Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Church and State Just Cannot Always be Separated -- Let's Admit That and Move On

There is a YouTube star (nebbich...) who has a popular series of her taking to her past self through the pandemic. It's cute. The first one was particularly brilliant and (it seems to me) was the hit that launched her to fame. Part of the shtick is that her future (ie, present) self has to talk in code to her past self in order to not "disturb the space time continuum" more than she already has. The coded messages are part of the fun.

The most recent episode included this jewel: 

<present>Well... let me put it this way: If you order a pizza and it comes with pineapple -- even though you didn't order pineapple on your pizza -- it is illegal for you to remove it. <past>But it's my pizza! What if I get someone else to remove the pineapple? <present>No... then you'll both get arrested. <past>But what if I am allergic to pineapple and eating it could even cause me to die? Then can I remove it? <present>Uh... nope!

My first reaction was, "but it's not a chunk of pineapple!" My second reaction was... hmm... that is how she (and many, many others) view the situation. So then I re-imagined this skit right after January 22, 1973, and the actor on the other side of the controversy. 

<present>If you invite a guest into your house for an evening, and they refuse to leave, you are allowed to kill them. <past>What?! But are they threatening me? <present>Not really; though they are raiding your fridge and making a mess of your living room. <past>But kill them? I don't think I could do that. <present>That's ok; you can hire someone to do it for your. 100% legal. In fact, a constitutionally guaranteed right.

So here's the deal. First, there is no disagreement that you should have a right to have whatever you want on your pizza. Even though having pork or beef with cheese is a Torah violation for us, we do not want the US government getting involved -- separation of church and state is very important to us. Second, there is absolutely no disagreement that no one should be able kill unwanted guests. So by throwing these arguments back and forth at each other, no one is actually discussing the real issue.

Where are the scientifically verifiable facts? (1) The embryo/fetus is certainly alive from conception and before. (2) At some point the embryo/fetus becomes viable outside its current host. (That point is getting earlier and earlier, by the way.) Those are factual statements which can be verified to be true or false by the usual scientific process.

What is the disagreement? One thing and only one thing: Is it a chunk of pineapple, a little human being, or something between? That is wholly and only a religious question. You can find belief systems that hold each of those view; in fact, its a spectrum. Moreover, just as the beliefs of those in the Flat Earth Club don't actually flatten the earth; so, too, the beliefs of the Catholics doesn't change pineapple chunks into babies and the beliefs of the Ethical Humanists doesn't change babies into pineapple chunks.

At the end of the day, there is one law for the land. Whatever your personal beliefs are, it seems to me that the very least you can do is to appreciate the passion on both sides and why the one and only solution is to bring the world to the realization HaShem and His Torah are the actual definers of reality.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: Pizza, Uncrustables, and Stuff -- What Bracha?

Many years ago (in fact, more than two decades ago), I called R' Fuerst from my desk at work as I sat down to lunch.  I had a piece of (quite delicious) homemade pizza for lunch.  I nearly always eat at my desk as I am working (or writing TftD...), so my lunch at work cannot in any way be considered as sitting down to a formal meal; aka קביעת סעודה.  That being the case, I wasn't sure whether to wash, say ha'motzi, and bentch; or was the pizza downgraded to a m'zonos.  He told if it was a snack, then it's m'zonos; if a meal the ha'motzi.  Which what I have always done since then.  I recently found out how/why that works. The Shulchan Aruch, 168:17 discusses פשטיד''א, which is describes as a baked dough with meat or fish or cheese.  In other words: pizza.  Note: while the dough doesn't not need to be baked together with the meat/fish/cheese, it is  required that they dough was baked with the intention of making this concoction. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: What Category of Muktzeh are Our Candles?

As discussed in a recent TftD , a p'sak halacha quite surprising to many, that one may -- even לכתחילה -- decorate a birthday cake with (unlit, obviously) birthday candles on Shabbos. That p'sak is predicated on another p'sak halacha; namely, that our candles are muktzeh because they are a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not  מוקצה מחמת גופו/intrinsically set aside from any use on Shabbos. They point there was that using the candle as a decoration qualifies as a need that allows one to utilize a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור. Today we will discuss the issue of concluding that our candles are , in fact, a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not מוקצה מחמת גופו. Along the way we'll also (again) how important it is to have personal relationship with your rav/posek, the importance of precision in vocabulary, and how to interpret the Mishna Brura.  Buckle up. After reviewing siman 308 and the Mishna Brura there, I concluded that it should be permissible to use birthday candles to decorate a cake on Sha...
Post a Comment
Read more

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 Aru...
Post a Comment
Read more