between mishpatim and huqqim - the former would be deduced as self-evidently beneficial and the latter require Divine commandment, because there's no earthly reason you'd come up with that rule otherwise.

there is also community, both ancestral and present, to weigh our actions against, along with the behavior of the rest of society.

and the community as a whole can be wrong - this is an inherent problem of democracy, that it something isn't right just because people vote for it (look at the social taboos we still have!) but that is considered the standard by many.

But to me this can't be a free-for-all, because that is the abandonment of a basic approach to living shared by the members of a given group. There has to be an understanding of the middle so all of the people involved can find their place to the left or the right of it.

well, judaism totally gets this! that's what hillel and shammai are about, as well as all the rules about leniency or stringency and particularly the episode of the oven of achnai - majority rules, but minority opinions must be safeguarded, because they may one day become the majority (indeed this is what some people say about the messianic age) but, again, this is a *subjective* human opinion about an interpretation of an objective (ie Divine) Text.

Nobody ever has any more grasp than anyone else.

nonsense. there are some people that definitely don't have as much grasp as you and i and it's false modesty, or absolute relativism to give equal credence to an informed opinion and one that isn't. this is not to say, of course, that an uninformed opinon is necessarily worthless - but it may be. the issue is actually authoritativeness - whether you yourself actually trust the opinion. for example, i rather like michael lerner, but he isn't always right (i was rather cheeky to him last time i met him because he was a bit of a windbag) - but i'll happily support an opinion of his if it's a good opinion, of which he has many!

b'shalom

bananabrain

[dauer]

Originally Posted by bananabrain

that would kind of put you into the reconstructionist camp i would have thought. what are your thoughts on whether it could have been Divinely inspired? the way i see it is that if G!D Exists, it is unreasonable to think that the Divine is incapable of revelation, or has chosen not to give any, especially given that so many people, not just us, believe in it. otherwise you're more like a deist than anything else; it's hard to imagine why you would do anything jewish other than "because it's tradition". sorry if i'm being obtuse, but i'm trying to understand your perspective. i was brought up in UK reform, but even there i was taught that revelation was possible, even if the Text itself was considered subsequently altered.

It may be divinely inspired, or it may be divine because we have designated it as such. One section of the intro to the Stone Chumash seems to support my claim.

8. I believe with complete faith that the entire Torah now in our hands is the same one that was given to Moses, our teacher, peace be upon him...
These principles [there was another that was not relevant] are essential parts of the faith of the Jew, and they are also fundamental to the way one studies the Torah. For the attitude of one who approaches a book as the immutable word of God is far, far different from that of one who holds a volume that was composed by men and amended by others over the years. As we begin to study the Torah we should resolve that this recognition of its origin and immutability will be in our conciousness always.

That's from page xix in my edition. My point is that he makes it very clear, without wishing to make it clear, that the Torah is sacred because a group of people agrees it is sacred. Personally, it does not matter to me whether it is sacred because God made it sacred or it is sacred because man made it sacred in order to have a way to approach God. To me, the Jewish rituals are simply a way of spreading holiness and God-mindedness into our lives -- besides the ones with more specific purposes. I don't know if this does put me in the reconstructionist camp. I really don't know much about them. My view of God tends to lean more to the mystical, but I am a rationalist when it comes to things like crossing the sea. I don't say they didn't happen and I think I will always remain at least slightly agnostic about most things, but I do find it unlikely. I believe in revelation as God reaching out to man, sometimes in response to man reaching out to God, but I consider any writing as a reaction to revelation to be nothing more than that.

actually, reward and punishment are considered to be a very much lower order of motivation by our sages, this is why the Mishnah says that we should not be like servants who serve in the expectation of a reward and why we are supposed to emphasise the zayin in the third paragraph of the shema - "lema'an tiZkeroo": ie we should remember why we're doing something, rather than expect to be rewarded or punished as per the second paragraph. basically we should aspire towards "ahavah rabbah" - receiving Divine love.

I'm aware of that. I was just responding to beliefs suggested by the Rambam.

i have to say that i was in my mid-twenties before it occurred to me to ask what is supposed to happen after we die. the tradition says "look, we can't know anything for certain, so we have to find ways that work while we're alive". i would have thought that this was covered by the intrinsic goodness of achieving "ahavah rabbah".

I'm aware of that too, but I'm also willing to consider that there may be no life after death. I believe that's what one of the Karaite groups was criticized quite harshly for.

look, Moshiach is not expected to be able to have wings, or antennae growing out of his head or anything. they are both supposed to be great [religious/political] leaders. this is why various exceptional individuals, from cyrus the great to the lubavitcher rebbe, have been considered potential messiahs. is it possible you're being overly influenced by the supernatural nature of christian messianic thought? naturally, the utopian future is an intrinsic good too and part of the traditional approach. i guess that i'm saying that it's not all that radical an idea - i mean, gene roddenberry's earth is pretty bloody utopian and messianic if you ask me.

Not at all. I'm quite aware of the Jewish idea of the moshiach. I was reading a lot of counter-missionary material for a while, and even before that I knew about the Jewish beliefs. But if the idea of the Moshiach is built around the mythical David, and David wasn't such a nice guy in real life, then perhaps the whole thing was just a way to get people's hopes up. I do think that there are many moshiachim like the moshiach, people who, when a society is getting into a bad situation, help to bring hope and help. Gandhi is an example of this. It is also possible that the prophets were just using a familiar myth to tell something they needed to tell, but I still find it unlikely. The greatest prophesy is a vague one.

again, it's not something that most people can get that excited about, as it doesn't exactly impact on your daily life.

So at this point, how good are Rambam's 13? The way you are speaking, it sounds like I can disbelieve most of them. Does it matter which ones I disbelieve? If I believe God is material and lives in the sky, I think we'd both agree that's not a valid Jewish belief.

aha! well, i'd be really interested to know what 13 principles you'd choose - not in a "well, mr clever-pants" kind of way, but 'cos i'm genuinely interested. i never used to think much of them, but nowadays i think they have much to recommend them.

Well, I have a problem giving Judaism any rigid beliefs. This was Rambam's response to faith-based religions, of which Judaism is not one. I'd work with some of his beliefs.

1. Openness to the possibility of God.
2. Belief in the absolute and unparalleled unity of God.
3. Belief that God is non-corporeal and cannot be affected by physical occurances.
4.Imperative to recognize only God as God, even as other gods may be understood as other reflections of God.
5. Openness to possibility of prophesy.
6. Understanding that Torah is central to Judaism.
7. Openness to the Torah as a sacred document.
8. Recognition that Jewish life is shaped by the mitzvot regardless of what degree they are accepted.
9. Willingness to find God through the mitzvot.

But I, myself, disagree with these because they are too rigid.

where is this historically informed information? have they really disproved moses' existence, or that of joshua, the prophets and the "men of the great assembly"? this is what i don't get, how people think it's possible to disprove something like that.

Who said anything about disproving the existence of any of these people? I am putting forward that Moses did not recieve an Oral Torah and pass it down all of the way to the sages, who codified it. The simplest Historical evidence is the fact that there is no evidence such a thing ever happened. I do feel that the Torah cannot, to a degree, be understood without the general understanding of the people it was given to. But that doesn't account for all of the laws that pop up in the mishna and gemara with no mention in the Torah, explicit or otherwise. Some of these things probably developed over time, like candlelighting before Shabbat and the eruv, or starting the month by the astronomical new moon instead of the sliver moon, or started the year at Rosh HaShana instead of at the barley harvest, but they are not present in the Torah.

I understand your need to validate everything by connecting it back to Moses. At a site for Hasidut Kabalah, they asserted that Moses also recieved the Kabalah. I know, it's because nothing's supposed to be added or taken away from the Torah. The rabbis did it too by claiming a direct line. Deuteronomy does it too by claiming to be given by Moses. It's the way Jewish law works.

in practical terms, it really does. Torah is meant to be lived and to affect your entire life and, frankly, apart from the Text itself, there's actually nothing to suggest G!D disapproves, even biologically. HIV, for example, is far from being the "gay plague" that was suggested by bigots. there is also a distinction drawn between sins that are "person-to-person" and sins that are "person-to-G!D" and person-to-person ones are considered to be far worse. the "wasting sperm" thing is a different (person-to-G!D) prohibition and affects heterosexual males equally. so in terms relative to the Text itself, it's not so much that homosexuality is a sin, but that there is a practical penalty.

If the text is God-given, doesn't that mean God disapproves?

i'll do my best. i think you're starting from a weird position, basically. for a start, slander is only slander if it's not true - and the reason for the proscription of amalek is in the text, namely that they attacked us from behind, going for the women and children first, when we were wandering and vulnerable in the desert. in response to this particularly, hate is a real human emotion and cannot be repressed, only managed. the way the tradition does this is by directing it towards an appropriate target, which means that it is necessary that the aforementioned target actually exists in some form. practically speaking, the best metaphor is the nazis, i suppose - am i not entitled, even obliged to hate fascism and nazism? the state obliges us to condemn racism and bigotry - is this not in a sense "commanded hatred"? however, to be a little more true to the plain meaning of the Torah, the text actually says that we must "remember" amalek, at the same time that we must "blot out the memory" of amalek. so you have a designed-in paradox there to resolve. going back to the nazis, i would therefore say that this would translate into "remember what happened" as well as "do not allow it to happen again" - and if that's an apologetic, i am unapologetic. i don't see why i should feel some kind of guilt for how i feel about this. continuing on into the practical application of the mitzvah, we learn that even an amalekite can be converted if he repents. similarly - and even more practically - we learn that there are no longer identifiable members of the *tribe* of amalek (haman, i believe, was the last descendent of agag) or indeed any of the seven canaanite nations we were commanded to get rid of, so this can no longer be observed except metaphorically, with those who behave in an amalekite way, like the nazis. similarly, the taint is not on modern germans who do not commit amalekite acts.

I am against the demonization of all people, including the Nazis. I do my best to understand what was going on inside of them as people so that I don't begin to label them as a mythic enemy. I don't care what is to gain. I disagree with any move to demonize a group of people. We're all human. I think what it would be like, to be a member of Amalek. I can't believe the hate directed against them. And why? Because they were a native tribe and had to be exterminated to make room for the 12 tribes.

yes, but that is a social sanction and condemnation according to the subjective viewpoint of the society, not an objective condemnation. i just don't believe that human beings can possibly describe anything they do as objective.

I wouldn't either, except to say that any objective morality is simply a subjective morality that has been around long enough that it can't be argued with. However, I do believe it's possible there is a basic morality for man that can then go in many directions.

and the community as a whole can be wrong - this is an inherent problem of democracy, that it something isn't right just because people vote for it (look at the social taboos we still have!) but that is considered the standard by many.

If enough people agree it is right, it is right except for the dissenters. What makes a community wrong? Your answer, I'm guessing, would be Torah? Does that mean Hindus are wrong as well as Native Americans who have held onto their traditions? If we want to call the seven laws a basis for moral living in a brand new society, we're gonna have to get rid of anything Judaism considers idolatry, right? it's still subjective.

well, judaism totally gets this! that's what hillel and shammai are about, as well as all the rules about leniency or stringency and particularly the episode of the oven of achnai - majority rules, but minority opinions must be safeguarded, because they may one day become the majority (indeed this is what some people say about the messianic age) but, again, this is a *subjective* human opinion about an interpretation of an objective (ie Divine) Text.

The difference is how far to the left we consider is acceptable.

nonsense. there are some people that definitely don't have as much grasp as you and i and it's false modesty, or absolute relativism to give equal credence to an informed opinion and one that isn't. this is not to say, of course, that an uninformed opinon is necessarily worthless - but it may be. the issue is actually authoritativeness - whether you yourself actually trust the opinion. for example, i rather like michael lerner, but he isn't always right (i was rather cheeky to him last time i met him because he was a bit of a windbag) - but i'll happily support an opinion of his if it's a good opinion, of which he has many!

I meant it more about the things we cannot know, like whether the Torah was given at Sinai, the nature of God, if there is God. Here, the playing field is mostly equal.

Dauer

[dauer]

I was thinking about Jewish beliefs, and to me it would be simpler to say what Jews don not belief than what Jews do believe.

Dauer

[Sacredstar]

I will read this with interest when I have more time as I also have a part Jewish heritage, but I must admit my interest is in the esoteric wisdom of all of the religions, hence why I feel the Kabbalah is so popular nowadays. Aided by celebrity status Madonna and Mick Jaggers ex-wife.

Maybe someone would like to start a different thread on this.

Love beyond measure

Sacredstar

[dauer]

Sacredstar,

To me, this popular trend is just watered down kabbalah. It's a big moneymaking scheme with kabbalah water and expensive red strings that are nothing more than a fashion statement. It is sad that Madonna makes such a joke of it by tatooing herself and strutting around in almost no clothing. There is no kabbalah without Torah. It is not an independent system.

Dauer

[bananabrain]

to me it would be simpler to say what Jews do not believe than what Jews do believe.

apart from replacing "do not" with "should not" i agree - perhaps we should rewrite the thirteen to be in the negative!

he makes it very clear, without wishing to make it clear, that the Torah is sacred because a group of people agrees it is sacred.

yes, but that is actually about our attitude to it rather than its intrinsic nature, the perception of which is circumscribed by human limitations - this is the philosophical problem of the "privacy of experience" - and, again, this goes for the stone editor just as much as it does for you and i. i'm not exactly disagreeing with you, but i'm not agreeing either!

Personally, it does not matter to me whether it is sacred because G!D made it sacred or it is sacred because man made it sacred in order to have a way to approach G!D.

to my mind, this is expressed by the categories of de'oraita and de'rabbanan; for me, it is important to know where these boundaries are and how it actually affects me in practical terms.

To me, the Jewish rituals are simply a way of spreading holiness and God-mindedness into our lives -- besides the ones with more specific purposes. I don't know if this does put me in the reconstructionist camp. I really don't know much about them.

well, for them, as far as i understand it, it's about the "folk tradition" of judaism; essentially it's treating judaism as an ethnic culture. now i don't deny that this view has a lot of validity, but the power of ethnicity to command one to behave in a certain way is completely suspect if you ask me.

My view of God tends to lean more to the mystical, but I am a rationalist when it comes to things like crossing the sea. I don't say they didn't happen and I think I will always remain at least slightly agnostic about most things, but I do find it unlikely.

i am also slightly agnostic about such things - but that's the nature of miracles. it's also the case that the tradition itself states that we should respect our doubts and the necessity of questioning such things, because nothing is more dangerous than a human being who believes absolutely that they are 1000% in the right. it is for this reason that G!D cannot be demonstrably seen to be acting, which is why, in the verse before the red sea splits, it states that "a strong east wind blew all night" - in other words, it's deniability! the only case of a miracle where this deniability does not operate is, in fact, the revelation at sinai.

I believe in revelation as G!D reaching out to man, sometimes in response to man reaching out to G!D, but I consider any writing as a reaction to revelation to be nothing more than that.

i couldn't agree with you more - except that i don't believe that the Torah is a *reaction* to revelation, but the actual substance of it.

I'm also willing to consider that there may be no life after death. I believe that's what one of the Karaite groups was criticized quite harshly for.

i think it's significant that it is not specified *why* we are supposed to believe in life after death - if you can find a reason that works for you, then hurrah. personally, i would say that it is important to believe in it (and in reward and punishment) as a primary mechanism for those people not capable of reaching the level of serving G!D because of "ahavah", but who only react to paragraph 2 of the shema.

But if the idea of the Moshiach is built around the mythical David, and David wasn't such a nice guy in real life, then perhaps the whole thing was just a way to get people's hopes up.

this sounds to me a bit more like the statements made by the rishonim and aharonim about how the nations will get their comeuppance and that's a valid view. the moshiach for me is more about the *ultimate purpose* of the jewish people - the big M is the catalyst for it to be realised. i suppose the difference is really between how universalist and how particularist that is interpreted as being; and, this being aggadah, a multiplicity of interpretations are possible.

I do think that there are many moshiachim like the moshiach, people who, when a society is getting into a bad situation, help to bring hope and help. Gandhi is an example of this.

you see, i don't think of this as the function of the moshiach - moshiach is a specifically *jewish* role, but i have no problem with other righteous individuals leading their people to a new dawn, as it were. this is part of the function of the "thirty-six hidden tsaddiqim" for me. maybe gandhi-ji was one of them. i don't know, but it's enough for me to consider him in that role. again, it's about the particularism and "chosenness" - i would think from what you've said that you probably have a problem with that as well!

I'm quite aware of the Jewish idea of the moshiach.

yes, of course - i hope you don't think i'm being patronising; i don't know you very well yet, so excuse me.

So at this point, how good are Rambam's 13? The way you are speaking, it sounds like I can disbelieve most of them. Does it matter which ones I disbelieve? If I believe God is material and lives in the sky, I think we'd both agree that's not a valid Jewish belief.

er.... no, it's not that you can disbelieve them, but that it's easier than you might think to find a way to say i believe them without it flying in the face of other things that you feel to be true. take life after death - it only requires you to believe it, not to actually do anything about it, other than live a good life, which you are presumably trying to do anyway. basically as long as i can say "i believe in Torah me'Sinai" without someone trying to force a particular interpretation of that down my throat i'm happy enough; in short, like you, it's easier to say what i don't believe than what i do.

Well, I have a problem giving Judaism any rigid beliefs.

surely that can't be right. judaism is defined by such rigidities as, say, an absolute opposition to idol-worship, murder, etc. in other words, we rigidly believe that certain things are right and certain things are wrong. of course there is a certain amount of flexibility as to *exactly* which things we are talking about, but that's in terms of whether a certain thing fits into a Torah-based category of permitted or forbidden. or am i misunderstanding you.

1. Openness to the possibility of G!D.

actually, this is exactly my point, you slippery eel! for as you well know, the delightfulness of this phrase lies in its very openness to interpretation - so, while one person might interpret it as "the possibility of G!D existing", another might take it as "the possibility of finding G!D anywhere" - thus, both of us could say "i believe in this" and agree on that, whilst completely disagreeing on the content. rambam's 13 are quite open, although probably not to the same degree. again, i can't believe someone as clever as him wasn't fully aware of this.

But I, myself, disagree with these because they are too rigid.

that's a shame, i rather like them.

Who said anything about disproving the existence of any of these people?

aha - well you said that "all of the historically informed information coming to me tells me that smicha doesn't really connect those rabbis to Moses". that's what i'm reacting to; i shouldn't have said "existence", but to me their very existence implies a chain of tradition - nonethelesss, i don't see how a historian could disprove the line of smicha.

I am putting forward that Moses did not recieve an Oral Torah and pass it down all of the way to the sages, who codified it.

oh, i see. well, for a start, the tradition says that much of the oral law predates sinai. this is for a number of reasons, eg people used to get married before the Torah was given and so they must have had laws about it; similarly, much of our tradition can be deduced from first principles revealed to the patriarchs, or from simple rationality. when the Written Law was Revealed, it would have been designed by G!D to harmonise with the Oral Law as an integrated system, whereas a historian would naturally rule out the possibility of Divine interaction and assume that the Written Law had been adapted over time to be in harmony with the Oral Law.

of course both points of view are essentially circular reasoning and can't be definitively proved, but the point is that the traditional view cannot be definitively disproved. the problem for me is that you seem determined not to give the traditional PoV the benefit of the doubt, which i find puzzling and not a little harsh considering how concerned you are to be nice to amalek.

Historical evidence is the fact that there is no evidence such a thing ever happened.

at the risk of sounding like donald rumsfeld, just because you've never seen something doesn't mean it couldn't be possible. it seems to me kind of arrogant to assume that this evidence is the only standard, especially considering it rules out a priori a whole slew of possibilities. it also makes it an unfair playing field - what sort of evidence could actually ever be accepted by a historian of the possibility of the Divine? you're also flying in the face of the philosophical problem that scientific empiricism never actually provides proof - only *support* for a *hypothesis* that stands until it is *disproved*; even richard dawkins accepts that his atheism is nonetheless a belief, albeit strongly supported.

Some of these things probably developed over time, like candlelighting before Shabbat and the eruv, or starting the month by the astronomical new moon instead of the sliver moon, or started the year at Rosh HaShana instead of at the barley harvest, but they are not present in the Torah.

well, that's exactly what the tradition says, with the difference being that they actually *have* linked everything back to a Torah source - with *no* exceptions. which came first is then a matter of what you happen to believe - it's not an automatic win for historicism.

If the text is G!D-given, doesn't that mean G!D disapproves?

G!D told adam and eve not to eat the fruit, too. i prefer to think of this as one of the paradoxes that we must come to terms with if we are ever to live at peace with our limited understanding.

I am against the demonization of all people, including the Nazis. I do my best to understand what was going on inside of them as people so that I don't begin to label them as a mythic enemy. I don't care what is to gain. I disagree with any move to demonize a group of people. We're all human. I think what it would be like, to be a member of Amalek. I can't believe the hate directed against them.

firstly, like i said before, it's about your actions - if you don't act like an amalekite, you are not one. therefore, we are not demonising people, but a concept of absolute evil; the tradition repeatedly states that amalekites (and the rest of the seven nations) are no longer an identifiable people, therefore this text can only be applied to the *conceptual* amalek. consequently, anyone that labels a particular group as "amalek" is being completely self-serving and denying the possibility for them to change - which is itself an amalekite PoV. secondly, you *should* think about what it would be like to be an amalekite - so you can make sure you don't ever turn into one. as you know, we are both commanded to *remember* amalek *and* obliterate the memory of amalek - how can we do both? the tradition responds that we do so by remembering their deeds and by obliterating the possibility of their recommission.

And why? Because they were a native tribe and had to be exterminated to make room for the 12 tribes.

no, that's simply not right. the given reason for destroying amalek is because they attacked us in the desert - they started it. as for the seven nations, they had to be wiped out because they were the worst kind of idolaters - but by the same logic as amalek, once they ceased to act in an idolatrous fashion, they were effectively "wiped out".

If we want to call the seven laws a basis for moral living in a brand new society, we're gonna have to get rid of anything Judaism considers idolatry, right? it's still subjective.

actually, this is why the tradition states that the yetzer of idolatry no longer exists. this, of course, has major implications for all of our laws about avodah zara and the "akum", many of which are still interpreted stringently, due to the experience of antisemitism, which is my most extreme criticism of the current parlous state of halacha - it tends to get applied to groups, not actions and that will create an insoluble problem if it continues.

i applaud your determination to deal with this most difficult of issues - if only more people were so assiduous. however, i do think there is a point beyond simply apologising for our mythos when it is taken to such a degree that it becomes namby-pambying, fluffy-bunny 'tree-hugging hippy crap', to use eric cartman's immortal phrase.

The difference is how far to the left we consider is acceptable.

exactly. labels stretch, but hook's law applies to them as well.

and our opinions on the kabbalah centre are in agreement, too! i guess what i'm trying to say is that you're actually more traditional than you seem to think in a lot of ways, even if i think you are expecting the universe to be a lot, well, nicer, than it actually is.

b'shalom

bananabrain

[Virtual_Cliff]

Didn't this thread begin in another place? Could it possibly be re-started where it began because I was all set to learn something new about how the Jewish faith is mis-conceived by others, and then it wandered off into a corner somewhere.

[dauer]

VC,

you are entirely correct. BB, I'm going to continue this via PM so this thread can get back where it was supposed to be.

Originally this thread was supposed to be a place for questions about Judaism be it Jewish belief, practice, or other. I created it knowing that's what this part of the board is for, but hoping to invite it because I noticed someone admitted to knowing very little about Judaism in another thread and said, I think but am not sure at this point, that it would generally be a good thing to increase general knowledge about Judaism. Thank you, VC, and hopefully this thread can get back where it was supposed to be.

Dauer

[I, Brian]

Personally, I'm finding this thread to provide some of the most interesting reading of the forums at the moment. I would therefore much rather the discussion be kept in the public sphere, as much as possible.

Perhaps if you felt there's need for a new thread to continue the discussion, then you're welcome to start one.

[dauer]

Brian,

I'm glad you're enjoying our conversation. I've already e-mailed BB so I guess it will be up to him to create a new thread whenever he has some time.

Actually, if you're reading this BB, if you could even just start a new thread with what I sent you and get back to it whenever you have a chance, that would probably be easiest. I sent it through this site so I don't think I can retrieve it.

Dauer