Posted on 10/03/2013 2:32:27 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
I belong to a “Liberal” congregation and my presence is like a huge wet blanket because I will “reproach” when people make statements that I believe are unfair even at the cost of my own acceptance.
How dare you ask relevant questions and take people to task for their opinions :-)
It is not easy swimming against the grain, never has been. Keep being a trailblazer at your synagogue. Of course they’ll look down on you but then again, when events turn out as you predicted they will be silent and look down at their shoes.
One day two years ago or so, I decided not to continue attending our "study group" sessions. I found out that all of the "closet" conservatives quit attending without me being there to make the room safe. So, I returned.
However, silence on the part of conservative bashing, is not the same as welcoming anything that is anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, or anti-global warming... these "orthodoxies" have been messaged in as group values and it is not possible to begin to untwist the web of half-truths that sustain this silliness.
Got to keep their eye on the ball.
There are quite a few closet Conservatives because they're scared of being called a Barry Goldwater intolerant boob which is unfair and inaccurate.
Visit: www.rjchq.org
Not all Jews are Liberal! Many Jews here on FR. BTW, Notre Dame had the leading proponent of abortion, OBayMe, speak so Catholics have their Liberals as well.
Am I short sighted when I see a ever expanding government in the United States, dictating, regulating, spying on Americans without a warrant, attacking Americans who do not have the same political views as the current administration does, e.g. IRS, this alone should scare the hell out of Jews, since it was an out of control government in Germany that murdered their kindred!
I simply do not understand the Jewish support for larger, intrusive, secret, punishing, and dictatorial government under Obama?
Along with the rules for writing a kosher Torah Scroll (without which the Torah would not exist), and how to perform "wave" and "heave" offerings, and how to perform shechitah, and the voluminous rules pertaining to the Jewish calendar (which Torah assumes), etc.
In other words, if you separate the Written Torah from the Oral Torah, you've left the ball park.
They are locked into a 1937 mindset where government can assist the needy and provide parachutes for those that fall. They are not seeing the whole picture because they have liberal blinders are. Films like “Meet John Doe” (1941) still ring a message in their ears for the WWII generation and the early (1945-1955) Boomers.
Traditionally Jews should be fearful of big government and prying, ACLU and all that but it's a mixed bag of advantages and disadvantages. Jews have a deep sense of mistrust for government cover ups and conspiracies so it is a strange picture indeed.
About 23% of Reform Jews are conservatives. And, no they aren't scared of being called Barry Goldwater unless they are over 70 or so.. lol. Gees. No, it is a case of liberal intolerance making it unsafe to say anything they don't like. Its just that simple. One way street if you let it, no way street when you throw a flag. This is what it is like around me.. folks avoid political comments because they know that both sides will have their say and that isn't acceptable. I found that when I insist on balance, balance occurs.. but with a price.. as folks like me are "called" divisive and that comes consequences. Most folks find those consequences to be unbearable. I just ask God to help keep me going the right way.. and I try not to mess as much this year... as I did last.
Not to be sarcastic, but if you click the name of the poster you can see the date when they initially signed up to post on FR. I lurked for a couple of years before beginning to post. But, you will see my date is right in the middle of the RatherGate explosion... Almost a decade ago... enough time to notice that there are other Jews here. Or perhaps you count me as incredibly dense. (A matter that several folks will insist is actually quite correct.)
However, not many open Reform Jews as they get it from both sides.. as the Orthodox here have a very low opinion of Reform Jews.. and with some good reason in General but Generalizations are always distortions of reality when you accept them as anything more than an approximation.
In General Jews in the Reform movement are politically clueless and have been systematically deceived. This deception is maintained and managed by group conformity pressures and it will take time to unwind this if it is possible. I often find myself defending the Reform movement here even as I shake my head in wonder as they frustrate me so just the same.
You're right, “Liberal Intolerance” cripples free discussion and it is the despotic nature of the Liberal Left to SHUT down any discussion it finds distasteful.
I have experienced it first hand as well. You have to be careful what you say and to whom or you will be branded a redneck, intolerant, Homophobe, cigar-chomping, military industrail stooge and Republican Neo-Con.
I became so divisive within the Jewish American community when discussing Jewish survival, that I made Aliyah and left them in the dust to debate the rights of a poodle to have a “Bark-Mitzva”...pathetic.
They don’t learn from history which is sad because it was only recently Jews were almost eliminated as a culture by a charismatic socialist leader that surrounded himself with a sycophantic media complex, vowed to control the economy through coercion, created his own domestic army of activists and has his own logo with his devoted followers creating a hand salute.
Now, as a group they support this.
There have been folks questioning the veracity of the Oral Torah since the time of Hillel and Shammai. The Karaites attempted to live without implementing instructions that Oral Torah provides and this is a bit of a blind alley.
Mixed into Oral Torah is a mishmash of all sorts of data of excellent to extremely dubious quality.
However, the other guidance of Oral Torah is that it is not supposed to be written. Ooops. The concept with this is that it must change with the time to assist Jews to accomplish the keeping of the Commandments in their own time and in the context of their own lives. As the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmud are fixed in the pre-dark ages.. its not a huge surprise that some bits now are pretty badly misfitting our understanding of our current "reality."
However, a dispassionate review of these materials also yields that the vast majority of this material is amazing, and shockingly relevant. The Reform movement pretty much have rejected the Talmud then reconnected in a "pick and choose" sort of stance, but unfortunately the "Progressive" or "Pragmatic" stance requires a "objectively identifiable and incontrovertibly acceptable" end point goal or standard. The movement right now is like a ship without a destination so shock.. the Socialists moved in with their "Socialist Utopia" as a substitute for the Messianic promise that provided a sense of direction for Jews since the Tannaim.
Shockingly, I reject the Messianic idol as this confuses the mind just the same as any other idol. However, the most important debate I ever joined in was with a Chassidic Rabbi who is the head of our local Yeshiva on this very topic. Deut. 17:15 vs. Samuel 8:7-8. I was attempting to accept the Rabbi's position as a true position and then trying to find how it could be a true position because I also deeply accept that the same author's hand is on both of these texts.. how could this inconsistency be resolved? The answer is that the Messianic hope provides the same sort of unifying power that a King provides as a leader allowing people to rise above their own petty problems and work toward a common and righteous future. However, a deeper understanding requires us to ultimately reject kings because as Jews there is only God and God is quite sufficient.
These two seem in conflict but instead, these are different levels of experience. Temporal leaders are a blessing, we look to leaders to help us coordinate our efforts and these leaders must be worthy of our affection and acceptance. But, as humans, any leader will be flawed. The hope of an "ultimate" leader who is flawless is helpful to those who cannot deal with the "nothing" nature of God.
I believe Reform Judaism is a necessary step to allow Jews to bridge the gap from the Messianic expectation to being able to directly focus on Loving God. Unfortunately, unmooring from this central goal to connect as a greater community, not just selected scholars, to an "adult" relationship (not that kind) with God is not easy and it seems like lots of wondering around in the darkness is part of the deal.
Right there's your problem.
ZC: Right there's your problem.
LOL
You are not accepting reality. Not the reality that people are lazy, or the reality that the Orthodox tradition is actually a fairly successful model for an extremely limited sized group.
Rather, Orthodox Judaism has extreme scaling problems. Scaling problems are the same sorts of problems the ObamaCare people are whining about right now.
For example, the Sabbath of the Land. This is always deeply unworkable except as practiced by a "sub-set" of the people. This is why it continually gets rejected once it is scaled up. It has the same error as HMO's that depend on being applied to a minority; and when the majority tries to implement the rule, whole sets of negative consequences are revealed .
However, the Sabbath of the Land is an absolute and necessary practice. Neglecting it leads to depletion and dissipation of the soil, eventually to the creation of barren dead dustbowl conditions.
How to square this circle? Rotation. This is what every US farmer knows. Crop rotation plus fallow years. If you ask Priests to choose who will stand fallow each year, you get the results of any bureaucracy, corruption and mismanagement. However, individuals guided by conscience and economics would coordinate this cycle without intervention through the market mechanism.
Orthodox Judaism depends on the Shabbos Goy, the rule breaker that allows the Jew to keep his rules. This is wrong on so many levels. Judaism going forward must be able to sustain all humans so that God's promise to Abraham can finally be realized.
Orthodox Judaism failed the vast majority of Jews in the 1800's and 1900's. The problems aren't corrected in any variant of modern Orthodox Judaism, so you get "more of the same." Reform Judaism went off of its own rails because of its unwillingness and inability to see the path forward once they stepped off of the glorious path of established Rabbinic Judaism that came before it. Yet even this has been provided for us, the Oral Torah..needs to be revisited.
The argument against this is just the same as that that restrains Americans from doing a new "Constitutional Convention." Why? Because, today politicians are just no match in our eyes for the people who wrote the original and we fear the outcome of letting the silly people who have borrowed 16 Trillion dollars in the name of our children to rewrite that last mooring post to sanity.
Yet, with the Oral Torah, this is what we must do. It isn't easy. But, it hasn't been for any previous generation so far, either.
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