Is Lehava a Racist Organization? (Column 484)

You are of course opposed to intermarriage, but from the armchair. Apparently, to actually do something requires more fervor—that is, a flame. If you present a sensible alternative that also works, your claims will carry more substantial moral weight.

Not long ago I checked what is happening on the ground. The Lehava organization is the only one that takes economic and other responsibility for the cases under its protection all the way through. Full rehabilitation, including everything. It’s not only at the ‘racist’ stage of pulling someone out of the Arab village, but for many long years afterward.

And one more fact about the scope of the phenomenon: they receive between 5 and 10 new inquiries every day.

I wasn’t discussing who is more successful and effective, but whether this is a racist organization. From what you say, one can infer at most that they are a successful/necessary racist organization.
A similar example: I claim that the Chabad Hasidic movement is a cult. You can of course rightly argue that it has a great many achievements. In a group that is not a cult, it is hard to reach that level of self-sacrifice. Does that mean it is not a cult?
What you are actually saying is that this is a kind of holy lie (that is, an approach that works and expresses itself through reprehensible racism in order to successfully advance worthy values), and that is precisely what I commented on in the column.
By the way, unrelated to the discussion, I wouldn’t build on data an organization provides about itself. Beyond that, the question is who the inquirer is: the partners themselves? The worried parents? Not every inquiry reflects a problem and human distress. Sometimes the parents inquire because they don’t want intermarriage, while the daughter or son is perfectly fine with it. There is of course a religious-halakhic problem in every such couple. And I will add that in my estimation, if you count inquiries from women in distress who are married to Jews, you will find many more.

And one more note. Pulling someone out of the village is not a racist act. I hope you read what I wrote.

Not only successful and necessary. I argue that if the central element were hatred, that would not provide enough motivation for the Sisyphean effort of prolonged rehabilitation. In other words, there is more love here than hatred, even though the hatred comes across more clearly on camera.

As for the data, it comes from a personal conversation I had with Anat Gopstein regarding a certain case I dealt with.

Regarding the “holy lie”: in the issue of whether the end justifies the means, one must weigh the importance of the goal against the severity of the improper means, and in comparison to the available alternatives. In my humble opinion, when all these are weighed, the current lie is indeed very holy.

There is no avoiding generalization. How can we act in the world without classifying styles and cultures?
Just as someone who comes to the U.S. immediately absorbs the general culture, even if by chance there may be an American who is different, the attitude toward the nation still does not change,
and since there is no dispute that Arab culture is not compatible, to put it mildly, with Jewish culture, it is clear beyond all doubt that the overwhelming majority of cases end badly.
You don’t need studies to understand that. And your claim that there are cases where it worked is unclear to me.

I think that organizations like Lehava and Kach have something about their style that is off-putting. Many times left-wing people compare them to neo-Nazi gangs. That comparison is of course totally demagogic. But the very fact that the comparison is made stems from the fact that in this case they really do use a very violent style that evokes racist gangs. A style that very much puts violence and force forward as ends in themselves. The violent creatures. The screaming. And the declaration: “We don’t give a damn about you and your whole cultural world.” When giving free rein to impulse and violence seems to be their goal in itself, and not a means to uphold some halakhic or religious value or another.
It’s enough, for example, to recall the humiliation they proudly inflicted on Lucy Aharish, where there was even a very chauvinistic smell and flavor in the background.

The shock people often feel from them—and really from the younger and more nationalist generation—resembles the shock many feel at statements like “perverts,” “abominations,” “wicked people,” “whores,” “wicked people,” from many YouTube rabbis and rabbis of peripheral neighborhoods. The criminal, inflammatory style is simply alienating.

I could sign with both hands and bet that they themselves, in my opinion, do indeed detest Arabs. And in my opinion they do not like any non-Jew in general (and the statements they published about “Beloved is man, for he was created in the image [of God],” and of course “we have nothing against any person,” are, with all due respect, nonsense of course).
But you also mentioned this in the post: many of us do not like Arabs, and non-Jews generally. I’m quite sure the average Haredi would have a gag reflex if he shook hands with, or embraced in greeting, some wandering spirit and then discovered he was a non-Jew—and after washing his hands would also remember to say or think, “Merciful Heaven, I touched a disgusting non-Jewish creature, may his name and memory be blotted out.” These remarks are not meant to incite or to stereotype Haredim; this is the impression I get from their rabbis’ declarations regarding relations between Israel and the nations. And my question is why I am not repelled by Haredi rabbis and Haredim in general, who on this issue at least think like Lehava, and maybe even more extremely.

Maybe, again, it all comes back to style. A respectable Hardal rabbi who says “women to the kitchen” and justifies it with halakhic statements is, in my mind, overall a decent and innocent fellow who is attached to very radical halakhic patterns. The average Haredi who detests, with every fiber of his being, the abominable non-Jew probably identifies every non-Jew as a cruel Roman soldier who wants to slaughter him, and clings to conservative and also somewhat primitive patterns, perhaps a bit detached from reality. What repels me about organizations like Lehava is that they use a modern, secular, violent, racist rhetoric and language, and afterward dress it up with halakhic and moral justifications. There is hatred here combined with basic dishonesty and lack of self-awareness. Something inauthentic that feels very fake. And that already repels me more than the hatred itself. With that I could have lived.

In short, they’re Haredim.
It reminds me that when I studied in cheder, the melamed in fourth grade shouted about how the Mizrachi people are beyond hope, they aren’t careful about the commandments, they have holes in their kippot, etc. There is no complexity—there is black and white, evil or good—and today in the internet age everything comes to light.
Ben Gvir: 11 mandates.

With God’s help, 30 Sivan 5782

Combating intermarriage is not racism, for if the non-Jewish party agrees to convert and sincerely accept upon himself the yoke of Torah and commandments—he is accepted with blessing and love. Likewise, one whose father is a non-Jew is accepted with love by virtue of his mother. Is that racism?

Regards, Hillel Feiner-Gluskinos

There would also be no problem saying you voted “Gimel,” after all “Gvir” and “Gopstein” begin with gimmel 🙂

Regards, Ge’ual Ben Gavriel the Giladi Girondi

Hello, Your Honor!
Another suggestion: there is always a difference between dynamics, characteristics, beliefs, and opinions that emerge from a society, as opposed to the individuals dwelling within it. This can be for all sorts of reasons, one of them being minority voices in the group that color (justly or unjustly) all the individuals. For example, as individuals I would estimate that most Sunni Islam is basically fine, but as a group they are dangerous, violent, etc., because the minority determines it. There are other criteria too that cause a group to be painted in very specific colors while its members are woven from a very broad variety that fails to find expression. To wish myself a “good settlement,” I’ll share that we are leaving Tekoa B after 18 years in favor of the royal palace we built in Tekoa A. Although as individuals I like a great many people in Tekoa B, as a community we have suffered here greatly and are glad to be getting out.

Now a case occurs: “A Jewish girl is seduced, or even goes knowingly and happily, to live with an Arab. After some period of time she regrets it. When I am supposed to rescue her from a violent person, an Arab Muslim, it is very difficult, to the point of impossible, to separate the individual as a representative of fundamentalist Islam from just a nice person who happens to be an Arab Muslim.” Especially if I am a proud Jew, this is not a binary movement, and most of us (maybe not you) move between healthy pride and racist tendencies, for example after terror attacks, and periods when we are not identified with our Jewishness at all but rather with more universal parts of ourselves.

All this is written as a response to the division between holy lies and good values. Sometimes the lie is the truth.

I have no problem at all with generalizations, so long as they are correct generalizations and not tendentious and distorted ones. When you say that in most cases such-and-such happens (if it is indeed the majority), that is a reasonable generalization. When you cause people to think that this is usually or always the case, that is an illegitimate generalization.
By the way, what you say here is a wonderful example of an illegitimate and baseless generalization. You assume something a priori and infer from it a factual conclusion, while it is quite clear to me that what is driving you is an agenda. You don’t need any studies to understand that what you say is baseless.

And in my opinion, absolutely not. And I think it is also halakhically forbidden. It is forbidden to harm one person in order to save others.

You are again mixing apples and oranges. The love is for the Jewish people and the hatred is for Arabs. And I don’t know which of them outweighs the other. But I was speaking here only about the attitude toward Arabs, not the attitude toward Jews. So what has one to do with the other?

None of this has to do with the characteristics I described here. Clearly feelings are influenced by the manner of expression, but here I am dealing with the question whether there is racism here, not whether and to what extent it repels me.

Maybe it’s difficult, but life is not guava. Sometimes you have to do difficult things. It is not right to handle a specific case through characteristics of Arab society as a whole, even if they are correct. As for holy lies, I have written more than once about my attitude toward them. I despise them, and I despise even more those who resort to them. A lie is always a lie and never the truth (only in Orwell is a lie the truth, ignorance strength, and slavery freedom).

Why is a healthy parental desire to prevent conflict and problems with marriage to an Ashkenazi or Mizrahi considered racism?
In the Haredi world there is an enormous cultural and mental gap (and this is preserved for the benefit of and by institutions, activists, and mediocre politicians from both sides, and probably rabbis too) between most Mizrahim and most white meat.
And a natural desire to prevent entanglements מראש should instruct me to educate my daughters and sons from a young age to be wary of relationships with members of the other ethnic group.
Especially if (indeed) they are intellectually inferior and morally underdeveloped.

I am asking seriously—2 daughters in shidduchim.

I devoted several columns to this. Briefly, if the motive is only Ashkenaziness or Sephardiness, that is racism. If there are real concerns, then maybe not. But presenting imaginary concerns as real ones also reflects racism.

I think you are mistaken about most of Lehava’s focus. It is not the case of a girl from Tel Aviv University meeting the love of her life, Muhammad from the neighboring department, on the lawn.
Rather, it is girls from a low socio-economic background with a problematic past. Remember that in Arab society it is accepted to have several wives, unlike in Jewish society. In any case, the people who approach these girls are usually a somewhat different type from the type you identify as Arabs in daily life at Bar-Ilan… And it is regarding such cases that Lehava gives many warnings. Only when there is something broad and public in the media about overt assimilation is it something else, but I think even there you can agree with this. They are not claiming that a certain relationship between two celebrities will necessarily lead to violence in X years. But a relationship formed from the street by gifts, showiness, and attention apparently does…

In my opinion the column is not fair. Let me guess: you do not have the slightest idea what really goes on in relationships between Jewish women and Arabs, what percentage of them experience violence, etc. Since they have been dealing with the subject for many years, I assume they know the reality on the ground far, far better than you do. One can of course argue that they exaggerate, generalize, etc., but on the basis of knowing the data, not by shooting from the hip.

Another point: one has to distinguish between statements by all kinds of guys who wear Lehava shirts and claim to represent the organization, and the heads of the organization and the people who actually work there.

Absolutely not. The girls who are seduced can come from families of high socio-economic status who are in a psychological crisis, or are simply swept away by the charm of people who seem educated and cultured and treat them with chivalrous niceness—but after the wedding, inside the village, the attitude changes. See Sapir Nahum, of blessed memory, whose boyfriend was an impressive “TikTok star,” which did not prevent him from being a nationalist, violent supporter of terror.

There is also such a phenomenon in the Jewish sector, of educated, pleasant, cultured people who over time are revealed to be abusive husbands, but for various reasons, in Arab society violence in general and within the family in particular appears with greater frequency, and despite political “incorrectness,” one cannot ignore reality, and there needs to be someone who warns about it.

All this aside from the intrinsic problem in intermarriage even if the non-Jewish husband is as nice and gentle as can be—the Torah forbade intermarriage: “For he will turn your son away from following Me.”

Regards, Yekutiel Shneur Zahavi

It is very important to note that 99.9% of Lehava’s activity is against assimilation between Jewish women and Arabs.
The argument is not racist, but simply a straightforward rational argument—a romantic relationship with Arabs will end with a relatively high probability in serious harm to the woman (abuse, beatings, imprisonment, murder).
There is no racism here at all, just looking at the facts.

There was once an interview with Gopstein in which he was asked whether he is racist, and he answered that since the Shulchan Arukh allows the conversion of any person whatsoever, he is not racist. If that person converts, he would be the first to support him. He also added that Lehava are among the only ones who support converts from the Arab sector. Jews generally treat them with suspicion and racism. They also oppose intermarriage with Western non-Jews.
There is something to the claim that there is a conflict here and that Lehava ignore the conflict. On the other hand, when the decision is not clear-cut, we arrive at regrettable places.

This is not at all a question of who knows better. Obviously they know better. I made two claims, and if you want to argue, you should address them.

It is evident that you did not read the article, and I must say that this is definitely characteristic of racists. In many cases they form an opinion based on stereotypes without addressing the arguments made on the matter.

I explained why I think they are racist. If you disagree, it would be good to address my arguments.

The comments here remind me of a passage in the column where I preempted what was about to happen (see in parentheses). And this was my precious wording:

I suggest that every reader examine himself: what picture is formed in his mind when he thinks of a romantic relationship with an Arab? When I examine myself and my surroundings (I assume we will see this in the responses to this column as well, despite this very remark), I discover that such a typical relationship is an Arab scheme to take over a Jewish woman and conquer her with him in the home. He is planning from the outset to bring her to the village and abuse her and Islamize her, all with funding from the New Israel Fund and Qatari money. In short, a tried-and-tested recipe for disaster.

And let the hearer be pleased.

Have you seen the data on murders of women in the Arab sector?

“and presents Arabs in a generalized and incorrect way and arouses unjustified hatred toward them—then yes, there is and there is…”

I was referred to this blog on the claim that the writer is a direct and impartial person, and also knows how to explain himself.
So how can it be that the claim that violence against women in the Arab sector is something “generalized and incorrect” if the facts show the opposite?

I agreed with most of what you wrote and with your attempt to criticize the inflationary use of the concept of racism. But in the conclusion of the article you too fall into the same “inflation”: racism is connected, surprisingly enough, with “race”… that is, with the belief (probably scientifically mistaken) that certain groups have physiological and biological distinctiveness, and that this distinctiveness necessarily expresses itself in culture, values, intellect, and so on.
It is clear to me that Lehava people are no model of rational and moral thinking, but what does that have to do with racism? As far as I understand, they do not think there is a distinct “Arab race,” and therefore your whole thesis about them collapses. As someone here who claims to know them pointed out, they show a very positive attitude toward Arabs who choose to convert and do so over the years (assuming this testimony is correct). An authentic racist could never behave that way; that is the whole point.
It is a pity that someone who comes to contribute a clearer and more rational discourse on this subject ruins with one hand what he built with the other.

I saw the data, and it is not relevant to the discussion. I did not say there are no murders, nor even that there are not many murders. Read what I wrote and respond substantively.

I referred to other discussions I conducted about racism. There I explained—what requires no explanation except for someone determined to insist—that when one says racism in these contexts one means stereotypical generalizations (profiling) of groups. It seems to me, unfortunately, that you will have to look elsewhere for the intellectual destruction, confusion, and vagueness that I am sowing in the world.

Ahhh… now I understand everything.
How funny of me that until now I didn’t get it. Other people make faulty use of the concept of racism, and you, in a deep intellectual discussion that tries to analyze the root of the concept, simply adopt their faulty definition. It’s not you at all—it’s them. I’m convinced.

If so, I do not see what the big difference is between Lehava and every second religious or Haredi Jew, who is certain that at least a large part of non-Jews do everything solely for their own sake, to benefit themselves, and even when they give charity or extend help to a Jew it is in order to rob him of his merits in this world and the next and transfer those merits to themselves. I too myself am tainted by stigmas (which have softened over the years and undergone rationalization) with regard to the secular world, the secular Western world of most of the world, and with regard to progressivism, socialism, and so on.
So I also do not see, if style is not the essence, what the difference is between Lehava and other people who speak this way on such issues, even when they express it more academically or pleasantly. Rabbi Zeini, for example, Rabbi Aviner, even Rabbi Cherki issues very unflattering statements about Arabs and other nations, and only tends to season them at the end with a deep, complex spiritual root from which, according to him, these statements arise—and to emphasize that on the other side, of course, they too are partly human, somewhat human, or have the potential to become human.
What is the difference between them and other storms of provocative expressions (“Crembo feet,” “deviance,” “perverts,” “beasts,” “the sick”)?
And leave aside the religious-Zionist public. Most secular people too, unless they grew up with a truly humanistic education—and there aren’t many of those in Israel today—do not like Arabs and members of other nations in general, and are caught in a drift of radical nationalism. Again, most of them—not the secular academic professors, celebrities, media people, “educators,” or Tel Aviv bohemians.

I understand that this does not justify it, and the fact that the majority goes in a certain direction of thinking does not make that direction correct.
But I identify with what you wrote at the beginning of the thread: that most of the public identifies with such “extremist” organizations. The only question is in what dosage, or in what style. But this basis exists in most of us.

In my view you set up a straw man for yourself when you came to this discussion. I really do not think the Jewish consensus is that every Arab who wants to marry a Jewish woman is funded by the New Israel Fund and wholly devoted to a plot to bring her to a village and abuse her.

The consensus is that given Arab culture, and the legitimate range within it of what one may do to women, and considering that a Jewish woman who moves to a village is cut off from her natural surroundings and therefore depends entirely on her husband’s kindness, and also has no relatives or relevant people who can help calm him when needed (usually it is also a girl from a difficult background to begin with), and considering that from the outset she is considered lesser as a Jewish woman, then there is a not-insignificant chance that one day when her husband gets angry at her—and this is of course no rare vision—the result may be very painful, in every sense. Murder is of course an extreme case, but abuse is very common. It is ridiculous to compare this to marriage with a Jew who lives in a different culture, while the woman is still in her natural surroundings. Of course there are also Jews who abuse, but the comparison is absurd.
This is a matter of familiarity and knowledge, and has nothing to do with holy lies.

You answered yourself. In principle there really is no difference. But note that to think that non-Jews act for their own sake is of course nonsense, but there is no way to refute it. It is an interpretation a person gives to the actions of non-Jews. By contrast, to say they are all violent is a factual claim. If it is not correct, then there is a tendentious lie here.

I did not make any comparison anywhere. I said that there are also Jews who abuse, but that does not mean I am making a comparison. The question is whether the two characteristics I gave for Lehava’s racism are correct or not. Everything else is beside the point.

With God’s help, 1 Tammuz 5782

To the father of the daughters—greetings,

Since the first thing in seeking a son/daughter-in-law is love of Torah, fear of Heaven, and good character traits, if both spouses are blessed with these qualities, then the difference in mentality and cultural background can be a blessing. For the good qualities in which members of one community excel can complement the other good qualities in which members of the other community excel.

Thus, for example, the innocence and natural joy in life in which Eastern Jews excel—may their light shine and brighten—can beautifully complement the tendency to deep intellectual analysis in which the Lithuanians excel, may they live and be well; and together they will shine like the branches of the menorah, each opposite the other, in holiness and purity.

The success of combining opposite traits can of course come only when there is mutual recognition of the advantages in each community, and a willingness to absorb and be enriched by those advantages.

The common Torah that we study, in which we absorb the teaching of the Geonim of Babylonia together with the teaching of Rashi and the Tosafists of France, and in which the Rosh could come from Ashkenaz and be appointed rabbi of Toledo in Spain, and his descendants, the Ben-Harosh family, established the yoke of Torah in Morocco; and the “Sephardic analysis” is based on the Ashkenazic Maharsha and Maharam Schiff, while the “Lithuanian analysis” is founded on the Sephardic Mishneh LaMelekh and Mahaneh Ephraim—teaches us that “the workshop of the earth is one,” and that we all absorb from one another and enrich one another.

If man is compared to “the tree of the field,” then we may learn that grafting different species brings strengthening and improvement of the qualities of the grafted kind, which combines the advantages of both species. As the poet already established: “A clever farmer knows… that the variety should be improved and enhanced by grafting” 🙂

And perhaps not for nothing is Tu B’Av, on which one increases Torah study, also the day on which “the tribes were permitted to marry one another,” for Torah leads to mutual openness.

With blessings for a successful match, Gamliel Gavriyahu Gringras-Girondi

Paragraph 2, line 2
… the tendency to deep intellectual analysis in which the Lithuanians excel…

You wrote one side for leniency if the “racism” stems from a halakhic conception, and two sides for stringency if there is no internal conflict and if one derives factual characterizations from halakhah and presents a distorted picture. Is all this correct according to your hidden and elusive method that a person is judged according to his own standards, and therefore if the actions stem from a halakhic conception then there is no room for criticism even from one who does not accept the halakhic conception, and if there is no internal conflict that proves the person is immoral deep within his own stirring soul, and if he presents a distorted picture then he is a liar, and if his picture was influenced by halakhah then he interpreted it childishly and deserves criticism for that?
If so, then it does not seem coherent to me no matter how you look at it. If one judges according to his own standards, then obviously each of them thinks in his heart that he is doing the right thing. Obviously he thinks he interpreted halakhah correctly, and that his picture is correct and not distorted; and if he thinks his picture is correct, then in his opinion holy lies are a proper thing. There is no room for criticism of anything. For surely it is not correct to say that the zealots themselves know they are wrong and are seduced by their evil inclination to labor day and night over that matter. Rather, it is certainly not interesting to anyone what So-and-so’s motives are unless he manages to persuade us that they are justified; but if the motives are mistaken, then the criticism is of the result and not of the depths of personality. The question whether So-and-so is righteous in his heart or wicked in his heart is simply a completely uninteresting question for any practical public purpose, and that is not what people are dealing with; those who denounce So-and-so denounce him according to the results he brings about and the conclusions he holds and acts to realize. Accordingly, both the lenient side and the stringent sides seem beside the point.

[Correction: instead of “correct” it should say “incorrect”]
And if he thinks his picture (that is, the picture he presents in his propaganda) is incorrect, then in his opinion holy lies are a proper thing.

Paragraph 6, line 1
… it is also the day on which “the tribes were permitted…”

It should be noted that marriage itself is a union between man and woman, between whom there are deep differences of background and mentality. This union of opposites can be made only through special divine help, when “if they are worthy—the Divine Presence is between them,” but it is conditional on the spouses’ mutual recognition that each one needs completion and acceptance from his/her partner.

Regards, G.G. G.G.

You are repeating my claims and then putting a question mark at the end. I am astonished!
I too have written more than once that one should criticize a person only according to his own standards. But the standards themselves can certainly be criticized. And if the standards were formed on a negligent basis, then the criticism of the standards also reflects criticism of the person.

(What do you mean by “I too have written”—who wrote that besides you, and what does that matter here?) If the criticism is of the doctrine, while the man who holds it himself is pure, upright, and lovely, then indeed my question is irrelevant. But if the criticism is of the doctrine alone, then what does it have to do with the difficult feelings you described as arising? Also, the argument from the absence of conflict becomes not practically significant, because granted: let one who holds this doctrine itself hold it and mix conflict into it—this does not change the doctrine itself (conflict is another matter).

Is the criticism of negligence according to the criticized person’s own standards? (That is, that he knows he was negligent in clarifying the doctrine and succumbed to his evil inclination?)

You wrote that and presented it as though there were a different position here. I noted that this was precisely my own position. And indeed your question is irrelevant. Therefore I am astonished at your astonishment.
Feelings can also arise in relation to a bad doctrine, even if people truly believe in it, and perhaps especially then.
Beyond that, I noted that there is also blame in the person if he adopted this bad conception negligently. He need not know that he was negligent. Negligence is a flaw by virtue of being such.

I understand, thank you.
Just one detail: negligence is blameworthy for a person even if in his own opinion he was not negligent, but reaching a mistaken conclusion without negligence is not blameworthy for a person who in his own opinion is right. Is the reason that with regard to negligence there is a practical demand that he not be negligent, whereas with regard to a mistaken evaluative conclusion there is no practical demand that he change his opinion?

That is a subtle philosophical question. I think a person who is negligent cannot claim that he did not know one must not be negligent. A person must understand that one must not be negligent, and if he is negligent he assumes responsibility for his mistakes. This is not similar to a person who does not know there is negligence here. Something like the Maharik’s distinction on “committing a trespass against her husband” regarding a woman.

At any rate, one cannot come with a claim of “negligence” against Bentzi and Anat Gopstein, who are busy every day with dozens and hundreds of complicated cases of rescuing captive women and their children, for not investing in fully nuanced reflective analysis. They also have to earn a living, raise a large family, and deal with an endless stream of new cases. One may forgive them for not investing in philosophy 🙂

Regards, G.G. Gargam"l

The problem with Lehava is that they are paternalistic. They think they know what is right for other adults. “A person would rather have nine measures of his own mistakes than a quarter of his fellow’s.” Let people make mistakes. What is more terrible than a demonstration outside the wedding of an assimilated couple who did not invite them? Who appointed them to decide what is good for that Jewish woman? Intervention in adults’ lives should be minimized as much as possible.

I was familiar with “their flesh is the flesh of donkeys,” but not with the context in Tosafot. I too understand Tosafot as technical and not explicitly racist, but in a different way (in my view closer to the literal interpretation). God abandoned the semen of idolaters, as He did the semen of animals—that is, their semen is not attributed to them, and halakhically only the mother matters. Assuming the original purpose of the prohibition of adultery is to prevent a situation in which the husband supports the adulterer’s offspring (and more importantly, bequeaths him an inheritance), it becomes less relevant if the Torah does not recognize the seed as the adulterer’s seed.

I can’t say that this description no longer gives me a stomachache…

A very fine interpretation. As for the stomachaches, you should remember that if there is no presumption that most intercourse is after the husband, then factually it is incorrect to attribute the son to his father. The Torah’s abandonment of his seed is a result of factual circumstances, and then the stomachaches diminish. Of course, a change is called for in a place and society where the situation is different. I don’t think that nowadays there is any difference between non-Jews and Jews in this regard.

And even if you insist that the activity to prevent intermarriage is motivated mainly by a negative attitude toward Arabs—the constant need to listen patiently to girls, who are not always “locked in” on wanting to separate from the non-Jewish husband, leads to great strengthening in the direction of sensitivity and patience. And “from acting not for its own sake, one comes to act for its own sake” 🙂

Regards, Gilad Ḥayya Gavriyahu-Grushinsky

“the value of preserving Judaism”
As a secular person, I sincerely and honestly do not see what value there is in preserving Judaism, and I am really serious. I would be glad for a short explanation suitable for a secular person, because personally in the “religious” part of Judaism I see a mixture of general humanistic values that are generally respected by all nations, and other values of “You have chosen us” and other “values” that I see as “anti-values.”
For example, you write that “eating pork is not morally flawed”—really? Is killing an animal such as a pig not morally flawed? The Torah’s attitude to animals is consistently terrible. Already in the Flood, God destroys all living things on earth because of man’s sins. Afterward He says, “And God blessed them, and God said to them: Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the heavens and every living thing that moves on the earth.” When He prevents Abraham from slaughtering his son, He immediately provides him with a ram. In the plague of the firstborn He destroys also the firstborn of the beasts for no fault of theirs. For Himself He demands two year-old lambs without blemish, one in the morning and one in the evening. And so on and so forth. There are many “anti-values” in Judaism, and I am not trying to list them all here. As an activist for animal rights and someone who documents what is done in pig farms, dairies, battery cages, fish ponds, broiler coops, live shipments, and so on—I argue that religion makes a major and important contribution to contempt for animal life. Very few rabbis speak out against the animal industry, even though they are commanded by Torah law to prevent suffering to animals. Most of the kashrut world is based on separating meat from milk—two products that to me are one great prohibition. Judaism is racist; the attitude toward a gentile is different from the attitude toward a Jew, and we remember Rabbi Kook’s words: “The difference between the Israelite [Jewish] soul, its inner desires, its aspiration, its character and standing, and the souls of all the gentiles, at all their levels, is greater and deeper than the difference between the human soul and the animal soul; for between the latter there is only a quantitative difference, whereas between the former there prevails an essential qualitative difference.” And it has many more “anti-values,” at least in the eyes of the average secular person.

Hello. There are several very basic failures in what you write, but in your essential claim you are completely right according to your own position. So I’ll start there.
As a secular person, you are Jewish only factually (and halakhically), but not in any other essential sense. Your way of life is not Jewish in any evaluative sense (you speak a Jewish language, etc., but those are merely neutral facts in evaluative terms). And if you are not Jewish at all already now, then naturally you do not see a reason to continue Judaism. Why should you have such a reason, if already now you do not observe it? Judaism as a value is exclusively halakhah. Everything beyond that is universal values, and they have no connection to Judaism. Others uphold them no less well than we do, and for them it is clear that there is no value in preserving Judaism specifically.
From the standpoint of a secular Jew (someone not committed to halakhah), Judaism is an ethnos—that is, a cultural-genealogical fact—and facts have no value. Therefore there is indeed no point in preserving them. If Hebrew is not spoken in the world, another language will be spoken instead (as far as I’m concerned, assembly language); if Amos Oz is not read, another author will be read, or him in translation. There is no reason in the world to preserve these arbitrary facts. Up to here, the justice of your claim according to your own view. I of course think there is value in preserving Judaism because in my opinion, unlike yours, there is value in its existence. I believe the values of halakhah contribute to the attainment of other values—not moral values—and that is the value in the existence of Judaism and halakhah. Admittedly, I usually cannot point to those goals and values, but I believe that the Holy One, blessed be He, who said this knows what He is talking about.
Now to the failures in what you wrote.
The criticism you raised here of Judaism’s values is problematic in several respects.
1. You take statements of Rabbi Kook and criticize them as though that were Judaism. But even I, as someone committed to the “values of Judaism,” do not accept them. It is like my taking the doctrine of some philosopher and using it to criticize secularity or humanity.
2. The values of Judaism do not purport to fit moral values. They are intended to achieve other evaluative goals, religious ones, which are a-moral. There is a fit, accidental or otherwise, between some of them and morality, but that is merely incidental. To my mind, your claim is similar to saying that you don’t like medicine because it hurts people (surgeries, chemotherapy, etc.). That pain is indeed problematic, but it is done for the sake of another value. The same applies to non-moral and a-moral commandments in Judaism (in halakhah). I act this way in order to attain more important evaluative goals, and therefore sometimes it requires a moral price. Moral criticism of halakhah expresses a lack of understanding (which also exists within the Jewish world).
3. When I wrote that eating pork is not morally flawed, I meant eating pork, not eating animals in general. My claim was that there is no moral flaw in it by virtue of its being pork. This has nothing to do with the question of eating animal meat. That is another question, and regarding it I have written here more than once that I agree it is not proper to do so (though in my view this is because of the terrible suffering caused by the industrial process, not because of the very consumption of meat from animals). By the way, I hope there is no need to remind you that consumption of animals is not characteristic specifically of religious Jews. So perhaps there is no point in continuing humanity at all.

With God’s help, 5 Av 5782

To Ramda"a—greetings,

Judaism certainly does have a moral message. There is an essential difference between man and animals. Animals are permitted (after the Flood) to prey upon one another. Human beings are forbidden to kill one another, but are permitted to use animals and even kill them for human needs, while avoiding causing needless suffering to animals.

It is impossible to sustain medicine at a modern level without animal experiments, and it is impossible to feed humanity with the necessary proteins without meat and fish, milk and eggs, certainly not at a price affordable to everyone. There is much to do to improve the conditions of animals, to encourage raising them in free conditions, and to be careful about slaughter that prevents suffering, such as Jewish slaughter, in which blood flow to the brain stops within seconds.

The moment one tries to be more moral than the Torah and equate man with animals—one loses moral inhibitions with respect to human beings, and thus appear human creatures full of hatred toward people and toward Jews in particular. In the best case they are willing to forgo the existence of Judaism, and in the worst case they will gladly forgo the Jews as well… after all, they are the bearers of “anti-moral Judaism”… once one transgresses “Do not be overly righteous,” the road is not far to transgressing “Do not be overly wicked.”

Erasing the distinction between man and animal also invites the application of evolution to human beings. Why not apply to humans what happens in the animal world, where there is “natural selection” in which the strong and the fit survive and the genetically flawed are expelled from the production line? Why not adopt that same method to improve homo sapiens by preventing the weak from spoiling the proper development of the human species? The idea has already arisen in the past, and out of respect for Godwin, I will not mention by whom 🙂

Regards, Levingari Goodwinofsky

To Rabbi Michael,
Unfortunately, you tend toward a logical philosophizing that may be mathematically correct but is poor in real content. You devote many words to explaining that one who does not observe halakhah indeed has no reason to preserve Judaism, since halakhah itself is Judaism. Okay—let us assume I accept your words that halakhah is indeed Judaism—what are the values of halakhah worthy of preservation that do not fall under the heading of universal values but belong exclusively to Judaism/halakhah itself? And here the reader, who remains in suspense until the end of all the declarations about logical failures, is disappointed, because here comes the sentence: “Although usually I do not know how to point to those goals and values, I believe the Holy One, blessed be He, who said this knows what He is talking about.” So let me update you: the Holy One, blessed be He, said nothing—those who spoke in the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, were ancient people like me and you who for some reason thought they were speaking in the name of some higher power and put it in writing. That possibility is a thousand times more plausible than the possibility that the imaginary being you call the Holy One, blessed be He, who according to you created the whole universe, and in it according to current estimates some 10 to the 22 solar systems like ours (a number roughly equal to the number of grains of sand on all the beaches in the world), is fussing with tiny creatures on one grain of sand. It is quite clear that this is an invention of the inhabitants of that grain of sand, who see themselves as the center of the world. And according to your (highly dubious, in my opinion) view, if God spoke so much, would it not be proper for you to bring an example of a few values by virtue of which Lehava people can justify what they do?
And here is another sentence: “When I wrote that eating pork is not morally flawed, I meant eating pork and not eating animals in general.” A pig is an animal, and if eating animals in general is morally flawed, then eating pork is also morally flawed. That is the logic I learned. If I did not understand what you wrote, it is likely that others also do not understand what you mean.
And here is another outrageous sentence: “though in my view this is because of the terrible suffering caused by the industrial process, and not because of the very consumption of meat from animals.” Would you agree to be raised in ideal conditions and at some stage of your life, at a fairly young age, be slaughtered? I don’t think so. Animals want to live exactly like you, and in my opinion it is a terrible thing to exploit the power we have over them in order to kill them and eat their flesh. I don’t know whether you’ve ever been in a slaughterhouse—it is a horrifying place. One of the great harms of the religious worldview is the ranking: inanimate, vegetative, animate, speaking. It seems to me that it draws among other things on the Genesis descriptions of the creation of man on a separate day from the rest of the animals. It is not only man who speaks; all animals speak, and the fact that you do not understand their language does not give you the right to kill them. Evolution shows us that man is one creature in a continuum of animals, not the crown of creation—yeah, right. The opposite is unfortunately true: man is the most harmful and cruel creature. As for the comparison between Rabbi Kook and some anonymous Polish philosopher, that is again a logical claim devoid of real content. Rabbi Kook’s teaching occupies broad parts of religious Judaism. “You have chosen us” is not Rabbi Kook’s invention—see, for example, the havdalah formula: “who distinguishes between holy and profane, between light and darkness, between Israel and the nations.” Israel is holiness—the nations are profane. Israel is light—the nations are darkness. With equal justification you could say that I should not cite Maimonides because you do not agree with his opinion and he too is just some Uzbek philosopher, and likewise Rashi and the rest of those called the greats of Israel. What is this halakhah in whose name you speak if not the creation of thousands of people, more or less wise? I am sure that you too do not believe that the disputes between Abaye and Rava were given to Moses at Sinai, or in general that a man Moses’s age went up the mountain, ate and drank nothing for forty days, and in the end also carried heavy stone tablets on his way down—give me a break.

Dear commenter, I read your words and I see in them clear justification for the sentence I hold to absolutely: “The Torah is the disaster of animals.” I already wrote in another comment that if God destroys in the Flood all the animals (except the sea creatures, of course) because man sinned—He is conveying a very clear message that animal lives have no value. Likewise after the Flood with the famous verse “and have dominion over the fish of the sea… and every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” And afterward in the whole matter of sacrifices, and in the horrifying detail of which animal is fit to be eaten and which is not, and His appetite for two year-old lambs without blemish every day for the continual burnt offering. All the service of the high priest on the holiest day for the Jews, in the holiest place, is drenched in blood.
In my opinion, any person’s belief is valid only up to the tip of his own nose and no further. That is, he may apply his belief only to himself and not to others; otherwise, why should we complain about the shahid who blows himself up on a bus in the name of his belief, or ISIS fighters carrying out atrocities in the name of their belief? Belief is not a fact; it is only belief. Those born Jewish will believe in Judaism, those born Muslim will believe in Islam, and those born to Hindu parents will believe in Hinduism. This clear statistical observation shows us that belief usually matches the disk that was implanted in us by our parents and teachers, or what is more bluntly called “brainwashing.” We have no right to impose our belief on the other, even if the other is an animal. Note that the superiority of human over animal is also part of your private belief, and there are many people in the world who do not share that belief of yours. The animals I am talking about are intelligent, sensitive creatures with many qualities hidden from the eyes of one who looks at them as a food product or material for medical experiments.
Allow me also to criticize some of your claims here, since I know the animal world better than you do—or so I believe.
1. Whoever loves animals hates human beings—nonsense. True, we have a hard time with people whose gluttony finances terrible suffering, but that does not amount to hatred except in especially blatant cases. Most of my friends in animal-rights activism are wonderful people—the cream of society. As for hatred of Judaism (not Jews), there is truth in that—I, for example, hate Judaism, but not only it; also Islam and every religion that contains sacrifices and justification for eating animals. I hate Independence Day because of the barbecues, and I hate the hypocrisy of the rabbis who are so careful about kashrut and its minutiae but do not see that the entire industry of animal products is not kosher because of the terrible suffering of animals.
2. Animal experiments for medical purposes. I lived with a partner who by virtue of her profession performed experiments on dogs, and my daughter too, in her biology studies, performed experiments with mice. Both testify to excessive cruelty and a high percentage of unnecessary experiments.
3. It is impossible to feed humanity the desired proteins without using products from animals.—Utter nonsense. There are proteins in all legumes and nuts, and in a very wide range of other vegetables. All these are far cheaper than meat, healthier, and more moral.
4. The situation today in the animal industry is so terrible that anyone who finances it by consuming these products violates the commandment against causing suffering to animals (according to your own view). They even violate the explicit verse “An ox or a sheep or a goat, when it is born, shall remain seven days under its mother”—they separate the calves from their mothers within half an hour of birth (and this too happens in the religious kibbutzim).

Thank you for the update. At the last minute you saved me from an error (until now I thought God had indeed revealed Himself, and all my life I’ve been living in that mistake. Many thanks indeed).
Since it is evident that you have not come to discuss but to lash out (catharsis for anger is also an important thing), and in this I will judge favorably the nonsense you write (you are probably angry, and not necessarily stupid and lacking reading comprehension as your words suggest), I will conclude with a nice interpretation of the wicked son’s words in the Passover Haggadah.
That son asks: “What is this service to you?!” (it obviously ends with an exclamation mark), and the answer is “Had he been there, he would not have been redeemed,” stated in the third person. This teaches you that that son asked and left; he did not wait for an answer. But I now thought that there is another difficulty here: why answer him at all, even in the third person, for there is no one here anymore? Rather, this teaches you that he actually is here, except that he does not listen to the answer. He comes only to lash out and not really to hear.
Therefore I will fulfill the instruction of our sages, “You too should blunt his teeth,” and say to you that evolution will answer your questions. Whoever does not want Judaism to survive will disappear, he and his questions, and those who want to survive will remain with us. “Had he been there, he would not have been redeemed.” Much success to all of us, and to evolution as well.

A typical response from someone who has no answers. Attack is the best defense. You hurled insults—“you write nonsense,” “you came to lash out,” “you are likened to the wicked son.” The truth is that I am not writing nonsense but meaningful things. Your response shows that they hit a sensitive spot. You are probably used to a different kind of audience that comes from the religious sector. Apparently you do not have the tools to deal with someone coming from another direction. And the sad truth is that when there are no substantive answers, people simply fire from all weapons in all directions. I have no interest in Judaism disappearing—I have an interest in its limiting itself to dealing with itself and not acting against those who have no interest in it and do not share its worldview—as Lehava people and the hilltop youth do, and the politicians who fight against public transportation on Shabbat and those who impose marriage and divorce according to halakhah on all the people of Israel. I asked you about the values of halakhic Judaism—a simple question—and there is no answer, only endless verbiage. Never mind—I’m used to that. Be well.

To Yossi—ahlan wa-sahlan,

Just a small question: if you have no interest in preserving Judaism—why are you sitting in Palestine? Why don’t you leave Palestine in the hands of its original inhabitants, who for some reason do have an interest in preserving their national identity?

Regards, Shams Razal Alfangar Alnajmawi

Dear commenter, the answer is very simple—I was born here and I have a non-religious Israeli identity. My Israeli identity is expressed in love for the land and its landscapes, its hidden trails that I have traversed on foot and by bicycle, its foods, its climate, my Israeli friends from both the Jewish side and the Palestinian side. Full disclosure—my best friend is a believing Muslim, and I love him deeply because of his character and because of the special bond we have. I love people in general, and I assign no importance to a person’s nationality, religion, or sex, but only to his character as a person. For all I care there can be one state here—a state of all its citizens in which Palestinian Muslims, religious Jews, and also Palestinian atheists (is there such a thing?) and atheist Jews like me live in peace. I would also accept two states for two peoples, and any other solution that will bring peace to the two peoples. In my opinion religion is an obstacle to peace both on the Jewish side and on the Palestinian side because it causes radicalization on both sides. I was born here; this is my homeland, and there is no reason for me to move to another country. I also recognize the connection to this land of the Palestinians who were born here, and this is their homeland just as it is mine. Any solution is acceptable to me. I want to live with good people, enlightened people, freed from the shackles of prejudice. We all have the right to live in this land because we were born in it, not because some god (imaginary, in my opinion) promised it to us. I would be glad to hear your view.

To Yossi—ahlan wa-sahlan,

I have no problem with Jews who were here before 1917, who are considered Palestinians according to our covenant, and therefore, for example, I accept without any problems the family of Rabbi Meir Kahane, of blessed memory, whose ancestors lived in the land until 1917, when they moved to America with the intention of returning. They are no less Palestinian than Yasser Arafat, who was born in Egypt to a father who emigrated from the land. A Palestinian remains a Palestinian regardless of religion and worldview.

But Jews who immigrated afterward, under the auspices of the British colonial regime that drew them here with the promise of a “Jewish national home”—their immigration severely harmed the national rights of the Palestinians. All the more so with the establishment of the State of Israel, which led to the mass flight of Palestinians and to the immigration and settlement of millions of Jews, who in many cases settled on abandoned Arab property. Is it morally justified that immigrants from foreign lands should take the place of the inhabitants of the country from generation to generation?

Do antisemitism and the Holocaust, which have already passed from the enlightened world, justify the seizure of Palestine by immigrants? It seems to me that today one can find descendants of the Jewish immigrants places far better than arid Palestine, developed places in which they will find an atheist and enlightened society like themselves and live there in ease and tranquility (at least until the next outbreak 🙂

Your statement that religion intensifies the hostility between Jews and Arabs is inaccurate. One of our great problems with the Jews, and especially with the secular among them, is that they spread their secular views and negatively influence Muslims in the direction of abandoning and scorning Islamic tradition.

I have less of a problem with my settler neighbors, both because the lands on which they were permitted to settle were carefully checked by the legal authorities and found to be desolate “state lands,” and whenever there was even the slightest doubt that these might be privately owned cultivated Arab lands, they were not allowed to settle there.

Also from the standpoint of secularizing influence on Muslims, the settlers are less problematic, since their women cover their heads and dress modestly like our women; except that in recent years there too the formerly religious are becoming secular, and concern about secularizing influence is increasing, but still the situation is far better than what occurs in cities and secular communities.

Also from the standpoint of “suffering of animals,” Jewish settlement caused much suffering to wildlife. Their dense settlements and cities stole the living space of wild animals; where eagle owls and hedgehogs nested freely and lions, leopards, jackals, and cheetahs roamed freely—now the humans dwelling there do not allow free living space for wildlife.

For all the reasons I mentioned, it seems preferable to relocate the Jewish immigrants from here, and then peasants and Bedouin will live in peace and fairness with the beasts of the field, and a redeemer will come to Palestine and to Jacob, the captives of Europe 🙂

Regards, Shams Razal Alfangar Alnajmawi, Qubbat al-Najma

The truth is that your words really do look like venting anger, but on account of foolish considerations of desecration of God’s name, and because it is simply annoying to see such utter lack of argumentation, I decided to respond.
A. Please explain what a contentless logical argument is, because in principle one could say this about arguments like a=b, b=g—g=a (transitivity), but you say it about the claim that a statement of Rabbi Kook relates to Judaism, may it live and endure, as Kant does to humanity, may his name be erased (according to your view). This is not merely secondary; it is part of the evasive methods (people on the right respond this way too).
B. Your religious bubble exists in you too. You grew up in a secular place (according to the response below), and presto, you’re secular—interesting.
But of course you’ll say that since you’re universal or something like that (an empty wagon—not as an insult; the Hazon Ish also did not mean it as an insult, but that this is the reality; see some of the columns here as well).
C. Rabbi Michi did not say here that Rashi or Rabbi Kook were not racists; they were. But why should the average religious person care that Rashi or Rabbi Kook or the Hatam Sofer or whoever hated gentiles or thought Africans inferior? We do not act according to that.
D. If you think there is no God, there is no grounding for morality, including a moral prohibition or permission regarding killing animals for pleasure. For if there is no God, there is no authoritative source commanding a, so even if a causes much suffering, this does not mean that one should not do a, because suffering is some fact, and you cannot derive values from facts without the bridge principle “causing suffering is forbidden”—but that has no justification in a world with no source of authority (that is, there is no conceptual justification for a prohibition on causing suffering without someone commanding that prohibition).
E. The prohibition of causing suffering to animals is either Torah law or rabbinic law, and if the animal suffered, it is still not forbidden to eat.
These are selected points; there is still much, much more nonsense in your words, especially in the response to Shatz"l.

I wonder why it is so hard to conduct a substantive discussion of worldviews without superlatives like “idiotic” or “nonsense.” It may be that I represent a line of thought you are not used to, but if you say “idiotic,” then kindly point precisely to the claim that you think is idiotic so that I will have a chance to explain myself. I will try to be faithful to my method and answer your claims one by one so that you too can reply to me not in general terms but with reference to each specific claim. So here goes…

A. “Please explain what a contentless logical argument is”—already here there is inaccuracy. I wrote “poor in content,” not “contentless.” A math lesson is full of logical arguments, but it is poor in content that is not of the mathematical kind, such as moral content or emotional content.
“But you say it about the claim that a statement of Rabbi Kook relates to Judaism … as Kant does to humanity.”
Not accurate. When I said poor in content, I was not referring to Rabbi Kook’s sayings, nor to Kant, who was not mentioned in my words at all. I am not going to repeat what I said—I only ask for precision in argument.

B. “Your religious bubble exists in you too; you grew up in a secular place.” How do you know where I grew up and was educated? Nowhere in my words did I indicate that I grew up and was educated as secular. The opposite is true. I grew up and was educated in strict religious education; my father was a rabbi and a Torah great, and I studied at Kfar Haroeh yeshiva and for a short period also at Kerem B’Yavneh yeshiva.

C. “But why should the average religious person care that Rashi or Rabbi Kook or the Hatam Sofer or whoever hated gentiles or thought Africans inferior? We do not act according to that.” Maybe you do not act according to it, but many religious people see Rabbi Kook’s teaching as an ideal to act by, and almost all religious people act according to halakhah, which among other things holds that the laws of saving life on Shabbat apply only to Jews, one does not deliver a gentile woman on Shabbat, one does not return a lost object to a gentile, and many other gems that were softened only because of the ways of peace. One can say “I do not relate to Rabbi Kook and do not think like him, and I do not relate to Maimonides and do not think like him, and I do not relate to Rashi and do not think like him,” but then it is not clear what the source of authority is for the halakhah you observe. Usually Maimonides is considered a halakhic source, and the Shulchan Arukh usually rules in accordance with Maimonides.

D. “If you think there is no God, there is no grounding for morality”—in my opinion that is a terrible sentence. The feeling of compassion and concern for what another is going through is a basic human feeling, and it is also found among animals. If you need God in order not to kill another person or an animal, or in order not to abuse someone else, you are a pathetic person and even a dangerous one. If you need life-saving help, I am sure you will gladly receive it even from an atheist paramedic. I very much hope not all religious people think as you do.

E. “The prohibition of causing suffering to animals is either Torah law or rabbinic law, and if the animal suffered it is not forbidden to eat it.” Even if that is true, when you eat an animal, the money with which you bought the meat finances suffering to animals that are still alive.

My dear Shams Rozal.
Your words have a strong scent of Jewish apologetics, even religious-settler Jewish apologetics. Before I answer you, I would like you to do one of two things. Either swear here on the pages of the site that you really are a Muslim and attach a photo of your identity card, or identify yourself by your real name and identity. In either case I will be happy to answer you. Unfortunately, you sound more like a resident of Kochav HaShachar than a resident of Qubbat a-Najma, which is a mountain and not a populated place.

Okay, I see that apparently there is someone here with whom it is possible to conduct a discussion.
A. Fine.
B. Sorry, that’s how it seemed from the response below. I’m still right in the point there, though.
C. See Rabbi Michi’s article “The Gentile Whom Halakhah Did Not Recognize,” where he brings explanations for why this is not applicable in our circumstances. The very halakhah that says not to save the non-Jew when he is immoral and an idolater is the halakhah that says to save him when he is a resident alien.
D. Unfortunately or not, I am not emotionally disabled, but emotion cannot theoretically justify anything. If so, people also have emotions that determine that Jesus the Christian is the messiah, that the Rebbe is the messiah or God. Do you believe all those as well?
E. That still does not mean the meat is not kosher; at most it is financing a transgression.
In practice your views are very similar to Rabbi Michi’s views, except for belief.

Dear HUXH,
It isn’t hard to recognize the style of Shatz"l, who is Jewish to the highest standard. Why did this stir you so much?

To Yossi (who became HUXE in a stroke of Alt-Shift—sayonara),

I am actually a Buddhist, for my late father came from Buda-Pest. I underwent a “traditional Islamization” in which I partially accepted the commandments of Islam. Thus, for example, I believe in one God but hold that Moses is His messenger. Instead of making the hajj to Mecca, I try to visit the plaza of al-Buraq next to

al-Aqsa. Five prayers a day are a bit hard for me, so I make do with three. On Shabbat and festivals I merit four prayers. Only on Yom Kippur do I observe five prayers. And apart from a quarter-log of wine at kiddush and havdalah, I refrain from drinking wine. It seems Muhammad can be pleased with me 🙂

Your diversion of the discussion into the personal direction is an evasion of the simple question that I put into the mouth of “Shams Razal”: there is no parallel in the world to a people claiming a “historical right” to a land after two thousand years. What a scandal it would be if the descendants of the Franks, Huns, and Teutons were to demand anew their “historical right” to the steppes of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, from which they emigrated more than a thousand years ago…

There is room for the demand of “our historical right” to the Land of Israel only on the basis of belief in “the eternal Book of Books” (in Ben-Gurion’s phrase in the Declaration of Independence), in which God designated this land for the people of Israel and promised them that they would return to it. Without this title deed, we are nothing but descendants of colonialist immigrants brought to the land against the will of the “natives.” That is the sharp question, which you are invited to answer!

Regards, Shatzayoshi Levingara, commenter from Tokyo

“Alnajmawi” is the Arabic translation of “man of the star.” It remains for you now to discover what the Hebrew translation of “Shams Razal” is 🙂

A. He who admits and forsakes will obtain mercy.

B. The whole issue of the full wagon and the empty wagon is a broad subject in itself. If in your view the full wagon is the wagon of religious Judaism and the empty wagon is the secular wagon—I absolutely disagree with you, but that is a subject for a long discussion and not the place for it in a short comment.

C. Who is a higher authority for us than Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef? At one point he was asked by a resident of Sderot whose disabled father was cared for by a foreign worker what to do if a missile falls on Shabbat and wounds the foreign worker who is caring for his father. The contortions in his answer are so embarrassing, even if in the end he agreed mainly because of the ways of peace that it is permitted to desecrate Shabbat for him and save him—but to do it with a modification. I have not read Rabbi Michi’s words, but I have read many halakhic rulings from Maimonides onward on the attitude toward the gentile—it is embarrassing, to put it mildly. In my opinion one should save every person without regard to his religion or to your thinking that he is an idolater (what does that even mean?); first of all, save him, and afterward make calculations.

D. “What does it mean that someone suffers? Nothing.” To me it means a great deal—it seems to me that you are emotionally disabled. According to what you write, if “You shall not murder” had not been written, you would see no fault even in murder. That is an empty and emptied wagon, my friend. Ours is much fuller.

E. When the criminal Ze’ev Rosenstein wants to remove someone from his way, he hires a contract killer and never dirties his own hands. To his misfortune, the court regarded financing the murder as an offense of the same weight as the murder itself.
That is the approach in our wagon. Maybe in your wagon financing murder or financing abuse is not equivalent to committing the abuse itself, so again your wagon is empty in my opinion on this matter, and ours is full.

F. My own addition: it seems to me that you are a classic example of the harms religion does to the human soul. I hope there are not many like you. That is my view—you don’t have to answer.

C. Again, they are indeed racists.
D. Unfortunately or not, I am not emotionally disabled, but emotion cannot theoretically justify anything; and if so, people also have emotions that determine that Jesus the Christian is the messiah, that the Rebbe is the messiah or God. Do you believe all those too?
E. Without him the murder would not take place, but even if all Israel were vegetarian it would not make the meat industry budge.
F. Amen and amen.

Dear Al-Najmawi, I have lived for many years among the Bedouin in Sinai and speak Arabic at a fairly good basic level. It seems to me that you do not mean “Shams Razal” but rather Razal al-Fajr (without the “n” that you added there). As for the change in my name, it is a glitch resulting from the keyboard being in English mode. Then when you type “Yossi,” out comes “huxh.” There is no intention of concealment here, just a keyboard mistake.

I would be glad to address your words at length.
Let us begin with the history of Jewish settlement from 1870, with the founding of Mikveh Israel, until the War of Independence.
As far as I know, all the lands of the first colonies, of the Jezreel Valley, of the Beit She’an Valley, and in the north Tel Hai, Kfar Giladi, and others, were bought with money from the landowners, who were generally Turkish effendis rather than Palestinian Arabs. In some cases the Arabs were tenant farmers on these lands, and sometimes the landowner had not even informed them that the land had been sold. In other cases, the lands were used by nomadic shepherds who moved along the length of the country in search of pasture, but were not the landowners. In the Negev there were nomadic Bedouin and also Bedouin in fixed settlements. As far as I know, the settlement in the western Negev before the War of Independence—Tze’elim, Revivim, גבולות, Mashabei Sadeh—was not involved in any confiscation of land. It is quite clear, and infuriating, to hear that the land you have sat on for many years was sold to some Moscovite who has just arrived from Europe and does not even know how to milk a goat. That is more or less what happened with most of those tenant farmers, whose livelihood was taken from them in one stroke, and under pressure they turned to theft and sabotage in the young Jewish farms established on those lands, thereby accelerating the establishment of the Hashomer organization. One can understand both sides, but legal justice was with the Jewish settlers. That was the situation until 1947 with the declaration of partition, against the backdrop of the riots in the late 1920s and in 1936–1939, and of course the Hebron massacre. In all those events Jews were attacked by Arabs, and that accelerated the establishment of the Haganah and its military arm, the Palmach (and let us not forget Hashomer, which was founded much earlier). In 1947 the UN declared the partition of the country into a Jewish state and a Palestinian state. While Jews rejoiced and danced in the streets all night over the partition plan, the Arab states did not accept the plan, and with the evacuation of the country by the British and the declaration of the State of Israel a few months later, they launched an all-out attack on the young state from every direction. It should be noted that the initiative for the attack came from the Arab states, not from the Palestinian residents of the country, though they were happy and hoped that all the lands they regarded as theirs would be conquered by the Arab states and returned to them by force of arms. That did not happen, and the Jewish community, in a war of heroism, won this war, and the Palestinians mostly fled and some were expelled. Our young army, too, was not free of war crimes, the best known being at Deir Yassin and Tantura.

All the return of the people of Israel to its land before the War of Independence was to places established, as far as I know, without dispossessing Arabs of land that they owned. After the War of Independence there was settlement also in places that had been emptied or whose inhabitants left either willingly or out of fear that the Jews would kill them. But one must remember that the Jews agreed to the partition plan and the Arabs attacked unilaterally, and therefore Jewish settlement in villages whose inhabitants had departed seems tragic for the Palestinians but historically justified to me.

In summary: the people of Israel returned to its land after 2,000 years, but did so in a legal manner accepted by the nations of the world, and not by violent dispossession as the Americans did to the Indians, and the Australians to the Aborigines, and the Chinese to the Tibetans, and the Japanese to the Chinese and Koreans, and the Germans to all the countries of Europe, and as the Russians are trying today to do to the Ukrainians. The pioneers (mostly secular) did this with indescribable courage in difficult conditions, with immense perseverance, and while contending with deadly diseases.

Also in the Six-Day War, we did not start the war, but we did take control of lands that were not ours, and we have left them in a temporary condition of occupied territory for 55 years already in a way that allows us to apply one law to settlers and another law to Palestinians—which is de facto apartheid, even if in some strained way or another it is legal.

Our historical right to the Land of Israel on the basis of belief is highly problematic. Understand that we need to persuade the nations of the world, not ourselves. First, belief itself is problematic. Intensive scientific research, both in the field of biblical studies and in archaeology, does not support the Jewish belief. One line of attack concerns how and by whom the scriptures were written, and the second comes from archaeology, which has great difficulty finding support for the formative event of the Exodus from Egypt, whether in findings in Sinai or in Egyptian writings from the relevant period. It is even harder to find support for the existence of the Patriarchs and for the existence of a divine promise to give us the land. Although most of the Western world believes in the Bible, in order to gain broad agreement we must also persuade the Communist world, which is mostly atheist, and the Indians, Japanese, and Asians who do not believe in the Bible, and the Muslim world, which will always support the Palestinians.
Beyond the fact that belief itself is problematic, we have a serious problem proving legally that we are indeed descendants of those Jews who lived in the land two thousand years ago. Who knows what blood was mixed in here, since the Jews lived among the gentiles for so long? That is one of the reasons for the legal concept of statute of limitations—go prove it!

So there you have it. You see that I am not afraid to respond and do not evade. I do think, however, that it is right for you to identify yourself by your real name and not hide behind a Palestinian Arab who writes “Meir Kahane, of blessed memory.”

This evening I am heading down to Sinai to my Bedouin friends, and there will probably be no comments from me here in the coming week unless the internet there works properly.

And I will also repeat the ecological argument against the mass immigration of Jews to Palestine. Until the First World War, the land was relatively sparsely populated, so that broad living space remained for wildlife. Once the land was flooded with millions of immigrants living a modern lifestyle, with intensive agriculture laden with pesticides and industry heavy with air pollution, the wildlife has been increasingly pushed aside.

And what dense settlement, agriculture, and industry do not do—are completed by the extensive firing zones of the Zionist army required for the constant defense of the invaders against the unceasing resistance of the original inhabitants of the land. Will you leave us no place to live except in nature reserves?

Regards, Yonah Ten Bar-Dalas

The problem of harming the habitat of wild animals is also bound up with vegetarianism, which requires expanding agricultural growing areas. Every additional dunam of agricultural land is one less dunam for the habitat of river animals.

In the last line
… for the habitat of wild animals.

To Yossi—greetings,

I was glad to hear that the residence of the descendants of the colonialist Jews in Palestine is legal. Presumably international law will continue to recognize its legality, so that Europe and America will not have to absorb a few more million Jews 🙂

Since we have settled that “law” is the proper norm—I can also rely on international law that permits the eating and use of animals. “Let the humble eat and be satisfied”…

Regards, Anaui Mch Kuhbdr

“Alfangar” is a rendering of “Levinger,” since in Arabic there is no V. I hadn’t thought of “al-Fajar” in the sense of “dawn.” According to that too the gematria will work out (without “ha-Levi,” and with the words and the kolel). And a question regarding your doubts about Jewish belief: do you also tell your Bedouin friends that their belief is dubious and absurd in your eyes?

In the last line
… since in Arabic there is no…

Mr. Levinger—are you a relative of Rabbi Levinger of Kiryat Arba?
To the matter at hand—today’s Israel within the Green Line does not face criticism from the nations of the world, and one should remember that it is also the home of almost two million Palestinian Arabs, and no state that I know of contests it. By contrast, the Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria, and even more so the discrimination between Jewish settlers and Palestinians, is problematic in the eyes of most countries in the world, including our well-wishers in Europe and America. The problem is the discrimination and the heavy-handed behavior of the military and civil administration more than the settlement itself. In practice there is an apartheid state there. Ehud Barak once said that if people treated him the way they treat Palestinians in the West Bank, he too would become a terrorist. I have a Facebook friend who is doing a doctorate in anthropology, and her subject is the shepherds in the Jordan Valley. She actually lives with them and sends videos and recordings from the field that are hard to believe. The behavior of the outpost residents (the “hilltop youth” in the foreign tongue) and of IDF soldiers is terrible. Such behavior gives rise to terror, which gives rise to a response, which gives rise to more terror. There is a wise saying: “Don’t be right, be smart.” If the Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria does not condemn these acts and restrain the hilltop youth and the illegal outposts (as of today there are 151 illegal outposts in Judea and Samaria), we will continue to live by the sword until the end of our days. We secular people will ultimately not agree to keep fighting and putting out every fire lit by messianists in Judea and Samaria. Try to calm the situation, respect your Arab neighbors, talk with them, help them when needed—that is how peace is built, not by a competition over who has the bigger one. Around Kochav HaShachar too there are plenty of outposts. The road up to Shilo passes through cultivated Palestinian land. The Baladim outpost is populated by hilltop youth. I assume most of the outposts are illegal. The very fact that illegal outposts are not dismantled shows deliberate discrimination.
That’s it—I’ve said my piece. Merit of the fathers does not work here. Moderation and love, and seeing the other side as human beings who want livelihood and peace, respecting the other side, mutual aid, joint discussion groups about how to make the neighborhood better and more beneficial for all sides—that is how you start building peace. “Justice is on our side” is pure poison.

As for my Bedouin friends, my effort is focused more on turning them vegan than on converting their religion. I have already succeeded in preventing them from slaughtering a goat kid on the Feast of Sacrifice, and I see that as a great achievement. I teach them about animals and show them amazing films about friendship, motherhood, intelligence, compassion and mutual aid, creativity and originality—all this in animals such as chickens, goats, donkeys, crows, bears, elephants, cows, and more and more. Over time I have gathered many such films—some of them moving to tears.

One may argue
about taste and smell,
about territories and rights,
and about where it is best to live,
about Maccabi or Clalit,
and about economic reform,
about hurting feelings,
about the news anchor,
about religions, about beliefs,
and about approaches or styles,
about varieties of avocado,
and about Messi or Ronaldo,
about chametz in hospitals,
about targeted killings and assassinations,
about masks and vaccines,
about singers, about artists—
yes, there are very many subjects;
one can discuss them endlessly.

But there is, it seems to me,
a fairly total agreement
that one does not harm the helpless,
the innocent, blameless ones,
because between us, that is simply evil

without a little and without somewhat.
So fucking why,
without speech and without words,
do you eat
my friends?

Think about it!

Mr. Levinger—a question for you as a religious person. Here is a quotation from Maimonides, Laws of Rebels, chapter 3, halakhah 2: “Once it becomes known that he denies the Oral Torah, one lowers him down and does not raise him up, and he is like the rest of the heretics and those who say the Torah is not from Heaven, and informers and apostates, for all these are not included among Israel, and there is no need for witnesses, nor warning, nor judges; rather, anyone who kills one of them performs a great commandment and removes the stumbling block.” Should I hire a bodyguard?

The transition to veganism can greatly benefit wildlife. You should know that seventy percent of the agricultural lands in the world are intended to feed animals in the food industries, and about this it was said: “There are many hungry people in the world, but no hungry cow.” Eliminating the animal-food industry will significantly reduce the amount of land required for agriculture and free up areas for wildlife. The animal-food industry is also one of the greatest contributors to global warming, to giant fires that destroy thousands of small and large wild animals, to pollution of water sources, and to accelerating the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (80% of the antibiotics produced in the world are intended for animals in industry in order to fight the infections caused to them by the polluted environment in which they live). Animals emit methane gas, which is 30 times more effective than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. When you factor this by that ratio, the animal industry emits more greenhouse gases than all motor vehicles in the world on sea, land, and air. All this without mentioning the moral side of freeing animals from the yoke of man, and the health side of consuming plant-based food alone.

Animals emit methane gas, and therefore you want their numbers to decrease; and therefore among other things you want people to stop raising animals for food and make room for wildlife?

And to Yossi it was said—

After you have explained to us that domestic animals and birds are what cause the ecological disaster—taking up agricultural land and emitting methane gas—it follows that one must stop raising them. What shall we do with them? Shall we destroy them all at once, or abandon them to die of hunger or be torn apart?

Or perhaps we shall retrain them and raise them as pets, except that then we will need to continue raising them for many years; continuing to raise them as pets will also require us to feed them, and if so we are back to all the environmental hazards—taking up agricultural land and methane gas.

Let our master teach us what to do.

Regards, Gadiel Shepsel Tzigler-Hahn

And a side question: if the need for sheep, cattle, and chickens is abolished—how will your Bedouin friends make a living?

Paragraph 2, line 2
… continuing to raise them as pets…

At any rate, from the Wikipedia article “Greenhouse Gases” it emerges that agriculture’s share in greenhouse gases does not exceed 13% of greenhouse gases. The higher percentages come from energy production—34%, transportation—16%, industry—22%, buildings—8%, waste—3%.

Therefore, dear Homo sapiens! Take responsibility and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power stations, industrial plants, and vehicles before you come with claims against agriculture and grazing.

It seems to me, in my humble opinion, that part of the rise in carbon dioxide concentration since the industrial revolution stems from the drastic reduction in green agricultural areas, which absorbed the carbon dioxide emitted by humans and animals, and in exchange increased the proportion of oxygen in the air.

Regards, Ḥayya Chlorophilip Shepselovsky

However, the researchers of Hohenheim University are remembered for good, for they developed pills and nutrition that reduce methane emission in the digestive process of cattle.

With God’s help, Thursday and “and the donkey knows its master’s manger”—may it be a year of less gasoline

The way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to reduce fleets of vehicles that consume much fuel and emit poisonous smoke. For intercity travel there may be no avoiding a motor vehicle, but within the city there is nothing better than a horse or a donkey. Both an “ecological means of transport” and man’s good friend.

So Lipa the carter says that a little less is a little more. One needs to pull the reins and take back 🙂

Regards, Feyvish Lipa Susnovitsky-Dahari

And the small amount of methane emitted by animals can be collected and turned into green fuel. See the article by Dr. Dror Bar-Nir, “Methane—a greenhouse gas, a lethal gas, and a source of green energy” (Galileo, 107, July 2004).

With God’s help, 7 Av 5782

To Yossi—greetings,

Maimonides himself excludes “the children of the Karaites” from the attitude toward heretics, since they were educated from childhood in disbelief in the Oral Torah and are therefore in the status of “an inadvertent sinner close to compulsion.” From this there is a broad consensus among contemporary decisors that also toward secular people in our generation one must behave with respect and patience, striving to draw them close with love and pleasant ways, by personal example and illuminating explanation.

Even with regard to one who grew up in a religious education and “went off the path,” this rule is waived, for concerning our generation the words of our sages are all the more apt: “I wonder whether there is in this generation anyone who knows how to rebuke,” for the arguments of heresy draped in “scientific” garb wash over us from all the channels of literature and communication, and one who does not study and clarify the questions מתוך the deep and complex path of Torah may easily err.

To contend with many of the questions on faith in light of the discoveries and hypotheses of modern science, Dr. Aharon Bart’s book Our Generation Confronting the Questions of Eternity is devoted. Dr. Bart was CEO of Bank Leumi in the early years of the state, and because of illness he took a “sabbatical year” in which he wrote his book.

Dr. Aharon Bart was one of the great products of the Frankfurt school of “Torah with the way of the world,” founded by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer, and Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann, who saw the integration of commandment-observance and faith with participation in modern science and culture as an ideal from the outset. Likewise his father, Dr. Yaakov Bart, was a renowned orientalist, while he himself was a jurist and economist.

Regards, Eliam Fish"l Warkaheimer

Greetings to Eliam.
I am interested in discussing a more general question: is it permissible for a person to harm another person in any way because his belief justifies it?
If we consider “universal” morality, that is, the kind that most human beings can agree with regardless of their faith, then the answer is no. If I may harm someone because of some command of my faith, I must also accept the possibility that someone else may harm me because of his faith, whether it is the shahid who blows himself up on a bus or an ISIS man who buries people alive because their faith is not Islamic. Therefore it is commonly thought that a person’s faith ends at the tip of his nose—it is his private matter and should not be applied to others.
Judaism and Islam do not think so, and Christianity too in the Middle Ages executed Giordano Bruno, among other things because of his support for Copernicus’s theory that the earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa, and his refusal to recant his statement.
When I read Maimonides in Laws of Rebels, chapter 3, halakhah 2, which I mentioned above, and the words of the author of the Shulchan Arukh (Yoreh De’ah 158:2): “And with regard to the heretics, namely those among Israel who deny the Torah and prophecy, they used to practice in the Land of Israel to kill them. If one has the power to kill them openly with the sword—kill him. If not, approach him by stratagems until you bring about his killing.” And even the Mishnah Berurah from about 100 years ago (Mishnah Berurah 329, small סעיף 9): “An Israelite sinner who transgresses out of appetite, so long as he does not deny the Torah, it appears that one desecrates the Sabbath for him. But if he does so defiantly, it is forbidden to save him even on a weekday…”
There is a clear opinion here that it is permissible to harm, or refrain from saving (which is also harm), people because their belief is different or because they lack a specific belief.
There are many halakhot that concern smaller harms, such as not returning a lost object to a gentile. That is what I have to say.
My precisely phrased question is: is it permissible to harm someone because I think he behaved contrary to my faith, even if his faith is different or he has no faith, when he has not harmed anyone else? I would be glad for a direct answer of yes or no, without too much lengthy pilpul. Thank you and have a good day—Yossi.

I know a lot of time has passed, but I think one more reason should be noted why Lehava is considered a racist organization. Beyond its beliefs, there are rumors about all kinds of riots, or attacks on Arabs or on people who employ Arabs by youths. There are no similar rumors about other anti-assimilation organizations like “Yad L’Achim.” This causes certain people to think that maybe what also motivates this organization is just a love of adventure among youths, in the best case, and primitive hatred in the worst case (racism can sometimes be on the philosophical plane, and sometimes also on the mental plane).

Although there is a moral flaw in it.
Correction: in which there is no

Thanks