For A Confederation Of Noachides (Rabbi Shmueley Boteach On Attracting Non-Jews To Monotheism Alert)

Jerusalem Post ^ | 10/11/05 | Rabbi Shmueley Boteach

[mvpel]

Rabbi Shmueley Boteach says Jews need non-Jews to help invigorate Judaism: by creating a worldwide B'nai Noah - or Sons Of Noah - non-Jews who live by the Seven Laws Of Noah and become in effect Jews without a full conversion to Judaism.

They're not "in effect" Jews, they're not Jews at all. They're simply adherents to the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob, the Creator of the Universe, without the responsibility to comply with the 613 commandments incumbent upon Jews.

[Sabramerican]

And if your family converted they would be accepted too.

Since they are not "ethnically" Jewish (at least the 50% from your spouse's side), then again you furnish proof that Judaism is not ethnically based.

[Zionist Conspirator]

As far as the Jewish community’s friendships and alliances are concerned, they always involve trade-offs. Sure, Christian evangelicals are Israel’s best friends anywhere in the world. But they still dream of all of us becoming Christian, and often pursue those dreams in multimillion-dollar conversion campaigns. With Catholicism it’s the opposite. After 2,000 years, they have come to greatly respect Judaism. But on the Israel front, the Vatican remains slanted in favor of the Palestinians.

Not a word about another deep chasm between Evangelicalism and Catholicism--that the former accepts that the Torah was Divinely dictated and inerrent while the latter for the most part accepts (and promotes) the documentary hypothesis and the notion of the Torah as didactic mythology (there you have one major reason for the difference on Israel between the two groups). When will Jews defend the Bible? That by itself will send a clarion call to the world.

And btw, all non-Jews already have a religion: Noachism, to which they are all bound whether they realize it or not. All other reasons are forbidden. (Of course, this does not mean that each and every chr*stian or member of another religion is automatically "eternally damned," since most of the people of the world are simply following their own consciences as best they know.)

[Steve_Seattle]

"To assert it's ethnically based is nonsense."

[Sabramerican]

You miss the argument as you are buttressing my point.

You may be an "ethnic" Jews- whatever that is- but you are no longer accepted as part of the Jewish people. You would not be counted for a minyan- for example.

On the other hand, someone not an "ethnic" like you, would be fully counted if they converted.

[Steve_Seattle]

"To assert it's ethnically based is nonsense."

Somehow my previous post was truncated. I did not say that Jewishness was totally a matter of ethnicity, but that historically it has tended to be that way. This is why a person of Jewish parentage is still considered a Jew - not necessarily by me, but by Jewish religious authorities, or by the state of Israel - even if the person is an atheist who has never practiced the religion. This is what I'm talking about; a person is Jewish by blood, not by faith or practice.

[Steve_Seattle]

"Not a word about another deep chasm between Evangelicalism and Catholicism--that the former accepts that the Torah was Divinely dictated and inerrent while the latter for the most part accepts (and promotes) the documentary hypothesis and the notion of the Torah as didactic mythology"

Obviously similar distinctions exist within Judaism itself, between Reformed and Orthodox.

[Truthsayer20]

What a bizarre article. How many Israeli, or for that matter, American Jews are actually Torah believers? Shouldn't the Rabbi first try to bring them to fold instead of commenting snidely on evangelical Christians, which he does despite the denials, if he's worried about biblical values.

[FreedomSurge]

Shmueley Boteach is a hater of Christianity. Just like articles from Sobran are banned from FR, articles from Boteach should also be banned.

[Sabramerican]

And if that "blood" happens to be Asian- lets say, because the mother is Asian and Jewish, then the child is also Jewish.

The fact that more Jews are Caucasians doesn't make it the ethnicity of Jews.

All matter of issues of who "belongs" depend on who your parents were. So you are "assumed" Jewish if your mother was Jewish and did not assert any other religion.

On the other hand, whether you are a Cohen is totally dependent on your father.

If it was ethnically based then it wouldn't matter which of your parents was the Jew for you to be Jewish.

[Steve_Seattle]

There was a Seinfeld episode where Jerry's Catholic dentist converted to Judaism ("for the jokes") and immediately began talking about how humor has helped "our people" survive for millenia. Obviously the audience was supposed to sense some irony and humor in a recent convert spouting off about "our people." Yes, a convert is a full-fledged Jew, but it is also true that in some sense he is being grafted on to a people with a historic memory that he does not fully share. That was the point of the humor in that episode.

[Sabramerican]

Maybe you can cite something from the above opinion to evidence your assertion.

[Sabramerican]

And an immigrant (natuarlized) to the United States in 1900, would not share the American colonists historical experience. That is, he would never really thing of Washington as "his" founding father.

But his children, born and educated in the US probably would.

And he, and certainly his children, are fully American.

[Sabramerican]

thing=think

[Steve_Seattle]

"If it was ethnically based then it wouldn't matter which of your parents was the Jew for you to be Jewish."

If ethnicity were not a factor, then it wouldn't matter whether EITHER of your parents were Jewish, or whether your father's name was Cohen. Nobody is a Catholic just because his father was named O'Leary. You are a Catholic if you are baptized; you are a practicing Catholic if you go to church on a regular basis and follow the tenets of the religion. You are a lapsed Catholic if you do not attend church or practice the tenets of the religion. If a lapsed Catholic has children and they are not baptized, they are not Catholics. But if a non-practicing Jew has children, they are considered Jews by all Jewish religious authorities. Again, these are not MY rules, but the rules of the religious authorities.

[Sabramerican]

then it wouldn't matter whether EITHER of your parents were Jewish

If you are born to it, you are it automatically. Born in NY, you're an American automatically..

And you're it, in both cases, regardless of your skin color.

Other wise- join.

[goldstategop]

Actually, in Jewish practice, identity flows from the mother. It doesn't matter who the father is. As long as the mother is Jewish, the child will be a Jew. So in this sense Judaism is transmitted through birth. Conversion is simply a form of naturalization into the Jewish people. I say people and not faith because one remains a Jew regardless of one's level of observance. It doesn't even matter if a Jew converts since he cannot really renounce his core identity. The soul is indestructable, unchangeable and eternal. So it is with being a Jew.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[Sabramerican]

But if a non-practicing Jew has children, they are considered Jews

Which has nothing to do with ethnicity.

If you are born in the US, you are an American even if your parents are American hating Jihadists.

[goldstategop]

Now its true the Reform accept patrilineal descent but that wouldn't change the non-Jewish character of the offspring if the mother was non-Jewish. Most Jews would say the child isn't a Jew since they follow the matrilineal rule. However as you rightly noted, a non-Jew is free to convert and that means full acceptance as a Jew. There's no difference in status between born and convert; both are equal before God.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[goldstategop]

Yes... in both cases birth is an allegiance to an idea rather than strict ethnicity. The same concept can be observed among the Jewish people as among Americans - any one can join as long as they subscribe to the core beliefs in question.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)