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From: levy@ttrdc.UUCP (Daniel R. Levy)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: A query to "Dvar Torah"
Message-ID: <562@ttrdc.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 3-Nov-85 23:19:36 EST
Article-I.D.: ttrdc.562
Posted: Sun Nov  3 23:19:36 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 4-Nov-85 20:48:04 EST
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In article <2344@brl-tgr.ARPA>, matt@brl-tgr.ARPA (Matthew Rosenblatt ) writes:
>DAVID SHER writes:
[Original quote from Rosenblatt included here:  ]

>>>The one who believes such a hypothesis, and teaches men so, will
>>>not even be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven -- he is a kofer
>>>b'ikar and will lose his share in the World to Come!  For he is
>>>not just a sinner, but a causer of sin:  If the Torah were not what
>>>it claims to be, then it would not be worthy of being followed --
>>>each man would do what was right in his own eyes.  

>> How can someone be considerred sinful for teaching something that he
>> believes?  I can see that some who does not believe the hypothesis but
>> hypocritically teaches it anyway should lose his share in the World to
>> Come.  I do not believe that God would punish a man for being honestly
>> wrong.  Of course I could be mistaken, I'm no authority!
>Try applying this idea to secular civil or criminal law:  The King of
>England warns everyone that robbing the rich is a crime (the secular
>counterpart of sin).  Robin Hood knows what the King has said, but
>Robin Hood doesn't think robbing the rich is a crime at all if one
>gives the proceeds to the poor.  Do you think the King will punish
>Robin Hood if he catches him robbing the rich?  Do you think the U.S.
>Government will punish the participants in the "sanctuary movement"
>who honestly believed they had the right to shelter Central American
>refugees?  Do you think the Israeli Government fails to punish men
>who honestly believed it's no crime to shoot at Arabs who are throwing
>rocks at you?
>Many of us take secular law seriously, whether we agree with it or not,
>because there are policemen and sheriffs waiting behind the billboards
>to run us in if we don't.  Not having seen any sinners struck with
>bolts of lightning, we don't take religious law that seriously, even
>after reading Dante's Inferno and James Joyce's vivid descriptions in
>"Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man."  Nevertheless, we have all
>been warned -- see the Tochacha in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, not to
>mention the thunderings of the Prophets.  Because the Children of
>Israel didn't heed the warnings we are even now living in Exile,
>with no Temple, no animal sacrifices, no real kedushah.  Do you
>think it mattered that people honestly believed in Molech, or Baal,
>or Ashtoreth, or the disgusting Baal of Peor?  Does someone have to
>write a book on "Why good things happen to bad people" before we
>take the warnings from the King seriously?
>				-- Matt Rosenblatt

I do not wish to cast aspersion on Mr. Rosenblatt on this matter.  He is
undoubtedly a very pious, devout believer in the faith that too many of
us take for granted.  But it does appear that the thundering from that end
has about the same heat/light ratio as Christian hell-fire evangelists'
speeches.  (This is the same fellow who told us with all sincerity that
he believed that the population of Israel at one time in Biblical days was
~5*10^11 -- a figure I worked out to be about half a square foot per Jew
based on the area of modern Israel -- and he defended it stoutly.)

Anyhow, if the worst of Rosenblatt's thunder be true, I don't even under-
stand how Judaism can claim that non-Jews can also have a part in the future
world; they would clearly not meet up to Matt's standards, certainly not any
Christians (who, gasp, believe that the Laws of the Old Testament have been
overridden by their "Savior", and don't even care a hoot about the post-Christ
"oral law" of the Jews--how's THAT for tampering with the untamperable?).
Could agnostics also be totally barred?  At least these heretics are STUDYING
our Scriptures, which is more than you can say for a lot of people, and
is that worse than being agnostic?  Nobody is saying you have to believe
what they teach or that you have to keep your mouth shut about what you think
of them.  (I can already hear the fuming and thunder just the same.)

There are about a jillion religions in the world today (it seems) that have
views about G-d, Scriptures, Heaven, Hell, the World To Come, etc. which are
different enough to be mutually exclusive, and there are representatives of
them all that thunder like Matt is thundering.  It is easy to produce heat.
Should we not concentrate on producing a superior light and not get drawn up
with that rabble?

		--Dan Levy--