Wrong but legitimate

Laws are legitimate so long as people freely accept them. When the laws become oppressive, people revolt. Laws cement communities. People can reduce the number of laws but must obey the existing laws. People generally observe legitimate laws even when there’s no threat of punishment. Legitimate laws can be arbitrary to a degree (65 rather than 66 miles per hour speed limit), but reasonable overall. A person cannot morally or legitimately refuse observing a law, though he may campaign for changing it.
Jews may and should call for changing the rabbinical observance, but as long as no new consensus has emerged, Jews must follow the age-old rules. Ancient people correctly equaled antiquity with truth; test of time is the only way to prove a system working. The Jewish law which preserved Jewish people for millennia, is proven working. Jews can keep changing it slowly, testing new laws, but not recklessly abandon it or, even worth, tolerate individuals’ disregard of the community’s legal backbone.

chaim

Well, Ovadiah, can you go deeper on this? Which kind of laws you suggest to change? Mose’s law or rabbinical laws?

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Danny the Admin

and with that smile you mean..?

Ray Bright

Gods greatest gift to us is our awareness and intelligence.
With these two gifts we can be appropriate to the always fresh challenge of the present moment. When we follow some old book instead of relying on our intelligence, we are insulting the living God.
Jews would not have been holocausted if they followed their intelligence, rather than some books.
Today’s Muslims would human, rather than animals, if they followed their intelligence and awareness, rather than Quran.

Erick S

So Ray is blaming the dead for being murdered by the Nazies. An easy solution, for sure.

I might have agreed that by making some different decisions, many Jews could have avoided the grim fate that Germany had in store for them (By escaping to safer places ahead of time), yet others could not have - because they didn’t have the means, or the proper information in advance.
But to say that living by the conduct of Torah is a valid reason to commit genocide against the Jews… should I even finish that sentence?

Eric,
I never suggested that the Nazis were justified in murdering the Jews.
I was saying that if Jewish leaders relied on their intelligence, rather than on some book, they could have prevented the Holocaust.
Facing the challenge of the moment is scary, while familiar books are comforting. Yet, solutions are only found by intelligently facing the challenge of the present.

It may be easier to see this when we look at Muslims.
The Muslims are not genetically inferior to Jews or Christians. The only reason why they are living in dark ages is because they insist to interpret the present moment through Quran.

Still, it would not be fair to judge them based on the knowledge we have now.
Hitler could have been stopped at any moment before WWII broke out, but the idiotic European leaders have taken all the wrong moves;
20 million Russians could be spared if the Russian military would not be rendered impotent before operation barbarossa, countless more if Stalin never came to power… and so forth.
They didn’t follow any book. Sometimes Intelligence is not enough.

And as for the muslims - They live the way that they want to live. They use religion as justification for their actual values. The Quran can be interpreted in a way befitting a war mongering fundamentalist, or a moderate muslim. The book serves the people, not the other way around.
Obadiah himself said that Judaism should not be a strict adherence to countless arbitrary rules set by too many rabbies over the course of history. People choose this option over practicing their own judgement.

I agree with your overall point, but I don’t believe that the holocaust could have been prevented. Secular Jews who were caught in France were murdered just as easily as their somewhat religious brethren.

to Ray:
you say:”I was saying that if Jewish leaders relied on their intelligence, rather than on some book, they could have prevented the Holocaust.”
Jewish leaders SHOULD have read a book. It is called Tanach. There says Bnei Israel have to live in their own land, not in a rotten guetto somewhere in Estearn Europe or else.
Before you speak, better learn. Tanach is not a expensive book. You can get it by cheap.

melach Adam

Bs”d
But when those who promoted the so called “enlightenment movement”, whose goal was to rip jewish faith from the hearts of our people, and assimilate Jews to become as gentiles, Those Who in their Reform movement removed any mention of the land of Israel and Jerusalem from their prayers became the Zionists. When people who officially publicly announced they had abandoned the traditions that for thousands of years preserved Judaism’s uniqueness.
They should Have understood the Torah, instead of acting in a abomitable way begging for the judgment from God which they recieved. They (reformers) tried to destroy the Jewish people,”Dont add or detract from this law” Go-d destroyed them.
It must be know that before the Holocaust Go-d tried to save the Jewish people. As the sages say Hashem creates a solution before a problem. Our beloved God tried to arrouse a call for a religious “aliyah” (return) to Isreal first before the holocaust, before the secular Zionist movement even started. Rav Kalischer, Rav Gutmacher and others tried to awaken the Jewish nation before the enlightenment movement began to spread. 64 years before Herzl founded the secular Zionist movement these rabbis called for a mass “aliyah” to “aretz Yisrael”. If the Orthodox jews would have been wise enough to take the initiative Religious jews would now be in control of the Government of the state of Isreal, but they neglected the mitzvah of settling the Holy land. Rav Teichtal who suffered the horrors of the holocaust and perished at the hands of the cursed Nazis before he was killed wrote in his book “Aim HaBonim Samachah” that ” If the Jewish people would have agreed to rebuild the land of Israel. It would have been ready to absorb many people. A great number of our fellow Jews who were recently killed would have been saved. Who will accept responsibility for the innocent blood that has been spilled in our days.