Re: Spilling out drops of wine at the Seder


Lisa wrote:
Eliyahu Rooff wrote:
"Micha Berger" <micha@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:e356sd$hjb$2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
What should I worry more about -- whether people know why they dunk
their pinky (much of Litta) or spill wine (Germany) at the seider (in
addition to the Rama's custom of using one's index finger), or whether
people try to inculcate a truly Jewish balance of compassion and justice?

I think that's the aspect of this thread that's concerned me -- the
apparent outrage expressed by a couple posters at the very idea of
us showing any compassion or sadness at the deaths of the Egyptian
soldiers who were ordered to pursue us and died in the sea and the
firstborn of all ages who died in the tenth plague.

It's not apparent. It's true outrage. And it's more outrage at the
way in which Micha has tried to intimate that refusing to shed a tear
for the death of those who would have destroyed us is akin to Muslim
barbarism. That's disgusting.

And Eliyahu, what you've done by changing things from the Egyptians who
were pursuing us to "the Egyptian soldiers who were ordered to pursue
us" is at least as bad, if not worse. When the enemy is trying to kill
us, it doesn't matter who they are or why they're trying to do it.

You have a problem with the recognition that Egypt didn't have an
"All-volunteer Army" and that the soldiers had no say in the matter?
Most had no more say in their occupation than did our ancestors who
were slaves there. As far as refusing to participate, how many of them
even had enough information to make a rational decision in the matter?
It's akin to how I look back on the North Korean and Vietnamese
soldiers who were out there to try and kill me. Did we fight back with
everything we had? Yes. Did we do everything we could to stay alive?
Yes. But do I rejoice at the number of them who died? No. Real life
isn't a John Wayne war movie, where the bad guys fall and are
forgotten. Every one of them left families who grieved their loss and
suffered from their death and absence. It's nothing to celebrate
without some feeling of compassion. To do otherwise makes us no better
than the worst of them. I encourage anyone who celebrates a war or a
battle to read Mark Twain's "The War Prayer". Victory and defeat both
come with a price. It may or may not be too high a price, but it's a
high price indeed for those it touches.

Eliyahu

.

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