Progressivism is universalist. Islam is universalist. Holy war necessarily ensues. To call on Muslims to abandon Jihad is to call upon them to unilaterally surrender to progressivism.
We faced this problem once before, and solved it once before by means short of genocide. The solution is to impose the Peace of Westphalia, first on ourselves, then on Muslims.
Peace of Westphalia implies that Muslims resident in our lands are forcibly converted to our official belief system, or else are forced to get the hell out. Our official belief system, to prevent entryism backed by violence aiming at state domination, must necessarily absolutely exclude the proposition that Mohammed is God’s prophet, let alone his final prophet,
[…] The solution to Jihad […]
Odinism would not exclude the idea that Muhammed is God’s prophet, correct?
It would be incompatible with Muslim theology, but not totally inconsistent.
The problem is not theological consistency, but that Islam is a threat.
Historically, Islam was stopped by three things. Hinduism, Christianity and the Sahara.
The Spanish Inquisition, and Charles Martel seem to be the things to mimic.
Islam was also largely stopped by the Mongols. This isn’t really taught to American students.
Mongols converted to Islam, brought a lot of it to China and India (the Mogul Emperor was not a Scientologist.)
They grabbed a whole lot of unassimilated Muslim women, who raised their sons. Bad idea. That is the problem that Deuteronomy 21:10-14 intends to restrain.
No, that was not the case, and no, that is not the point of the law. The Mongols had a religion that was primitive and not very convincing compared to monotheism, and Islam was best suited for their culture and outlook (as evidenced by its adoption by many Central Asian nomad herders and agriculturalists before them.)
Whatever the point of the law, the law does not say “if you rape her, you must marry her”. It says if you want to marry her, you must not rape her till sufficient time has passed that you get paternal certainty.
You are not allowed to just randomly rape women in Judaism. The law presents the one context within which it is permissible.
No, only selective raping.
But regardless of the other laws on rape, the law Deuteronomy 21:10-14 does not say “after you rape her, then you have to marry her”. It says “If you want to marry her, have to wait long enough for paternal certainty”.
Which, to get back on topic implies that Hebrew identity was inherited in the male line, and that a male Hebrew could marry a female non Hebrew non convert, at least if she was a captive.
I’ve answered you at length in the other thread, don’t want to clog up this one. No, you are not allowed to marry (or sleep with) non-Jews, unless they convert, under any circumstances.
As I said, twenty different and incompatible Torahs, reflecting the twenty different cultures the Jews absorbed between 400 AD and the present.
In the old testament, are permitted to marry or sleep with non Hebrews, and Hebrew identity goes through the male line.
Ezra explicitly says you’re wrong.
Somehow the 20 cultures we’ve absorbed since 400 CE haven’t kept us from having the same Torah and practices (with minor differences but full interoperability) between Sefaradim from Morocco and Spain, Ashkenazim from Poland and Yemenites. Though the split between all three geographically took place long before 400 CE. Does that make sense in your model? If our history is just a long series of each rabbi shamelessly inventing whatever he wants based on surrounding culture, does it make sense that after 2000 years (or more) of living in geographical isolation among vastly different cultures, we would maintain interoperability?
Observe, in quite recent times, the differences between the groups on polygamy, female consent, and female initiated divorce.
If the groups are now getting in line with each other, after quite recently being very different, it is because they are all getting in line with the Cathedral, not actually getting in line with each other.
And the Cathedral is going to kill you.
Misposted. Continued: compare and contrast the interaction of Torah Jews, Yemenite, Sepharadi or Ashkenazi, amongst each other (mutual recognition, intermarriage, general compatibility) and with their Karaite and Samaritan neighbors (who held to something close to your line, that is, that rabbinical Judaism was a distortion of the plain meaning of the Torah rather than its elucidation.)
And no, I don’t see the Cathedral about to kill us. It’s much less seductive and persistent than the other empires we’ve dealt with were at their peak.
If your judaism is quietly and furtively elastic, you are going to get general compatibility with other similarly elastic brands of judaism.
I am not so much criticizing your elasticity – Jews needed to adjust to exile, and now they need to adjust back. I am criticizing your pious denial that you are being elastic, your vulnerability to cultural pressure despite your supposed inelasticity, I complain that you are resisting relevant rational considerations, while failing to resist cultural pressure.
You just moved the goalposts without acknowledging it, from claiming that every rabbi in every generation would reinterpret everything that came before him while denying that he was doing so, while engaging in a holier-than-thou competition, to claiming that it didn’t matter because all the rabbis were furtively elastic.
The former is demonstrably untrue, as a couple of generations would lead to dozens of incompatible brands of Judaism, which you claimed but then abandoned the claim when it was pointed out that this didn’t happen.
The latter is also demonstrably untrue. Not only did they explicitly point out places where they disagreed with each other and explain why, but when it came to essential matters like Shabbat, kashrut, marital laws, they were not elastic at all, as demonstrated by their interactions with Karaites, Samaritans, Christians and Saduccees, and going all the way back to Ezra, who was not at all elastic on Jews marrying non-Jewish women and the resulting children (Ezekiel, by the way, was the same. The reaction of those Jews when rebuked shows that Ezra was not making things up, that he was referring to something they all knew and had violated knowingly, as they repented; he didn’t have to spend much time convincing them, or use force (which he was in no position to do.)
We are talking about something very important here-how do you maintain version control, development and continued mutual compatibility? Obviously, this is impossible if you are making things up as you go along,
Not following you.
Neither one is a goalpost. Holier than thou competition and furtive elasticity are entirely compatible – they are both unacknowledged doctrinal drift.
I say Rabbis furtively change their doctrine for one reason (holier than thou). Later I say they change their doctrine for another reason. And another. And another. These propositions do not contradict each other, nor do they constitute shift of goalposts.
Because they are quite successful in repressing and suppressing polygamy – or they think that they are, but it is actually the Cathedral that is quite successful.
Until quite recently, Yemenis seem to have been unaware of this writing of Maimonides, or considered him unauthoritative, or interpreted him as creatively as you interpret various sections of the old testament – the latter being easy since one can easily produce a talmudic argument for any proposition one wants.
To about the same extent as Muslims require consent – which is frequently very little. Since Jews have always been under Muslim or Christian domination since the exile, it is unsurprising that they require that much consent since the exile.
>Because they are quite successful in repressing and suppressing polygamy – or they think that they are, but it is actually the Cathedral that is quite successful.
Oh, you’re hilarious. Ashkenazim have had a ban on polygamy since Rabbeinu Gershon, who lived about 1000 years ago. Was he on the editorial staff of the New York Times?
>Until quite recently, Yemenis seem to have been unaware of this writing of Maimonides, or considered him unauthoritative, or interpreted him as creatively as you interpret various sections of the old testament –
Again, your arrogant ignorance is funny. The Yemeni Jews have been the biggest adherents of Maimonides of the entire Jewish world, starting in his lifetime. They accepted the Mishne Torah wholesale, and only within the last couple of centuries has there been something of a change. They were famous among other Jews for two things-first, universal literacy in the Torah, even among shoemakers etc., second, for the fact that the majority of them knew Maimonides’ Mishne Torah by heart.
>the latter being easy since one can easily produce a talmudic argument for any proposition one wants.
Good luck having regular Jews and rabbis with domain expertise accept this “talmudic argument.”
>To about the same extent as Muslims require consent – which is frequently very little. Since Jews have always been under Muslim or Christian domination since the exile, it is unsurprising that they require that much consent since the exile.
To about the same extent as the Jews of Elephantine, who lived six centuries before Christians existed and twelve centuries before Muslims existed, required consent. Yes, yes, I know, they must have gotten it from the Persians, because it’s not in the Torah as received by Jim Donald.
You seem to be interpreting recently existent Yemeni Jews as twenty first century Ashkenazi Jews, a proposition almost as conspicuously false as interpreting Old Testament Hebrews as twenty first century century Ashkenazi Jews.
I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I recommend you take 15 minutes and research Yemeni Jews, using primary sources, to get a grasp on their relationship with Maimonides and the Torah. What I’m talking about is a basic and well-known fact, just like Eskimos wearing anoraks and eating whale blubber.
Somehow their relationship with Maimonides failed to have much effect on their relationships with women.
You are ignorant and arrogant. You neither know what Maimonides wrote about men’s relationships with women, nor how these things operated in Yemen, nor are willing to take a bit of time off and find out, nor to abstain from stating an opinion until you do.
I don’t know what he wrote. I know that you read him as a feminist, I know something about how things operated in Yemen seventy years ago, and I know that if Yemenis read him, they did not read him as a feminist until quite recently.
I know you don’t know what he wrote, and I know you don’t know how things operated in Yemen.
>Neither one is a goalpost. Holier than thou competition and furtive elasticity are entirely compatible – they are both unacknowledged doctrinal drift.
It’s impossible to be holier-than-thou and elastic at the same time. Let’s say, in your model, rabbis living in 1st century Jerusalem declare new dietary restrictions. Then rabbis living in 4th century Persia declare more restrictions. And rabbis living in 8th century Persia, and 12th century Spain and 15th century Egypt, etc. etc. etc. All the while claiming that they are only explaining what the prior sources meant. What are the odds that Jews worldwide would be able to eat each other’s food? If the guys in Yemen are driven by a desire to be holier than their predecessors, and holier than other Jews, naturally they would declare those other Jews’ food forbidden, especially since those other Jews would be moving in the direction of increased holiness in other, incompatible ways. Ditto for marriage, ditto for Shabbat, ditto for everything.
In fact, we don’t see anything like this. In the explicit codification of how things are done, we see transparent explanations of reasoning and principles, clear disagreements with either earlier or contemporary sources, clear agreements with earlier or contemporary sources, and in general a very “open source” approach. This is how you maintain compatibility. Not by being “furtive.” It’s impossible to be furtive and coordinate changes in the behavior of millions of people over thousands of miles, with pre-industrial communications technology, especially when all those millions are literate, commanded to learn the law daily (twice a day,) and proverbially stubborn.
It is extremely easy. Suppose your religion requires you to keep women in line, and to not boil goats in their mother’s milk.
But, keeping women in line can get you into trouble, because you are in exile in larger society that has different views on women. So you quietly forget to mention your previous policies on women, while doubling down on boiled goats, because becoming ever more extreme about not boiling goats is not going to get you into trouble.
Come to think of it, you will notice that a few Christians have recently gotten into big trouble in the USA because of the Christian position on homosexuality – not many, indeed disturbingly few, but some.
Strangely, have not noticed any Orthodox Jews getting into trouble on this issue. Funny thing that. Opposing homosexuality can get you into trouble. Time double down yet again on boiled goats.
>So you quietly forget to mention your previous policies on women, while doubling down on boiled goats, because becoming ever more extreme about not boiling goats is not going to get you into trouble.
Again, the details of kashrut have not changed in at least 1000 years, and all Torah Jews have interoperable standards, with minor customary differences. Neither have Jewish standards on marriage changed in the last 1000 years-Rabbeinu Gershon banned polygamy for Ashkenazim 1000 years ago, no such ban was enacted in the Sepharadi and Yemenite communities. There is no “quietly forget to mention” in Judaism-we learn all the significant prior sources all the time, pointing out differences between different sources and current practice while learning. We’re not Christians.
I like how you consistently avoid dealing with my objections about the differences between your theoretical Judaism and real, actual Judaism.
I am pretty sure that kashrut one thousand years ago did not have prescriptions on the proper usage of dishwashers.
Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yoseph thinks marriage and the role of women has changed alarmingly in his lifetime. Evidently his reading of Maimonides differs radically from your own.
In America the position on homosexuality has quietly shifted in seven years.
And you still have not found any very old ruling that women could not push babies in strollers or carry them around on the Sabbath.
When did talmudists first start worrying about cleaning dishes that had been exposed to meat grease and cheese grease?
>I am pretty sure that kashrut one thousand years ago did not have prescriptions on the proper usage of dishwashers.
Very insightful. I suspect they didn’t have many laws on electricity as well.
>Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yoseph thinks marriage and the role of women has changed alarmingly in his lifetime.
Really? He thinks the halacha has changed, as opposed to the degree to which large numbers of Jews adhere to it? Where can I acquaint myself with this statement of his?
>In America the position on homosexuality has quietly shifted in seven years.
The position of halacha has not changed.
>And you still have not found any very old ruling that women could not push babies in strollers or carry them around on the Sabbath.
You’re shifting the null hypothesis. The burden is on you to prove that at some point, babies were considered different from any other burden which doesn’t carry its own weight.
>When did talmudists first start worrying about cleaning dishes that had been exposed to meat grease and cheese grease?
In the very first practical codification of Jewish law, the Mishna, from the 3rd century CE.
Halacha can be interpreted and reinterpreted to mean anything, everything, and nothing at all. New re-re-re-interpretations appear continually, and when they get old enough, when they are no longer new, they become Halacha also, and the past is re-invented to have always been that way – with the result that the past changes with startling rapidity.
Women are bound to consider them different, even if talmudists consider them the same. Therefore, talmudists are going to have to explicitly tell women that babies are the same or they are going to get very little compliance.
Source?
>Halacha can be interpreted and reinterpreted to mean anything, everything, and nothing at all.
By ignorant men arguing in bad faith, sure. Not by Torah Jews.
>New re-re-re-interpretations appear continually, and when they get old enough, when they are no longer new, they become Halacha also, and the past is re-invented to have always been that way – with the result that the past changes with startling rapidity.
Not in our reality.
>Women are bound to consider them different, even if talmudists consider them the same.
This is an assertion with little backing. Our women can grasp the fact that you are forbidden to carry people who can’t carry themselves between domains on Shabbat. The same way that the Jews of Ezra’s time knew that the prohibition on intermarriage applied to Babylonian women as well as Canaanite ones, and obeyed his rebuke without going, “well, man, you know, like, halacha is subjective, maaaaan…”
>Source?
Tractate Keilim (“vessels”) of the Mishna is entirely dedicated to the subject matter. Specifically on this question, sheet 76B of Tractate Avoda Zara of the Babylonian Talmud and sheet 111B of Tractate Chullin, where the scholars Shmuel and Rav (of 2nd/3rd century CE, in Babylon) discuss whether a fish which was freshly cooked and still hot and placed on a meat plate may later be eaten with dairy. Obviously, if this is a question (indirect contact via a fish,) then direct contact is forbidden.
In America, all religious authorities, with some minor resistance from the rank and file, quietly fell into line on homosexuality shortly after 2008. Theoretically their position on homosexuality has not changed, actually it quite obviously has. The only resistance came from Christians, not Jews.
Similarly, Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yoseph wants to restore patriarchy. It seems trivially obvious that the supposed Halacha position on patriarchy has radically changed within my lifetime. Orthodox Jews were, and to a considerable extent, still are, patriarchal, but not nearly as much as they used to be.
You deny this, but you are denying the undeniable.
You are not only re-inventing ancient Hebrews as Ashkenazi Jews. You are re-inventing recently existent Yemeni Jews as Ashkenazi Jews. That is startling rapidity. So is the recent change on homosexuality in America startlingly rapid. Not only do they now care deeply about the welfare of homosexuals, they supposedly always did.
>The only resistance came from Christians, not Jews.
Jews (Orthodox Jews) ignored the insanity and were ignored.
>Similarly, Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yoseph wants to restore patriarchy.
Rav Ovadia Yosef, of blessed memory, passed away two years ago and had not been the Chief Rabbi for a couple of decades at that point. I’m sure you, with your deep grasp of all aspects of Judaism, knew that, Second, you’ve neglected to provide a source and a quote. Third, yes, as I’ve been saying, religious Jews represent reaction, patriarchy, etc. Which doesn’t mean considering women property, and I would love to see a quote from Rav Ovadia or any religious Jewish authority supporting your position.
>It seems trivially obvious that the supposed Halacha position on patriarchy has radically changed within my lifetime. Orthodox Jews were, and to a considerable extent, still are, patriarchal, but not nearly as much as they used to be.
“It seems trivially obvious” is no argument I’ve ever used with success, or heard used by anyone I’ve taken seriously on any matter. I am still waiting for the quote where Rav Ovadia says that halacha has changed and wishes to change it back.
>You are not only re-inventing ancient Hebrews as Ashkenazi Jews. You are re-inventing recently existent Yemeni Jews as Ashkenazi Jews.
Please enlighten me with some sources on the way those recently existent Yemeni Jews lived, the crucial differences between them and Ashkenazi Jews and so forth. This should be interesting.
No one who matters is allowed to ignore the insanity. Orthodoxy in America capitulated, waggled its ass in the air and rewrote three thousand years of history that this had always been the Jewish and Hebrew position, one of an endless series of rewrites that has been happening all my life. Not only do you not preserve the three thousand year old orthodoxy, you don’t even preserve the 2008 orthodoxy.
When you deny the undeniable, and defend the indefensible, little point in going further. I have no doubt you will read the “statement of principles”, and proclaim it is conservatism and three thousand year old orthodoxy, much as you proclaim Yemeni Jewish women have always been emancipated, due to the influence of that noted feminist, Maimonides.
So on the one hand, you are faithfully adhering to a three thousand year old tradition, and on the other hand, dead white males don’t count in deciding what that tradition actually was.
No, I did not know he was dead. But that does not make his personal experience of alarmingly rapid and radical change in Judaism any the less valid.
>No one who matters is allowed to ignore the insanity.
Interesting. You state that halacha is whatever rabbis want it to be and that rabbis have capitulated to the gay lobby, and as proof quote a letter (from the leftmost wing of Torah Judaism) which repeatedly states that homosexual acts are against halacha and gay marriage is against halacha, etc., but we have an obligation not to out or publically humiliate homosexual Jews, pressure them into marrying the opposite gender under false pretenses, etc. That was the best example you could find?
>I have no doubt you will read the “statement of principlesâ€, and proclaim it is conservatism and three thousand year old orthodoxy, much as you proclaim Yemeni Jewish women have always been emancipated, due to the influence of that noted feminist, Maimonides.
You are lying about what I said, because you know that what I said doesn’t support your case. What I said was that Maimonides says that a woman who finds her husband repulsive gets a divorce, although not her ketubah sum, and that the Yemeni Jews followed this ruling with the proviso that she had to prove that she found him repulsive. Would you like quotes with sources?
>So on the one hand, you are faithfully adhering to a three thousand year old tradition, and on the other hand, dead white males don’t count in deciding what that tradition actually was.
Since you decline to quote what it was he actually said, with a reference, despite being asked three times, I really can’t speculate on it.
>No, I did not know he was dead.
Well, color me surprised. First thing about Judaism that you haven’t known since we started discussing it vs. neoreaction.
>But that does not make his personal experience of alarmingly rapid and radical change in Judaism any the less valid.
Again, I have no idea what personal experience it is you are speaking of, since you refuse to quote and attribute your sources. The Antiversity will be in poor shape if this is any indication-might as well get Perez Hilton to be the rector (heh.) I would love to know, though, since within Rav Ovadya’s lifetime, Orthodox Sepharadim went from a despised minority within a despised minority, subject to all sorts of horrible and degrading treatment from irreligious Ashkenazi socialist elites, to having their own massive political party, headed by Rav Ovadya himself (with a disciplined vote bank, of course), a massive school and patronage system, media outlets, etc. and of course many, many adherents who grew up irreligious and became religious through Shas and its institutions.
And when the left most wing of Torah Judaism speaks in the name of Torah Judaism, what does the right most wing do?
An obligation to act in every way as if it is not against halacha. Pretty much like the rule on rebellious sons or apostate cities.
This ruling is 2010 Judaism showing radical change compared to 2008 Judaism, let alone three thousand year old Judaism.
Leviticus 20:13
If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
2007 very different from Leviticus, and 2010 very different from 2007
Still waiting for the earliest reference to carrying babies, and the earliest reference to dishwashing methods.
Giving you sources is significant research. When I do give you sources, for example the old testament, you just flat out deny that they say what they plainly say, and when I ask you for sources, you either don’t give me sources, or you give me your interpretation of what they say without giving me sufficient information to check context and interpretation.
I am not going to give sources that involve significant research to someone who just will not discuss the plain words of the Old Testament in good faith. When I give you sources, they just bounce off your fact proof shields, as the “statement of principles” just did, which diminishes my incentive to give you sources,
>An obligation to act in every way as if it is not against halacha. Pretty much like the rule on rebellious sons or apostate cities.
This ruling is 2010 Judaism showing radical change compared to 2008 Judaism, let alone three thousand year old Judaism.
Just like there are halachot governing behavior, there are halachot governing what happens when those halachot are violated. Homosexuality is an offense which is punishable by death, in the exact same way as, for instance, doing forbidden work on Shabbat. In order for the death penalty to apply in any case, including not just homosexuality, Shabbat violation and murder, the act has to be witnessed by two adult male witnesses who are themselves trustworthy, the offender has to be warned that what he is doing carries the death penalty, and he has to say that he doesn’t care (as opposed to doing it under compunction.) And then the case goes before a beit din, a religious court, which itself meets certain conditions empowering it to hear capital cases.
Now, what happens when these conditions do not apply? It varies case by case. But in general, private individuals are forbidden by halacha to humiliate others publicly, which is considered to be like murdering them. Regardless of your suspicions that someone is, for instance, violating Shabbat privately, you can’t humiliate them. Even if they drove on Shabbat to the synagogue, you are absolutely forbidden from humiliating them. And it is the same with homosexuality. In fact, note that the letter is speaking not of open homosexuals, who flaunt it, who it says must be dealt with on a case by case basis.
>Still waiting for the earliest reference to carrying babies, and the earliest reference to dishwashing methods.
I gave you extensive references to the earliest laws on dishes, which are in the Mishna and in the Talmud. For babies, I’ve told you that the onus is on you to prove that the laws of carrying (which in the Talmud are discussed as they apply to a person who can carry himself and one who can’t, and the example they use is one who is sick and bedridden, but it is no different for a child.)
>Giving you sources is significant research. When I do give you sources, for example the old testament, you just flat out deny that they say what they plainly say, and when I ask you for sources, you either don’t give me sources, or you give me your interpretation of what they say without giving me sufficient information to check context and interpretation.
I’ve given you sources with quotes, down to the page, from the Torah, the Mishna, the Talmud and Maimonides. You are being dishonest here. You said that Rav Ovadia Yosef said something, and when I asked you to show me where he said it, you started dancing around.
>I am not going to give sources that involve significant research to someone who just will not discuss the plain words of the Old Testament in good faith.
Funny.
Discussing the Torah “in good faith” means admitting it means what Jim’s cursory reading indicates it means, vs. what every source including Ezra, the Mishna, the Talmud and Maimonides says it means. You won’t give me sources until I admit that the Torah says Shabbat is for bass fishing and rock concerts, and that marrying non-Jewish women is totally cool and Ezra had it backwards. Seems reasonable.
OK, because Judaism is exile, and times have changed, you can no longer execute homosexuals.
But in 2008 in the US you could, and did, subject homosexuals to unfavorable social outcomes, hostile social pressure, and forcefully encourage them to give heterosexual sex a try. As of 2010 you cannot do any of that, but must, indeed, be supportive.
This is a quite substantial, and quite recent, change.
And Judaism has been undergoing changes like that all the time for the past sixteen hundred years.
No you did not. And I just asked you again, and again you did not. I am going to keep on asking until you actually do give me a reference.
Please, give me a reference: “The Talmud” is not a reference, since the talmud is twenty old testaments. Am I supposed to read through it from beginning to end to find the earliest reference to dishwashing?
I don’t think you have. If you have, give them to me again. You will notice that every time you deny that Old Testament says what it says, I repeat the links to chapter and verse, no matter how many times I have posted them before. You instead tell me that sometime, somewhere, you gave me links that have some unspecified relevance to our current discussion in some unspecified way. That is not very helpful, even if it is some sense true. And I am inclined to doubt that it is true in any meaningful or useful sense. If you gave me links, give them again. Links for dishwashing, and links for babies.
As I recall, you gave me no links for dishwashing, and as for babies, you quoted material that could plausibly be interpreted as referring to babies, or salted fish, but the typical woman could and would plausibly interpret as referring to trucks of salted fish but not babies (because babies are not production in the sense that firewood or salted fish is, and because work on babies cannot be done the day before or the day after, whereas you can always transport salted fish a day early). You linked to a plausible justification for the ruling on babies, but not to the ruling on babies itself.
Deuteronomy 25:5-10, among many, many, many other laws, shows female consent is legally irrelevant.
To check if it means what it says, I look up Ruth Chapter 3, where we see both Ruth and Boaz acting as if it means what it says.
To check if the Talmud had any plausible explanation of the behavior Ruth and Boaz, other than that Deuteronomy 25:5-10 means what it says, I look up the Talmud on these characters, and find that they make absolutely no attempt to explain away the behavior of Ruth and Boaz, simply ignoring the anomalous behavior and instead capriciously make up fan fiction about characters with the names Ruth and Boaz, which fan fiction is inherently implausible and out of character with the originals.
My reading is not a cursory reading. It is a careful, honest, in depth examination. When the Talmud ignores the problem that is a cursory reading. When the Talmud just shamelessly makes up fan fiction for Ruth and Boaz that better suits their interpretation of Deuteronomy 25:5-10, that is not careful study, but cursory reading, and shameless contempt for the Old Testament.
Honest debate would be you attempting to do what the Talmud conspicuously fails to do, and find an interpretation and explanation of the characters’ behavior that is consistent with the Talmudic interpretation of Deuteronomy 25:5-10.
Or you just declare that the Old Testament is an irrelevant pile of crap by dead white males which gets completely superseded by the latest rabbinical consensus of living rabbis and it does not matter what Yemeni Jews used to do, because now they are gonna do what they are damn well told. That would be honest debate.
The old testament calls male homosexuality an “abomination”. Very few things are called an abomination. One of the other things called an abomination, if I recall correctly, is burning children alive in sacrifice to moloch.
Let us go through this document, recently issued by Orthodox Jewish rabbis, substituting “burning children alive”, for “homosexuality”, and see how it reads.
>OK, because Judaism is exile, and times have changed, you can no longer execute homosexuals.
You could never execute homosexuals. The crime is not the desire, the identity or the orientation. The crime is not swishing around and singing Showtunes. The crime is the act of a male having sex with another male. You could execute people who had been caught in the act by two witnesses (Jewish adult males who kept the tenets of Judaism,) and warned that what they were doing carried the death penalty, and continued the act and answered “I do not care” or something along those lines. Which is why a Sanhedrin that executed one person in 7 years was considered unusually cruel.
Now, the question addressed in the letter is, what do you do with people who act in ways we associate with homosexuality, about whom there are rumors that they are homosexual, but who are not openly homosexual. What is the halacha on them?
>But in 2008 in the US you could, and did, subject homosexuals to unfavorable social outcomes, hostile social pressure, and forcefully encourage them to give heterosexual sex a try.
In Jewish law, you are forbidden from humiliating people publicly. You are also forbidden to “give heterosexual sex a try”, unless it is with a Jewish person to whom you are married. A woman who marries a man who turns out to be a homosexual has grounds for divorce in Jewish law, and gets her ketuba sum paid. You are not allowed to encourage people to marry by deceit, by concealing severe defects, and homosexuality is certainly such a defect.
>Still waiting for the earliest reference to carrying babies, and the earliest reference to dishwashing methods.
>>I gave you extensive references to the earliest laws on dishes, which are in the Mishna and in the Talmud.
>No you did not. And I just asked you again, and again you did not. I am going to keep on asking until you actually do give me a reference.
I did, right on this very page:
“Tractate Keilim (“vesselsâ€) of the Mishna is entirely dedicated to the subject matter. Specifically on this question, sheet 76B of Tractate Avoda Zara of the Babylonian Talmud and sheet 111B of Tractate Chullin, where the scholars Shmuel and Rav (of 2nd/3rd century CE, in Babylon) discuss whether a fish which was freshly cooked and still hot and placed on a meat plate may later be eaten with dairy. ”
What good is a reference if you can’t read?
>You will notice that every time you deny that Old Testament says what it says, I repeat the links to chapter and verse, no matter how many times I have posted them before.
I do not deny that the Torah says what it says, I deny that its meaning is what you say it is, and give you references to expert literature that says what its meaning is.
> (because babies are not production in the sense that firewood or salted fish is, and because work on babies cannot be done the day before or the day after, whereas you can always transport salted fish a day early).
There is no urgent need to carry babies outside a domain (a household or a courtyard of many households) on Shabbat. If there is an urgent need (for instance, for medical reasons,) obviously you can carry or do whatever needs to be done.
>You linked to a plausible justification for the ruling on babies, but not to the ruling on babies itself.
I showed you that there is a prohibition on carrying on Shabbat and on carrying people who can’t carry themselves explicitly. What else do you need? If I tell you that after 4 seconds in freefall, an object will be falling at 39.2 m/s, and you demand a source, and I show you a physics textbook where it says gravity accelerates objects at 9.8 m/s^2, will you demand that I show you where in the textbook it says that after 4 seconds in freefall, the object will be falling at 39.2 m/s explicitly?
>To check if the Talmud had any plausible explanation of the behavior Ruth and Boaz, other than that Deuteronomy 25:5-10 means what it says, I look up the Talmud on these characters, and find that they make absolutely no attempt to explain away the behavior of Ruth and Boaz, simply ignoring the anomalous behavior and instead capriciously make up fan fiction about characters with the names Ruth and Boaz, which fan fiction is inherently implausible and out of character with the originals.
Which part of the Talmudic commentary are you specifically referring to?
>Or you just declare that the Old Testament is an irrelevant pile of crap by dead white males which gets completely superseded by the latest rabbinical consensus of living rabbis and it does not matter what Yemeni Jews used to do, because now they are gonna do what they are damn well told. That would be honest debate.
Yes, Comrade, if the enemy denies the truth of Marxist-Leninist dialectic, he is being dishonest. If he were honest, would he not admit his own dishonesty?
I would really enjoy your explanation of what Yemenites used to do, along with a link.
That is just not true. That is not what the letter says, not the question addressed in the letter, not what the New Orthodoxy for American Orthodox Jews says. You are not arguing in good faith
For example “We are opposed on ethical and moral grounds to both the “outing†of individuals who want to remain private and to coercing those who desire to be open about their orientation to keep it hidden.”
In other words, don’t ask, but may tell. So if someone wants to do that gay pride thing and push his sexual orientation in your face, a good Orthodox Jew has to suck it up as if you are just fine with homosexuality, even if it makes you feel like puking, even if you are rationally alarmed by the high likelihood that this gay pride shit is exposing you to dangerous diseases, due to it involving literal shit.
Old doctrine 2008. If you know someone is engaging in homosexual acts, you should counsel him to stop.
New doctrine 2010. Not only should you not counsel him to stop, but if someone gets in your face with that gay pride stuff, you have to avoid reacting in ways that might undermine his self esteem.
And if it was only saying “don’t ask, don’t tell” this would still not only be a matter of someone about whom there are rumors of homosexuality, but also a matter of someone about whom there are facts of homosexuality.
No it is not. It is about exposure to lepers, etc, not cleaning dishes exposed to food, does not address dishwashing.
Does not address cleaning that plate, does not address dishwashing – leaving room for a big expansion of superior holiness that continues to this day.
So every time Orthodox Judaism changes doctrine in ways that make you more exposed to real uncleanliness and real disease, as for example homosexuals, Orthodox Judaism then guiltily changes doctrine to make you even less exposed to a goat boiled in its mother’s milk, and manufactures more sabbath inconveniences, which sabbath inconveniences can be set aside by magic spells cast by the Rabbi.
A baby is not the same kind of burden as someone who is sick, and if it is the same kind of burden, women would not believe that it is unless explicitly told.
Further, carrying babies is hugely more common than carrying the sick, so if they meant to include that case with the sick, that would have been the type specimen, rather than someone who is sick. If intended from the beginning to include babies, the natural way would be to say “You cannot carry babies on the sabbath”, and then later someone addresses the less common case of sick people, rather than the other way around.
Babies are by far the most common burden of all, so if there is a ban on carrying babies, they are going to say “babies”.
That there is not any.
I have made an honest effort to find Talmudic commentary that attempts to explain away the behavior of Ruth and Boaz. Pretty sure that no such explanation exists. You want me to give you a link to something that is not there?
If there is an explanation of the behavior of Ruth and Boaz when Ruth sneaks into Boaz’s bed, consistent with the talmudic re-interpretation of Deuteronomy 25:5-10, and I don’t think that there is, you give me the link.
Or make up your own explanation. But if you, and the Talmud, simply ignore the anomaly, who is it that is giving the Old Testament a merely cursory examination?
While you’re looking for links for Yemenite practices, don’t forget to find the one where Rav Ovadia says what you claim he says, and the exact place of the Talmudic commentary on the Book of Ruth.
If you will not believe that before 2010 Orthodox Jews opposed homosexuality, and you want a link to a passage in the Talmud that I deny exists, you are unlikely to be impressed by my evidence that Yemeni Jews practiced Old Testament patriarchy before they moved to Israel.
That’s not a very good argument.
First, we are forbidden from passing on hearsay or acting on it (except in very specific cases.) We are discussing people here who are rumored to be homosexuals.
Second, lots of things are referred to as an abomination in the Torah. For instance, remarrying your divorced wife after she’s slept with another man (Deuteronomy 24,) haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that deviseth wicked thoughts, feet that are swift in running to evil, a false witness that breatheth out lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren (Proverbs 6,) swearing falsely, oppressing orphans, widows and resident non-Jews (Jeremiah 6), having a false balance, i.e., business dishonesty (Deuteronomy 25 and Proverbs 11,) having sex with another’s wife (Ezekiel 22,) bringing a whore’s wage or a dog’s price into the Temple as an offering (Deuteronomy 25.)
Should we treat someone who is rumored to be dishonest in business any differently than someone who is rumored to be a homosexual? They’re both abominations. What about someone who is arrogant? That’s an abomination as well. A rumored adulterer? Etc. We don’t have the right to humiliate someone based on hearsay.
We can look at other sins which bring the death penalty, which is why I raised violation of the Shabbat, which is more prominent among Jews than homosexuality, yet no community I am aware of would publicly humiliate such a person based on rumors.
>For example “We are opposed on ethical and moral grounds to both the “outing†of individuals who want to remain private and to coercing those who desire to be open about their orientation to keep it hidden.â€
>. So if someone wants to do that gay pride thing and push his sexual orientation in your face, a good Orthodox Jew has to suck it up as if you are just fine with homosexuality
For sure we are not allowed to out someone. This violates both the prohibition on publicly humiliating someone and on passing on hearsay. As for whether we can coerce those who are open about their homosexuality to keep it hidden, this is a more complicated question. We are enjoined to rebuke our brothers when they violate the law, but only when we see there is a reasonable chance they will listen to our rebuke. If there isn’t a reasonable chance, we are forbidden to rebuke them.
>And if it was only saying “don’t ask, don’t tell†this would still not only be a matter of someone about whom there are rumors of homosexuality, but also a matter of someone about whom there are facts of homosexuality.
What “facts”? Unless you personally witnessed someone committing a homosexual act, all you have is hearsay.
I’d also like to point out that your opinion on what we should do is largely motivated by feels, as is shown in your language. Halacha is not decided by feels, but by objective examination of all the sources and their reasoning in good faith, followed by a decision on how all this applies to a given situation by someone with domain expertise. We don’t steer our lives by feels.
>>I gave you extensive references to the earliest laws on dishes, which are in the Mishna and in the Talmud.
>No it is not. It is about exposure to lepers, etc, not cleaning dishes exposed to food, does not address dishwashing.
It is about vessels and their exposure to uncleanness-whether they absorb it or not, and how you get it out (answers depend on material, intervening media and temperatures.) Again, we have a physics textbook and you are quibbling that nowhere in there does it say that after 4 seconds of freefall, an object will be falling at 39 m/s. It addresses vessels that are unclean and how they get that way. We see that liquid transmits, we see that hot liquid transmits better .
>Does not address cleaning that plate, does not address dishwashing – leaving room for a big expansion of superior holiness that continues to this day.
If a fish brought from a meat plate may transmit meaty essence, then certainly hot water would transmit it.
>So every time Orthodox Judaism changes doctrine in ways that make you more exposed to real uncleanliness and real disease, as for example homosexuals, Orthodox Judaism then guiltily changes doctrine to make you even less exposed to a goat boiled in its mother’s milk
You would think that modern Western culture is the first time that we have encountered masses of homosexuals. We’ve seen them before (in Greece, Rome, Babylon and the rest of the Middle East,) yet somehow didn’t make them a widespread phenomenon. All of a sudden, though, the West will change that. I’d also like to point out that you demand that, when what you say is ambiguous, we take you in good faith and assume you meant something that made sense, then assume our rabbis are idiots and dishonest.
>A baby is not the same kind of burden as someone who is sick, and if it is the same kind of burden, women would not believe that it is unless explicitly told.
Our women are smart enough to believe their rabbis’ domain expertise. A baby is the exact same kind of burden, vis., a person who can’t walk.
>Further, carrying babies is hugely more common than carrying the sick, so if they meant to include that case with the sick, that would have been the type specimen,
Again, you don’t understand how how the Talmud works. It delineates a law precisely by talking about more extreme, rare situations, its boundaries. Since the typical and common situations were known to all, they generally didn’t bother discussing them. For instance, they don’t really discuss the ban on pork except in passing, since everyone knows that pork is forbidden, but speak about what happens if you have a minute quantity of pork, what determines a minute quantity, etc.
>Babies are by far the most common burden of all, so if there is a ban on carrying babies, they are going to say “babiesâ€.
They say there is a ban on carrying, period. Then they talk about rare kinds of carrying (what if you carry something in your mouth, for instance). Since it is assumed that everyone knows that carrying a baby is carrying, there is no need to state the obvious.
>>Which part of the Talmudic commentary are you specifically referring to?
>That there is not any.
First you say you’ve found Talmudic commentary on this passage and it’s fan fiction. Then you say there isn’t any Talmudic commentary on this passage. A three second session with Google would have informed you that there is plenty of commentary, for instance, an entire book called Ruth Rabbah, which is a compilation of detailed Talmudic commentary on the Book of Ruth, line by line. There is also lots of commentary in other sources, some mentioned here: http://www.torah.org/learning/ruth/class28.html .
>Or make up your own explanation. But if you, and the Talmud, simply ignore the anomaly, who is it that is giving the Old Testament a merely cursory examination?
Probably the guy who explains to Torah Jews that they know nothing about the Torah while continually demonstrating profound ignorance.
If a guy showed up to your house who had memorized every book on plumbing ever written, but had never touched a pipe with his hands, you wouldn’t let him work on your plumbing. If he had skimmed a translation of a textbook explaining general hydrodynamics, and from speaking to him you could see that he either hadn’t read most of it or hadn’t understood much of what he read, you for sure wouldn’t let him work on your plumbing. And if he sat there and badmouthed your local plumber with 40 years of hands on experience, you would dismiss his criticism without a second thought. Yet for some reason when it comes to a body of jurisprudence which has been in action for 3000 years, whose subject matter is far more extensive and complex than the plumbing in your house, any asshole out there with a hotel room Gideon Bible can go “hurr, durr, says in here eye for an eye, but you guys don’t gouge nobody’s eyes out, you’re lying and don’t know what it says in here.” Amazing.
You are changing the topic. The new orthodoxy on homosexuality is not about outing, but about public acceptance of public homosexual acts. Orthodox Judaism in the US changed dramatically between 2008 AD and 2010 AD, and similar startlingly rapid changes have been happening for the past sixteen hundred years.
By and large, when someone outs himself, he does so by public displays of affection with frequently changing partners.
Under the current orthodoxy in Orthodox Jewish America you are required to witness people committing homosexual acts, and say it tastes like chocolate.
I asked you about dishwashing, in the context of a dish being exposed to meat grease, and another dish, or the same dish at a later time after being cleaned, being exposed to cheese grease. Your links are not relevant to cleaning dishes exposed to food.
So, your links are not relevant to current holiness competitions. You don’t get much chance to demonstrate superior holiness by avoiding contact with lepers, which is the sort of thing covered in the links you gave. Current holiness competition is on upping the ante on avoiding any contact between meat grease and cheese grease.
My claim is that Jews have been escalating holiness on the basis of not boiling a kid goat in its mother’s milk all the way from New Testament times to the twenty first century. Countering that claim, you argued that the rules on food have been stable a thousand years. I deny they have been stable for two or three years. You fail to produce evidence that superior dishwashing holiness goes back all very far at all, from which I conclude that it does not go back very far at all.
If they are inclined to believe the rabbis, they still need the rabbis to tell them that. And no rabbi told them that until very recently.
Not likely to be obvious to women.
You are changing the topic. The topic is that the behavior of Boaz and Ruth when Ruth sneaks into Boaz’s bed (Ruth 3) confirms that Deuteronomy 25:5-10 means what is says and says what it means, that female consent is legally irrelevant, and that you, and the Talmud, keep evading this fact, and keep evading Ruth’s bedtime conversation with Boaz, which conversations presupposes that Deuteronomy 25:5-10 means what it says, and not what you interpret the Talmud as saying that it says.
And then you proceed to reason that soap and hot water makes things dirty instead of clean. This is not reasoning in good faith. This is holier than thou disease.
Nor is the conversation between Ruth and Boaz dealt with in good faith.
No it does not. It skips over the lines that falsify various talmudic fan fictions of Ruth, and the lines that falsify talmudic re-interpretation of Deuteronomy. Which is not an objective good faith examination of all the sources.
>If you will not believe that before 2010 Orthodox Jews opposed homosexuality, and you want a link to a passage in the Talmud that I deny exists, you are unlikely to be impressed by my evidence that Yemeni Jews practiced Old Testament patriarchy before they moved to Israel.
I am unlikely to be impressed by your evidence that Yemeni Jews did what you say they did because you don’t have any such evidence. Not even the kind that can be gathered by a halfhearted Google search for primary sources. You might be able to impress the uneducated man-children of the Manosphere and reactosphere by bluffing, bombast and bullshit, but I have seen enough bluffing, bombast and bullshit in my life to see right through it.
For someone sufficiently determined, it is possible to deny that Yemeni Jews practiced something mighty close to Old Testament Patriarchy.
But to deny that Old Testament Patriarchs practiced old testament patriarchy is pretty much impossible, so I might as well focus on that for the patriarchy question, and for rapid recent change, Amercan Orthodox Jews on homosexuality.
>For someone sufficiently determined, it is possible to deny that Yemeni Jews practiced something mighty close to Old Testament Patriarchy.
More bluffing and bullshit. Now you’re walking your claims back, all without producing a source.
>But to deny that Old Testament Patriarchs practiced old testament patriarchy is pretty much impossible
First, this wouldn’t help you since they lived before the giving of the Torah, so we are bound by different rules than they were. Second, it is logically flawed, being circular reasoning. Third, as usual, you are ignorant of the sources you claim support you: ” And God said unto Abraham: ‘Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah saith unto thee, hearken unto her voice.” Some patriarchy, when your wife tells you what to do with your concubine and child!
In the course of defending the indefensible, and denying the undeniable, you make one outrageous statement on top of another. That I refuse to be distracted, and instead focus on only a few of your many outrages against facts and evidence, does not constitute conceding the truth of all your many other outrages against facts and evidence.
>The new orthodoxy on homosexuality is not about outing, but about public acceptance of public homosexual acts. Orthodox Judaism in the US changed dramatically between 2008 AD and 2010 AD,
This is your assertion. To support it, you would have to bring documents from before 2008 CE saying public homosexual acts are bad and after 2010 CE saying they are ok. You quote a document from after 2010 CE saying homosexuality is bad, but we shouldn’t out homosexuals, or attack ones who are open about their homosexuality. Moving the goalposts and hoping nobody notices. Typical leftist style, like the Village Voice.
>By and large, when someone outs himself, he does so by public displays of affection with frequently changing partners.
>Under the current orthodoxy in Orthodox Jewish America you are required to witness people committing homosexual acts, and say it tastes like chocolate.
The Torah prohibits men having sex with men, and says this is punishable by the death penalty, like violating Shabbat (for instance.) It does not prohibit public displays of affection, even ones from which we can infer that the participants may be, privately, having sex with each other. There is a rabbinical prohibition on acts that may cause others to think that a Torah prohibition is being violated. When you witness two people acting in such a way in public that makes you think they are violating a Torah prohibition in private, that is not the same as witnessing them violating that prohibition.
>I asked you about dishwashing, in the context of a dish being exposed to meat grease, and another dish, or the same dish at a later time after being cleaned, being exposed to cheese grease. Your links are not relevant to cleaning dishes exposed to food.
My links explain that when it comes to vessels, taste/material is considered to be transferred via direct absorption or liquid contact, more so if the liquid is hot. Since we know that mixing meat and milk is prohibited, it is obvious that eating them off the same dish is prohibited. Eating dairy products from a plate washed in the same water as a meat plate is prohibited. Even taking a hot fish, cooked in a vessel where meat had been cooked, and then eating it with dairy, may be prohibited. Since the Talmud doesn’t need to spell things out Barney-style, it addresses the extreme case instead of the obvious one.
>If they are inclined to believe the rabbis, they still need the rabbis to tell them that. And no rabbi told them that until very recently.
You are being dishonest again by moving the null hypothesis, in typical Leftist fashion. Show me a source that says Jewish women used to carry babies between domains on Shabbat without an Eruv until recently.
>You are changing the topic. The topic is that the behavior of Boaz and Ruth when Ruth sneaks into Boaz’s bed (Ruth 3) blablablabla
The topic is whether women’s consent was required in the time of the Torah, or whether this is something feminist rabbis made up in 2010. I gave you a source in the Mishna, written in the 3rd century CE, that shows that female consent was required back then (and there were no opposing opinions, meaning, all the Sages of the Mishna knew this was the practice, and nobody had a different tradition) and in the Elephantine Papyri written in the 6th century BCE, showing that female consent was required then. You ignored the Mishna, said that the Elephantine Papyri were written by feminist, Persianized Jews, and brought up the Book of Ruth, which you proceeded to interpret in Idiocracy-fashion (“she wanted Boaz to yoo-ti-lize her, hurr!”) I told you that the Book of Ruth involved her consent to marry Boaz, that in fact the marriage was her initiative, that she came to him and suggested it, and that when he married her the next day, this was with her consent, and that the closer kinsman had an obligation to marry her not because she was property to be inherited, which was your suggestion, but as an obligation to her deceased husband.
I told you that there was Talmudic commentary on this passage. You told me the Talmudic commentary was fan fiction. Then you told me there was none. Then I pointed out that there was a bunch, and gave you a link to some of it. Now you’re going to dance around some more. When I spend another hour of my life proving what is obvious, you will dance around some more and say that it is irrelevant, because women were property and could be married against their desire, because that is what you know to be true because that’s how it was. This is getting boring.
>And then you proceed to reason that soap and hot water makes things dirty instead of clean. This is not reasoning in good faith. This is holier than thou disease.
The question is not “dirty” vs. “clean.” The question is whether putting vessels in the same hot water transfers material between them, and whether the quantity of material thus transferred is sufficient to cause problems if the mixture is forbidden. This question was decided in the positive by the Sages of the Talmud, and we haven’t revised it since.
>No it does not. It skips over the lines that falsify various talmudic fan fictions of Ruth, and the lines that falsify talmudic re-interpretation of Deuteronomy. Which is not an objective good faith examination of all the sources.
It doesn’t skip over anything, and addresses every single line in detail.
>That I refuse to be distracted, and instead focus on only a few of your many outrages against facts and evidence, does not constitute conceding the truth of all your many other outrages against facts and evidence.
You brought up the Yemenite Jews as an example of how the traditional practice of the Jews involved women being property to be acquired without consent. I asked you for sources. You said I wouldn’t believe your sources. I said that this was because you didn’t have any. Now you all of a sudden “refuse to be distracted.” Like I said, amazing. Where did you grow up, where did you study, that this style of argument was considered convincing or appropriate? Is this how the Comrades settled ideological disputes, by bluffing and bullshit?
You could at leaset
Oh come on. Even for you, you are being obstinately in denial. That is even nuttier than asking for evidence that Yemeni Jews were patriarchal.
http://statementofprinciplesnya.blogspot.com/ says not that they are OK, but that we have to suck them up and act as if they are OK.
Deuteronomy 22:5 comes close enough. Clothing that advertises forbidden sexual preferences is forbidden, implying that outing oneself is forbidden. The new orthodoxy requires orthodox Jews to act towards people outing themselves as though outing oneself is just fine.
1. No they don’t.
2 One of your links, and none of the others, talks about hot fish fat contacting the plate, not “liquids”, not soap and hot water contacting the plate. You cannot trivially or obviously generalize from fish fat to hot soap and water. To go from fish grease to hot soap and water is as big a jump to greater holiness as going from boiling a young goat in its mother’s milk to cheeseburgers – and it is a much more recent jump to greater holiness.
Given the nature of women, it is obvious they are going to carry babies on the Sabbath unless quite explicitly and firmly told not to. And until very recent times, no one told them not to.
What a brilliant and persuasive reply.
The behavior and words of Boaz and Ruth in bed in Ruth 3 make no sense unless Deuteronomy 25:5-10 means what it says and says what it means. Ruth has no power to consent or refuse, though she can, and does, apply the usual feminine wiles to indirectly get men to do what she wants.
And you implicitly admit this by refusing to discuss or acknowledge their behavior, and the Talmud implicitly admits it by leaving out those bits when examining the behavior and words of Ruth and Boaz.
It leaves out the the relevant words and actions, thus silently admitting what it denies.
There is none that addresses or attempts to explain away the problematic behavior of Ruth and Boaz, thereby silently admitting what is denied.
No it does not. The problem lines are skipped over, not addressed, a silent admission of guilt.
…so not only am I not allowed to denounce open homosexuals for violating one of the Noahide laws, but I’m not even allowed to eat a Fillet-o-Fish while I’m not denouncing homosexuals?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP8Mma3QcqQ
Since B has been defending http://statementofprinciplesnya.blogspot.com/ as exemplifying Jewish tolerance, I wonder if he can find anything intolerant in the video recommended by peppermint.
In practice, just as the video suggests, faggots and Jews are the leading edge of gentrification, but somehow saying so so plainly, somehow sounds a little bit … genocidal.
>…so not only am I not allowed to denounce open homosexuals for violating one of the Noahide laws, but I’m not even allowed to eat a Fillet-o-Fish while I’m not denouncing homosexuals?
Are you Jewish? If not, all of the above does not apply to you. Although it may be common sense and a good idea to refrain from denouncing individuals whom you speculate commit homosexual acts, and to avoid passing on hearsay or listening to it.
If you are Jewish, I suggest you find an rabbi whose integrity and knowledge you personally trust and ask him to advise on situations where the law is unclear to you.
>That is even nuttier than asking for evidence that Yemeni Jews were patriarchal.
I am not asking for evidence that Yemeni Jews were “patriarchal.” I’m asking for evidence that they were “patriarchal” in the way that you claim they were, specifically, that they would marry women against their will. Which evidence you claimed you had, and then claimed I wouldn’t accept, and now…I lose track.
In this case, you would have to bring evidence from before 2008 that the same rabbis/organizations said that you should out homosexuals or shut up ones who are already out.
>says not that they are OK, but that we have to suck them up and act as if they are OK.
It says we shouldn’t out closeted homosexuals, nor harass ones who are openly homosexual. To support your thesis, you’d have to show that the same group of rabbis at some point prior held the opposite view-that we should out closeted homosexuals and harass the openly gay.
>Deuteronomy 22:5 comes close enough. Clothing that advertises forbidden sexual preferences is forbidden, implying that outing oneself is forbidden.
This is a novel and unique interpretation. I would like some evidence that at some point in the past, some Jewish religious authority interpreted it this way. As far as I understand, these two prohibitions (crossdressing and homosexual acts) are separate and not dependent on each other.
>2 One of your links, and none of the others, talks about hot fish fat contacting the plate, not “liquidsâ€, not soap and hot water contacting the plate. You cannot trivially or obviously generalize from fish fat to hot soap and water.
What would make fish fat different than water or any other hot liquid? Soap we don’t even consider as a factor, except in certain specific cases. The other links mentioned that, for instance, clayware absorbs the essence of food, brine from non-Jews is forbidden, obviously because it may have held non-kosher foods, from which we know that brine is considered to absorb and transmit taste (Avoda Zara 35b,) that oil can carry a prohibited residue (Avoda Zara 35b,) that if you accidentally cook a forbidden food with prohibited food in a broth and the broth transmits taste, it is forbidden (Chullin 96a.) The point is that we don’t wash meat dishes and milk dishes together because as we can see from all of the above, dishes absorb food essence, hot water transmits it, and we are forbidden from cooking and/or eating meat and milk together.
>Given the nature of women, it is obvious they are going to carry babies on the Sabbath unless quite explicitly and firmly told not to.
Given the nature of women, it is obvious that if they are told by communal authorities that carrying between public and private domains on Shabbat is prohibited, they will not carry. And that includes babies. If you had any sort of evidence for your assertion, you would have brought it already.
>>I told you that there was Talmudic commentary on this passage. You told me the Talmudic commentary was fan fiction. Then you told me there was none.
>There is none that addresses or attempts to explain away the problematic behavior of Ruth and Boaz, thereby silently admitting what is denied.
It’s interesting that one of the few laudable accomplishments of the Communists in the USSR was that they taught the population how to read. In the West they did not even do that, apparently.
Here is some Talmudic commentary on the passage on which you claim there is none:
Ruth 3:8 And it came to pass at midnight that the man was startled and turned about; and behold, a woman was lying at his feet.
Targum (translation of Onkelos the Proselyte from the 1st century CE):
And it happened at midnight that the man shuddered and trembled, and, as a result, his flesh became as soft as a [boiled] turnip. Though he perceived a woman sleeping at his feet, he subdued his evil inclination and did not draw nigh unto her, just like the righteous Joseph, who refused to draw nigh unto the Egyptian woman, the wife of his master; and just like the pious Paltiel, the son of Laish, who placed a sword between himself and Michal, the daughter of Saul and wife of David, refusing to approach her.
Talmud:
Sanhedrin 19b R.Johanan said: Joseph’s strong [temptation] was but a petty trial to Boaz; and that of Boaz was small in comparison with that of Palti son of Layish. ‘Joseph’s strong temptation was but a petty trial to Boaz,’ as it is written, And it came to pass at mid-night and the man was startled, ‘vayilafeth’. What is the meaning of – vayilafeth? – Rab said: His flesh became [liftath – as hard] as turnip heads [in the intensity of his arousal].
Ruth 3:9 “Who are you?” he asked. ” I am Ruth, your handmaiden,” she said. “Spread your wing [the corner of your cloak] over your handmaiden, for you are a redeemer.”
Talmud:
Genesis Rabbah 87:7“‘She [Potiphar’s wife] said: “Lie with me!â€â€™ [Gen. 39:12]—R. Samuel bar Nahman said: Cursed are the wicked, for below: ‘Spread your robe over your handmaid’ [Ruth 3:9], but this one [Potiphar’s wife] was like a beast: ‘Lie with me!’â€
[B-spreading a cloak over someone means not, as you imply, having sex with them, but claiming them for yourself. For instance, during a Jewish wedding, the tallit, the male cloak with fringes, is suspended over the bride and groom, which is the only time that a woman comes under this garment. Another instance, when Elijah meets Elisha: “Elisha the son of Shaphat, while he was plowing with twelve pairs of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth. And Elijah passed over to him and threw his mantle on him.” Rav Samuel Bar Nahman (a Talmudic scholar of the 3rd/4th century CE) is contrasting the behavior of Potiphar’s wife (‘the wicked’), who attempted to seduce Joseph, with the behavior of Ruth, who is asking Boaz to marry her.]
Ruth 3:10 He said, “Blessed are you of the Lord, my daughter! Your last kindness is greater than the first, by not going after the young men, whether poor or rich.”
Targum: Said he: “Blessed be you before the Lord, my daughter. The last good deed which you have done is better than the first. The first was that you became a proselyte, and the last, that you made yourself like a woman who waits for a small brother-in-law until he grows up, refraining from following young men, whether poor or wealthy, in order to carry on immoral relations with them.
Ruth 3:11 “And now, my daughter, fear not. All that you say I will do for you. For all the gate of my people know that a woman of valor are you.”
Targum: “And now, my daughter, do not fear. What you say to me I will do for you, since it is known to all who sit at the gate, the Great Sanhedrin, of my people, that you are a righteous woman and have the strength to bear the yoke of the commandments of the Lord.”
Ruth 3:12 “Now while it is true that [if] I am a redeemer, there is also a redeemer closer than I.”
Midrash Rabbah – Ruth VI:2 AND NOW, MY DAUGHTER, FEAR NOT… AND NOW IT IS TRUE THAT I AM A NEAR KINSMAN; HOWBEIT THERE IS A KINSMAN NEARER THAN I (III, 11 f.). The Rabbis and R. Joshua b. Levi commented on this. The Rabbis were of the opinion that Tob, Elimelech, and Boaz were brothers, while R. Joshua said that Salmon, Elimelech, and Tob were brothers. It was objected to him: But it is written, Which was our brother Elimelech’s (ib. IV, 3)? He answered: A man does not refrain from calling his uncle brother.
Ruth 3:13 “Stay this night. And it shall be in the morning, if he will redeem you, good! let him redeem. But if he does not want to redeem you, I will redeem you. As the Lord lives! Lie until morning.”
Targum: “Lodge here, and in the morning, if the man qualified to redeem you according to the Torah redeems you, very well, let him redeem you. But if he is unwilling to redeem you, then I will redeem you. I swear by an oath before God, that I will do just as I have spoken to you. Sleep now until the morning.”
Midrash Rabbah:
Ruth VI:2 TARRY THIS NIGHT (III, 13). This night you will spend without a husband, but you will not be without a husband for another night. AND IT SHALL BE IN THE MORNING, THAT IF HE WILL PERFORM UNTO THEE THE PART OF A KINSMAN, WELL; LET HIM DO THE KINSMAN’S PART; BUT IF HE BE NOT WILLING TO DO THE PART OF A KINSMAN TO THEE, THEN WILL I DO THE PART OF A KINSMAN TO THEE (ib. 13).
TARRY THIS NIGHT in this world which is all night, AND IT SHALL BE IN THE MORNING, IF THE GOOD ONE WILL REDEEM THEE, HE WILL REDEEM THEE. IT SHALL BE IN THE MORNING refers to the world which is all good. IF THE GOOD ONE WILL REDEEM THEE, the GOOD ONE is the Holy One, blessed be He, as it is said, The Lord is good to all (Ps. CXLV, 9). BUT IF HE WILL NOT REDEEM THEE, THEN WILL I REDEEM THEE; AS THE LORD LIVETH, LIE HERE TILL THE MORNING, and the fire subsided. … R. Jose said: Three individuals found their Evil Inclination mastering them, and they fortified themselves against it by taking an oath, namely Joseph, David, and Boaz. Joseph, as it is written, How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God (Gen. XXXIX, 9). R. Huna said in the name of R. Idi: Is Scripture ever defective?’ It does not say ‘and sin against the Lord’ but ’and sin against God’; he swore to his Evil Inclination and said, ‘By God, I will not sin nor do this evil!’ How do we know it of David? Because it is said, And David said: As the Lord liveth, nay, but the Lord shall smite him (I Sam. XXVI, 10). To whom did he take this oath? R. Eleazar and R. Samuel b. Nahman gave different answers. R. Eleazar said: He took an oath to his Evil Inclination; R. Samuel b. Nahman said: He took an oath to Abishai the son of Zeruiah, saying to him, ‘ As the Lord liveth, if you touch him, I swear that I will mingle your blood with his.’ How do we know it of Boaz? Because it is said, As THE LORD LIVETH, LIE DOWN UNTIL THE MORNING. R. Judah and R. Hunya commented on this. R. Judah said: All that night his Evil Inclination contended with him, saying, ‘You are unmarried and seek a wife, and she is unmarried and seeks a husband. Arise and have intercourse with her, and make her your wife.’ And he took an oath to his Evil Inclination, saying, ‘As the Lord liveth, I will not touch her,’ and to the woman he said, LIE DOWN UNTIL THE MORNING (III, 13)… IF HE WILL PERFORM UNTO THEE THE PART OF A KINSMAN, WELL; LET HIM DO A KINSMAN’S PART (ib. 13). R. Hunya said: It is written, A wise man is strong (be’oz); yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength (Prov. XXIV, 5): read not ’ be’oz ‘ (strong), but Boaz; ‘ A wise man is Boaz, and a man of knowledge increaseth strength,’ for he strengthened himself with an oath.
Ruth 3:14 She lay at his feet until the morning. Then she rose before a man could recognize his friend, for he said, “let it not be known that the woman came to the threshing floor.”
Midrash Rabbah – Ruth VII:1 AND SHE LAY AT HIS FEET UNTIL THE MORNING, AND SHE ROSE UP BEFORE ONE COULD DISCERN THE OTHER (III, 14). R. Berekiah said: BEFORE (BETEREM) is written with an extra vav teaching that she tarried with him for six hours, the numerical equivalent of the letter vav. FOR HE SAID: LET IT NOT BE KNOWN THAT THE WOMAN CAME TO THE THRESHING-FLOOR (ib.). To whom did he say this? R. Meir said: To his major- domo. R. Hunya and R. Jeremiah in the name of R. Samuel b. R. Isaac said: All that night Boaz lay stretched out upon his face, and prayed, ‘Lord of the Universe, it is revealed and known to Thee that I did not touch her; so may it be Thy will that it be not known that the woman came to the threshing-floor, that the name of Heaven be not profaned through me.’
Against my better judgement, I will respond. You and I disagree about a hundred items, and I don’t see why I should have to provide evidence on every item, and you not. Further, you tell me to go off chasing these rabbits, while you refuse to defend the more central points that I ask you defend. But, since you keep insisting, I will chased this irrelevant rabbit: Yemeni girls were normally married very young to much older men. They could not choose their husbands. They never learned to read or write. Not allowed to leave the house. Not allowed to handle money. There is a yemeni song where a woman complains her prospective husband is so old and frail that he will not be able to hold her tight, which song seems presuppose the singer is being married against her will. The overall picture is inconsistent with a woman having the right to divorce at whim, or refuse a husband. If divorce at will, or right to refuse, then a woman does get to choose her husband.
Anything short of sufficiently enthusiastic support constituting harassment.
If someone is being openly homosexual in my face then he is harassing me. Too much unwanted information. When my openly homosexual friends were excessively open, I would shut them down and they never repeated the performance. Similarly the notorious little boy gay face, which is not cute in an adult male. My involuntary and non verbal reaction discouraged repetition. And when I say open, no friend has, or is ever likely to, engage in a public display of deviant affection in my presence. I don’t think this is harassment, but politeness. Pretty sure, however, orthodox Jewry, as of 2010, would regard it as harassment. My position was, and is, that gays have to let me ignore the fact that they are gay. They can tell, but not keep on telling. It upsets my stomach.
And even my position was pretty left wing and pro gay compared to Orthodoxy Jewry around 2008, whose position was “don’t ask, don’t tell”
And the Orthodox 2008 Jewish position was pretty left wing and pro gay compared to the slightly earlier Orthodox Jewish position “If you get caught, severe social consequences. We don’t want immoral people in our community”
No one in the twenty first century proposes to “harass” the openly gay – but to not include them. Which Rabbis before 2008 generally did hold. The definition of “harass”, however, is expanding alarmingly.
Your Talmud says oil is different. Saying that it is the same is a later expansion of holiness, a much later expansion of holiness, a very recent expansion of holiness. As I said, your talmud is twenty old testaments, each incompatible with each of the others and incompatible with the original.
It is a pretty large leap from all of the above. Washing liquid is not broth. Broth transmits food and flavor. Washing removes food and flavor. It is a large and fundamental difference.
Shulchan Aruch specifically says that sufficiently hot water with ashes in it is OK (ashes being caustic soda, strong soap). According to him, if hot and caustic enough to lift fatty substances from the dishes, you can wash plates exposed to cheese grease and animal grease in the same bucket of hot caustic water. (My interpretation of google’s somewhat garbled translation from Hebrew)
Then later, other people start disagreeing. So one old testament replacement worries only about oil. The next worries about washing water if the water is not hot enough or lacks soap. Then the next says that even if the water is really hot and really soapy, that is not good enough.
So we can see that at one stage, one old testament replacement, good enough washing water was explicitly permitted (sixteenth century). And then at a later stage, the next old testament replacement, no washing water is good enough. This is clear, and quite recent, movement to ever greater holiness.
So, until the sixteenth century, no Jew worried about washing water transmitting cheese to meat or meat to cheese.
After the sixteenth century, after the Shulchan Aruch, Jews worried that washing water had to be good enough (scalding hot, with soap in it)
So when did they start thinking that no washing water was good enough? Pretty sure it was the twentieth century, maybe late nineteenth.
So the question is, what is the date of the first people to disagree with Shulchan Aruch , the first people to claim that no washing water is good enough? I am pretty sure that they are very recent. The more you have to tolerate gays, the less you tolerate boiling a goat in its mother’s milk.
Sodomites started to be PC about the time of Oscar Wilde, though the lower classes resisted until 1970 or so. But orthodox Jews would naturally follow the example of the upper classes, who were fine with sodomy. So my guess would be the rule that, contrary to the Sulchan Aruch, no washing liquid is good enough came into effect some time after Oscar Wilde. The more you are likely to get semen on your dishes, the less you tolerate cheese.
Orthodoxy Judaism suffers the same drift as Christianity: Ever greater holiness, ever greater acceptance of homosexuality, divorce, and female emancipation, which leads to the holier than Jesus left, or in your case the holier than Moses left.
And yet, today, it is necessary to explicitly tell them that that includes babies. Were women in earlier times smarter?
I will resume the Ruth issue some later time. You have provided me with several Talmudic texts that were less evasive than I incorrectly believed.
But still, evasive, recall that Ruth’s request is made in the dark, in bed, after she has anointed herself, and Boaz is half drunk. In this context, that she asks him to take possession of her means …
In which case the conversation can be paraphrased and summarized as:
Ruth: I am legally and socially obligated to have sex with you, and you with me.
Boaz: Nope, I am afraid that is my kinsman, but I will see what I can do about that. However, no need to get out of bed right now.
Ruth: the Torah says I’m supposed to… *giggle*
Boaz: I disagree, but I can check with my phylactery when it’s light out
Normal People (ca. 1500): makes sense
Hidden Author; I find the very concept that a woman could be obligated to have sex with anyone but me morally repugnant. Boaz is oppressing Ruth, and I’m going to tweet this to his employer so he can get fired and blacklisted. By the way, I’m not a leftist, I believe in the non-aggression principle, under which everything will work normally except that women will be able to choose me.
B: Actually, Jim, Jew marriage is different from Christian marriage in a number of ways, such as being more vacuous than Mahometan temporary marriage to a slut; but don’t think that Jews don’t have laws, we don’t eat fish with buttermilk biscuits because thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.
Peppermint: Ͼ(°◡°)Ͽ
Yes the letter does deal with the openly gay. You are both reinterpreting the letter, to make it less pro gay, and re-interpreting the very recent past of orthodox Judaism to make it more pro gay, to deny the obvious and alarming rapid shift of orthodox Judaism towards accepting sodomy and homosexuality.
Earlier parts of the talmud, the items you linked to, only thought that oil transmits flavor. To get “hot liquid”, you are going to have to go to links to later parts of the talmud – much later parts.
Whatever he says, he says it is OK to wash dishes exposed to meat grease and cheese grease together in the same container and same washing water, provided that the washing water is hot, caustic, and effective in lifting grease and food residue.
This shows a trend to greater and greater holiness.
Third century, minor concern with accidental contamination between meat and milk dishes. They are worried about fish grease getting onto cheese.
Later, increasing concern.
Sixteenth century, concern reaches the washing water. You have to use sufficiently hot and caustic wash.
Late nineteenth, early twentieth century, no wash is sufficiently hot or caustic. You have to use separate washes.
This is the same drift to ever greater holiness as destroyed Christianity. They are holier than Jesus, you are holier than Moses.
Not what he says. You are doing to Shulchan Aruch what you did to the book of Ruth and the laws of Deuteronomy.
Terfillin were a custom invented by Rabbis when you still had Israel, and faithfully transmitted around the world during exile.
You could not escalate the holiness of Terfillin, because it was already ridiculous, and Jesus was obviously correct to rib you on it.
You could, however, escalate the ridiculousness of not boiling a goat in its mother’s milk, and have been doing so all the way into the the twenty first century, the latest twist being separate mini dishwashers.
The telephone from the past gets broken when there is external pressure on the Jewish community to be less holy, for example emancipating women, accepting homosexuality, and when there is opportunity to be holier than thou (separate dishwashers)
Checking earlier and later additions to the Talmud, obviously not faithful. The Jewish community is both engaging in the game of holier than thou ridiculed by Jesus, and bending to the wind.
Both of which converge, as when Orthodox rabbis announce that being accepting of homosexuality is holy.
And lo and behold, you find yourself arguing that my spontaneous gut reaction to homosexuals showing their homosexuality is insufficiently holy. You are holier than I am because you are nicer to gays than I am.
Not sure why you deleted my response and replied in my name, but ok.
>Yes the letter does deal with the openly gay. You are both reinterpreting the letter, to make it less pro gay, and re-interpreting the very recent past of orthodox Judaism to make it more pro gay, to deny the obvious and alarming rapid shift of orthodox Judaism towards accepting sodomy and homosexuality.
The letter says the following:
“Accordingly, Jews with homosexual orientations or same sex-attractions should be welcomed as full members of the synagogue and school community. As appropriate with regard to gender and lineage, they should participate and count ritually, be eligible for ritual synagogue honors, and generally be treated in the same fashion and under the same halakhic and hashkafic framework as any other member of the synagogue they join. Conversely, they must accept and fulfill all the responsibilities of such membership, including those generated by communal norms or broad Jewish principles that go beyond formal halakha.
We do not here address what synagogues should do about accepting members
who are openly practicing homosexuals and/or living with a same-sex partner. ”
Translation: we are talking about people with homosexual desires or orientations (whatever that means.) Openly gay people are not addressed here.
>Earlier parts of the talmud, the items you linked to, only thought that oil transmits flavor.
No, I linked to and quoted parts that said that brine and broth transmit flavor.
>Whatever he says, he says it is OK to wash dishes exposed to meat grease and cheese grease together in the same container and same washing water, provided that the washing water is hot, caustic, and effective in lifting grease and food residue.
He says that he thinks that it is okay. He doesn’t say that it is the preferred way of doing things. He says that if you wash clean milk and meat dishes together, it’s probably ok, and if you wash dirty ones together with lye, he thinks it’s ok. Again, the point of the caustic substance is not that it “lifts” grease and residue, but that it spoils its taste. And finally, generally, people didn’t wash their dishes with lye back then. If you look even at metal pots from that time period, they were cast iron, and so would get scoured.
>Third century, minor concern with accidental contamination between meat and milk dishes. They are worried about fish grease getting onto cheese.
There is no “minor concern.” There is “these things are not done” vs. “these things are ok.” The fish grease is not the issue-the issue is that the grease serves as a transmitting agent
>Sixteenth century, concern reaches the washing water. You have to use sufficiently hot and caustic wash.
Not what he’s saying. You are not picking up what he’s putting down. The issue isn’t that the water needs to be hot. The hotter it is, the more of a problem.
Late nineteenth, early twentieth century, no wash is sufficiently hot or caustic. You have to use separate washes.
This is the same drift to ever greater holiness as destroyed Christianity. They are holier than Jesus, you are holier than Moses.
>>The point is, what if you are in a situation where you have a giant dairy pot and nothing else to wash dishes in, and you have meat dishes you need to wash. What then? Obviously, this is not the standard or preferred situation, and the fact that the Shulchan Aruch addresses it specifically means it’s not normal and problematic.
>Not what he says. You are doing to Shulchan Aruch what you did to the book of Ruth and the laws of Deuteronomy.
You are doing to the Shulchan Aruch what you did to those sources, i.e., not reading it but skimming to find things that might support your argument, and discarding the rest. He says, “meat plates placed in a dairy cauldron.” Exactly what i said.
>Terfillin were a custom invented by Rabbis when you still had Israel, and faithfully transmitted around the world during exile.
Amazing. When was this? When did they invent this custom? How do you know that this was the date? Certainly even in the times of the First Temple there were large Jewish communities outside Israel-how is it they didn’t refuse to wear tefillin, or interpret the commandment in a different way?
>You could not escalate the holiness of Terfillin, because it was already ridiculous, and Jesus was obviously correct to rib you on it.
It’s “tefillin,” not “Terfillin.” As for Jesus and his correctness, we see where it logically got him-his followers have split into lesbian pastors with nose piercings and the Pope who kisses African toes and explains that it is very proper for Muslims to kill people who hurt their feelings by drawing Muhammad.
I am confused as to why tefillin were more ridiculous than any other part of the Oral Torah, i.e., the part prohibiting mixing dairy and meat, the part demanding we slaughter animals with a knife with no nicks in the blade and with smooth movements, the part where we affix little Torah scrolls to our doorways, etc. Furthermore, if tefillin were arbitrarily imposed by some rabbis in an attempt to be holier than thou, surely some other rabbis would have come up with bigger tefillin, tefillin with 8 or 16 compartments instead of 4, etc. What, you think we lack imagination?
Strangely, all these communities understood Shabbat the exact same way, and the laws of marriage and divorce (otherwise, they would not intermarry-the children of a woman who was improperly divorced from her husband are illegitimate and forbidden for marriage forever.) I could come up with a lot of other examples as well.
>The telephone from the past gets broken when there is external pressure on the Jewish community to be less holy, for example emancipating women, accepting homosexuality, and when there is opportunity to be holier than thou (separate dishwashers)
Any telephone from the past is automatically broken. How many traditions from your great grandfather do you faithfully keep on a daily basis? Exactly.
In general, your position is completely inconsistent. We are either too holy or not holy enough, holier than our ancestors of 3000 years ago or less holy, depending on whether you find a particular commandment convenient (as in the case of marriage,) in which case we’re not holy enough, or inconvenient (Kashrut and Shabbat,) in which case we’re too holy.
>Checking earlier and later additions to the Talmud, obviously not faithful.
We’ve already demonstrated that not only do you know very little about the Talmud but you have trouble using Google to peruse its translations.
>And lo and behold, you find yourself arguing that my spontaneous gut reaction to homosexuals showing their homosexuality is insufficiently holy. You are holier than I am because you are nicer to gays than I am.
Your spontaneous gut reaction is neither sufficiently holy nor insufficiently holy. Holiness has nothing to do with it one way or the other. If someone keeps a commandment because its violation is gross, they are not really keeping the commandment. The letter you brought up was addressed to Orthodox Jews of a certain bent, who consider its author and cosignatories authoritative. I am certain that you do not fall into this category, so obviously you are not obliged by it. The laws governing you are different.
As for me being nicer to gays-unlike you, I have no gay friends that I know of, nor gay neighbors, nor have I ever been in a synagogue where one of the members felt the need to inform me, implicitly or explicitly, that he was a homosexual (even in Silicon Valley!) Were a homosexual Jew to inform me that he was homosexual, I would tell him that I had no interest in this aspect of his life, the same as if he informed me that he was a Shabbat violator or an adulterer or cheated in business. If I saw a reasonable chance of success, I would rebuke him, as commanded by the Torah. I would certainly not seek out Jews whose mannerisms struck me as homosexual in order to rebuke them, because this would be rude, uncivil and unlikely to have any useful result. The author and signatories of the letter are trying, as are most Modern Orthodox Jews, to dance with modern non-Jewish society without becoming a breeding ground for its various infections. I’m not a huge fan of their approach, which is a bit conciliatory for me, but I am certain that they won’t be holding any gay weddings in the near future, or explaining that homosexuality is fine according to halacha. Were they to do so, their audience would leave them and find other authorities to follow.
Sorry, have been making this error a lot. I press the edit button, instead of the reply button.
I find this translation mighty odd.
Orthodox Jews are now forbidden to embarrass a gay. I don’t see how you can avoid gay marriage. Is the rabbi not embarrassing someone if he refuses to gay marry him?
“the decision as to whether to be open about one’s sexual orientation should be left to such individuals”. So if a gay gets in your face with his gayness, as gays are notoriously apt to do, hoping to turn people they meet onto homosexuality, you are not allowed to let your visceral reaction show.
This is now unambiguously forbidden for American Orthodox Jews. I cannot see any reasonable reading of the letter under which it is still permitted. You are embarassing him.
The letter envisages openly gay rabbis – a decision that each community must make for itself – alone – without being able to call upon the authority of other communities to protect it against pressure. Alinksy laughs. If openly gay rabbis, gay weddings will follow shortly after.
And you will be defending them, in the same manner as you defend this small step leading to them.
The letter says that gay rabbis are choice that each orthodox synagogue must make for itself, “the responsibility of the lay and rabbinic leadership in each individual community to determine eligibility for those offices in line with those principles, the importance of maintaining communal harmony, and the unique context of its community culture.” which means that each synagogue that has a heterosexual rabbi stands by itself separately, alone against the full might of the Cathedral, unsupported, undefended. Many will fold, gay rabbis will ensue, gay marriage will ensue, and after many have folded, gay rabbis, and gay marriage, from being optional, will necessarily become mandatory. The Cathedral is going to say “oh no, you cannot embarrass someone by excluding him from holy office on the basis of his open and active homosexuality, and his energetic and highly visible efforts to recruit alarmingly young males, well below age of consent, to homosexuality”. And that interpretation, the interpretation that will be pushed on the most vulnerable synagogue by the full united and disciplined might of the Cathedral, is at least as reasonable, indeed a lot more reasonable, than your interpretation. The most progressive orthodox synagogue in the entire united states will be hit by the most pressure, the shrillest accusations of homophobia, and will find itself alone, its leading members (who are of course good progressives, the most progressive people one can find in the entire orthodox community) accused of homophobia, and no one defending them, no defense possible, not a leg to stand on against the most progressive possible interpretation of this document, having already forbidden anyone to defend them. It is for their particular community to decide, their particularly progressive and vulnerable community, they cannot call on Orthodoxy as their defense.
Someone wants to use the synagogue to expose thirteen year old boys to homosexual role models, are you not embarrassing him if you object? After all, homosexual orientation is fixed at birth, not a choice, and if you notice that in practice gay activists tend to act as if they believe that young boys have fluid and changeable sexual identity, you are embarrassing homosexuals. Orthodox Jews in America are now forbidden to notice! Noticing embarrasses homosexuals.
I don’t think you did. If you did, please do so again. I keep repetitively quoting the stuff that supports my points when you repetitively deny them.
And if you did, dishwashing water is not broth. There is nothing before the sixteenth century that anyone would think was guidance that one had to be particularly careful in washing dishes in order to keep milk and meat separate. There is nothing before the sixteenth century that would lead someone to think that the rabbis were worried about dishwashing water.
That is exactly the position that Jesus took. Was he being inconsistent? That Rabbis compensate for violating the spirit and intent of the law by doubling down on formal compliance. The first American Orthodox synagogue that has an openly gay rabbi perform gay marriages, is going to demand quadruple dishwashers, or some similar new holiness.
That is not what he says. What he says, what the sixteenth century talmud says, is that if you wash dirty milk and meat dishes together, then the water needs to be sufficiently hot and caustic water to lift the grease.
And before the sixteenth century, the talmud does not address how you clean dishes.
Jesus found them so. I find them so also. But nothing is funny if the joke needs to be explained.
>Orthodox Jews are now forbidden to embarrass a gay. I don’t see how you can avoid gay marriage. Is the rabbi not embarrassing someone if he refuses to gay marry him?
You are forbidden from publicly humiliating someone. You are also forbidden from helping him sin, from encouraging, from placing a stumbling block in front of the blind.
>So if a gay gets in your face with his gayness, as gays are notoriously apt to do, hoping to turn people they meet onto homosexuality, you are not allowed to let your visceral reaction show.
This is your personal interpretation. The letter isn’t prescribing any particular individual’s personal response to homosexuals’ flamboyantly gay behavior, as it explicitly says. It is making recommendations for those communities who choose to follow them on how to deal with closet homosexuals.
>This is now unambiguously forbidden for American Orthodox Jews.
First, this letter isn’t binding upon American Orthodox Jews. It’s not even binding upon a significant fraction of American Orthodox Jews. It’s the opinion of some rabbis and other individuals. Second, it is not prescribing individuals’ behavior.
>The letter envisages openly gay rabbis – a decision that each community must make for itself – alone – without being able to call upon the authority of other communities to protect it against pressure.
It is not speaking of openly gay rabbis, or secretly gay rabbis, or any such thing. It says that closeted, non-open homosexuals should be allowed to go up to the Torah etc. In the next point, it says that the community needs to decide whether to allow closeted homosexuals to hold positions such as cantor.
>The letter says that gay rabbis are choice that each orthodox synagogue must make for itself, “the responsibility of the lay and rabbinic leadership in each individual community to determine eligibility for those offices in line with those principles, the importance of maintaining communal harmony, and the unique context of its community culture.†which means that each synagogue that has a heterosexual rabbi stands by itself separately, alone against the full might of the Cathedral, unsupported, undefended.
Yes, yes, we are all doomed, DOOMED!!!111
But somehow we survived the Greeks, the Romans, the Catholic Church, Luther and the Nazis. I suspect we’ll do ok here too. A lot more people are tempted by unkosher food and non-Jewish women, for instance, than by gay sex. Yet we notice that there are no Orthodox synagogues where you can enjoy a shrimp cocktail, or where intermarried Jews are given positions of honor, despite the last 130 years of attempts by the Cathedral: http://www.blogher.com/rabbis-banquet-or-why-its-kosher-not-keep-kosher
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/history/Modern_History/1700-1914/Denominationalism/Reform/trefa_banquet.shtml
>Someone wants to use the synagogue to expose thirteen year old boys to homosexual role models, are you not embarrassing him if you object?
You are not. First, he is an open homosexual and thus outside the bounds of this letter. Second, it’s obvious that when his behavior comes into conflict with communal safety, he will be acted against in the exact same way as someone convincing Jewish children to violate Shabbat, eat unkosher food, etc.
>I don’t think you did. If you did, please do so again. I keep repetitively quoting the stuff that supports my points when you repetitively deny them.
Yes, I noticed. Quite obnoxious, since it presumes that I’m not familiar with the plain text, where my issue is that the text means not what it means on first reading but what the rabbis explain it means. In any case, if you go here http://halakhah.com/rst/kodoshim/43d%20-%20Chullin%20-%2089b-120a.pdf and read Chullin 96a through 97b and onwards, you can see they are speaking at about transmission of taste by various media.
>And if you did, dishwashing water is not broth.
Irrelevant. Hot water transmits taste. Hence the point of broth.
>That is exactly the position that Jesus took.
Well, yeah. You’re not exactly going to convince a religious Jew that he’s wrong by pointing out that Jesus disagreed with him.
>Was he being inconsistent? That Rabbis compensate for violating the spirit and intent of the law by doubling down on formal compliance.
Yes, of course he was being inconsistent. We can see that a result of his demagoguery, his followers eventually chucked formal compliance and spirit, and have explained that the intent is that the Pope should kiss African refugee feet and explain that Muslims killing people is perfectly reasonable..
>That is not what he says. What he says, what the sixteenth century talmud says, is that if you wash dirty milk and meat dishes together, then the water needs to be sufficiently hot and caustic water to lift the grease.
The Shulchan Aruch is not “the sixteenth century talmud.” It’s a commentary on the Talmud. Again, he does not say that the water needs to be sufficiently hot. For the 5th time, its heat is part of the problem. And he doesn’t say the caustic is significant because it cleans the grease, but rather because it ruins its taste.
>And before the sixteenth century, the talmud does not address how you clean dishes.
It presents general principles, and elucidates various points as its authors see fit. Again, your physics textbook is not obliged to tell you that after four seconds of freefall, an object will be going 39 m/s.
>Jesus found them so. I find them so also. But nothing is funny if the joke needs to be explained.
Yeah, I guess we talk like fags and don’t laugh when “Ow! My balls!” comes on. But you’re even cooler than Jesus. He never said the commandment to wear tefillin no longer applied. He wore tzitzit, which are commanded the same way as tefillin. And so when he says, hey, your tefillin are too big, his followers say, why you wearing those funny boxes? You a fag or something?
The word used is “embarrass“, which covers a far, far broader class of acts than “publicly humiliate” If they meant “publicly humiliate”, would have said “publicly humiliate”.
It is as if some twentieth century rabbi issued a ruling on cleaning the dishes to avoid the slightest possible contact between cheese and meat, and you told me that all he was talking about was boiling a goat in its mother’s milk, nothing to do with cheeseburgers whatsoever.
No, it is explicitly making recommendations on how to deal with open homosexuals.
Then those orthodox rabbis that actually are old type orthodox, 2008 orthodox, need to get together and issue an opinion that disagrees, that lays greater emphasis on demanding that people refrain from homosexuality or the appearance of homosexuality and which forbids openly gay rabbis for any synagogue anywhere, that commits rabbis everywhere to support any one synagogue anywhere that comes under pressure to appoint openly gay rabbis. That the left get away with issuing this opinion, and no contrary opinion, no real debate, ensues, makes it orthodoxy. That is, in practice, how orthodoxy gets continuously made and remade, how the Talmud grows and grows. Everything in the Talmud was at one time just an opinion of one random Rabbi. And then people came to think that what the older Talmud said had to be viewed through that rabbi, rather than standing on its own.
Pretty soon the Talmud has to read through Rabbi A, who has to be read through Rabbi B, who has to read through rabbi C, who has to read through Rabbi D, so Rabbi A gets in there, in due course followed by Rabbi B, while Rabbi C gets deemed mandatory reading, but not exactly Talmud, while rabbis E, F, G and H start arguing that rabbi D did not mean what he said nor say what he meant, elevating Rabbi D in status while simultaneously depriving him of all independent meaning until he joins the pantheon with Rabbi C, who, similarly, has already been elevated to immense status, ready to join the Talmud, while, like the Talmud, stripped of all independent meaning, because Rabbi C has become merely a hook on which Rabbi D hangs his opinions, and Rabbi D merely a hook upon which rabbis E, F, G and H hang their opinions.
Yes it is speaking about openly gay rabbis.
This letter is primarily about people who are openly homosexual. It tells us we must not discourage gays from coming out by acting in ways that embarrass gays that have come out.
And this hypothetical homosexual is deeply alarmed that thirteen year old boys use “gay” as a slur, contrary to what this letter demands, so to remedy this terrible problem, wants to show them male role models in love with each other. Clearly he is giving effect to the spirit and intent of this letter, and if you act in ways that imply that he is not giving effect to the spirit and intent of this letter, but rather is a pedophile recruiting little boys, you are embarrassing him – indeed, you are publicly humiliating him.
You did not really survive the Greeks, in the sense that pre Greek Judaism no longer exists. The combination of tolerance and condescension is remarkably effective. Like Christians, Jews thrive on persecution. It is tolerance that they cannot handle.
That is one of the reasons that the Cathedral is trying tolerance and condescension on Muslims, against whom it is considerably less effective than on Jews.
They are speaking of nothing of the kind. No media are involved. They are all about direct contact Rather, these are merely the hooks on which twentieth century rabbis have hung their opinions about media, in the process depriving them of all their original meaning, turning them from Jewish law, into hooks upon which Jewish law is hung. Jews today never think about the sciatic nerve, nor consider the opinions of a gentile cook about what gives cheese flavor to dishes and what does not.
These articles discuss direct contact, not indirect contact, and conclude that quite substantial amounts of direct contact are OK.
For example 96a is entirely about how much of an animals sciatic nerve one is permitted to eat. Then 96b worries that if meat is cooked with the sciatic nerve intact, is the meat OK to eat, because the sciatic nerve may have transmitted its flavor to the meat. No media are involved. They conclude that the meat is OK to eat, even though it has come into far more intimate contact with the sciatic nerve, than meat has come into contact with milk by being served on dishes that have been washed in the same water as dishes exposed to milk. The meat is in direct, not indirect, contact with the sciatic nerve.
In 97a they are worried about the meat cooked in the same pot as cheese dish without any washing in between. Again, no media involved, there is going to be some small actual contact between meat and dairy. And they conclude that if you can taste the cheese, it is a problem, but if you cannot taste it, or if the opinion of gentile cook is that you cannot taste it, that is OK. If your cook says “no, this is not a cheese flavored meat dish”, well, OK, the cook is probably more expert on flavors and cooking than the rabbi. They are talking about actual cheesy taste, discernible to the ordinary senses of an ordinary cook, not some magical invisible intangible contamination discernible only to the magic powers of the rabbi.
What do today’s Jews do about the sciatic nerve? Theoretically they don’t eat it, but in practice pay no attention. A Jewish housewife buys a whole chicken. Can she find and remove the sciatic nerve? I am sure you could build a reasonably ancient case that you are allowed to eat the sciatic nerve of birds – but you can build an even more ancient case that this business of wash water is bunkum.
>The word used is “embarrass“, which covers a far, far broader class of acts than “publicly humiliateâ€
They mean “publicly humiliate.” The context they use the word embarrass is that of mitzvot, meaning, the obligations between Jews which apply to gays as well, and there is an obligation to refrain from humiliating your fellow.
>No, it is explicitly making recommendations on how to deal with open homosexuals.
The only thing it says about them is that individual communities need to decide how to deal with them, doing it consistently (meaning that they should be treated consistently with eg open Shabbat violators, I presume).
>Everything in the Talmud was at one time just an opinion of one random Rabbi. And then people came to think that what the older Talmud said had to be viewed through that rabbi, rather than standing on its own.
Practically everything has multiple recorded, reasoned opinions, with a minority opinion and a majority opinion, and occasionally latter authorities go with the minority vs. the majority. We are not postmodernists, but we do have a system . I suspect that with time this will sort itself out the same exact way as intermarriage and kashrut did.
>Yes it is speaking about openly gay rabbis.
It is not. First, the letter says “we do not here address what synagogues should do about accepting members
who are openly practicing homosexuals and/or living with a same-sex partner.” So, not primarily about the openly gay. Second, when it says about those who are NOT openly gay, ” as appropriate with regard to gender and lineage, they should participate and count ritually, be eligible for ritual synagogue honors, etc.” this is not referring to rabbis. It’s talking about things like counting someone for a quorum (you need 10 to pray as a group,) calling him up to the Torah to read, etc.
>You did not really survive the Greeks, in the sense that pre Greek Judaism no longer exists.
That’s a bit of sophistry. Since we don’t have a lot of detail on pre-Greek Judaism outside the Jewish tradition, which you discount, you feel free to interpret it as whatever you wish, and then say that whatever you say it was no longer exists.
>The combination of tolerance and condescension is remarkably effective. Like Christians, Jews thrive on persecution. It is tolerance that they cannot handle.
Amazingly, we survived the tolerant Persians and the occasionally tolerant Muslims..
>They are speaking of nothing of the kind. No media are involved. They are all about direct contact
No, the fish is indirect contact. And when they discuss what happens when a sciatic nerve was cooked with other nerves in a broth, they see this as worse than when it is roasted. If it is roasted, you can cut away the meat around it and eat everything else, but if it is boiled, it can impart its flavor to the rest of the meat in the pot.
MISHNAH. IF A THIGH WAS COOKED
TOGETHER WITH THE SCIATIC NERVE
AND THERE WAS SO MUCH [OF THE
NERVE] AS TO IMPART A FLAVOUR [TO
THE THIGH], IT IS FORBIDDEN… AND AS FOR THE
BROTH IT DEPENDS WHETHER IT [THE
SCIATIC NERVE] IMPARTED A FLAVOUR
OR NOT. AND SO IT IS WITH A PIECE OF
NEBELAH (something that died by itself), OR A PIECE OF AN UNCLEAN
FISH. THAT WAS COOKED TOGETHER
WITH OTHER PIECES OF FLESH [OR FISH]:
IF IT CAN STILL BE RECOGNIZED, THEN IT
DEPENDS WHETHER IT IMPARTED A
FLAVOUR OR NOT; AND IF IT CAN NO
LONGER [BE RECOGNIZED]. THEN ALL
PIECES ARE FORBIDDEN; AND AS FOR THE
BROTH IT DEPENDS WHETHER IT12
IMPARTED A FLAVOUR OR NOT.
GEMARA. Samuel said: This [ruling of our
Mishnah] applies only to the case where they
were cooked together,but if they were
roasted together one may then cut away [the
meat] and eat it until one reaches the nerve
See? Where there is direct contact, it’s not so much of a problem, but when there is a medium of transmission, it’s a problem. And in 99b they talk about the brine of a forbidden fish.
>In 97a they are worried about the meat cooked in the same pot as cheese dish without any washing in between. Again, no media involved, there is going to be some small actual contact between meat and dairy. And they conclude that if you can taste the cheese, it is a problem, but if you cannot taste it, or if the opinion of gentile cook is that you cannot taste it, that is OK.
In 97b they talk about an udder which was not emptied of its milk and cooked with meat, and say that the question is whether or not the milk made up less than 1/60th of the volume of the food. In any case, the vast majority of people don’t have a gentile cook standing by, and they are speaking about what makes someone liable for eating forbidden food. Most people who care about these things take care to stay back from the line instead of toeing it. Thus, for instance, we know that after 24 hours, a clean pot doesn’t impart taste. But the law in practice is that we don’t rely on this as a best practice, since people are apt to lose track of what they used when.
>What do today’s Jews do about the sciatic nerve?
We don’t eat it. Ashkenazim don’t deal with the hindquarters of an animal in general as a custom, Sepharadim and Yemenites have experts called menakers who remove the sciatic nerve after slaughter (this is actually a harder skill set than slaughter, which itself is a very complex skill set.) The difference came about as a result of European Jews, for economic reasons not entirely clear to me, being able to sell the hindquarters profitably to non-Jews, and thus losing the skillset because this was a time-intensive job requiring specialist work.
>A Jewish housewife buys a whole chicken. Can she find and remove the sciatic nerve? I am sure you could build a reasonably ancient case that you are allowed to eat the sciatic nerve of birds – but you can build an even more ancient case that this business of wash water is bunkum.
But nobody (no authorities I’m aware of) has ever built the case of wash water being bunkum. Whereas everybody knows that the sciatic nerve of birds doesn’t fall under the prohibition. In fact, birds aren’t technically considered meat; not mixing dairy and fowl is a universal custom, not a prohibition, and we have individual rabbis in the Talmud eating the mixture.
That is like claiming that when a twentieth century rabbi says “McDonald’s Cheeseburger” he actually means “young goat cooked in its mother’s milk”
They are using the public humiliation rule as a hook on which to hang gay rights, in the same way as you and twentieth century rabbis use the rules on clean and unclean foods cooked together in the same dish as a hook on which to hang double dishwashers.
First, the letter says “we do not here address what synagogues should do about accepting members who are openly practicing homosexuals and/or living with a same-sex partner.â€
But they do address it. The synagogue may not embarrass openly practicing homosexuals.
Further, they do address it in that they say up to each synagogue. So when one synagogue cops the heat for “homophobia”, from Alinksyites applying the isolate and target rule, that targeted synagogue cannot say “Sorry, our religion has a rule that in effect says no openly gay rabbis, so we though we would all love to yield to your entirely reasonable demands, we have to clear it a hundred other seriously unenlightened rabbis first, and all those other horribly reactionary unenlightened rabbis are stopping us from doing what we would dearly love to do.”
Another bunch of rabbis need to get together and say “openly gay people cannot be rabbis, and cannot do this and that in the synagogue, and if that embarrasses them, hard biscuit”, and to the best of my knowledge they are not getting together and saying this. Rather, the orthodox right wing rabbis are all hiding under their beds trembling lest someone ask them the question.
A broth is not a “medium of transmission”. You eat the broth, and if you cook substantial amounts of brain or nerve tissue a broth, there are gobs of tasty fat floating around in the broth. If they were worried about the broth touching the fish, and then you eat the fish, then it would be a medium of transmission.
There is no way you can get from foods cooked together to double dishwashers. It is just a third century hook on which you are hanging twentieth century rules.
It is clear in all cases that they are talking about an actual discernable flavor, not some evil mystical force, but actual flavor that gentile cook could and would say “This is a cheese flavored meat dish”, or “tasty fat from the nerve tissue in the broth”, and are in fact, inclined to accept the authority of gentile cooks on the topic of food flavors, of humanly discernible food flavors, as being more expert on cheese flavored meat dishes than rabbis are likely to be.
Perhaps the Persians were not condescending enough. As for the Muslims, you did not actually survive the Muslims. Mizrahi Jews were reduced to rather small numbers, and when the few remaining Mizrahi Jews fled to Israel and western lands, were assimilated by politically and culturally dominant Jews from Europe, finally and permanently eradicating the Mizrahi strand of Judaism.
>They are using the public humiliation rule as a hook on which to hang gay rights
Not seeing it. Not any more than they use public humiliation as a hook on which to hang Shabbat violator rights or business cheat rights or the rights of those who enjoy bacon cheeseburgers.
>Further, they do address it in that they say up to each synagogue. So when one synagogue cops the heat for “homophobiaâ€, from Alinksyites applying the isolate and target rule, that targeted synagogue cannot say “Sorry, our religion has a rule that in effect says no openly gay rabbis, so we though we would all love to yield to your entirely reasonable demands, we have to clear it a hundred other seriously unenlightened rabbis first, and all those other horribly reactionary unenlightened rabbis are stopping us from doing what we would dearly love to do.â€
We will see what happens when it comes to it. So far, I haven’t seen signs that this strategy has been effective when used by any targeted organization. On the other hand, I haven’t seen public efforts to push other Cathedral agenda succeed very well when applied to synagogues. I think it’s a function of the unique structure of a synagogue. A rabbi is secondary and not necessary to its function. If you can get 10 adult male Jews together and a Torah scroll, that’s all you need (along with a mikve and someone who knows how to circumcise.) If a rabbi goes against his community, he’s gone. Tax exempt status and the rest of it is completely unnecessary.
>A broth is not a “medium of transmissionâ€. You eat the broth, and if you cook substantial amounts of brain or nerve tissue a broth, there are gobs of tasty fat floating around in the broth. If they were worried about the broth touching the fish, and then you eat the fish, then it would be a medium of transmission.
A broth, like a brine, is a medium of transmission of taste. That’s their entire point.
>There is no way you can get from foods cooked together to double dishwashers.
The same source tells you that sometimes the issue is one of taste and sometimes the issue is one of proportion.” Raba also said, [In certain cases] the Rabbis
ruled that the test whether or not it imparts a flavor applies, and [in other cases] the Rabbis ruled that one may rely upon a [gentile] cook, and yet [in other cases] the Rabbis ruled that the test is sixty [to one].”
>Perhaps the Persians were not condescending enough.
You haven’t met many Persians.
>As for the Muslims, you did not actually survive the Muslims.
Amazing.
>Islamic Jews were reduced to rather small numbers, and when the few remaining Islamic Jews fled to Israel and western lands,
What history book are you reading? 850,000 Jews fled from the Muslim countries after 1948. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_Arab_and_Muslim_countries
>were assimilated by politically and culturally dominant Jews from Europe, finally and permanently eradicating the Islamic strand of Judaism.
Not very noticeable where I’m standing. I live in a place that’s mostly Sepharadim, Persians and Yemenites. They don’t seem to be “assimilated” or “eradicated,” but are very proud of their identity and customs.
Mishna Jews have been epcotized, like Chinese minorities. Their customs have been reduced to fancy dress, a process which the last survivors of the Chinese epcotization, the Tibetans and the Muslims, accurately describe as genocide.
Is anyone worried about “embarrassing” those who eat bacon cheeseburgers?
You are using “medium of transmission” in two completely different, unrelated, and incompatible meanings.
A broth is food. It is not particularly sensible to call food “a medium of transmission of taste”, even though in a sense that is exactly what food is.
If a broth is a medium of transmission of taste, a dishwasher is not a medium of transmission of taste. Nor is the water in a sink.
You are defending the indefensible. There is nothing in older Jewish tradition that provides any plausible justification for the latest holy double dishwashers.
Three orthodox synagogues gone gay so far.
As yet, still no gay orthodox rabbis, despite various people announcing themselves to be gay orthodox rabbis.
But American Jewish Orthodox opposition to gay rights has collapsed and gone into hiding, for fear of being asked questions to which the answers would be “homophobic”
So, gay rabbis on their way.
The Orthodox Jewish rule against strollers on the sabbath is very recent. Orthodox Jewish female emancipation is very recent. Double dishwashers are very recent. And Orthodox Jewish Gay Liberation is happening as speak.
And if no Orthodox Synagogue could yet hire an openly gay rabbi, they are getting mighty close, and getting away with getting mighty close.
>Mishna Jews have been epcotized, like Chinese minorities. Their customs have been reduced to fancy dress, a process which the last survivors of the Chinese epcotization, the Tibetans and the Muslims, accurately describe as genocide.
What is a “Mishna Jew”?
>Is anyone worried about “embarrassing†those who eat bacon cheeseburgers?
I have never seen anyone publicly called out for being a secret eater of unkosher food or Shabbat violator. I’ve seen people who drove to synagogue on Shabbat being treated no differently than anyone else.
>You are using “medium of transmission†in two completely different, unrelated, and incompatible meanings.
>A broth is food. It is not particularly sensible to call food “a medium of transmission of tasteâ€, even though in a sense that is exactly what food is.
I’d like you to re-read your last sentence again. “It’s not particularly sensible to call a can of tuna a container, even though in a sense that is exactly what a can of tuna is.”
>If a broth is a medium of transmission of taste, a dishwasher is not a medium of transmission of taste. Nor is the water in a sink.
Of course they are. It’s a question of the concentration of the taste.
>You are defending the indefensible. There is nothing in older Jewish tradition that provides any plausible justification for the latest holy double dishwashers.
If that were so, there would have been significant public opposition as this crazy new holy stricture was imposed. Unless you are positing the existence of a supersecret global rabbinical council which meets in secret and decides what they’re going to impose, and then everyone goes with it.
>Three orthodox synagogues gone gay so far.
>In New York City, my partner and I were members in good standing in three Orthodox synagogues–we prayed with the congregation, led the service, spoke from the pulpit, contributed to the congregation.
OK. So, after 11 years of trying, these guys supposedly found three synagogues in NYC unwilling to boot them/ask them to tone it down. This is our impending extinction at the hands of the Cathedral, which we should be panicking about? A synagogue is, by definition, independent, and the sum of its members.
>As yet, still no gay orthodox rabbis, despite various people announcing themselves to be gay orthodox rabbis.
What is a “gay orthodox rabbi”? To be a rabbi, you have to have earned semicha (ordination) at some point (very roughly speaking.) If such a person comes out and says, hey, I’m a homosexual, again, so what? This is his problem, not the problem of Judaism. If somehow many congregations decide to hire themselves openly homosexual rabbis, then we’ve got a problem.
>At this point, no congregation could hire an openly gay rabbi and retain their Orthodox affiliation.
What would stop them, the Intergalactic Jedi Council? Only their own lack of desire to have such a rabbi stops them, the same way their lack of desire to have an intermarried rabbi or a Shabbat violating rabbi, or a rabbi that eats cheeseburgers in public on Yom Kippur keeps them from placing such people in positions of religious authority. You’ll notice that the gay guy in the article in HuffPo (I would be more impressed with Ami or Mishpacha magazine, the Pravdas of the black hat world) didn’t get much traction with his argument about why being gay is not like wanting cheeseburgers.
>So, gay rabbis on their way.
Care to make a prediction? How many gay rabbis should we expect to see leading Orthodox congregations by, say, 2020?
>The Orthodox Jewish rule against strollers on the sabbath is very recent. Orthodox Jewish female emancipation is very recent. Double dishwashers are very recent.
Strollers and dishwashers are themselves very recent inventions. The prohibition on carrying between domains on Shabbat goes back to the Torah, and you can’t show any sort of exemption for babies being made (except for in the case of a threat to life and such.) The prohibition on cooking meat and milk together is from the Torah, and we see from the Mishna that they are already were discussing this as the prohibition on the mixing of their tastes in hot water. Female emancipation-I am not sure what you mean. As I’ve pointed out, Maimonides, 900 years ago, said that we don’t force a woman to stay married to a husband who repulses her.
>And if no Orthodox Synagogue could yet hire an openly gay rabbi, they are getting mighty close, and getting away with getting mighty close.
Any Orthodox Synagogue could hire an openly gay rabbi. If they aren’t, it’s because they don’t want to. “Getting away with” implies that there is some external authority besides G-d to whom they answer. Which is not the case.
I meant Mizrahi
I notice you don’t seem to dispute that their unique culture and religion has been epcotized to mere fancy dress.
And I doubt you have seen anyone called out for being secretly gay. It is open gays that are the problem.
And, according to the Talmud, if the concentration of the taste is below humanly detectable, below what human taste buds are likely to notice, no problem. Which is why their discussion is entirely about contamination of food by food, not “media of transmission”.
If one Jewish Orthodox congregation decides to hire themselves an openly homosexual rabbi, probably in New York City, you have a problem, because he will promptly hold a gay marriage in the orthodox synagogue. And a few Jewish Orthodox congregations are getting a little closer every day.
If one congregation does that, you need a bunch of rabbis, the great majority of rabbis, to stand up and say “They are not orthodox”, but the way the wind is blowing, you will not get that. From silence, gay marriage will become as orthodox as female emancipation already has.
Fun. Protestants have the same rules for who can be a Reverend, famously, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. met the criteria. In the ‘70s, openly gay pastors was unthinkable.
You say congregations are responsible to God, and God to the congregations?
Protestants were doomed to greater and greater heresies since their schism from the Universal Church. Jews are similarly doomed by their rejection and murder of Christ.
>I notice you don’t seem to dispute that their unique culture and religion has been epcotized to mere fancy dress.
I don’t know what you mean. None of my Mizrahi neighbors wear turbans. They keep their Sepharadi religious customs. What else? They don’t speak Arabic, anymore than 3rd generation descendants of Russian immigrants speak Russian.
>And I doubt you have seen anyone called out for being secretly gay. It is open gays that are the problem.
I have never seen anyone called out for openly violating Shabbat or kashrut. On the other hand, I’ve never seen anyone do this openly and go to an Orthodox synagogue.
>And, according to the Talmud, if the concentration of the taste is below humanly detectable, below what human taste buds are likely to notice, no problem. Which is why their discussion is entirely about contamination of food by food, not “media of transmissionâ€.
No, they talk about concentration of taste sometimes when humanly detectable, sometimes just by concentration (i.e., unkosher fish brine or cases where you have two pieces of meat, same taste, one forbidden, one allowed.)
>If one Jewish Orthodox congregation decides to hire themselves an openly homosexual rabbi, probably in New York City, you have a problem, because he will promptly hold a gay marriage in the orthodox synagogue.
This would be the same as if he held a cheeseburger banquet. Everyone would walk out, and those who didn’t would cease to be considered Orthodox. We have a decentralized system in that sense. For a marriage to be kosher, you don’t need a synagogue or a rabbi. And if a marriage is unkosher (for instance, between two men, between a Jew and a non-Jew, etc.,) rabbis and synagogues won’t help. If after 200 years of assimilation we don’t have Orthodox marriages between Jews and non-Jews, why would it be any different with gays? The vast majority of Jews are repelled by homosexuality, and naturally prone to be tempted by the more pleasant and attractive non-Jews surrounding them, yet there is no Orthodox intermarriage.
>Fun. Protestants have the same rules for who can be a Reverend, famously, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. met the criteria. In the ‘70s, openly gay pastors was unthinkable.
Interestingly, whether Africans attempt democracy or monarchy, results typically suck. This is not a very good way to demonstrate the merits of those systems. Judaism works for Jews. Attempts to copy some of its features by non-Jews have always had good results in the short run and poor results in the long run.
>Protestants were doomed to greater and greater heresies since their schism from the Universal Church. Jews are similarly doomed by their rejection and murder of Christ.
Pass my regards to the Pope.
Once upon a time they had Mizrahi, rather than Sephardi religious customs, such as polygamy and levirate marriage.
And the concentrations they discuss are reasonable, immensely higher than you are likely to get by exposure of dishes to dishwater, high enough that a gentile cook might well be able to actually taste it.
That would “embarass” the gays. I am already seeing a propensity for Orthodox Rabbis to hide under the bed to avoid being asked questions whose answers would be “homophobic”. Where is the Jewish Phil Robertson?
In 2012 the Conservative Jewish movement went gay marriage, signalling its irrelevance and coming disappearance. Orthodox remains, but they are not looking very brave.
You have blown off lots of old testament stuff, such as levirate marriage and strict patriarchy. You have divorce on female demand. The “publicly humiliate” rule can be used to make black white and up down. When “Talmudic” is used as a pejorative, the implication is that someone is torturing the text to get the desired outcome.
You have been torturing the text on broth to get double dishwashers. Why not torture the text on public humiliation to get gay marriage?
Yes, Orthodox Jews have been doing way better than Roman Catholics, but this is not necessarily enough.
>Once upon a time they had Mizrahi, rather than Sephardi religious customs, such as polygamy and levirate marriage.
You are unfamiliar with the subject matter, and it shows. Sepharadi and Mizrahi are used to describe the same vast subset of Jews, roughly interchangeably. They still do levirate marriage, and polygamy was not very common even in the old countries. Other than that, what?
>And the concentrations they discuss are reasonable, immensely higher than you are likely to get by exposure of dishes to dishwater, high enough that a gentile cook might well be able to actually taste it.
1:200 parts of fish brine is reasonable? They use concentrations often when speaking of cases where you can’t taste the difference.
>That would “embarass†the gays.
It would mostly “embarrass” the rabbi, and put him out of a job, which is why he wouldn’t do it.
>I am already seeing a propensity for Orthodox Rabbis to hide under the bed to avoid being asked questions whose answers would be “homophobicâ€. Where is the Jewish Phil Robertson?
Uh, how did the Christian Phil Robertson change reality? What did he accomplish? And pardon me, but for the 20th time, when you “see a propensity” in Judaism, I am less than convinced. I mean, you get confused about the difference between the Mishna, Mizrahim, Sepharadim and Matza Balls, and had the impression that Judaism was patrilineally inherited and Shabbat was for bass fishing.
>In 2012 the Conservative Jewish movement went gay marriage, signalling its irrelevance and coming disappearance.
You’re a bit behind the times. The “Conservative Jewish movement” abandoned kashrut, Shabbat, the ban on intermarriage and all that other boring stuff from its very inception, signalling its coming disappearance. It actually is an offshoot of the Reform movement, which abandoned all these things, in the same way as American “conservatives” come not from Froude but from Trotsky.
>You have blown off lots of old testament stuff, such as levirate marriage and strict patriarchy.
First, we call it Torah, not “old testament,” which verbiage presupposes the existence of a new testament. Second, we still have levirate marriage and its optional alternative, chalitza. Third, the “strict patriarchy” you envision never existed.
>You have divorce on female demand.
Blame Maimonides. Of course, Maimonides made nothing up on his own, so blame his sources.
>The “publicly humiliate†rule can be used to make black white and up down.
Sure. As long as we don’t throw dead cats at gays while screaming “faygits!” we are doomed.
>When “Talmudic†is used as a pejorative, the implication is that someone is torturing the text to get the desired outcome.
Since those who use “Talmudic” as a pejorative generally either have no idea of the plain text whose meaning they are attempting to educate us upon, or wish to tractate it in a way that implies nose-ringed lesbian pastors, or both, this usage really rolls like water off a duck’s back.
>You have been torturing the text on broth to get double dishwashers. Why not torture the text on public humiliation to get gay marriage?
Well, for the same reason that we haven’t done it to get intermarriage, female rabbis, the abandonment of Shabbat, kashrut and the rest of it. Because we don’t want to. Because we, by and large, have a conscience and take the text seriously. Perhaps you could tone down the hubris and the Kafkalike accusations for a bit and theoretically allow that if all Orthodox Jews wash meat and milk dishes separately, and nobody is jumping up and down with indignation, saying, hey, this is a new and crazy stricture, we don’t hold by it. Maybe assume that Jews actually know what the Torah says and what it means, because the average Orthodox Jew spends more time over his lifetime learning these things than you spent learning your trade. Maybe stop accusing others of false consciousness, in typical condescending Marxist fashion, you know?
You are in denial. Judaism was patrilineally inherited in Roman times and earlier, patrilineally inherited until some time after the exile began, and before that Hebrew identity was patrilineally inherited. Mizrahim were substantially different from Sepharadim until crushed. And Pat Robinson publicly stood up to the PC, while the Orthodox are resisting furtively – and becoming more and more furtive.
You tortured the text to get no fault divorce on female demand, and kashrut changes every few years. If no fault divorce on female demand, contrary to Deuteronomy 24:1-4, gay marriage is a bagatelle.
Separate dishwashers are no more in the talmud or implied in the Talmud than cheeseburgers are a goat boiled in its mother’s milk.
The Marxist theory of false consciousness is that consciousness is “false” if people pursue their own particular interests rather than their supposed class interests, and have beliefs that reflect their lived experience rather than Marxist interpretation of their lived experience, with the implication that people should act according to the interests of their class.
You claim that orthodox Jews are faithfully following ancient religion. I say that individual Jews are making it up as they go along in ways that reflect their particular interests. To which you reply “why is there so much agreement?”
Well sometimes, as with the Mizrahi, rather less agreement than meets the eye. Mizrahi practices resemble Sephardic not because preserved from ancient times, but because they have very recently been replaced by Sephardic practices. And it really is not hard to find people making principled arguments about dishwashers.
>You tortured the text to get no fault divorce on female demand, and kashrut changes every few years.
Kashrut is the same as it’s been for the last 2000 years at least. No-fault divorce is a bit of a stretch for how the process operates.
>Separate dishwashers are no more in the talmud or implied in the Talmud than cheeseburgers are a goat boiled in its mother’s milk.
There were no dishwashers until quite recently. The Talmud makes it quite clear that the prohibition on boiling a goat in its mother’s milk, repeated three separate times, extends to all meat and dairy mixtures.
>The Marxist theory of false consciousness is that consciousness is “false†if people pursue their own particular interests rather than their supposed class interests, and have beliefs that reflect their lived experience rather than Marxist interpretation of their lived experience, with the implication that people should act according to the interests of their class.
The Marxist theory of false consciousness presupposes that Marxists know what people think and should think better than those people do.
>You claim that orthodox Jews are faithfully following ancient religion. I say that individual Jews are making it up as they go along in ways that reflect their particular interests. To which you reply “why is there so much agreement?â€
>Well sometimes, as with the Mizrahi, rather less agreement than meets the eye. Mizrahi practices resemble Sephardic not because preserved from ancient times, but because they have very recently been replaced by Sephardic practices.
What is the difference between “Mizrahi practices” and “Sepharadi practices”? What is the difference between Mizrahim and Sepharadim? You are misusing/misunderstanding the terms, as far as I can tell.
>And it really is not hard to find people making principled arguments about dishwashers.
Somehow, none of those people really seem to show up in anything beyond random blogs. You’d think some communities would have adapted those principled arguments, or at least have been noticeably slow in adapting the supposedly new prohibition on washing meat and dairy dishes in the same water.
Early talmud treats cleaning dishes as no problem. They are only bugged by reusing dishes full of food residue.
Sixteenth century Judaism says cleaning dishes can be a problem, but just use hot enough water and strong enough lye to lift off all food residue.
Twentieth century Orthodox Judaism goes super duper holy on cleaning dishes.
The Talmud however, does not address washing dishes, other than to arguably imply or take for granted that you should wash them.
Wikipedia says that Mizrahi rites have been replaced by higher status Sephardi rites. I don’t know anything about rites, but I know that Mizrahi roles for patriarchy, and conversely for women and children, have been replaced by “higher status”, aka state imposed, Sephardi roles for patriarchy, and conversely for women and children
Not if competing for greater holiness, as they toss out old rules on patriarchy and gays, need something to make them holy.
>Early talmud treats cleaning dishes as no problem.
They explain general principles of transfer of taste, when it’s problematic, etc.
>Sixteenth century Judaism says cleaning dishes can be a problem, but just use hot enough water and strong enough lye to lift off all food residue.
I find your inability to read disturbing. For the 8th time, the Shulhan Aruch explains that hot water is the problem, and the function of lye is not to “lift off” food residue, but to spoil its taste. The context is that he’s delineating the boundaries, not explaining common practice. It’s not an SOP, it’s a boundary condition.
>Twentieth century Orthodox Judaism goes super duper holy on cleaning dishes.
Since this is the only Judaism we have where we know exactly how people cleaned their dishes, to have a case you’d have to find some point where there was a debate on how exactly to clean dishes in practice, where rabbi X said A and rabbi Y said B, or some previous record of how they used to do it, in practice.
>The Talmud however, does not address washing dishes, other than to arguably imply or take for granted that you should wash them.
The Talmud discusses taste transfer by a transmitting medium, discusses different kinds of transmitting media (oil, water, wine, vinegar,) and talks about different cases where different thresholds apply-taste test, 1:60, 1:200, etc. It doesn’t sit there and explicitly list every possible scenario, because this would be impossible and pointless, the same way as your driver’s manual doesn’t sit there and list every possible scenario.
>Wikipedia says that Mizrahi rites have been replaced by higher status Sephardi rites.
Where?
>I don’t know anything about rites, but I know that Mizrahi roles for patriarchy, and conversely for women and children, have been replaced by “higher statusâ€, aka state imposed, Sephardi roles for patriarchy, and conversely for women and children
This is gibberish. What are “Mizrahi roles for patriarchy”? What are “Sephardi roles for patriarchy”? I feel like I’m reading postmodernist literature-I’m familiar with the words, but put together they don’t parse. When did the state impose “Sephardi roles for patriarchy”?
>Not if competing for greater holiness, as they toss out old rules on patriarchy and gays, need something to make them holy.
Without any communal disagreement and without leaving any record of the updates in the extensive documentation, while having plenty of arguments on other issues? Yeah, seems likely.
The talmud talks about one food directly contaminated with another food, not indirectly. Actual fish grease mingling with actual cheese. Does not talk about frying the fish in olive oil, and then reusing the olive oil to cook something else.
And the talmud conclude that small amounts of mixed in food are not problematic, amounts enormously larger than anything you are likely to get from cleaned dishes.
That is the reverse of what he says. Says that the water has to be scalding hot, and has to remove all food residue.
He does say the lye spoils the taste – but he says it is important to remove all food residue, which should be interpreted in the context that people use lye to lift the grease from the dishes.
The writers of the Talmud would be mystified and surprised by the concept of “a transmitting medium” which places a frame on their words clearly absent from the original.
The talmud discusses mixing foods. This is not “taste transfer by a transmitting medium”. As I said, if you have the sciatic nerve in your broth, you are going to get little drops of nerve grease in your broth.
Over the last few centuries, the previously distinctive rites of the Mizrahi communities were influenced, superimposed upon or altogether replaced by the rite of the Sephardim, perceived as more prestigious.
In a patriarchy, if a woman wanders off or gets lured away from the man who she belongs to, she gets forcibly returned, and he may administer corporal punishment. That is the way the Mizrahi used to do it. This is now child abuse, wife abuse, etc. In a patriarchy, the man that the woman belongs to is expected to ensure her good behavior, and misbehavior by the woman results in demands that he exercise his authority and rein her in. In extreme cases, he may be penalized for her unrestrained misbehavior, as would someone whose dog wrongfully attacked a neighbor, or a neighbor’s cow. That is the way the Mizrahi used to do it. Now an army of white knights prevent him from exercising his authority.
If the Talmud was interpreted as a treatise on washing dishes back when it was first written, we should have some rabbis discussing dishwashing before the twentieth century. Earliest case is sixteenth century, and he is mighty lenient compared to twentieth century.
And he is saying the water needs to be hot enough to clean the dishes. He is not saying that the water a problem because hot, but only a problem if not hot enough.
>The talmud talks about one food directly contaminated with another food, not indirectly. Actual fish grease mingling with actual cheese. Does not talk about frying the fish in olive oil, and then reusing the olive oil.
It talks about fish brine transmitting taste.
>>For the 8th time, the Shulhan Aruch explains that hot water is the problem
>That is the reverse of what he says. Says that the water has to be scalding hot, and has to remove all food residue.
No, that is NOT what he says. That is the opposite of what he says. He says that even if the water is scalding hot (which is the worst case scenario for transmission of taste,) etc.
>He does say the lye spoils the taste – but he says it is important to remove all food residue, which should be interpreted in the context that people use lye to lift the grease from the dishes.
No. He says that with NO food residue, there should not be an issue because taste transmission through water is secondary. And IF there is food residue, then he THINKS that if you add ashes, they will spoil the taste of the residue, and so it will be OK. Read closely.
>The writers of the Talmud would be mystified and surprised by the concept of “a transmitting medium†which places a frame on their words clearly absent from the original.
They would not. See Tractate Keilim, which talks about transmitting media at length.
>Over the last few centuries, the previously distinctive rites of the Mizrahi communities were influenced, superimposed upon or altogether replaced by the rite of the Sephardim, perceived as more prestigious.
They are talking about different prayers. What is the issue? There are a dozen nuschaot, prayer rites/melodies, they are all kosher, some communities have changed their nuschaot (for instance, European hasidim pray the Nusach Ari, which is Sepharadi.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nusach
By the same token, the Ashkenazim of Israel use the Sepharadi/Mizrahi pronounciation (with a couple of minor exceptions.)
>In a patriarchy, if a woman wanders off or gets lured away from the man who she belongs to, she gets forcibly returned, and he may administer corporal punishment. That is the way the Mizrahi used to do it.
Source? Where are you getting this?
>In a patriarchy, the man that the woman belongs to is expected to ensure her good behavior, and misbehavior by the woman results in demands that he exercise his authority and rein her in. In extreme cases, he may be penalized for her unrestrained misbehavior, as would someone whose dog wrongfully attacked a neighbor, or a neighbor’s cow. That is the way the Mizrahi used to do it.
Source? In the Torah, we see the exact opposite. An ox that gores is the owner’s responsibility. A woman who jumps into a fight between her husband and another man and crushes the other guy’s balls has her hand cut off. I’ve never heard of what you’re describing, so would ask you to find some source to back up this assertion.
I think you might be mangling 93, which says that hot food transmits its flavor to the lid, with 95, which says that hot washing water with lye is necessary to clean the dishes.
I have read the Tractate Keilim, and it does not.
If, before 1500, people had thought the Tractate Keilim was about dishwashing, they would have worried about how to wash the dishes, because, supposing that the Tractate Keilim is about dishwashing, there is nothing obvious about the what the implications are for dishwashing, and there would have necessarily been a pile of rulings by rabbis figuring out how to apply the Tractate Keilim to actual practical dishwashing.
Jews just don’t have an ancient tradition of obsessively worrying about cleaning the dishes. The first stuff about dishes is sixteenth century, and it is pretty lenient, indeed a bit on the alarmingly filthy side. The seriously superior holiness just does not start until the twentieth century. What with the germ theory of disease, the gentile neighbors were cleaning up, and the Jews had to outclean them. Plus every time you do something like emancipating women or tolerating gays, you have to up the ante on some other area of superior holiness.
“in a generation or two, millennia of rooted Oriental civilization, unified even in its diversity,†had been wiped out, writes Mizrahi scholar Ella Shohat.[
The uniformity of Jewish practice is not an indication of ancientness, but an indication that everyone adopts the same fashions to signal superior holiness.
>Judaism was patrilineally inherited in Roman times and earlier, patrilineally inherited until some time after the exile began, and before that Hebrew identity was patrilineally inherited.
I’ve quoted the Book of Ezra, where he tells the Jews to send their non-Jewish wives and children off, because they’d married them in violation of a prohibition, and they say “OK.” I’ve also referred you to the Torah speaking about the “mixed multitude,” which was separate from the tribes in the census, and a passage referring to one member of that multitude who was the son of a Hebrew woman and an Egyptian man, and to whom the Law applied. What else do you need?
>I think you might be mangling 93, which says that hot food transmits its flavor to the lid, with 95, which says that hot washing water with lye is necessary to clean the dishes.
No. He says, “Meat plates washed in a dairy cauldron, hot enough such that one’s hand burns (the halakhic temperature for absorbency), even if both had been used within one day, it is permitted because it is gives a secondary tasting”. What is he talking about here? The reason he specifies the temperature (that it is scalding) is because this is the test for whether instant absorption of taste happens which is used in the Talmud. Above that temperature, absorption is considered to occur. Then he mentions, even if both had been used within one day. This is the time test, in the Talmud we learn that when a day goes by without a utensil being used, any absorbed taste is considered to be spoiled and thus not an issue. The issue is not that the water must be hot so that it can remove forbidden taste. The issue is that if it’s hot, it is both removing the meat taste from the meat plates and facilitating its absorption into the dairy plates. So it’s heat is a problem.
Here we have Chullin 111a: “Whatsoever is salted is not counted
as hot and whatsoever is preserved is not
counted as cooked. Said Abaye. This
statement of Rabin cannot be upheld, for it
once happened in the house of R. Ammi that
an earthenware plate had been used for
salting meat thereon and he broke It. Now let
us see. Was not R. Ammi a disciple of R.
Johanan? Why then did he break [the plate]?
Surely because he had heard the statement
from R. Johanan that whatsoever is salted is
counted as hot.”
Meaning, that if hot food touches a plate, the plate is considered to have absorbed its taste (in such a way that it can’t be washed off, hence R. Ammi breaks the plate) and so they argue here about whether the salting process makes absorption happen the same way.
>>They would not. See Tractate Keilim, which talks about transmitting media at length.
>I have read the Tractate Keilim, and it does not.
You haven’t read it very well: “MISHNAH 4. IF A POT WAS PLACED IN AN OVEN AND A [DEAD] CREEPING THING
WAS IN THE OVEN, THE POT REMAINS CLEAN SINCE NO EARTHEN VESSEL29 IMPARTS
UNCLEANNESS TO VESSELS. IF IT30 CONTAINED DRIPPING LIQUID, THE LATTER
CONTRACTS UNCLEANNESS AND THE POT ALSO BECOMES UNCLEAN.3”
MISHNAH 11. IF MILK THAT DRIPPED FROM A WOMAN’S BREASTS92 FELL INTO THE
AIR-SPACE OF AN OVEN, THE OVEN BECOMES UNCLEAN,93 SINCE A LIQUID94
CONVEYS UNCLEANNESS IRRESPECTIVE OF WHETHER [ITS PRESENCE] IS
ACCEPTABLE OR NOT ACCEPTABLE.
>Jews just don’t have an ancient tradition of obsessively worrying about cleaning the dishes. The first stuff about dishes is sixteenth century, and it is pretty lenient, indeed a bit on the alarmingly filthy side.
The issue we are discussing is not whether to wash dishes, or hygiene, but to what degree does the separation between forbidden foods and allowed ones, or forbidden mixtures of allowed foods, apply. We can see that the Sages were discussing what makes a dish clean or unclean, and breaking dishes which had absorbed a forbidden taste.
>What with the germ theory of disease, the gentile neighbors were cleaning up, and the Jews had to outclean them.
Yes, you gave us the aquaducts, you gave us the bath houses, thank you, thank you. Burton remarks on our higher life expectancy and health than those of our non-Jewish neighbors, and attributes this to our better hygiene, but what does he know?
>“in a generation or two, millennia of rooted Oriental civilization, unified even in its diversity,†had been wiped out, writes Mizrahi scholar Ella Shohat.
This is Ella Shohat: http://meis.as.nyu.edu/object/ella.shohat
In other words, a Cathedral Converso, specializing in victimology in a specific niche (that of the Mizrahi Jew.) Very trustworthy, especially compared to Mizrahi Jews like Rav Ovadia Yosef (born in Iraq,) who had the impression that his traditional brand of Judaism was very much alive and well, thank you very much. I notice how when it suits you, you dismiss the credibility of vast groups of people, like anyone from Russia, with a sweeping gesture, but when it’s convenient, any “Arab-Jew” “Professor of Cultural Studies who has lectured and written extensively on issues having to do with Eurocentrism, Orientalism, Postcolonialism, transnationalism, and diasporic cultures” is a trustworthy source.
>The uniformity of Jewish practice is not an indication of ancientness, but an indication that everyone adopts the same fashions to signal superior holiness.
Yeah, you know, Jews are known for uniformity and unquestioning conformism.
I don’t see how you can plausibly read this as “cold water even more permitted”
Given that he worries about visible food residues, and wants lye, which lifts food residues, I read this as “permitted provided the water is hot enough to burn your hands”.
But this is a trivial digression. It does not matter that much whether he worries about water too hot or water too cold. You are not responding to my basic argument: If, before 1500, people had thought the Tractate Keilim was about dishwashing, or had implications for dishwashing, they would have worried about how to wash the dishes, because, supposing that the Tractate Keilim is about dishwashing, there is nothing obvious about the what the implications are for dishwashing, and they would have necessarily needed to have a pile of rulings by rabbis figuring out how to apply the Tractate Keilim to actual practical dishwashing.
Repeating my basic argument to which you are not responding. Before the sixteenth century, no concern for practical dishwashing. After the sixteenth century, still not all that cleanly. Twentieth century, obsessive about cleaning the dishes.
Orthodox Jews are getting holier about dishwashers and strollers, as they get conspicuously less holy about patriarchy.
Rav Ovadia Yosef was consciously, explicitly, and visibly creating a new tradition, to sephardize Mizrahi Jews in ways that they would find acceptable. He is not evidence that Jewish tradition is ancient, but that it has been being remade with alarming speed. He provides a manual on how Mizrahi can be as holy as their Sephardi neighbors without it being too much of a pain in the ass.
>Repeating my basic argument to which you are not responding. Before the sixteenth century, no concern for practical dishwashing. After the sixteenth century, still not all that cleanly. Twentieth century, obsessive about cleaning the dishes.
I have responded to your argument. The further back we go, the less documentation we have on everything. Manus None of the documentation we have suggests that people used to wash meat and dairy dishes together with no worries. We see indications to the contrary in the Mishne Torah (12th century), for instance, which discusses in detail how to properly clean utensils used for forbidden wine, or utensils used for leaven (forbidden on Pesach.) Also, Maimonides discusses how to clean dishes which are presumed unclean (having been acquired from gentiles who’d used them) here in halachot 3 and 4: http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/968273/jewish/Maachalot-Assurot-Chapter-17.htm
>Orthodox Jews are getting holier about dishwashers and strollers, as they get conspicuously less holy about patriarchy.
Orthodox Jews are not getting holier about dishwashers and strollers. Orthodox Jews have customarilywashed meat and dairy utensils separately as far back as I know. Carrying between domains on Shabbat has always been prohibited, and the eruv was instituted at the same time as additional restrictions (carrying between a household and a neighborhood,) i.e., over 2KYA. Jewish neighborhoods have had eruvin around them since, so the issue of babies did not arise (although we have the boundary case of a sick person on his bed discussed in the Talmud.)
>Rav Ovadia Yosef was consciously, explicitly, and visibly creating a new tradition, to sephardize Mizrahi Jews in ways that they would find acceptable.
I’d like a source for this assertion, preferably with quotes from Rav Ovadia Yosef and a minimum of conjecture (no offense, but I find the opinions on Rav Ovadia of someone who didn’t know he had passed on until I mentioned it less than authoritative.)
.
The pile of documentation you have is infamous for its excessive size.
Not only is the lack of documentation that Jews washed cheese dishes and meat dishes separately suspicious, but you have explicit documentation that they did wash them together.
The Tractate Keilim is not a theoretical analysis of the transmission of uncleanliness or the mixing of meat and cheese indirectly through intervening media, but a list of practical solutions to practical problems arising from uncleanliness and the mixing of meat and cheese, many of them rather obscure and minor problems. Dishwashing is not on the list of problems. Therefore, the writers of the Tractate Keilim did not see practical problems related to dishwashing. If they thought it was a problem would have been a vastly bigger problem than many of the quite arcane problems they did discuss.
Later authors finally start addressing dishwashing in the twelfth century, but their recommendations are minimal and sensible in age where there are deadly infectious diseases and no antibiotics, the primary one being to boil dishes you obtain from an unknown source before using them, and the rest being largely variations on this principle and details of it.
Only in the sixteenth century do we read anyone worrying about washing cheese dishes and meat dishes together, and his advice is scalding hot water and lye – his advice is that you can wash them together provided you do a good enough job of washing them. Since dishwashing machines use scalding hot water and strongly alkaline soap, they conform precisely to his requirements, suggesting that he and dishwasher makers are primarily motivated by the same concerns.
I know Jews are making up age old traditions on the fly, because I can read them making up age old traditions on the fly right now today, and quietly ditching old ones.
>The pile of documentation you have is infamous for its excessive size.
We do not find it excessive. The Christians and Karaites who do have both gotten poor results in their implementation.
>The Tractate Keilim is not a theoretical analysis of the transmission of uncleanliness or the mixing of meat and cheese indirectly through intervening media, but a list of practical solutions to practical problems arising from uncleanliness and the mixing of meat and cheese, many of them rather obscure and minor problems.
Keilim primarily deals with ritual uncleanliness, not unkosher food. I quoted it to show that in fact the concept of a transmitting medium was familiar to the rabbis.
>Later authors finally start addressing dishwashing in the twelfth century,
Maimonides was not the first to address this issue. You keep moving goalposts back. In the Mishne Torah, he does not bring up anything radically new. It is a summary of previous works and a practical guide.
>but their recommendations are minimal and sensible in age where there are deadly infectious diseases and no antibiotics, the primary one being to boil dishes you obtain from an unknown source before using them, and the rest being largely variations on this principle and details of it.
Not so. If this were the case, they would say, boil everything. Later on in the chapter, Maimonides deals with the rabbinical prohibition on eating vile things, using filthy utensils, etc., completely separately from koshering utensils.
>Only in the sixteenth century do we read anyone worrying about washing cheese dishes and meat dishes together, and his advice is scalding hot water and lye – his advice is that you can wash them together provided you do a good enough job of washing them.
For the 28th time, he is not saying this. And he is not making the recommendation that you should do this. Rather, he’s saying, if you do this, it’s probably ok. Not a “best practice.” In general, in Judaism we have two concepts, lehat’hila and bediavad. The first means, this is how you should do things. The second means, if you didn’t do it the way you were supposed to, but did it a different way, it is OK (or not.) You are not allowed to rely on the second way beforehand.
>Since dishwashing machines use scalding hot water and strongly alkaline soap, they conform precisely to his requirements, suggesting that he and dishwasher makers are primarily motivated by the same concerns.
Amazing that no Jewish community shares your deep halakhic insights on this matter.
I have read people’s translations of him, I have had google translate him. Your interpretation of him makes no sense in context.
And your interpretation of the Tractate Keilim makes no sense in context either.
Amazing that deep halakhic insights seem to have changed so radically in such a short time, and in exactly the manner that the cynical atheistic account of religion would predict.
>I have read people’s translations of him, I have had google translate him. Your interpretation of him makes no sense in context.
You don’t have context. If you would like some, you can see Mishne Torah, which I linked to, discussing progressively more radical ways of cleaning dishes acquired from gentiles, depending on the heat of the food which contacted them. So we see that when you have a forbidden substance touching a plate, the hotter it is, the more problematic.
>And your interpretation of the Tractate Keilim makes no sense in context either.
Which part?
>Amazing that deep halakhic insights seem to have changed so radically in such a short time, and in exactly the manner that the cynical atheistic account of religion would predict.
Amazing that if you take absence of evidence as evidence of absence, you can prove anything you want to. Especially if you assume that anyone who disagrees with you is lying.
I have read the Mishne Torah on that, and conclude that your interpretation is just nuts. You are torturing the text to justify very recent Jewish practice.
You are projecting a theory on their rituals which is not supported, nor consistent with, their rituals. Sixteen hundred years ago, Jewish authorities said that certain things were to be done in certain ways. Instead of doing those things in those ways, you confabulate a theory as to why they did those things in those ways, and deduce from that theory that you should do different things in different ways.
“media of transmission”. You are forcing a frame on their words that is artificial, strained and improbable. That is just not what they are talking about.
Nothing before very recent times can be plausibly be read as restricting the washing of dishes that separately contacted meat and cheese. If a long time ago, Jews believed there were implications for dishwashing, they would have had to decide and make explicit definite rules, for if the text means what you say it means, the implications for dishwashing are profoundly unclear. No explicit definite rules, therefore until recent times, Jews did not see the implications for dishwashing that you claim to see.
Past practices quietly evaporate, becoming merely a peg to hang new practices upon. When you buy a pot from the supermarket, probably made in China, do you extend its height with a rim of clay so that you can overfill it with water and boil the pot? (An entirely sound practice before modern antibiotics and modern hygiene) If not, why not?
From this instruction on pots you conclude that Shulchan Aruch means the opposite of what he plainly says, yet you no longer follow this instruction on pots.
>“media of transmissionâ€. You are forcing a frame on their words that is artificial, strained and improbable. That is just not what they are talking about.
Tractate keilim of the misha states “a liquid conveys uncleanness whether its presence is acceptable or unacceptable.” “Conveys”=”transmits”. “Liquid”=”media.”
>If a long time ago, Jews believed there were implications for dishwashing, they would have had to decide and make explicit definite rules, for if the text means what you say it means, the implications for dishwashing are profoundly unclear. No explicit definite rules, therefore until recent times, Jews did not see the implications for dishwashing that you claim to see.
Again, your logic is “the absence of evidence is the evidence of absence.” You start off assuming Jews have ever-tightening restrictions (upon things you consider unimportant,) take a modern restriction which is the application of well-established principles upon a modern reality (dishwashing machines,) and since you can’t find any evidence of the absence of Jews washing meat and milk dishes in the same water in the past, declare that if they washed them separately, they would have surely documented this, and lack of this documentation means this is a new stricture (and casually dismiss the lack of debate and disagreement at the point where this stricture would presumably have been introduced.) I, on the other hand, assume that this is the way Jews have always washed dishes, and that they didn’t feel the need to document this earlier for the same reason that they didn’t feel the need to document the knots they used to tie their shoes or the way they taught their children to read: this was a universal custom with no disagreements.
>When you buy a pot from the supermarket, probably made in China, do you extend its height with a rim of clay so that you can overfill it with water and boil the pot? (An entirely sound practice before modern antibiotics and modern hygiene) If not, why not?
I quoted you the relevant part of the Mishne Torah, which you claimed to have read and understood.
This question demonstrates that you did not read it, or if you read it, did not understand it.
The Mishne Torah plainly says that you only do this process (agalah) for pots which you presume gentiles boiled in. A supermarket pot comes with no such presumption, and thus the part of the Mishne Torah that applies is this: “[The following rules apply when] a person purchases metal or glass dinnerware from a gentile. Utensils that [the gentile] did not use at all should be immersed in the waters of a mikveh. Afterwards, it is permitted to eat and drink with them.” Does it seem likely that the Chinese at the pot factory would occasionally stop the assembly line and cook some soup in the pots on it, then wash them out, restart the assembly line, box them and ship them?
When the issue of a pot which is presumed to have absorbed a forbidden substance arises, we do agalah. Namely, before Pesah. Leaven is forbidden on Pesach. But we use it freely the rest of the year. Therefore, if we have metal utensils which we used the rest of the year, which are used at boiling temperature and below, and we wish to use them over Pesah, we boil some water in a 50 gallon drum and dunk them. If we have a large pot, we fill it with boiling water and throw a heated stone in, to make boiling water overflow its rim (this is not the way Maimonides says to do it, but it is also acceptable.)
What is the evidence for the absence of flying saucers?
I earlier remarked that the Nazis went looking for evidence of Jewish Ritual Sacrifice, and came up with mighty weak gruel, which even they realized was pretty weak. But they came up with a lot better evidence than you have for the ancientness of separate dishwashing.
We have better reason to believe in the absence of ancient Jewish rules on dishwashing, than we have to believe in the absence of flying saucers, and far better reason to believe in the the absence of ancient Jewish rules on dishwashing than the absence of Jewish ritual sacrifice of gentile children, for the writers of the Talmud were a bit on the obsessive side.
Jewish ritual food practices had the practical effect of actual cleanliness, the symbolic effect of definining gentiles as unclean and demonstrating loyalty to the community, and, like all rituals, the ritual effect of linking all people who practice the ritual in the exact same way to the past, to the future, and to each other.
You construct a theological theory under which these rituals were practical, rather than ritual, actions, intended to achieve some magical effect, and then attempt to achieve the same magical effect by different rituals.
If one Jew is claiming to be holier than other Jews because he has this new practice, as the Sephardim claimed to be holier than the Mizrakhim, he is going to claim his practice is ancient, hence any debate or discussion would be inconvenient. And so you piously forget, and coercively suppress, any debate or discussion. I can easily google up a shitload of debate and discussion about the separate washing rules.
You say that when the rules were introduced, would be discussion. Well guess what, there is discussion right now.
Similarly, when the Mizrakhim were obliterated, there was plenty of discussion, which seems to have gone down the memory hole with the Mizrakhim practices.
And, similarly, there was not very long ago a lot of discussion about babies in strollers.
B, consider if it were a new rule. You say it would be accompanied by debate as if social engineering could possibly be like physical engineering. That social engineering is done by the exercise of power is one of the key insights of neoreaction.
Jim thinks it would be quietly added and claimed to have always been the way things are done, or it would be rejected and perhaps remembered as heresy. Thus examining the evidence that it is the way things have always been done is the only way to know if it is a new rule.
Catholics are very proud, and explicitly note where beliefs have been clarified. They can do this because they have a king, and can date clarifications to the time at which those clarifications attained royal assent. The Orthodox schismatics refuse to acknowledge that their doctrine has been clarified over time.
I’m too tired to put anything anti-Semitic here, but it might be cool if you guys could have kings again.
Jewish priests are out of hand. They need a Solomon. May well get one.
Solomon was a problem, not a solution. His sins (amassing wealth and horses, taking many wives, tolerating/participating in idolatry) resulted in the split of the kingdom and its decline. We need a David.
>That social engineering is done by the exercise of power is one of the key insights of neoreaction.
Just as the rules of libertarianism work within a certain envelope, and break down outside it, and that envelope is contained within the envelope of neoreaction, neoreaction is itself contained within the envelope of Torah. The rules that work within that envelope do not work outside it.
Just as the idea that all men should be free to do and think whatever they wish works fine as long as all those men are responsible adults with a functional brain and marketable skills or the ability and desire to acquire them, and breaks down when applied to the majority of humanity, the neoreactionary rule set breaks down when applied to Jews (or, for that matter, most people as they actually are, but that’s a separate story.)
We don’t have a centralized authority for the issuance of new rules. We have a highly, highly distributed decisionmaking and memory system. Think different approaches to cryptography. The neoreactionary approach (as interpreted by Jim, which is different from Moldbug’s interpretation in key points) is that ideology is either issued by some central body like the Church of England, or issued by demagogues who set off a leftwards spiral. This is, in fact, how non-Jews do it.
But we do it quite differently. Every male is commanded to learn Torah (in the broad sense, including the Written and Oral Law) for its own sake, every day, in the morning and in the evening, without a maximum limit on learning, and is commanded to make a teacher for himself, a rabbi, to resolve questions which he himself can’t resolve. He is also forbidden from accepting an explanation which does not make sense to him, and is required to ask for an explanation with sources when he doesn’t understand a certain decision. We also have an emphasis on custom, for instance, the custom of one’s forefathers. There is a procedure for changing the way things are done customarily, but it is not taken lightly, and not done without public debate and deliberation (among those qualified to debate and deliberate on that level, as recognized by the Jewish community.)
In other words, this is the way that a trades guild is supposed to work. Plumbers, electricians, masons do things according to best practices, with room for discretion, individual preference, “this is the way I learned it as an apprentice,”etc. With changing technology and requirements, there is debate for how to apply established principles to new conditions and tasks. This debate is public and a matter of record, though the typical journeyman or apprentice don’t get to contribute their input, and the typical master only contributes his in that he picks a side.
I have not found this level of openness and honesty in any other living philosophical/ideological system, where typically what you see is Burnam’s formal meaning and actual meaning in all aspects of every discussion.
>Jim thinks it would be quietly added and claimed to have always been the way things are done, or it would be rejected and perhaps remembered as heresy.
Quietly added and claimed by whom, the Council of Elders? This is simply not the way things work with us. We can look at cases where strictures were added or attempted to be added and rejected for comparison cases. Jim, when discussing Judaism, is like the author of monograph on pachyderms, with only Dumbo to go on, who then proceeds to lecture Africans who live with the damn things in their backyards.
>I’m too tired to put anything anti-Semitic here, but it might be cool if you guys could have kings again.
We are working on it. However, our experience with kings shows that a king with no Torah is worse that no king at all.
Right now we see a group of rather left wing Orthodox Rabbis quietly stretching the “No public humiliation rule” so that it becomes “no contradicting the gay rights agenda” Conspiracy enough for me.
This is a process of consensus, unrestrained by anything external. Consensus always drifts towards the positions of the evil and the insane. While amending an ancient ritual is difficult, introducing new supposedly ancient rituals is easy, and quietly downplaying an old ancient ritual is not too difficult.
Let us take a look at that hot rock procedure. The original procedure, somewhat obsessively, ensured that the entire inner surface of the pot was subject to prolonged exposure to boiling water. The new, more convenient procedure, only momentarily exposes the entire pot to boiling water, and probably leaves bits of the rim not exposed. As the drift to greater holiness provides new, more holy rituals, old rituals get skimped on.
The old ritual was obsessive. So you reduce it to something more practical – while introducing new obsessive rituals.
For Judaism to once again be a state religion, you are going to have get rid of the new obsessive rituals – as you have already gotten rid of the old obsessive rituals.
>What is the evidence for the absence of flying saucers?
There is none. On the other hand, there is no good evidence for their presence.
>You construct a theological theory under which these rituals were practical, rather than ritual, actions, intended to achieve some magical effect, and then attempt to achieve the same magical effect by different rituals.
Au contraire. As you’ve explained, these rituals were quite practical, and achieved practical effects. And we follow them to this day. However, we do not follow them for those practical effects, similar to how we don’t put on tefillin for their practical benefits. We fulfill commandments for their own sake.
>If one Jew is claiming to be holier than other Jews because he has this new practice, as the Sephardim claimed to be holier than the Mizrakhim, he is going to claim his practice is ancient, hence any debate or discussion would be inconvenient.
As I’ve pointed out, you have your head up your ass when discussing Sepharadim/Mizrahim, and nothing to go on besides some lady professor of Oppression Studies at NYU. Perhaps to someone wishing to impose new standards debate and discussion are inconvenient, but to those upon whom the standards would be imposed, who have their own rabbis and texts, they would be essential. It takes two to tango.
>I can easily google up a shitload of debate and discussion about the separate washing rules.
Please do, from authoritative sources (Postjudaism Studies professors at Cathedral U are not authoritative,) and we’ll go from there.
>Similarly, when the Mizrakhim were obliterated, there was plenty of discussion, which seems to have gone down the memory hole with the Mizrakhim practices.
It’s spelled “Mizrahim,” and to the extent the term has a meaning distinct from Sepharadim, it means Persians and Yemenites. Who are alive, well, and have their distinctive practices of which they are quite proud. You are grasping at straws.
>And, similarly, there was not very long ago a lot of discussion about babies in strollers.
Do share. Again, Rabbi Samantha, Chaplain of Reform Theological Seminary, is not a valid source.
Authoritative sources being those that are authoritative because they claim superior holiness, in part on the basis of separate washing rules.
If the separate washing rules are ancient, how come the debate is recent?
>Right now we see a group of rather left wing Orthodox Rabbis quietly stretching the “No public humiliation rule†so that it becomes “no contradicting the gay rights agendaâ€
This group is comprised of 15 people. There are several million Orthodox Jews, of whom the vast majority doesn’t see these as any sort of halakhic authorities. Should they gain influence beyond three synagogues, attempt to officiate gay Jewish weddings, etc., there will be a very loud and public reaction. As it stands, we have a clear passage in the Talmud which says that G-d only tolerates non-Jews because they don’t have gay marriages, sell human flesh in the market and respect the Torah. What do you expect will happen when the terrible, 15-rabbi-strong conspiracy wins? Will they have public burnings of the Talmud, or go use whiteout on the offending passages? Will they use the Men In Black mindwipe on everyone who’s learned it?
>This is a process of consensus, unrestrained by anything external.
Yes, it presupposes some sort of moral compass among the Jewish people and some sort of basic desire to do the right thing. Without that, the whole exercise is pointless.
>Consensus always drifts towards the positions of the evil and the insane.
Not always. In a democratic society, where all voices count the same, sure. But we don’t see medicine or plumbing drifting towards evil and insanity. Why is that?
>While amending an ancient ritual is difficult, introducing new supposedly ancient rituals is easy, and quietly downplaying an old ancient ritual is not too difficult.
How do you imagine that happening? There are tens of thousands of copies of the Talmud, Mishne Torah, etc. floating around, and hundreds of thousands of Jews who have studied them and know how to look things up in them. They are, as Jews tend to be, stubborn and tend to have a high opinion of their intellectual abilities. Do you use the Men In Black flash thing on them?
>Let us take a look at that hot rock procedure.
The one you had no idea of until I mentioned it, and the one where I had to repeat the plain text of the Mishne Torah to you? OK, explain to me how we’re getting it wrong from your high perch.
> The original procedure, somewhat obsessively, ensured that the entire inner surface of the pot was subject to prolonged exposure to boiling water. The new, more convenient procedure, only momentarily exposes the entire pot to boiling water, and probably leaves bits of the rim not exposed. As the drift to greater holiness provides new, more holy rituals, old rituals get skimped on.
The procedure mentioned in Mishne Torah was one application of a basic principle (that taste absorbed at boiling temperature comes out at boiling temperature.) This one is an application of the same principle. I am not sure which one is older and frankly don’t care. It’s irrelevant.
>For Judaism to once again be a state religion, you are going to have get rid of the new obsessive rituals – as you have already gotten rid of the old obsessive rituals.
We’ve gotten rid of nothing, and we will get rid of nothing. If we wanted a Judaism without commandments, we would have become Karaites or Christians a long time ago.
Attempts to put together a group of fifteen Orthodox Jewish rabbis to unstretch the rule failed because no one wants to suffer the fate of Phil Robertson.
Where is the Jewish Phil Robertson?
More generally, consensus always undermines the moral compass. Consensus is always dominated by the evil and the insane, because the sane adjust their opinion towards the opinion of their peers, the insane do not shift, and the evil lie about what their real position is.
A group of fifteen orthodox rabbis lie about what their position was. I can see that they are lying. It is obvious. And yet you, in response, adjust your position on homosexuality a teensy little bit, because you don’t want to denounce a group of fifteen rabbis as beyond the pale, when they are just a teensy weensy little bit over edge of the pale. And when everyone has adjusted his position so that the group of fifteen are not quite over the pale, they will move to a slightly more radical position.
Plumbers do not in fact do consensus at all, and medicine does drift to madness, but is constrained by external reality. People keep noticing patient deaths and bad outcomes.
Plumbing, and to a lesser extent medicine, is constrained by external reality.
Some high status guy announces that Jews have always washed cheese dishes and meat dishes separately, even though we sixteenth century Jewish authorities explicitly discussing washing them together, and no Jew is inclined to say that his mother did not, because that would be low status – “no, your mother is not ancient Jewish tradition, rather your mother is a bad Jew.”
Conversely suppose some ancient ritual is inconvenient, and no longer demonstrates superior holiness because all the other Jews are doing it also. Invent a new, more convenient, ancient ritual to substitute for the old, or a new excuse that pretty much eliminates the occasions for performing the inconvenient ancient ritual. Since there is no ongoing holiness competition on the inconvenient ancient ritual, no one will call you on it, just as you were reluctant to call the fifteen rabbis.
So, create new inconveniences to demonstrate superior holiness, while removing old inconveniences to avoid inconvenience.
>Authoritative sources being those that are authoritative because they claim superior holiness, in part on the basis of separate washing rules.
Obviously, Jews think they’re holier, otherwise they’d be whatever they wouldn’t think they were holier than (see: conversos.) If you are interested in plumbing, do you pull up articles on Misogynistic Bias In Plumbing by the Gender Studies Department at Columbia?
>If the separate washing rules are ancient, how come the debate is recent?
I’ve already answered this question. Until recently, the vast majority of Jews had grown up in religious homes where trivial tasks like washing dishes were done customarily, and didn’t require extensive documentation.
I’m still waiting on sources for the dishwashing debate and strollers.
You can google as well as I can. Whosoever disagrees with the more holy position, you will deem disreputably unholy.
>You can google as well as I can. Whosoever disagrees with the more holy position, you will deem disreputably unholy.
Of course not. There are plenty of authorities who ruled leniently on various questions. I’ve already mentioned Rav Moshe Feinstein ruling that the prohibition on milk produced by gentiles didn’t apply to the US, for instance. And this in no way detracts from his authoritativeness. But I have yet to see a reputable, knowledgeable source say that you can intentionally wash milk and meat utensils in the same water, or carry children between domains on Shabbat without an eruv. If you find some, I’d be interested.
Shulhan Aruch in the sixteenth century says you can wash milk dishes and meat dishes together if no fat sticks to them, but if fat sticks to them, must use scalding hot water and ashes.
Ashes are strongly alkaline, containing lye, so modern equivalent of ashes is lye or dishwasher soap. Ashes or lye in hot water will lift the fat, though Shulhan Aruch does not give this as his reason, but rather, gives as his reason that it spoils the taste of the fat.
And we don’t see anyone contradicting, querying, or re-interpreting this entirely clear ruling until very recent times.
If it had been an ancient Jewish tradition to not wash meat and cheese dishes together, surely someone would have commented on Shulhan Aruch some centuries back.
The Shulchan Aruch is talking bedieved here, meaning, after the fact. Not before the fact. And lye is no equivalent to modern dish soap. I would like some kind of authoritative source that this is the way things were normally done.
>Plumbers do not in fact do consensus at all, and medicine does drift to madness, but is constrained by external reality. People keep noticing patient deaths and bad outcomes.
Plumbers have standard/best practices, as do doctors. As for the drift to madness of the latter, I am absolutely certain that in a hypothetical situation where you had a funny lump in your scrotum, or a fractured femur, and a choice between going to a doctor using the tools and techniques of 1515, 1715, 1915 and today, you would choose today’s doctor.
>Plumbing, and to a lesser extent medicine, is constrained by external reality.
Absolutely. My argument is that so is every religion/philosophy, in the long term. If it goes against basic truths and realities, its followers will die out/assimilate over the long term.
>Some high status guy announces that Jews have always washed cheese dishes and meat dishes separately, even though we sixteenth century Jewish authorities explicitly discussing washing them together, and no Jew is inclined to say that his mother did not, because that would be low status – “no, your mother is not ancient Jewish tradition, rather your mother is a bad Jew.â€
Yes, Jews are notorious for their sheeplike complacency and fear of social pressure 🙂 We are little automatons, marching in lockstep. And our authorities never disagree with each other!
>So, create new inconveniences to demonstrate superior holiness, while removing old inconveniences to avoid inconvenience.
Again, for someone who knows elephants from watching them in animated Disney films, there are all kinds of plausible theories of elephant behavior, internal functioning, etc. For someone who lives with actual elephants, these theories are very funny.
Plumber best practice is not generated by consensus. Doctor best practice is only partially generated by consensus. They also take into account patient outcomes.
On reading the talmudic prescription for sterilizing a pot by boiling water, I immediately knew that no one did that any more in that elaborate and inconvenient way, without bothering to research the issue – because ancient obsessive and inconvenient rites get disposed off, all of them, replaced by more practical rites, or quietly rationalized away, while present day obsessive and inconvenient rites are all new. All ancient obsessive and inconvenient rites are disposed off, all present day obsessive and inconvenient rites are new.
When rabbis had theocratic power, went into a death spiral of holier than thou. Now that there power is limited, cannot go into a death spiral, because the congregation is apt to melt away if the rabbis get too over the top, but continuing competitive holiness, as for example when Sephardim absorbed Misrahim, generates continual churn of over the top rituals.
In both cases, in power and out of power, Jews conformed to the atheistic neoreactionary theory of religious dynamics.
The whole point of ritual practices is that being arbitrary, they signify group membership and group solidarity. Therefore rituals should be performed by everyone the same and should be unchanging. However, some people in the group want to be holier, which requires that some people be deemed insufficiently holy, which requires them to continually come up with hot new pain in the ass rituals.
In any religion this a bad thing. In a state religion, it is a very bad thing.
>Plumber best practice is not generated by consensus. Doctor best practice is only partially generated by consensus. They also take into account patient outcomes.
They are both generated by consensus of experts in the field, who take into account realities.
>On reading the talmudic prescription for sterilizing a pot by boiling water, I immediately knew that no one did that any more in that elaborate and inconvenient way, without bothering to research the issue – because ancient obsessive and inconvenient rites get disposed off, all of them, replaced by more practical rites, or quietly rationalized away, while present day obsessive and inconvenient rites are all new.
You “immediately knew” many things that turned out to be nonsense. You “immediately knew” that nobody dunks their utensils in boiling water. When I pointed out that you had your head up your ass, you move the goalpost of your immediate knowledge. In this case, the desired effect (boiling water overflowing the rim) is reached in other ways. The fact is, we do the same things they prescribed in the Talmud, with occasional minor differences.
>When rabbis had theocratic power, went into a death spiral of holier than thou.
Not so.
>Now that there power is limited, cannot go into a death spiral, because the congregation is apt to melt away if the rabbis get too over the top, but continuing competitive holiness, as for example when Sephardim absorbed Misrahim, generates continual churn of over the top rituals.
For the billionth time, the Sepharadim did not absorb the Mizrahim, if only for the reason that they are a subset of Mizrahim. And as usual, you have no sources whatsoever (except the NYU Oppression Studies professor lady.)
>In both cases, in power and out of power, Jews conformed to the atheistic neoreactionary theory of religious dynamics.
The “atheistic neoreactionary theory of religious dynamics” sprang full-formed, like Athena, from your nether orifice, and magically morphs to retroactively adjust itself to new facts as they emerge, or ignore inconvenient ones.
I specifically referenced that particular ritual, building up the rim of the vessel with clay, because it was inconvenient and obsessive, not whatever substitute ritual or rationalization you whipped up in place of it or to explain away no longer practicing it. I knew Jews no longer practiced that specific ritual because old obsessive rituals not useful for signalling superior holiness, only new obsessive rituals. Did not know Jewish explanation why not, not much interested, will forget the explanation in a week or two. So you still boil pots? Nonetheless, you do not boil them in that pain in the ass manner. If I implied an excuse different from the one Jews currently use, well, I forget what excuse I implied and it does not matter anyway. My point was the disappearance of the old. The excuse or replacement makes no difference. That is not moving the goalposts, that is ignoring irrelevant details.
You have already demonstrated that you know rather little about that period in Jewish history. You thought that Herod ruled contemporaneous with the life of Jesus, and you only know a single incident in the conflicts between Pilate and religious leaders.
Disaster ensued roughly seventy years after Jewish Kings ruled, roughly forty years after the death of Jesus, and the lead up to the disaster was ever greater holiness by religious leaders getting ever pricklier about Roman paganism, ever more repressive against irreligion and religious dissent amongst the Jews, and finding ever more inconvenient interpretations of the law.
>I specifically referenced that particular ritual, building up the rim of the vessel with clay, because it was inconvenient and obsessive, not whatever substitute ritual or rationalization you whipped up in place of it or to explain away no longer practicing it. I knew Jews no longer practiced that specific ritual because old obsessive rituals not useful for signalling superior holiness, only new obsessive rituals.
Yes, putting dough on a pot is much more inconvenient than heating up a rock and throwing it in. The really convenient thing is not to use vessels which may be contaminated, and dunk the ones you buy from a store into a mikveh at room temperature, which is what most people do.
If I find you a source for the rock way that predates the dough way, you will come up with more bullshit.
>You have already demonstrated that you know rather little about that period in Jewish history. You thought that Herod ruled contemporaneous with the life of Jesus, and you only know a single incident in the conflicts between Pilate and religious leaders.
I mentioned several incidents between Pilate and the Jews, which you conveniently ignored.
Herod ruled contemporaneously with the beginning of Jesus’ life, during which time there was a major rebellion in the North by Judah of Galilee, which you apparently are not aware of, since your narrative starts around Jesus’ adulthood, and since you say that rebellion was fomented by rabbis in Jerusalem.
Your narrative also ignores the fact that the Samaritans, who had no rabbis or phylacteries or Oral Torah, were under severe repression by the Romans and rebelled against them as well. They were probably also bad, wicked people, provoking the peaceful and friendly Romans.
The rabbis took a very bleak view of the Zealots and were responsible for the peace treaty (negotiated by Yohanan Ben Zakai with Emperor Vespasian.) None of the Zealots’ leaders were rabbis-not Shimon Bar Giora, not John Giscala, not Eleazar Bar Shimon.
Finally, after the Great Revolt, many Romans converted to Judaism, including Consul Flavius Clemens. Apparently, they didn’t share your opinion of the rabbis.
If you find a source for the rock that predates the dough, that would substantial evidence against my theory.
Since my theory is well supported by ample evidence, I think it highly unlikely you will find the rock. You will however doubtless find something that if re-re-re-interpeted and, stood upside down and sideways, could be used as a rationale for the rock, provided that we take as given that black equals white, up equals down, and an lengthy philosophical treatise on what the meaning of “is” is.
Which is what gives Talmudism its bad name. You do not in fact approach old texts respectfully, attempting to put on the shoes of the man who wrote them, but rather torture them till they confess to their crimes.
China and Burma also do a good job of paying back the jihadists in kind.
Muslims vs. infidels is a contest of quantity versus quality, r-selection versus K-selection. A resource-rich environment (e.g. Saudi money + Western welfare statism) favors r-selection, but when that ends things are going to get K-selected real fast.
1 Anybody living next to Muslims in their natural state is subjected to chimp behavior by the young men, meaning, constant low-level violence and sporadic spectacular raids, with the threat of more spectacular raids used to suppress reactions to the low-level violence.
2. The best way to live with Muslims is not to live with Muslims.
3. However, you can’t put the smoke back in the cigarette. Once you’ve built an empire, the conquered subjects inevitably end up in the metropolie in large, unassimilated numbers. Sooner or later. The good news is that historically Muslims have made pretty good subjects and occasionally decent neighbors if given the right incentives.
4. If you do live with Muslims, there are the following things to remember:
a) Muslims live communally, and respond well to communal rewards and punishments. The best way to react to any violence, low-level or not, is by punishing not just the offenders but their family and tribe. The best way to do this is in such a way that it improves the situation of their rival families and tribes. Punishing only the offenders just improves their cred and that of their family. Dispossessing their family so that they are a living example of what not to do, confiscating their businesses and giving/renting them to their rivals, is much more effective.
b) Because of Islam’s historical peculiarities, there is no real mechanism for a ruler’s legitimacy in the Islamic world and hasn’t been for about 1300 years. Therefore, the Islamic world has never moved beyond the Central Eurasian Complex model of government, i.e., the comitatus, a chief and his group of loyal friends/relatives. Hence, for instance, Bin Laden’s emphasis on bayda, the fealty oath. This means that to be effective at dealing with Muslims, you have to build personal ties with key personages. Friendship and trust based on mutual respect (which is generally founded on a recognition of physical and moral courage, the willingness to do violence and the magnitude to restrain oneself) are everything here.
France needs to learn a lot from Israel.
Ah, we suck too. It’s embarrassing.
In what way?
The government fails to enforce its own laws on its Muslim subjects, let alone develop special laws to address their peculiarities and status, and makes all sorts of conciliatory noises all the time. It fails to punish their misbehavior, rebelliousness and terror harshly, while doubling down on punishment for Jews. It doesn’t punish them communally, and only recently has stopped passing money to the PA (which gives $2000 per month to the family of every terrorist who attempted to kill a Jew and double that to the family of every one who succeeded,) and is still supplying the Arabs of Gaza and the Palestinian Authority with free water and electricity (or rather ignoring their refusal to pay the bills.) It’s very depressing.
In the old Testament, there is a whole lot of law requiring Hebrews to be genocidally repressive against foreign residents and alarmingly repressive against irreligious Jews. There are also numerous exhortations to be hospitable and civilized to foreign residents.
Since exile Jews have not been in a position to implement the former, they entirely tossed both the former and the latter.
And you, B, have accepted this Talmudic position, that this alarmingly bloodthirsty stuff is ancient history.
But, this Talmudic position is rather obviously an adaption to exile. A reasonable interpretation of the law is to be hospitable and civilized to foreign residents who do not cause problems, or go out of their way to adversely impact Israel’s Jewish character, while being genocidally repressive to foreign residents who cause problems and seek to destroy Israel’s Jewish character. The Talmudic position, however, which is to entirely get rid of the embarrassing bits of the Old Testament, is not a reasonable interpretation.
Your objections are neither factual nor relevant.
They are irrelevant because Israel is not a theocratic monarchy but a Western democracy, and functions not according to Judaism but according to the dictates of the NYT and State.
They are not factual because the questions of what is a resident alien, to whom we must be kind, and what is the status of non-Jews in Israel who are not such resident aliens, and what is the status of “irreligious Jews” are complex, and to implement the law properly, we have to answer these questions. They are not factual because you accuse religious Jews of the position that this stuff is ancient history, which is not true-religious Jews have maintained study of this stuff for the last 2000 years, Maimonides for instance writes extensively of its technical implementation, and once the people of Israel are ready to live by the Torah and not by the NYT, these laws will immediately be enacted. Finally, they are not factual because you imply that foreign residents in Israel are not treated in a hospitable and civilized way, which is untrue.
Every state has a state religion. Unfortunately for Israel, your state religion is headquartered in Harvard.
If you want Israel to have a Jewish state religion, you are going to have to have answers for these questions. Current Judaism is a fine religion of exile, not so well suited to be a state religion of Israel.
Indeed they are treated in a hospitable and civilized way – but this is due to the state religion and secular Jews, not the Jewish religion, which is still full of the bitterness of exile.
>If you want Israel to have a Jewish state religion, you are going to have to have answers for these questions.
We have detailed, practical answers for these questions. That is not the issue. The issue is that most Jews in Israel do not want a Jewish state. They are slowly recovering, to the point where more and more of them do want such a state, but they are not there yet. Making up a new religion will certainly not make the case for a Jewish state more convincing. Rather, the opposite.
Unfortunately the Democrats/Left have more of the statist mentality to use such management as opposed to the Republicans/Right. And then control by the government promotes disorder and injustice…
The Republicans are no better-the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan gave them the chance to shine, which they failed at completely. Bush was the guy saying that Islam is a religion of peace.
Control by the government is fine as long as its interests are aligned with the interests of its subjects. Unfortunately, no such government exists in the West, nor can it exist in any system of popular rule where votes are fungible-human nature says that when we need a fungible commodity and we have competition, we’ll purchase it from the lowest bidder. In this case, meaning, the poorest (stupidest, least productive) members of society, followed by foreign peons.
If your method is the method to suppress Islamic terrorism, the Republicans are unfit to implement it. I would argue it’s because they are not as authoritarian/collectivist/statist. Instead arguing how, on the contrary, the Republicans were fit to implement it, you instead referred to recent history *proving* my point that the Republicans could *not* implement your method. What I’m arguing is that given a change in the Democratic party line, they could implement your methodology but would use it to redirect Islamic terror onto the politically incorrect rather than crush it.
Nobody in American politics today could implement this methodology, because it is incompatible with the basic tenets of American state religion.
Right now the Left ranks Muslims as a higher-priority victim group than women but what would happen if it ranked women as a higher-priority victim group than Muslims? Such shifts are not unheard of: originally the non-Communist Left supported the (admittedly socialist) Zionists while accepting the Labor Zionist view that the Arabs were anti-Semitic murderers led by feudal and military dictatorships. Then between the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War, the identity of the victim group reversed itself, at least as far as the Left was concerned.
As whites drop towards fifty percent of US voters, white single women will become a less and less critical part of the oppressed victim coalition. So Muslims will inevitably out victim single women at some point.
And everywhere in the world, leftists will follow in lock step, even if their own demographics are radically different from those of the US left.
It doesn’t matter-the issue is not victim priority but rather whether the ruling ideology can accept the idea of punishing families and communities explicitly for specific misdeeds by their individual members.
The Left doesn’t seem troubled over war crimes against Confederates in the Civil War, against Serbs in the Balkans or against the cult compound at Waco. Is divided over WWII massacres of civilians.
Jim, I thought your thesis was that academia and the media influence politicians more than how the people feel about an issue at any given moment. Now you imply that the Left is catering to an actual voter base.
Pandering, rather than catering.
The reason the obamaphone woman is a meme, is that it so obvious that social justice talk and equality talk rests on covetousness, and academy and the media has cultivated the covetousness of obamaphone woman.
The masses get the government they want. And they want it because obamaphones.
The government buys as many voters as it needs to get legitimacy for what it is going to do anyway. And naturally it buys the cheapest available voters.
Also for every muslim boy dating a non muslim girl a non-muslim boy gets to date a muslim girl.
That seems like a fair and balanced suggestion.
I’m not at my usual computer, but I’ll post n Arab woman joke here as soon as I get home.
Mahommedanism is the problem of white Europe and it is basically a non-issue for white America. Sure, it may grab headlines (and not let go) from time to time, but their faith is not something that should be noted by pro-whites of North America. Rather, the White Genocide that brings in Mahommedanism is the best target…
A.J.P.
Muslims should not be allowed to convert. We don’t need or want the genetic material that they’re selling.
They should simply be forced to go home.
The vast majority will leave of their own accord, once certain things are made clear with a few examples.
Why should converts be allowed to stay, Europeans have nothing to gain by allowing people of other races inside there nations. They should all be removed including the Jews.