quote:Originally posted by katharina: Are you saying that Jews think some commandments aren't worth the risk of following?
I think it would depend on the commandment in all honesty. Kill or be killed? Not worth dying for. Steal something or kill? I think then the sin of stealing would be on the one making the threat. Kill someone who forces me to worship an idol? Well there is that scripture verse commanding us to kill anyone that tries to take us away from our faith.
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I do my own share of extreme slacking on some commandments, but it isn't because it is risky to follow them. It's because I'm a slacker.
I do think that if the Lord gives a commandment, then he makes a way for us to follow that commandment. There's no "unless it looks iffy" on the end of it.
Individual cases may apply (there's always a possiblity), but abondoning a commandment en masse raises questions. Is it okay with the one who gave the commandment in the first place?
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Do all commandments carry inherent risks?
I do my own share of extreme slacking on some commandments, but it isn't because it is risky to follow them. It's because I'm a slacker.
I do think that if the Lord gives a commandment, then he makes a way for us to follow that commandment. There's no "unless it looks iffy" on the end of it.
Individual cases may apply (there's always a possiblity), but abondoning a commandment en masse raises questions. Is it okay with the one who gave the commandment in the first place?
I don't think any full blown abandonment of a commandment has been mentioned.
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quote:Educating people who have a track record of killing us just for existing, let alone telling them that their religion is in error, isn't worth our lives. And that's according to God.
If you think that you can get off because of a martyr complex, I advise you to search the 'US President Is a Mormon' thread, and tell me why Jews can use it but Mormons can't.
I haven't been reading that thread, because it seemed mostly about Mormonism, and I didn't really have much to say. Do I have to go and look, or would you mind telling me what you were referring to?
And it's not a martyr complex. How many times do you have to burn yourself on a hot stove before you stop touching it?
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: Both our religions have histories of being persecuted. Both may currently suffer persecution. But that's no excuse for not obeying God.
Here's the thing. We are obeying God. There are priorities, and we're abiding by them. Would I like to see more Noachide outreach? Hell, yes.
Someone asked me last week (I forget if it was on Hatrack or Usenet) what I would do if I did some genealogy research in my matrilineal line and found that I wasn't actually Jewish. Would I convert? My response was that we'd finally see some real movement on the Noachide front, because I wouldn't convert for anything. But I'd put an enormous amount of energy into the Noachide thing.
See, an individual can choose to do something that's possibly risky if -- for that person -- the risk is minimal. It can be a judgement call. But no one has a right to force someone else to risk himself.
Truly, that's the law.
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: Indeed, didn't the Maccabees put themselves in danger in order to comply with God's will?
Interesting question. The book of Maccabees actually addresses it. Prior to the Maccabean revolt, Judea was pretty much demilitarized. We'd gotten an exemption from the army from Alexander the Great himself, and since hunting is really problematic, kashrut-wise, very few of us were well versed in the use of weapons.
When the Syrians decreed that it was forbidden to keep the Sabbath, a bunch of pious Jews ran into the wilderness and hid out in some caves, so that they could refrain from violating Shabbat without risking death at the hands of the Greek mercenaries.
One Shabbat, a bunch of mercenaries showed up at one of these caves and demanded that the Jews inside come out and violate Shabbat. The Jews realized that they had no way of fighting against armed mercenaries, and resigned themselves to the slaughter.
When Mattithias (father of Judah Maccabee) heard about this, his reaction was to proclaim that Jews were required to learn weaponry in order to fight back in such a situation.
Scott, we have a term. Golus Jews. Golus is a Yiddish-y pronounciation of the Hebrew word galuth, which means "exile". A lot of Jews have an exile mentality. They're scared to speak up and be blunt about the truth. They're scared of other Jews doing it, too. They can get quite hysterical at times. Pity and contempt kind of war inside of me when it comes to people like this. But most of them don't even understand Judaism. How can they possibly reach out to non-Jews when they don't even know what God has commanded them?
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: What about Moses, Abram?
Can we do less than them?
Who's "we"? Give me a miraculous staff like Moses, and I'll be on the job. But I'm still going to go after my fellow Jews first.
We have a commandment to give "charity" (that's a bad translation for tzedaka, but it'll do for this discussion. The rules regarding priority are:
1) The poor Jews of your town/city 2) The poor non-Jews of your town/city 3) The poor Jews elsewhere 4) The poor non-Jews elsewhere
These are the legal priorities we have. If I only have enough to give in category 1, that doesn't mean that categories 2-4 are unimportant. It just means that there are priorities. The same thing applies here.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Do all commandments carry inherent risks?
I do my own share of extreme slacking on some commandments, but it isn't because it is risky to follow them. It's because I'm a slacker.
I do think that if the Lord gives a commandment, then he makes a way for us to follow that commandment. There's no "unless it looks iffy" on the end of it.
Individual cases may apply (there's always a possiblity), but abondoning a commandment en masse raises questions. Is it okay with the one who gave the commandment in the first place?
I think it's somewhat startling for a Mormon to take issue with the kind of abandoning StarLisa, et. al. are talking about. After all, one could argue the Mormon church "abandoned" plural marriage when it became incovenient for the Church to continue it. Of course, you can argue that such an abandonment was sanctioned by God, but since StarLisa (et. al.) claim no such ability to receive contemporary updates, one might cut them some more slack. Just sayin'.
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I knew the bit with plural marriage would come up. Since I think the commandment was both given and retracted by the Lord, it doesn't apply.
I'm not trying to be hard - I'm wondering if there are any other reasons for not doing it, and what it would take to change the situation. There could be good reasons. "It's risky" isn't one of them.
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quote:Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz: Two questions for all our Jewish commentators:
1) Was Abraham "Jewish" by your definition of what it means to be a Jew today? And, whether you've answered yes or no, please explain your reason.
Pardon the stereotypically Jewish answer, but yes and no. Primarily no. Prior to the revelation at Sinai, only the Noachide laws were in force. For everyone, including Abraham. Belief in the One God wasn't tribal or hereditary, either. You chose it or you didn't. Isaac wasn't a proto-Jew because Abraham was. He chose it. Ishmael didn't. Jacob chose it. Esau didn't.
At Sinai, God turned us into a nation. He gave us His laws, and He made it so that if you were born of a Jewish mother, you were automatically a Jew.
So yeah, mostly no. But he was a kind of precursor, as well as being our ancestor.
quote:Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz: 2) Does Jewish faith allow for new revelation from G_d? (i.e., is it possible for G_d to send a prophet who would reinterpret or even provide a replacement of what would then be prior laws?)
No. In fact, God addressed that specifically in the Torah. Check out Deuteronomy 13:1-5 and 18:20-22. If a prophet tries to change the least little thing in the Torah, or add or subtract from the Torah in the smallest part, the punishment (when the court system is in operation) is death. Of course, the prophet has to be a real prophet first and have proved it. Someone who just says, "I'm a prophet and God wants you to smoke weed" is just a loon. No killing applies.
What's cool is that God set up the system in a way that protects it. He actually made it so that even He can't overrule the Torah he gave us. That's not any kind of conflict with His omniscience, because being unconstrained by time, if He wanted it to be otherwise, he could make it so from the get-go.
The purpose of prophets was to help us with proper emphasis and to rebuke those who were misbehaving. For example, it seems pretty much like a no-brainer that offering a sacrifice and continuing to be a sinner is pointless. But there's nothing in the text of the Torah that says that clearly. Keeping the commandments is required. Bringing sacrifices is required. So there were people who figured that bringing a sin-sacrifice was like a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Clearly, such people sucked. But the law didn't deal with the precise issues of emphasis. So you have a lot of the prophets slamming sacrifice that's done as a kind of bribe and that doesn't include genuine repentance.
You could ask why the law didn't specify such things. <shrug> Maybe specifying them before there was a need for it would have given a wrong impression. Things come in their proper time.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Are you saying that Jews think some commandments aren't worth the risk of following?
Well, sure. There are some Jews who figure it's okay to eat a pork chop. If you're talking about Jews who are still faithful to God's Torah, then the answer is no.
But the law itself gives guidelines for what types of risk are legitimate and what types of risk aren't. And what obligations are obligations that override risk and what obligations aren't.
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So there's something that says "This is one of the commandments you don't have to pay attention to"?
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StarLisa, Have you ever seen the movie The Believer? I'd love you know what you thought about it. The motivations of the main character are ambiguous in the movie (based on a true story, I believe), but I sort of understood his actions as a kind of misguided reaction to the "exile mentality" you wrote of above. It seems almost as if he were provoking God, or the Jewish community to some sort of critical mass.
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quote: The Liebreichs and other interfaith families appreciate what the two holidays share: Both are happy social occasions, they say, and both emphasize the beauty of lights.
The "Ooohh! Shiny!" school of religion.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Are you saying that Jews think some commandments aren't worth the risk of following?
I think it would depend on the commandment in all honesty. Kill or be killed? Not worth dying for.
Yes worth dying for. There are three (five, really) commandments that a Jew has to die rather than violate:
Murder
Idolatry
Gilui Arayot
That last is a category of sexual immorality that includes incest (specified), bestiality, male-male anal sex and adultery (limited to a married woman with a man not her husband)
The reason I say it's really five is that there are two other things that override the imperative of preserving life. One is Hillul Hashem, which means "desecration of God's name". To illustrate, if someone holds a gun to me and tells me to eat a ham sandwich, I'll eat it. If they put me on TV and say, "We're going to force this Jew to eat a ham sandwich, ha ha ha", then I won't eat it. Because we're not allowed to save ourselves at the cost of desecrating God's name in that way.
The other is a required war, such as a war of self-defense. Since we don't rely on miracles, and people die in wars, the very fact that there is such a thing as an obligatory war in Jewish law means that it must override the saving of lives. (cf. Minchat Chinuch)
quote:Originally posted by Stephan: Steal something or kill? I think then the sin of stealing would be on the one making the threat.
You don't have to die rather than steal. But I believe you're still obligated to provide restitution when you're no longer under duress. It's not a freebie just because someone is threatening you.
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quote:No. In fact, God addressed that specifically in the Torah. Check out Deuteronomy 13:1-5 and 18:20-22. If a prophet tries to change the least little thing in the Torah, or add or subtract from the Torah in the smallest part, the punishment (when the court system is in operation) is death. Of course, the prophet has to be a real prophet first and have proved it. Someone who just says, "I'm a prophet and God wants you to smoke weed" is just a loon. No killing applies.
When you speak of the court system being in operation, what does that mean to you? Do you envision a day when it will be again? Will this court apply only to Jews? Or to all people within a Jewish state regardless of religion? What about those born Jewish, but who wish to leave the faith? Would they be held accountable equally because of birth or is there some mechanism for peaceable apostasy?
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quote:So there's something that says "This is one of the commandments you don't have to pay attention to"?
From what I'm getting from starLisa's posts, there is a law that says, "You may only risk your life for X reasons."
If law Y isn't covered by X reasons, then it would be violating that law to not "violate" law Y. But one would be following the Law when one did so.
It's not a question of not paying attention to one commandment, but rather following the commandments that relate to prioritization.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Are you saying that Jews think some commandments aren't worth the risk of following?
I think it would depend on the commandment in all honesty. Kill or be killed? Not worth dying for.
Yes worth dying for. There are three (five, really) commandments that a Jew has to die rather than violate:
Murder
Idolatry
Gilui Arayot
That last is a category of sexual immorality that includes incest (specified), bestiality, male-male anal sex and adultery (limited to a married woman with a man not her husband)
The reason I say it's really five is that there are two other things that override the imperative of preserving life. One is Hillul Hashem, which means "desecration of God's name". To illustrate, if someone holds a gun to me and tells me to eat a ham sandwich, I'll eat it. If they put me on TV and say, "We're going to force this Jew to eat a ham sandwich, ha ha ha", then I won't eat it. Because we're not allowed to save ourselves at the cost of desecrating God's name in that way.
The other is a required war, such as a war of self-defense. Since we don't rely on miracles, and people die in wars, the very fact that there is such a thing as an obligatory war in Jewish law means that it must override the saving of lives. (cf. Minchat Chinuch)
quote:Originally posted by Stephan: Steal something or kill? I think then the sin of stealing would be on the one making the threat.
You don't have to die rather than steal. But I believe you're still obligated to provide restitution when you're no longer under duress. It's not a freebie just because someone is threatening you.
The kill or be killed thing, I just wrote wrong. And I meant steal or be killed. Trying to answer phones, and keep up with the conversation.
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quote:That last is a category of sexual immorality that includes incest (specified), bestiality, male-male anal sex and adultery (limited to a married woman with a man not her husband)
I hope you aren't feeling pestered by my questions. So, what is the state of a Jewish homosexual? Is it OK as long as there is no anal sex? I'm presuming not, but the specifics of the examples above are curious to me.
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quote:No. In fact, God addressed that specifically in the Torah. Check out Deuteronomy 13:1-5 and 18:20-22. If a prophet tries to change the least little thing in the Torah, or add or subtract from the Torah in the smallest part, the punishment (when the court system is in operation) is death. Of course, the prophet has to be a real prophet first and have proved it. Someone who just says, "I'm a prophet and God wants you to smoke weed" is just a loon. No killing applies.
When you speak of the court system being in operation, what does that mean to you? Do you envision a day when it will be again? Will this court apply only to Jews? Or to all people within a Jewish state regardless of religion? What about those born Jewish, but who wish to leave the faith? Would they be held accountable equally because of birth or is there some mechanism for peaceable apostasy?
The way I understand it Jews are responsible for following the torah based on their birth. If they leave the faith they don't suddenly get to just follow the 7 laws of Noah.
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quote:It's not a question of not paying attention to one commandment, but rather following the commandments that relate to prioritization.
That's what I understood, too. I actually thought it was pretty clear, which is why I took exception to Kat's phrasing of her question the way she did. Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Do all commandments carry inherent risks?
They can. But none of them do inherently.
quote:Originally posted by katharina: I do my own share of extreme slacking on some commandments, but it isn't because it is risky to follow them. It's because I'm a slacker.
I do think that if the Lord gives a commandment, then he makes a way for us to follow that commandment. There's no "unless it looks iffy" on the end of it.
Really? If God commands us to bring sacrifices, but only in a specific spot, and we're not able to access that spot, then we're clearly exempt from that commandment until such time as we're able to fulfill it.
There's a story about a kid in Russia. They used to take Jewish kids and draft them into the army for 25 years. They probably did it to other ethnic groups as well, but it's the Jews they did it to that concern me.
So this kid gets taken from his parents and inducted. And all they have to eat is pork. But they have to march and do all the soldiery things the army requires.
The kid eats leaves and grass for as long as he can, but he's getting weaker and weaker. And one night, his platoon (or whatever) is encamped near a Jewish village. During the night, he runs into the town and finds the town rabbi. He tells the rabbi the problem and asks him what he should do.
The rabbi tells him, "You can eat the pork. But don't suck the bones."
The idea here is that the only food he had to eat was pork, and kashrut doesn't supersede staying alive. Check out Leviticus 18:5. But sucking the bones was unnecessary. It's something you do when you're really enjoying it. What the rabbi was telling the Jewish kid was that he should do what was necessary, but not get used to it, and not try and make a virtue of a necessity.
quote:Originally posted by katharina: Individual cases may apply (there's always a possiblity), but abondoning a commandment en masse raises questions. Is it okay with the one who gave the commandment in the first place?
What commandment have we abandoned, in your opinion? We don't actually have an obligation to teach non-Jews what they're supposed to do. Yes, it's proper to do so, but the law is made up of things we must do, things we can't do, and things that are praiseworthy in God's sight if we do. And each of these have terms and conditions attached to them.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: I knew the bit with plural marriage would come up. Since I think the commandment was both given and retracted by the Lord, it doesn't apply.
I'm not trying to be hard - I'm wondering if there are any other reasons for not doing it, and what it would take to change the situation. There could be good reasons. "It's risky" isn't one of them.
It's better than God changing His mind, I think. But then, we think God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, which I've been told (by Geoff Card) isn't the case with Mormons.
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quote:The way I understand it Jews are responsible for following the torah based on their birth. If they leave the faith they don't suddenly get to just follow the 7 laws of Noah.
This is a perfectly reasonable philosophical view, provided that the child is adequately schooled in his faith. Where this gets sticky for me is in a theoretical state where Judaism is both the predominate religious power and the law of the secular state. Are there "sins" or crimes for which death is the punishment for a Jew (but not a gentile) that would be enforced in a Jewish court? If so, is there a way for a Jew to denounce his Jewish obligation and thereafter be treated as a gentile? Or would Jews be putting to death both Jew and gentile who did not obey Jewish capital law?
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I think that's the case with all of Christianity. We believe that the Law of Moses was in force for a time, and then was replaced by something else. In both cases, God was still God. In the case of plural marriage, it was a commandment for time, and then, for whatever his reasons, wasn't anymore. It had been a commandment before, but isn't now.
Hmm...that does make me wonder. What do you think about Abraham, etc. having multiple wives? Not okay then, or still okay today?
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quote:It's better than God changing His mind, I think. But then, we think God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, which I've been told (by Geoff Card) isn't the case with Mormons.
I don't think God did change His mind in that case-- I think He retracted permission to live that commandment at the current time; it was never lived entirely the way it was intended, anyway. And I think the understanding of the last part can be different; I believe that God is all those things.
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quote:The way I understand it Jews are responsible for following the torah based on their birth. If they leave the faith they don't suddenly get to just follow the 7 laws of Noah.
This is a perfectly reasonable philosophical view, provided that the child is adequately schooled in his faith. Where this gets sticky for me is in a theoretical state where Judaism is both the predominate religious power and the law of the secular state. Are there "sins" or crimes for which death is the punishment for a Jew (but not a gentile) that would be enforced in a Jewish court? If so, is there a way for a Jew to denounce his Jewish obligation and thereafter be treated as a gentile? Or would Jews be putting to death both Jew and gentile who did not obey Jewish capital law?
I think in the ancient past the only punishable by death crimes were idolatry, adultry, incest, murder, and violation of Shabbat. All except Shabbat, non-Jews would be held accountable for.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: I think that's the case with all of Christianity. We believe that the Law of Moses was in force for a time, and then was replaced by something else. In both cases, God was still God. In the case of plural marriage, it was a commandment for time, and then, for whatever his reasons, wasn't anymore. It had been a commandment before, but isn't now.
Hmm...that does make me wonder. What do you think about Abraham, etc. having multiple wives? Not okay then, or still okay today?
I didn't think he did have multiple wives. Sara asked him to lay with Hagar. But this was before the law of Moses was given anyway. Now David on the other hand...
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quote:I think in the ancient past the only punishable by death crimes were idolatry, adultry, incest, murder, and violation of Shabbat. All except Shabbat, non-Jews would be held accountable for.
Which sidesteps my question. Assuming a Jewish court with civil dominion, must a Jew observe Shabbat or be put to death even if he intellectually and/or philosophically rejects the Jewish religion?
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quote:I think in the ancient past the only punishable by death crimes were idolatry, adultry, incest, murder, and violation of Shabbat. All except Shabbat, non-Jews would be held accountable for.
Which sidesteps my question. Assuming a Jewish court with civil dominion, must a Jew observe Shabbat or be put to death even if he intellectually and/or philosophically rejects the Jewish religion?
Today? No. 3,000 years ago? Most likely.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Why would non-Jews be held accountable for idolatry?
G-d says so in the 7 laws of Noah.
So if the Jews ever get civil dominion over the rest of us we'd better follow the Jewish interpretation of what constitutes Idolatry or be put to death? This type of thinking terrifies me to the point of making Jewish persecution an understandable if regretable social by-product of a pluralistic society.
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Again, 3,000 years ago this may have been the case. Israel does not kill someone within its borders for worshipping idols.
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Are you sure? The reason I posted the question specifically for starLisa is that from her writings here and elsewhere I'm not the slightest bit convinced this is the case. I get the impression, from her, at least, that things would be a whole lot different in the enforcement department if Judaism was able to exercise dominion as both religious and civil law.
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quote:Originally posted by Stephan: Again, 3,000 years ago this may have been the case. Israel does not kill someone within its borders for worshipping idols.
Well one could speculate that this is simply because Israel would not exist without the good will of an overwhelming majority of non-Jews. [Edit: or rather "overwhelming military force of non-Jewish countries."]
[edit to add: In other words, how things are run in Israel isn't an acceptable example to me because Israel hardly is a case of un-fettered enforcement of Orthodox Jewish law.]
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quote:Originally posted by KarlEd: ]So if the Jews ever get civil dominion over the rest of us we'd better follow the Jewish interpretation of what constitutes Idolatry or be put to death? This type of thinking terrifies me to the point of making Jewish persecution an understandable if regretable social by-product of a pluralistic society.
From what I have read non-Jews are responsible for setting up their own courts of justice to enforce the other 6 laws of Noah.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: So there's something that says "This is one of the commandments you don't have to pay attention to"?
Could I have a f'r instance? There's no such thing as a commandment you don't have to pay attention to. But there are terms and conditions.
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quote:Originally posted by Stephan: Again, 3,000 years ago this may have been the case. Israel does not kill someone within its borders for worshipping idols.
Well one could speculate that this is simply because Israel would not exist without the good will of an overwhelming majority of non-Jews. [Edit: or rather "overwhelming military force of non-Jewish countries."]
[edit to add: In other words, how things are run in Israel isn't an acceptable example to me because Israel hardly is a case of un-fettered enforcement of Orthodox Jewish law.]
Jews today are also not looking to conquer. Its believed the world will come to us one day for guidance.
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quote:Originally posted by KarlEd: StarLisa, Have you ever seen the movie The Believer? I'd love you know what you thought about it. The motivations of the main character are ambiguous in the movie (based on a true story, I believe), but I sort of understood his actions as a kind of misguided reaction to the "exile mentality" you wrote of above. It seems almost as if he were provoking God, or the Jewish community to some sort of critical mass.
I haven't seen it. I'm not sure I ever will. It gives me the heebie jeebies.
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quote:Give me a miraculous staff like Moses, and I'll be on the job.
It wasn't Moses' staff that was miraculous. It was Moses. Nitpick.
It wasn't Moses, either. It was God. So let me be more precise and say, "If God gives me a guaranteed ability to pull off signs and wonders like he did with Moses, I'll be on the job."
quote:Originally posted by starLisa: There are three (five, really) commandments that a Jew has to die rather than violate:
Murder
Idolatry
Gilui Arayot
That last is a category of sexual immorality that includes incest (specified), bestiality, male-male anal sex and adultery (limited to a married woman with a man not her husband)
In traditional Christian belief (or Catholic belief, in any case) something is not a sin if you do not have volition in the matter. You have spoken several times of people hypothetically holding a gun to your head and ordering you to "sin," and when you could and when you must not, so I'm guessing that Orthodox Judaism does not make this distinction, or at least not all the time. Is this a correct assessment?
In some of these cases you have specified that it would be better to die than to violate the commandment in, a person doesn't always have a choice. It's not "do this or I will shoot you." Rather, something is forced on a person, and they don't have the option to choose to die instead. I would argue that it's not a sin, but I'm not getting that sense from your post.
So what of a person forced to sin in such a manner? If you're supposed to die rather than commit a certain sin, then where does that leave you if you do sin?
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quote:Originally posted by starLisa: There are three (five, really) commandments that a Jew has to die rather than violate:
Murder
Idolatry
Gilui Arayot
That last is a category of sexual immorality that includes incest (specified), bestiality, male-male anal sex and adultery (limited to a married woman with a man not her husband)
In traditional Christian belief (or Catholic belief, in any case) something is not a sin if you do not have volition in the matter. You have spoken several times of people hypothetically holding a gun to your head and ordering you to "sin," and when you could and when you must not, so I'm guessing that Orthodox Judaism does not make this distinction, or at least not all the time. Is this a correct assessment?
In some of these cases you have specified that it would be better to die than to violate the commandment in, a person doesn't always have a choice. It's not "do this or I will shoot you." Rather, something is forced on a person, and they don't have the option to choose to die instead. I would argue that it's not a sin, but I'm not getting that sense from your post.
So what of a person forced to sin in such a manner? If you're supposed to die rather than commit a certain sin, then where does that leave you if you do sin?
Those sins she mentioned are considered sinful regardless if there is a gun to your head.
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I got that . . . that wasn't what I asked . . . in fact, I specifically mentioned a situation where there was not a gun to the head, where one had a choice between sin and death, but rather a case in which there was simply no choice . . . my question was what did it mean, in practical terms, to say that it would be better to be killed rather than to be forced to committ one of these sins? Does that mean that you're damned in some way if you are forced to commit such a sin? Or is "preferable" in this case just an abstract concept?
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quote:No. In fact, God addressed that specifically in the Torah. Check out Deuteronomy 13:1-5 and 18:20-22. If a prophet tries to change the least little thing in the Torah, or add or subtract from the Torah in the smallest part, the punishment (when the court system is in operation) is death. Of course, the prophet has to be a real prophet first and have proved it. Someone who just says, "I'm a prophet and God wants you to smoke weed" is just a loon. No killing applies.
When you speak of the court system being in operation, what does that mean to you? Do you envision a day when it will be again? Will this court apply only to Jews? Or to all people within a Jewish state regardless of religion? What about those born Jewish, but who wish to leave the faith? Would they be held accountable equally because of birth or is there some mechanism for peaceable apostasy?
Wow. That's a biggie. Okay. The way this works is, there are three types of court, based on size. There are courts of 3, of 23 and of 71. There's only one court of 71, and it's called the Sanhedrin. It's supposed to sit on the Temple Mount, adjoining the Temple itself. In fact, half of the chamber where the Sanhedrin meets is supposed to be inside of the Temple boundaries, and half outside.
Every town in Israel needs to have a beit din (court) of 3. Every region needs to have a beit din of 23. There were two more batei din (plural of beit din) of 23 in Jerusalem, one at the entrance to the Temple Mount, and the other at the door of the Temple courtyard.
Various different issues can come before a beit din. One kind is the kind of question that we'd ask a rabbi about nowadays. "Is this chicken kosher?" "Can I use a manual alarm clock on Shabbat?" The other kind is torts and contracts and generally what we'd call civil law.
Obviously, the civil law aspect of a beit din is subordinate to the knowledge aspect, because cases need to be judged according to the law. Which means that you have to know what the law is for a specific case. And new cases might arise, such as the invention of the printing press, and the question of whether making unauthorized copies of a book and selling them is considered theft.
One type of civil law case (note that civil law includes religious infractions, like publically desecrating Shabbat) is capital cases. Capital cases could only be tried by courts of 23 or more. And they could only be tried so long as the Sanhedrin met in its proper place on the Temple Mount. About 40 years before the Temple was destroyed, the Sanhedrin relocated itself elsewhere, because the degree of general lawlessness and chaos was so great that they feared they'd have to judge many capital crimes. By moving, they deactivated that ability, so to speak.
An interesting thing about capital crimes is that they required a majority plus one to pass. If there was a tie, or only one more person in favor of the death penalty than was opposed, two more judges would be added to the court. This would go on until a decision was reached. And, believe it or not, if the beit din ever voted unanimously for the death penalty, the defendent went free. Sort of the opposite of the system in the US.
But here's the thing. To get convicted of anything at all by a beit din, there had to be two kosher witnesses of the adult male Jewish persuasion. The witnesses had to have warned the perp twice that what he was doing was forbidden, citing proper sources for the prohibition, and the perp had to indicate awareness and comprehension of the warning and go ahead and do it anyway. And they had to actually see it happen. Two guys walk into a room with only one door, one walks out again and the other one is lying dead? That doesn't count as having been witnessed.
So basically, it was next to impossible to receive a Torah mandated punishment unless you really wanted to get punished. Capital punishment was essentially a kind of suicide, and it was exceedingly rare.
The strictures were a bit looser when it came to rabbinic laws, but there's no rabbinic death penalty.
As far as the knowledge aspect is concerned, if you went to your local beit din with a question, they could only give an answer if they knew the answer. That may sound obvious, but what I mean by it was that if you came to them with an electric oven and asked if that was permitted to use on Shabbat, the local beit din couldn't say, "Well, we know that cooking with fire on Shabbat is forbidden. This seems similar, so let's say you're not allowed." No analogies, no inferences, no creativity was allowed here. If they knew the law, they related it. If not...
Well, if the local beit din didn't know the answer, the person asking the question and all the members of the beit din would pick up and go to their regional beit din of 23. There, they'd ask the question again. If the regional beit din knew the answer (and I mean knew it), they'd give an answer, and they'd send out notices to every locality in the region announcing that the law is thus-and-such in this-or-that case.
If the regional beit din didn't know the answer, they would pick up and travel to Jerusalem with the local beit din and original questioner, and go to the first beit din of 23 in Jerusalem. Same deal. If they knew, fine, and they'd issue announcements to all of the regions and localities. If not, they all went to the beit din of 23 at the entrance to the Temple courtyard. Same deal. But this time, if they didn't know, they all brought the case before the Sanhedrin.
Once a case reached the Sanhedrin, it was a little different. Members of the Sanhedrin would say if they had been taught the specific answer to this question or if they had a logical answer to the question. They'd discuss and debate, and finally, they'd vote. Majority rule determined the law, and what the Sanhedrin decided was considered to be God's will. And notices were sent out to all Jews everywhere.
I don't know what the deal is for areas outside of Israel. I suspect that they get divided into regions and localities the same way.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: It's not a question of not paying attention to one commandment, but rather following the commandments that relate to prioritization.
Bingo. For example, I can't use the telephone on Shabbat. It's forbidden. So I don't. But if someone requires an ambulance, not only am I permitted to call one on Shabbat; I'm obligated to.
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quote:That last is a category of sexual immorality that includes incest (specified), bestiality, male-male anal sex and adultery (limited to a married woman with a man not her husband)
I hope you aren't feeling pestered by my questions. So, what is the state of a Jewish homosexual? Is it OK as long as there is no anal sex? I'm presuming not, but the specifics of the examples above are curious to me.
The state of a Jewish gay man kind of sucks. See, Jews have an addition tacked on to the laws of arayot. This addition is called kirva, and it means various forms of intimacy that fall short of actual penetrative sex. It's a matter of dispute whether kirva is Torah law or a rabbinic enactment, but in either case, it's forbidden.
Basically, Jewish gay men have to be celibate.
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Since I think the commandment was both given and retracted by the Lord, it doesn't apply.![[Dont Know]](graemlins/dontknow.gif)
