Posted on 09/22/2008 10:48:40 AM PDT by dalight
"These attacks that he's not supportive of Israel are just not true," said Rabbi Steve Bob of Congregation Etz Chaim in Lombard, Ill.
Jonathan Sarna, the Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University, said he believes Rabbis for Obama is a first in the Jewish community.
"I certainly can remember many newspaper ads that rabbis would sign" backing a candidate, Sarna said, but "I can't remember another organization with this kind of title."
Given the increased mix of religion and politics that the United States has seen in the past 20 to 30 years, he added, it is much more likely for such a group to spring up now than it would have been early in the 20th century.
Bob said that he and other members of the organization are interested in publicly speaking -- under the Rabbis for Obama banner -- on behalf of the Democratic candidate across the country and are currently discussing how to become more involved in key swing states.
The letter the rabbis signed states that the group backs Obama because "he will best support the issues important to us in the Jewish community."
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishexponent.com ...
I am wrong about the Cross Post. I am sorry. Looking again, this is the same thread, just a repeat of the same stuff. Accept my appologies.
I checked out Polzin. You might as well be talking about geology. The guy knows nothing about the primary sources of Tanach interpretation. I looked at the index to the work you cited: no mention of Rashi, Radak, Metsudas Dovid or Metsudas Tzion. If you like academic double speak, you will have joy and revelation from this nonsense. But its no more than some English major dissecting Shakespeare as an empty mental exercise.
Higher criticism? Higher only because of the dope they’re smoking.
Forgiven.
As to your sorry attempt to answer my questions, you engage in more “reform” of history than reform jews did to judaism.
Outside of Orthodox Jewry in America and around the world, the Jewish people are disappearing. This is your vitality? Bollocks.
At the end of the day, the only knees being jerked are the ones being jerked at the end of a chain of false ideology dressed up as “New and Improved Judaism”.
My friend, seek out a real Rabbi. You know, the kind that knows how to teach a page of Talmud without an English translation. The kind that knows Shulchan Aruch. Ask him to teach you about real Judaism, not the nonsense you’ve been trained to believe in about the stifling effect of observing the mitzvos. And, while you’re at it, do us all a favor: if you want to make up your own religion, pick out a different name, because what you’ve got there ain’t judaism.
Read it that fast? or you have been at this for a while and you read this years ago? Polzin is not studying Rashi. Gees. Better to read the words inside the cover before getting lost.
Higher criticism? Higher only because of the dope they’re smoking.
Higher vitriol based on what fact? This is a spurious charge gratuitously made. Head meet sand. "Don't say things like that.. I don't want to know things like that!" If you insist that all knowledge comes only from Rashi, et al. than you certainly will win arguments about anything that anyone is willing to engage you on those terms. You don't want my pity, yet we are getting close to that.
I am not saying Rashi wasn't great, mind you, or RamBam or RamBan or so many great men. Our history is rich with great minds and they are so great that their ideas help force the Protestant Reformation, but they also plowed the ground for Spinoza.
I have not read much by Reb. David Kimhi .. sounds interesting. We will see..
But, your criticism of Polzin is about as apt as decrying a book on engineering because it doesn't have references to Plato or Aristotle. Really.
Gratuitous assertion without factual support again. Not the way to present an argument.
Outside of Orthodox Jewry in America and around the world, the Jewish people are disappearing. This is your vitality? Bollocks.
Gratuitous assertion without factual support again.
This definitely was the case, but it is no longer the case. Reform Temples who have turned back to Torah are thriving. Many are still lost but the change has been occurring for nearly a decade now..
At the end of the day, the only knees being jerked are the ones being jerked at the end of a chain of false ideology dressed up as “New and Improved Judaism”.
And your's of course. You are welcome to your faith. You are not welcome to engage in Lashon Hara, and in this you force me to confront your words with fact. Judaism has been forced by God to adapt and this is in accord with his will, not in spite of it. You can inveigh against Reform Judaism, calling it false, misguided and such but just this cry is without substantial effect. Because you have not taken the time to understand what is and isn't new. What is and what can't be improved. Reform Judaism is a process not an end point. It has its weaknesses and its strengths, but the fountain of Abraham's millions flows from the Reform movement, not the Orthodox which yet preserves the seed, and in this fulfills God's purpose as well.
My friend, seek out a real Rabbi. You know, the kind that knows how to teach a page of Talmud without an English translation.
Once again the wicked tongue. An evil deed.
The kind that knows Shulchan Aruch. Ask him to teach you about real Judaism, not the nonsense you’ve been trained to believe in about the stifling effect of observing the mitzvos.
Gratuitous assertion without factual support again.
And, while you’re at it, do us all a favor: if you want to make up your own religion, pick out a different name, because what you’ve got there ain’t judaism.
Though you may be as wise as Rabbi Eliezer, it still doesn't change the fact of what Judaism is or is not. And it is not by your definition or permission that we move forward.
Are you sure you’re not a liberal? Sanctimony is a primary symptom of the disease.
It’s not evil to speak the truth about those who seek to tear down Judaism. It’s a great mitzva to challenge the lies and the nonsense.
Are you so ignorant that you need citations for the proposition that Orthodox judaism is the only branch with a future? try here: http://www.ujc.org/page.html?ArticleID=33650 and here:
http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/archive/list/item/?id=2932&year=2007&month=07
I realize the fact that your cohort is disappearing is difficult for you to cope with, but you chose to turn your back on our tradition, make up new ideas and re-interpret the Torah according to your own notions of what Judaism should be.
There is no point for me to refute anything once it is established (and you admit as much) that you don’t recognized the divine origin of the Torah (all of it) and that you have made up new stuff. All the rest is just commentary. To turn your Aristotle/Plato analogy back on itself, you are trying to do physics without Gallileo, Newton and Einstein. In your remarkable hubris, you say: ah what the heck did they know? They lived a long time ago and wore strange clothes.
If you had ever bothered to educate yourself into what the Torah is rather than what a bunch of Johnny come lately “academics” say it is, you wouldn’t dream of saying the remarkably ignorant things you say. For example, you pretend to hold Rabbi Eliezer in high regard. Who do you think he agrees with? And are you and your reformers superior to him in Torah knowledge that you can come and try to change it?
Again. Stop relying on the Polzins. See what Rabbi Akiva, Hillel, Rav Ashi, Rebbi Yehuda, Abaye and Rava have to say. They know the Torah. Go learn from them.
Here’s another thought experiment: you ridicule my reliance on Rashi. Do you have any concept of the genius of Rashi? Have you read even one Rashi in the original? Rashi knew every letter, word, chapter and verse of Tanach like you know the Pledge of Allegiance. He knew every Mishna and all the Talmud inside and out. He knew virtually every extant commentary that came before him on all scriptures and oral law. And you dare to speak lightly of Rashi in the same breath with the egghead Polzin?
I didn’t read all of Polzin. I read several passages to gain a perspective of his approach and I skimmed his indices and footnotes. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Virtually every source modern, christian and/or secular. That says a lot about what withering ignorance informs his writing.
If you are going to approach a sacred text that has been around for thousands of years and intensely studied and interpreted and analyzed for thousands of years by millions of Jews, how in the world can you develop an understanding without reference to the earlier sources, including many sources that were receive at Sinai and were carefully and lovingly preserved down through the ages?
As I said before, Polzin is like a guy who wants to write books on physics and ignore Gallileo, Newton and Einstein. An ignoramus with a big vocabulary, a professorship and a computer. Big deal.
You sound like a sincere thinker, but you don’t have the courage to admit that “modern” thinking is not necessarily superior and that your received wisdom may be completely blown away if you dared to go back to the basics and find out what Judaism is really about instead of your snooty condescension that we’re a bunch of repressed knuckle draggers who just haven’t seen the light like you. Open a gemara, learn a chapter or two of Chumash with Rashi like your great grandfather did in Cheder and then, let’s talk.
Well. You are beginning to bore me. If you want to know about me, feel free to actually read what I have posted. I know you aren't big on research. Just running your mouth. (Or your fingers.. )
It’s not evil to speak the truth about those who seek to tear down Judaism. It’s a great mitzva to challenge the lies and the nonsense.
Unfortunately, that would apply most to you who claims to be a "good" boy attempting to prove that all Jews are not liberal nut jobs. Gees.
Nevertheless, I have pointed out numerous errors in your logic and your lack of proof for most all of the things that you state. This leads to a clear charge of careless smearing of folks who don't deserve it by the facts you present, whether or not they truly deserve your scorn in fact. This then becomes malicious and sinful. And during this time of year, one should take pause in doing so because this is a time of reflection and noting that words tossed about often land in unfortunate places. That insults hurled especially when they are just that evil tongue are wicked in the eyes of God and you claim to be religious.
This isn't sanctimony, its just horror for the behavior of my brother who cannot stand in the place of penitence for his pride keeps him from that.
If Orthodox is the only branch with a future than your future is indeed Dire.
Are you so ignorant that you need citations for the proposition that Orthodox judaism is the only branch with a future? try here:
http://www.ujc.org/page.html?ArticleID=33650
and here:
http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/archive/list/item/?id=2932&year=2007&month=07
The first study you cite makes an absurd straight line projection out 30 years and this is a very poor method of static analysis of population trends. Though there is a very real and present danger that approximately 50% of the "over assimilated" Jewish population of the United States is at this point in grave risk of complete assimilation. The Orthodox movement is in no position to reverse this loss though for a number of reasons.
The most dramatic is Intermarriage that Orthodox see as a complete loss rather than a distinct opportunity for gain. The Reform movement has moved from stupid to smart on this and via insisting on the children being educated as Jews and opening our arms to spouses to participate and convert if they care, we have begun to turn this from loss to gain. This factor alone will keep the projections of the first citation from being realized. We are the water that flows around the rock. It poses no barrier.
The unaffiliated are a much harder problem. Their hearts are hardened to the opportunity of faith. We need to reach out to the lost, this is Gods will.
I realize the fact that your cohort is disappearing is difficult for you to cope with, but you chose to turn your back on our tradition, make up new ideas and re-interpret the Torah according to your own notions of what Judaism should be.
I assure you the rumors of our demise are greatly exaggerated. The second study you noted makes no projection based on Sect. It is a credible study though and lays out the challenges fairly well. Our congregation is growing as are many of the Reform Congregations of late. Think of us as being much like the Evangelicals of the American Christians without the evangelizing.
We are working hard to reach out, to bring Torah into the hearts and minds of our congregations, to provide multiple paths of engagement and to engage more deeply in the practice of Judaism. Our school is vibrant, and space is at a premium as our growth threatens our capacity. And yet, reaching out to the "Lost Generation" will demand a doubling of the capacity of all of the congregations in the US.
Our leaders are knuckleheads when it comes to politics, civics, relationships with other faiths, and many other things, and there is no way to avoid this understanding. I weep each time I have to write a letter to Rabbi Yoffee and the URJ for some stupid misstep or another. But, they are doing better at moving the Reform movement in relation to re-engaging in the work of Torah. 20 years ago, Reform Judaism was broken and lost, this isn't the case now, but it is only on the mend, so much more is yet to be done. So much more.
There is no point for me to refute anything once it is established (and you admit as much) that you don’t recognized the divine origin of the Torah (all of it) and that you have made up new stuff.
There is nothing new under the Sun. Nevertheless, I stated to you that Rabbinic Judaism in every form as it exists today Orthodox, Ultra-Orthodox and all is extra-Biblical we reach back to the Talmud a forbidden document and the work of the Great Teachers of the end of the Age of the 2nd Temple for their Wise guidance but then we press forward for Judaism is the faith that has a forward and other faiths which depend on Judaism are based on this forward, a mission to the people of the world to be a light unto the world and to share the Law and the promise with all who would accept it.
To turn your Aristotle/Plato analogy back on itself, you are trying to do physics without Gallileo, Newton and Einstein. In your remarkable hubris, you say: ah what the heck did they know? They lived a long time ago and wore strange clothes.
Rather than understand, you choose to not understand. To throw up Red Herrings and claim they are arguments. My point is that Rashi's commentary doesn't specifically bare on the work "Samuel and the Deuteronomist" so the fact that it isn't cited is not specifically a surprise. The results of their work, and analysis inform the scholar, for sure. but the citations lead back to sources that directly involve the matter at hand. Secondary and Tertiary citations are not made. If this was an analysis of the Development of Judaism in the middle ages, these sources missing would evidence a deep lack of serious scholarship as these would have to be the primary sources for any jumping off point to such an analysis.
They hardly represent a jumping off point for analyzing a part of the Deuteronomistic History and the interpretations of this work in light of the Failure of the Kings, the Loss of the ten Tribes and the fall of the First Temple. Big Duh... But this work is stunning nevertheless for its insight into the Struggle between Samuel and Saul and the horrible choice that Israel made in turning its back from God and looking to Men as Kings. Yet their struggle, their loss, their agony created America. God truly plays a deep game. Yet, we are but actors on this stage, our parts written and yet we are permitted to ad lib a bit. Such is God's grace and trust in us.
If you had ever bothered to educate yourself into what the Torah is rather than what a bunch of Johnny come lately “academics” say it is, you wouldn’t dream of saying the remarkably ignorant things you say.
You are missing the Torah, I am wallowing in it.. and loving it. If God had intended us to be ignorant, reading the same thing over and over, not exploring. creating, building and remaking he would have made us Cows in the field. Outstanding, happy and for the most part passive. We were created for so much more, with inquisitive minds, capable of discovering the very structure of the universe and turning it to our will. Yet, in each step, our steps are guided by His will if we only take the time to listen.
For example, you pretend to hold Rabbi Eliezer in high regard. Who do you think he agrees with? And are you and your reformers superior to him in Torah knowledge that you can come and try to change it?
The point of naming Rabbi Eliezer was to give you pause, for his story is quite interesting. You should read it perhaps again.
I take your hat and yet you do not notice the sunshine beating on your brow. I give it back and you ask me about your hat band. I point to the band on your arm, you look at me and walk away in disgust.
See what Rabbi Akiva, Hillel, Rav Ashi, Rebbi Yehuda, Abaye and Rava have to say. They know the Torah. Go learn from them.
Great men all, yet once again, you go Assuming things you have no facts to support. Remember the old saying about Assuming. Do you?
BTW: How do you feel about the fact that more Jews become Christians than vice versa? An honest question.
Regards, Clemenza, (An Goyish Agnostic leaning toward atheism)
I have been ridiculing your bluster and ignorance, but not Rashi. I wouldn't dream of it. I don't have the courage of Rabbi Akiba which would be necessary to accept the lashing I would deserve for such Tomfoolery.
I have read some of Rashi, but not nearly enough by half for my likes. I hope God grants me the life and time to do this before my work is done.
A question, you are moving in the right direction for once.
And you dare to speak lightly of Rashi in the same breath with the egghead Polzin?
I strongly believe Rashi would have delighted in Polzin's work if it had been available, but then again, at least he would have read it before he criticized it, unlike some who choose to approach such questions the other way.
Polzin's work is very good. It is an example of work that is only possible in light of Higher Criticism, so if you object to the existence of the Deuteronomist, you may have a real problem getting past the introduction. Polzin and Rashi are not on the same plane. We all stand on the shoulders of Giants. Their contribution lifts us up just that much more so we might see. Polzin is intensely technical writing. Perhaps not the best first volume on Higher Criticism. The "Who wrote the Bible" book is a much better starting point. The "The Book of J" by Harold Bloom and David Rosenberg is also worthy for the assembly and translation of J and notes relating to this translation and their speculations about its author, though much of what they write outside of this is not very interesting or particularly worthy, especially their flights of exposition relating to Genesis.
Virtually every source modern, christian and/or secular. That says a lot about what withering ignorance informs his writing.
What, so Medieval Jews are the only people who can have a bright thought? Oy!
Lame.
If you are going to approach a sacred text that has been around for thousands of years and intensely studied and interpreted and analyzed for thousands of years by millions of Jews, how in the world can you develop an understanding without reference to the earlier sources, including many sources that were receive at Sinai and were carefully and lovingly preserved down through the ages?
Now we are getting to better questions, but I have answered this in my reply to your post 86 so I won't repeat myself.
You sound like a sincere thinker, but you don’t have the courage to admit that “modern” thinking is not necessarily superior and that your received wisdom may be completely blown away if you dared to go back to the basics and find out what Judaism is really about instead of your snooty condescension that we’re a bunch of repressed knuckle draggers who just haven’t seen the light like you.
My condescension is meant to wake you from your boxing of shadows, engaging in prejudice, slander and sloppy reasoning. You keep assuming, and then asking me to deny or explain your assumptions and its like a Marx Brother's movie.
You are dragging your knuckles and I keep saying stand up! Yet you are showing hope. That brings me joy.
Boy that will come as a big shock to all of those folks standing at the foot of Mt. Siani! I think you need to do some more research.
BTW: How do you feel about the fact that more Jews become Christians than vice versa? An honest question.
If they became Christian then they weren't Jews to start with for no Jew could do such a thing and keep faith with God. The Torah would cry out to them. The first four Commandments make it impossible for a Jew to face God as a Christian. The lost tribes of Israel were not lost because God forsook them, they were lost because they forgot God. God's word is forever, and his covenant cannot be rescinded or replaced, yet Moses warned the Jews as he blessed them and cursed them before he departed that we would forget and fail and make errors and suffer grievously for this. But, he also told us that we will endure and find our way eventually. We keep hoping for that day. Some understand that day is always today.
When Christianity was in the grasp of the early Rabbi's when they could have wiped it out, they held back, saying if this is of God it will endure, and if it is not, then he will bring it to an end of his own. God obviously has permitted Christianity to flourish and as such, it has meaning in that its message brings those to God who cannot and are not willing or able to take on the Yoke of the Covenant and the doom of their offspring who stray as well as the joy of the light of God.
Regards, Clemenza, (An Goyish Agnostic leaning toward atheism)
I spent a great deal of my life rejecting God. I could not accept that God would permit the Holocaust. I explored and explored after tasting Philosophy in Graduate School and ended up studying Zen Buddhism for many years. I used to roll my eyes when my wife would lay out the Passover Seder and put pillows on the chair and began reading the Haggadah for my two children and myself. I would say, this is stupid. This is silly. The only stranger coming through our door would be some stray dog from up the street.
But as I sat quietly, it occurred to me that Buddhism was too smart for itself by half, in rejecting God as just another Diva. And I started saying God this and God that.. in spite of myself so that when my oldest Daughter got married, I announced to my own surprise that I wouldn't attend if God wasn't invited.
It had to be a Church, any Church.. with a Minister, Priest or Rabbi officiating. This is all I cared at the time. I knew the odds, justice of the peace marriages just don't last like sealing the deal before God Almighty. And, I believe in one marriage per customer. I have seen the horror of all of the other variations on that tune.
When my younger daughter became hopelessly lost, in magical thinking, sex and dark thoughts I prayed to God for help, still lost but when you are desperate you do desperate things.
My daughter joined the MCJROTC class at our school on the advice of our Superintendent, because she was getting in so much trouble and was not making appropriate friends.
And in 6 months, instead of whining and melting into a puddle on the floor when we had a conflict of wills, she would knock back into that Marine Corps stance and start talking sense. I need this. I need that.. My stomach hurts, I get sick once a month.. and on and on... and we worked through this one by one..
Then she said something I never expected. "Daddy, I want to go to Temple." And I wasted no time, I just found a Temple in town and we were there the next week. I walked in and expected them to see me for the Red Neck Conservative that I really am, and throw my butt right out of the door.
But they didn't. They loved us and my family and I came to be able to read the strange language in the Prayer Book and sing the songs and then I was a Jew.. breathing air for the first time in my life..
Theres not a dimes worth of difference between Zen Buddhism and Judiasm except for God, the Torah and oh the glorious holiday of Shabbot that comes once a week, and on and on.. Nothing could be sweeter.
I also noticed that I put an "an" where there should have been an "a." Mrs. Finkelstein, who taught me all I needed to know about grammar in the second grade, would be ashamed.
Well, the medium lends itself to such mistakes.
Its never to late to open your mind and open your heart to something greater than ourselves.
Yet, I sat and stared at what I consider proof to a mathematical sort of certainty that God must exist for almost 10 years and yet could not bring myself to believe. So I truly understand how difficult this is to do.
You bring a tear to my eyes. I agree, I hold my head in shame. It is heart breaking.
What else can you expect from Reformed Jews? Most of them are left-leaning.
And as for female rabbis—feh!
This has been a distinct problem for Reform Judaism. I had a chance to meet Rabbi Saperstein, and I just couldn't have been more disappointed.
The Reform resolution on the War in Iraq nearly forced me out of the door. Heavy sigh. Nevertheless, the URJ organization is doing good things on other fronts with respect to improving Reform Judaism.
I am told 12 Rabbi's on this list are Orthodox. The rest could only be decided by those who run this down specifically. Generalizations are rarely helpful. Especially when it comes as a pretense for Reform Bashing..
That's my feeling. Voting democrat is the only halacha they practice with kavanah.
And, shock surprise.. you do just that. The appropriate response is to contact people on this list that you know and point out that they ought to know better. But, trashing them is not appropriate except as you started and this recognition of their folly is appropriate.
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