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Two questions.

שו”תCategory: philosophyTwo questions.
asked 4 years ago

Hello Rabbi.
A. I know that the rabbi’s opinion is to separate religion and state, but I was unable to understand from the answers on the site whether, in the rabbi’s opinion, the term Jewish state has any meaning? Let’s say that the majority of the state’s citizens will be Jews? Is there justification for legislation that would result in the preservation of a Jewish majority in the state, and if so, what is the justification?
on. This question will probably indicate ignorance of philosophy, but I will ask anyway. Is it because the Torah is a fact that it is impossible to derive values ​​from it?


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0 Answers
מיכי Staff answered 4 years ago
A. I have written about this more than once. In my opinion, it has no meaning. There is a country that operates according to Halacha and a country that does not. Everything else is a matter for sociology and the cultural level. Everyone will define it as they wish. There is no harassment for legislation that forces people to do things they do not believe in, unless it brings proven harm to the public. B. The Torah is not a fact. I don’t even understand that sentence.  

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ידידיה replied 4 years ago

“There is no justification for legislation that forces people to do things they do not believe in, unless it brings proven harm to the public”.
A. What is defined as “proven harm to the public”? This is very subjective, one person will define something as harm and another will not, it can be said that there is justification for legislation on the subject of religion because it causes harm to the public, because it is spiritual harm (apparently spiritual harm is also harm) or because it is an attack on the national culture and this is also called harm and therefore there is justification for legislation?
B. Another argument for justification for legislation on the subject of religion that I heard, after all our entire right to occupy the land and settle in it is because of the divine promise (the first commandment in the Torah) and therefore perhaps there is justification for religious legislation because without this we would have no right to the land?

מיכי Staff replied 4 years ago

A. In religious legislation, there is no proven harm. It is harm according to your opinion. Harm to human life is not controversial, and it is called proven harm. But of course there is no end to the matter and there is no sharp boundary.
B. This itself has been debated. Many do not see the divine promise as the basis, but rather the historical right (from the very fact that our ancestors lived here).

ידידיה replied 4 years ago

A. We are talking about legislation that “forces people to do things they don’t believe in,” which according to the Rabbi is only justifiable if it causes proven harm, and proven harm, according to the Rabbi’s definition, is harm that everyone agrees on (such as bodily harm). So does everyone agree on it or are there people who “don’t believe in it”? If the harm is “not in dispute,” then it doesn’t “force people to do things they don’t believe in”?
B. “Many see.” What does the Rabbi think? If the Rabbi’s opinion is that of someone who sees the divine promise as the basis for our right to be in the land, then does that mean that the Rabbi should support religious legislation because there is justification for the legislation and that the argument I made in a previous response is correct? If the Rabbi doesn’t see the divine promise as the basis, why not? (After all, the very existence of the divine promise is correct, for those who believe in the Torah).

מיכי Staff replied 4 years ago

A. In your opinion, anyone who thinks that something is harmful to the state can impose it on the entire population. I disagree with this. Beyond that, I see no value in performing acts according to the law by force, at least when the doer does not believe in it. The fact that the majority will agree that there is harm is not a criterion for the harm to be real (a majority is not a criterion for truth), but rather that this harm can be imposed.
B. See section A and my previous answer.

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