Philosophical Differences (Was Re: Conservative Patrilineal Descent)


<moshes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:2006Mar23.114846@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Ken Bloom <kbloom@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
cindys <cstein1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
<moshes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

Josh, it's a shame you didn't make this clear the first time around.
When Joel posted his reaction, that he thinks you're saying he's not
Jewish, you responded by saying "goodbye" in 20 languages!
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In Josh's defense, I'm also rather sick and tired of reading
Joel's ongoing strawman of: "O Jews are saying that ______ [fill
in the blank] Jews are not really Jewish."

In that case, don't read it. Nobody's forcing you to. You're under
no obligation to set someone straight who won't listen, in fact
quite the opposite -- you're supposed to leave them be and not push
them away farther. It would be a better world if we all learned to
make that distinction and behave accordingly.

Good point, but totally against the prevailing zeitgeist here on
SCJM :-(

As far as "push[ing] them away farther" that seems to be all that was
accomplished with Joel. Are we (or he) better off for it? Not that I
can see.
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But it seems like the only alternative would be to agree with the untruth
that as far as O Jews are concerned, Cs and Rs are not Jewish. What I see is
that Joel is being manipulative, and I don't believe for a moment that
Josh's remark pushed him away further. But I don't think the real problem is
either Joel or Josh. Rather, I think the problem is that we are locked in an
eternal theological struggle with no possible resolution. And this is SCJM,
so it's not as if we can change the subject to sports.

The following is what I see, and I hope I don't offend anyone (O, C, or R):

I wrote in an earlier post (the one where Dan said I was being "sneering and
arrogant"), that I honestly don't believe that disagreements over whether or
not women belong on the bimah or whether it's okay to drive on shabbos are
what set O apart from C. I don't even think the question of who wrote the
torah or the reinterpretation of certain points of halacha is the
fundamental difference between O and C. I don't know when it happened, but
*philosophically,* O and C do seem to follow very different approaches in
terms of answering fundamental questions like: Why did God create us? What
is the purpose of doing mitzvos? Is there hashgacha pratis (God's personal
ongoing involvement in events on earth)? Are we judged collectively or
individually?

To my thinking (ducking and running), the O understanding of God's
relationship with man does seem to be very much a reward and punishment type
of relationship. On the surface, this does not seem very sophisticated, and
to a large degree I think this is what C has rejected. There is no doubt
that the C approach is much more in accordance with the 21st century Western
thinking on issues of fair play and justice. C is much kinder and more
tolerant in many ways. And the O response to the questions of "What is
justice? What is fair play? What is kindness and tolerance?" would be that
this is for God to determine, not man, and even though something may seem
harsh to us, we are not given the capacity to understand the system of God's
justice (which does not necessarily correlate with human understanding). The
O view is that are unable to view the big picture, and therefore whenever
something bad happens, we try to say "Gam zu letov" (this too is for the
best). Cs (at least the ones on SCJM) OTOH seem to believe that the concepts
of "good," "evil," "justice" and "morality" are limited to human
understanding of these concepts. For example, God's commanding Saul to
destroy all of the Amalekites, including the women, children, and animals
seems grossly unjust to human understanding. The O interpretation of this is
that we need to accept this since we don't understand the ways of God, and
if He commanded it, it was absolutely just and fair and that at some future
time, perhaps we will be come to understand it. The C approach (as portrayed
on SCJM) seems to be that it was not fair, and that we should challenge God
on this.

When I left C and walked into the O shul , I felt as if I were on another
planet. And not because there was a mechitza. Rather, it was because of what
the rabbi was saying. He was talking all about the motivation for fulfilling
mitzvos, and it shouldn't be *only* for reward in olam habah (the world to
come). In traditional Judaism, there is a great deal of emphasis on the
afterlife. When I was growing up in C, I was taught that one huge difference
between Judaism and Christianity was that Jews focus primarily on olam hazeh
(this world), whereas Christians are always thinking about the afterlife. I
quickly learned that traditional Judaism actually does focus quite a bit on
the afterlife as well. And that is only one difference.

While O and C for the most part follow the same religious practices (we both
have a seder, we both fast on yom kippur, we both read the torah, etc), *to
me*, the main difference between O and C is the core belief system regarding
the nature of our relationship with God and how God operates (e.g., beliefs
regarding God's ongoing involvement in this world, the purpose of creation,
the focus on the afterlife, that God judges us collectively versus
individually, etc_). And in the end, I think this is why the O and C posters
often have such intense arguments (the argument in the Shoah thread
regarding the collective punishment of klal yisroel was a classic example).

I think that some of us (SCJMers) incorrectly assume that we are all
operating on the same page in terms of core beliefs (once we get past the
question of who wrote the torah). Collective judgment is something that O
takes for granted. Then, along comes C who only accepts individual judgment
and says "How dare you suggest that God would punish some Jews for the sins
of other? This is a Christian belief, and any Jew who would say such a thing
is an extremist!!" In fact, this belief is very much a normative Jewish
belief, reiterated more than once in the talmud. The idea that a tzad***
(righteous person) can suffer for the sins of the less righteous in his
generation is a Jewish belief. And the explanation/justification for this is
that his reward will be greater in the afterlife for having done so. This is
not an *extremist* view, nor is it a Christian view.

I don't really have an explanation for why there seems to be such a
disparity in philosophical approaches, but I think it's the reality. And I
think as much as the O posters are telling the C posters that some of the C
practices are *not Jewish,* you have the Cs telling the Os that some of the
O philosophy is *not Jewish.* And I'm not saying it to be sneering or
arrogant but simply to explain what I think is at the heart of many of the
intense arguments on SCJM.
Best regards,
---Cindy S.

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