- Opinion:
- Thank you for your response to my email. However your supposed
analogy between a doctor prescribing medication for an illness and a
level of religious observance is clearly not an analogy.
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- All people in this world make different judgments on everything for
reasons that are sufficient for them. I may be a political liberal or
conservative, you may disagree. I may like period furniture, you may
like modern. My preferences represent me, yours represent you. That is
the way it should be but I MUST BE FREE TO MAKE MY OWN CHOICES whether
in fact I am correct or incorrect. In Israel I am not free to make my
own choices regarding religion. Until recently I could not attend a
conservative or reform shul because they were not allowed. The case of
an Israeli couple who adopted a Guatamalen baby and had a reform
conversion in England but the rabbinate refused to register the child
as a Jew is a terrible thing. The case of a Russian immigrant who
joined the IDF and was killed at Tulkarim but was not allowed to be
buried in a Jewish cemetery since his halachic credentials could not
be proven is even more terrible.
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- Your community would deny my right to CHOOSE the way I live. My way
could be right or wrong but in a free society the choice MUST be mine.
It is not so in Israel and the resultant conflict among Jews is very
real and may very well cause a breakdown of society at which point the
Arabs will take full
- advantage.
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- For you to say that 'Israel must TOLERATE Jews at all levels' is
depreciatory. The word tolerate is unacceptable to most Jews in Israel
and in the Diaspora. Israel must ENCOURAGE Jews at all levels and
provide full diversity in order to survive. I respect your opinions,
you should fully respect mine.
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- Response:
- I don't deny your right to exercise your own free will. This is
clearly what G-d wants for man so he may earn his own reward or
punishment. If we are not allowed to make our own choices, we are not
functioning as G-d wishes. Therefore, the apparatus of the freewill
has been created by G-d.
- This however is limited to the question of man's rights.
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- But, do not confuse man's rights with G-d's rights.
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- Choose your philosophy as you wish, but don't claim that Reform
criteria should be recognized by the Orthodox when determining
halacha.
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- I reiterate, G-d gave one Torah. It was not a reform or conservative
Torah. It is the orthodox Torah which is known to be what it is from
generation to generation. One of the 613 commands in the Torah is not
to alter the Torah. Another of the commands is to follow the Torah as
the Rabbis teach. But not every rabbi, only the one's who are clearly
upholding the written and oral laws. Reform and conservative are not
doing this.
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- Reform and conservative Judaism were movements which began long
after the Torah was given to Moses. It clearly is not what G-d gave.
The Talmud and Mishna go through all areas of Jewish law discussing
what the passages in the Chumash are to mean, and derive principles
based on tradition, the oral law, rabbi to rabbi, generation to
generation. There is a solid tradition, mesora, which we have today,
dating back to Moses, the only recipient of divine law.
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- No. We do not recognize conservative and reform, because G-d does
not recognize it.
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- Orthodox, Conservative and reform Judaism can't all be what G-d gave
at Mount Sinai, as He gave only one law.
- Therefore it logically follows that at the least, two of these three
forms of Judaism is not authentic Judaism. It is a corrupt system.
According to your argument however, do you,feel anyone should be able
to practice as he wishes.........even if he is wrong? Even if doing so
would cause G-d to exile us?
- You are in a contradiction. On the one hand you want to live in
Israel, on the other, your argument for freedom of expression will
cause our exile.
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- Additionally, a Rabbi asked on your view, "Perhaps this man
would allow Jews for Jesus, as that too is freedom of
expression?"
- Where do you draw the line? Your own words attest to the fact that
you DON'T draw the line. But we must,...G-d has.
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- I don't argue that free choice is G-d's will. However, it is also
G-d's will that there is capital punishment for those who break the
system. So G-d desires that one use his free will to select the
correct path, and pay the price if he doesn't. To put it all together,
G-d desires that man select the path of the Torah, as we have it from
tradition from the Rabbis. G-d also desires that there be a system of
punishment for violators. Part of this punishment is the exile from
the land of Israel. It only follows then that G-d desires one to
follow the correct path from the Rabbis if he wants to remain in
Israel. Living in Israel and violating the system are mutually
exclusive.
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- If G-d's Torah doesn't recognize Reform, and Reform conversions, who
are we, to quote King Solomon, "who come after the King
(G-d)" to argue with G-d? G-d created the system of the Torah.
- After an awesome Being with ultimate knowledge sufficient to create
the universe with the billions of spheres, each of immense magnitude,
then developed a system of life for man called the Torah. Are you
actually saying that this Being's work needs some correction? That He
made some mistakes about who should be recognized as a Jew?
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- In your freewill you may either accept G-d's law as it was given or
not. But don't tell G-d how to write the rules.
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