Posted on 08/16/2002 8:35:32 AM PDT by Zionist Conspirator
There is an interesting halacha regarding which nations are permitted to marry into the Jewish People after individuals from these nations convert. The offspring of converted Edomites or Egyptians can marry into the Jewish nation after three generations. On the other hand, the offspring of Moabite or Ammonite (male) converts may never marry into the Jewish People. That's right. The Egyptians who tried to drown all of the Jews and caused us horrible suffering, and the Edomites who blocked our way in Horeb when we simply requested passage through their land are permitted to marry into the nation of Israel. However the Ammonites and Moabites whose sin was a passive one - that they did not offer us bread and water, are never allowed to marry into the nation of Israel. How strange!
The Real Reason
Something deeper must be going on here to cause such severe ostracization. Indeed, the midrash (Sifri, Bamidbar Raba, and brought down by Rashi) clarifies the issue: "The Ammonites and Moabites, since they looked for ways to cause Israel to sin were banished by the Torah forever. This teaches us that causing someone to sin is worse than killing him - since killing someone does not remove him from both this world and the next world, while causing someone to sin removes him both from this world and the next world." The commentator Kli Hayakar also explains that "not offering you bread and water" was part of the overall plan which Bilam had suggested to Ammon and Moab to corrupt Israel. Due to their hunger, Israel went out and ate from the alters of the idols of Moab, and the daughters of Moab gave them wine and seduced them on the condition that they worship their idols first. Bilam understood that if they can cause Israel to sin, this would be the true blow, since sin is more fatal than physical death. By the way, this blow was actualized in this world as well, with the falling of 24,000 Jews.
The Idea Behind the Rebellious Son
A striking example of this concept is presented in our parasha in the unprecedented case of the "rebellious son" - the young man who has stolen relatively little from his father, and must be stoned. The rabbis explain that there is a message to be learned here: "The rebellious son is punished for what he is going to become - the Torah knows where he is heading he will eventually wipe out his father's property...stand on the roads and rob people. The Torah states: Let him die innocent and not guilty".
Obviously being killed “for what you are going to become" is not the general rule in our Torah, since normally a person is punished for his deeds as they stand at present. Yet the Torah teaches us here a commandment (which according to one opinion in the Talmud, "never was and never will be"), in order to convey an idea. "Then why is it written? To learn it and receive reward." The meaning here is that even if the conditions for the rebellious son episode can never be met, one can still learn the essential lesson from it. And what is that lesson? That death is better than a life without direction and laden with sin. In Judaism, life is a means and not an end in and of itself. Without a reason for being, there is no reason for life.
Torah Values vs. The Western Mindset
For the modern day hellenists who believe in foreign western culture, the idea of "causing one to sin is worse than killing him" totally contradicts their philosophy. For them, "the sanctity of life", this hypocritical Christian idea, is above all else. For this reason we find amongst them those who are against the death penalty for even for the most heinous criminals (such as the "humanists" who protested against the hanging of Eichman). The deeper reason for this is that they do not accept the notion of "sin" as something objective. What is for you a "sin" may be for me a "mitzvah". What today is considered criminal may be considered tomorrow the norm. If there is no G-d, and good and evil is determined by the ever changing values of man, than not only is life meaningless and "hefker", but it must be "sanctified" by the hypocrites over all other values.
As for us, we have a G-d who determined what is good and evil thousands of years ago. This has not changed one iota to this day. Therefore, we are commanded to remember and never forget the two nations who caused our fathers to sin gravely more than 3,500 years ago, and we hold them in contempt still today.
The Spiritual Holocaust
We cannot conclude a discussion of this topic without mentioning the most striking example of, "it is worse to cause one to sin than to kill him" we have witnessed in our generation. It is an example we must "remember and don't forget" (an expression used for Amalek in our parasha). We are speaking of the intentional and methodical spiritual destruction which took place about 50 years ago against the Sephardic Jews by Ben-Gurion and “Mapai", in order to prevent the young nation from becoming a majority of religious Jews. There is nothing which can undo this sin which according to the sages is worse than a physical holocaust. We are still eating the spoiled fruits of this systematic de-Judaiazation of the Sephardic Jew. These Jews were ripped away from the Shabbat, family purity, and all the Jewish ritual which had kept them spiritually pure during 2,000 years of exile. In its place, they were fed the values of Dizengof Street. Remember, and never forget!
Read and be enlightened. You may never see anything like this again!
Hello!
The Jewish mystical tradition is the common property of all Jews and transcends Ashkenazim vs. Sefaradim. Their are differences between the two, but they do not always conformm to stereotypes (ie, that Ashkenazim are to the Left because of their long presence in Western chr*stian society and Sefaradim are primitive "fundamentalists").
In fact, it is the religious among the Ashkenazim who are the more Fundamentalist. Because of Western secular infulence Ashkenazi Jewry shattered into "Orthodoxy" (actually Judaism proper), the phony "branches" (Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Secular Humanistic, etc.), and the atheistic or non-affiliated. This being the case, it has sometimes been pointed out that the Ashkenazim are either religious fanatics or atheist fanatics. That's a crude way of putting it, but whoever said it was trying to get an idea across.
Sefaradim are actually the more laid back of the two groups. Their halakhah tends to be more lenient and they have not broken into "branches," which means that there is only one Judaism acknowledged by the full spectrum of Sefaradi observance. This means that on Shabbat mornings the parking lot of the "Orthodox" Sefaradi esnoga (shul) will have cars, as even those Sefaradim who are not fully observant have no separate "branch" of Judaism that has a separate halakhah that permits driving on Shabbat. The Ashkenazim, however, will be split up into various synagogues affiliated with the various "denominations," each with its own "halakhah."
Also, the Sefaradim were historically the sophisticated intellectuals of the Jewish world, well conversed in Western and Hellenistic modes of thought when the Ashkenazim were looked upon as unsophisticated rubes whose world was a cultural backwater (Maimonides and Nachmanides were both Sefaradim, remember). Ironically, this is he exact opposite of the current stereotype.
Some of the differences can be traced to the origins of the two communities. Although the Sefaradim derive their name from Spain ("Sefarad") and the Ashkenazim from Germany ("Ashkenaz"), the rites observed by the two groups, as well as their pronunciations and vowellizations of the Hebrew, show that the Sefaradim derive from the Jews exiled to Babylon (the upper class, who tended to be more liberal). In fact, the Babylonian Jewish community, despite its glorious heritage, always did have a very open, assimilationist element. The Ashkenazim derive from the Jews of 'Eretz Yisra'el itself (so much for the idiots who think "Ashkenazi Jews" are either "Khazars" or else non-Jewish descendants of the Biblical figure Ashkenaz!). To illustrate this with examples would be a bit technical and take up lots of time besides. Let's just say that I read Biblical and prayerbook Hebrew, and the Sefaradi tends to be more Mishnaic and more Aramaicized while the Ashkenazim are more Biblical. The pointing system also points to Ashkenazi Hebrew being closer to the original pronunciation (except for the unfortunate habit of moving the accent forwards!) because the qametz is used for one sound rather than for two (as by the Sefaradim) and the "unpointed" tav maintains a separate sound, which it has lost in the Sefaradi. However, the Sefaradim, remaining closer to the Middle Eastern base, have better retained the correct pronunciation of resh, `ayin, and doubled consonants. My belief is that the various Hebrew dialects trace back to the Twelve Tribes.
Not being Jewish myself, I use the Israeli pronunciation when reading. This is usually classified as Sefaradi, but it is actually Sefaradi as an Ashkenazi would pronounce it!
I hope this has been some help to you. My apologies if this post is messed up; my browser crashed again while I was typing it, and my keyboard is malfunctioning!
PS: Before closing I should point out that the mystical tradition is best represented among the Ashkenazim by the Chassidim, who were influenced by Sefaradi mystics and whose prayer liturgy is patterned on that of the Sefaradim. Their pronunciation and pointing, however, is 120% Ashkenazi!
The writer conflates Christians with humanists in the same paragraph. While his criticism of the humanst mindset is justified, such a mindset has nothing to do with Biblical Christianity.
For example, with regard to causing someone to sin, Jesus Himself said:
But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. (Matthew 18:6)
Additionally, not only is there is nothing in the Bible that forbids the use of the death penalty, the Bible commands it and recognizes its legitimacy. "Sanctity of life" does not mean refusing to justly punish the guilty.
Cordially,
You have got to be kidding. This handful of random paragraphs doesn't constitute any sort of "genuine theological critique." It's just dime-a-dozen everyday bigotry.
You may never see anything like this again!
One would certainly hope so. But that would be too much to ask for.
Zionist Conspirator:
On the other hand, the offspring of Moabite or Ammonite (male) converts may never marry into the Jewish People.
Did Ruth's conversion then, negate that she was a Moabite, as she was the (great?) grandmother of David?
Interesting, if complex post. Thanks.
That being the case, it is only natural that Orthodox Jews would see modern liberalism as beginning in the great revolt against Tradition and Divinely Constituted Authority that occurred 2000 years ago. It is indeed a "breath of fresh air" (despite what "x" says) to see this type of critique of chr*stianity from an Orthodox Jewish theological perspective, since most Jewish critiques of chr*stianity, even by the most Torah-true, tend to focus on the liberal, enlightenment issues of "intolerance" and "bigotry."
As a Ben Noach, I concur with Ha`Ivri. Just as the American revolution was tainted with early leftism (however much the contemporary Left despises America), the same holds true for chr*stianity. Underneath the pious, conservative, traditional, stable veneer, chr*stianity remains a radical, unauthorized revolt against everything G-d had said.
BTW, if you feel you have some sort of duty to convert me, then go ahead. But you will be wasting your time. I am not Jewish. I am a non-Jew from a Fundamentalist Protestant background who has rejected chr*stianity in all its forms (and you cannot think of an apology for chr*stianity that I did not used to believe myself), which means any argument you can think of I have already thought of myself and rejected.
Furthermore, there is no such thing as "Biblical chr*stianity." Chr*stianity is a post-Biblical religion tainted by Hellenism and paganism. The notion that "true chr*stianity" was lost for 1700 years until it was "restored" by going "back to the Bible," btw, is also pure unadulterated mythology. All ancient forms of chr*stianity (which is not limited to Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy) are of the liturgical type which Protestantism rejected. Protestantism is a-historical. Chr*stianity still exists in its most ancient form among the Non-Chalcaedonian and Non-Ephesene churches of the middle east (and they were never under Constantine who supposedly started "all that Catholic stuff"). If you can't accept chr*stianity as it actually existed from the beginning, why do you accept it at all? The "restored" chr*stianity you believe in never existed. If the ancient churches are false, then chr*stianity is false.
And while "Bible chr*stians" are much closer to Judaism than the liturgicals, as long as you accept the "new testament" your Biblicism will be adulterated. Citing the authority of a book which was arbitrarily tacked onto the Hebrew Bible by the Catholic and Orthodox churches you reject is fallacious. The Bible was the Word of G-d when there was no "new testament," and the original Jewish context remains the correct interpretation.
Any argument between us beyond this is pointless.
I was unaware till now that the `Ammonites and Mo'abites still had descendants around to protest bigotry against them. But maybe you're a humanist. You must be one of the three, since those were really the only groups towards which the writer showed "bigotry."
Are you people still marrying your parents and defecating in front of your idols? Oops! That was "bigotry," wasn't it? My bad!
I think in reading the article you missed the following quote. Please read it again:
On the other hand, the offspring of Moabite or Ammonite (male) converts may never marry into the Jewish People. (Emphasis added)
The Halakhah has always held that the prohibtion applied only to male `Ammonites and Mo'abites. Even though the women were implicated in seducing the Israelites to their false "gxds," it was the males who initiated the whole thing, who hired the wicked Bil`am, and who failed to carry out their responsibility to give the Israelites food and water in order to drive them to their villages where they would be seduced.
There was in fact a Halakhic dispute in the days of King David because of his ancestry. Do'eg, who was superficially brilliant in the Torah, argued against David's kingship because of Ruth, but the true Halakhic interpretation has always applied exclusively against the males.
The Torah truly is very complex. If this is a problem consider that the Israelites actually had plenty of food and water already. Or at least plenty of food. In addition to the cattle and various kosher beasts and fowl they had (the eating of which at that time required that part of the animal be offered as a qorban), G-d was feeding them with manna. And at least for most of their days in the wilderness the Israelites were accompanied by a miraculous well that gave them water, though it ceased on Miryam's death. G-d wanted these nations to have the opportunity to gain merit by offering Israel food and water, and instead they tried to destroy them by ensnaring them in idolatry.
These words of mine are in error. Rabbi Kahana' (zt"l, Hy"d) was the author, not David Ha`Ivri. He is merely the one who e-mailed the article.
Though as I believe in one God, and hence one universal moral code, so I hope for deed over creed for the Good. Behavior over belief. Actions that give meaning to holy words.
"Hear O Israel...."
You are probably correct, as "a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still". Be that as it may, I do wish to make one comment.
Citing the authority of a book which was arbitrarily tacked onto the Hebrew Bible by the Catholic and Orthodox churches you reject is fallacious. The Bible was the Word of G-d when there was no "new testament,"
The book you refer to is actually comprised of mostly letters from the apostolic age, and to say that they were simply tacked onto the Hebrew Bible by Roman and Orthodox churches is an historically anachronistic reading back into history of something that became "official" later. The authority of the writings is based on the authority and power given to the apostles by the resurrected Christ. In the final analysis it all just boils down to whether or not Jesus walked out of that tomb.
Cordially,
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