Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Sea Lion Is Not a Species of Lion and Reform Judaism Is Not...

I once met the Clevelander Rebbi.  In our brief exchange, the Rebbi asked me where I went to yeshiva.  It wasn't the time and place to open the can of worms that is my history, so I simply said I was a ba'al t'shuva and didn't go to yeshiva.  He got a wistful look in his eyes and said, "Ah... I wish I could be a ba'al t'shuvah!"  His words and expression made a big impression on me, and I have always felt badly about lying like that (small and white as the lie may have been).

Today I correct that by becoming a ba'al t'shuva (in one thing; baby steps, you know).  As much as I strive to be not be subtle, apparently I was too subtle in describing how different Reform Judaism.  A quite reasonable challenge to my proposal that one can determine how far religions differ simply by counting up the number of fundamental principles on which they disagree.  The challenge was: "According to that line of reasoning, a fish missing only its heart is more like an eagle than a parakeet missing its heart, brain, and kidneys!"

I was careful to refer to "Reform Judaism" and "Christianity" and not "Reform Jews" and "Christians".  I did not, however, make that point explicitly.  A movement/philosophy/religion is really nothing more than its fundamental principles.  I therefore stand by my assertion that any reasonable criteria that would classify Christianity and Judaism different religions, will also classify Reform Judaism and Torah Judaism as two different religions.  Moreover, any reasonable classification of religions in general is more likely to group Christianity with Torah Judaism than Reform Judaism with Torah Judaism.

I specified "reasonable" classification scheme, because the criteria "has the word Judaism in its name", obviously violates that assertion.  On the other hand, that's not a reasonable criteria.  The people who named Reform Judaism wanted to obfuscate the differences and present themselves as kosher.  Like a pig that presents cloven hooves to the world, but internally does nothing kosher.

As far as the fish and birds... that's why we encourage Jews who are both members of the Reform religion to marry each other.  Even though the lack of mikvah use is going to involve them in one of the most severe penalties the Torah decrees (kareis -- spiritual excision), while a Jew with a goya is a much lower level of issur.  None the less, they are the same (spiritual) species.

I believe I have correctly the subtlety issue.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: Love in the Time of Corona Virus/Anxiously Awaiting the Mashiach

Two scenarios: Scenario I: A young boy awakened in the middle of the night, placed in the back of vehicle, told not to make any noise, and the vehicle speeds off down the highway. Scenario II: Young boy playing in park goes to see firetruck, turns around to see scary man in angry pursuit, poised to attack. I experienced and lived through both of those scenarios. Terrifying, no? Actually, no; and my picture was never on a milk carton. Here's the context: Scenario I: We addressed both set of our grandparents as "grandma" and "grandpa". How did we distinguish? One set lived less than a half hour's drive; those were there "close grandma and grandpa". The other set lived five hour drive away; they were the "way far away grandma and grandpa". To make the trip the most pleasant for all of us, Dad would wake up my brother and I at 4:00AM, we'd groggily -- but with excitement! -- wander out and down to the garage where we'd crawl

Thought for the Day: David HaMelech's Five Stages of Finding HaShem In the World

Many of us "sing" (once you have heard what I call carrying a tune, you'll question how I can, in good conscience, use that verb, even with the quotation marks) Eishes Chayil before the Friday night Shabbos meal.  We feel like we are singing the praises of our wives.  In fact, I have also been to chasunas where the chasson proudly (sometimes even tearfully) sings Eishes Chayil to his new eishes chayil.  Beautiful.  Also wrong.  (The sentiments, of course, are not wrong; just a misunderstanding of the intent of the author of these exalted words.) Chazal (TB Brachos, 10a) tell us that when Sholmo HaMelech wrote the words "She opens her mouth Mwith wisdom; the torah of kindness is on her tongue", that he was referring to his father, Dovid HaMelech, who (I am continuing to quote Chazal here) lived in five worlds and sang a song of praise [to each].  It seems to me that "world" here means a perception of reality.  Four times Dovid had to readjust his perc

Thought for the Day: אוושא מילתא Debases Yours Shabbos

My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class.  It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner.  I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her.  She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver.  When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find.  (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every  relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it.  Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא.  It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aruch HaRav that referred to the noise of תקתוק