A Look at Conversion to Christianity: “Rachmana liba ba’i”? (Absolutely not. Column 498)
Almost a year ago I read a chilling article about a Jewish child who was saved in the Holocaust by Christians, converted, and became a priest. At his request, he was buried as a Jewish-Christian. This account raises several points worth touching on.
Case Description
He was born to a religious Jewish family in 1931, named Yaakov Zvi Griner. When he was eight years old, the Nazis invaded Poland; there they murdered his father and led the Jews of the town—including his mother and two sisters—to mass graves, where they were shot. He survived thanks to a forged baptism certificate and a Polish-Catholic name, Gregor Pawlowski. After the war he arrived at a Christian orphanage and from then on was raised as a Christian and became devout. He retained a Jewish identity and even informed church leaders of this, but they allowed him to advance in learning and piety, until in 1958 he was ordained as a priest.
Following an article about him that circulated throughout Poland, his brother, who lived in Israel (they had not known of each other’s survival), heard about him and made contact. Together they set up a monument on the grave of their parents and the townspeople, and then Gregor decided to immigrate to Israel. In the meantime, he also purchased a plot for himself in the nearby Jewish cemetery. He even drafted the inscription for the headstone he prepared during his lifetime:
Father Gregor Pawlowski, Yaakov Zvi Griner, son of Mendel and Miriam, of blessed memory. I left my family to save my life during the Holocaust. They came to take us to extermination. The life that was saved I dedicated to the service of God and humankind. I returned to them, to the place where they were murdered in sanctification of the Name. May my soul be bound in the bond of life.
In Israel he served until his death as a priest in a church in Jaffa. There (in the outside plaza) his funeral service was also held, in the presence of Christians and Jews who recited Kaddish for him, and afterward his body was flown to be buried in the plot he had purchased in Poland.
Throughout his life he did not deny his Jewishness but also did not express regret for his conversion and for being a Christian cleric. The article describes him as having returned to Judaism at the end of his life, but it is not entirely clear to me in what sense. He did not become a member of the Jewish religion; rather, he remained a member of the Jewish nation, as he always defined himself. In this sense he resembles the Jewish cardinal of Paris, Jean-Marie Lustiger, who was of Jewish origin and all his life defined himself as belonging to the Jewish nation while believing in the Christian religion and serving God accordingly.
This account is a good trigger to discuss several points.
The Reasons to Adopt a Religious Faith vs. a National Identity
From reading the article, one gets the impression that Gregor chose the Christian religion out of gratitude for having been saved. That is a puzzling reason for adopting a religious faith. There were Christians who did not exactly save Jews (I’ll let him in on a secret: throughout history there were even some Christians who murdered Jews, including in the Holocaust, and including many of those who instigated it). There were also members of other religions who saved Jews, as well as atheists who did so. And in general, why should gratitude be a reason to adopt a religious belief? Seemingly, belief and religious practice are based on factual claims, unless we’re speaking of a purely psychological practice. If it’s a psychological practice, then Gregor wasn’t truly a Christian and all is well. But if it is an actual faith, I don’t understand why gratitude is a relevant basis for it.
By contrast, the reason to adopt a national identity belongs more to the psychological plane. Of course, one can define a nation in an amorphous manner, in the style of Benedict Anderson, Shlomo Sand, and their ilk; then it’s just a fact. Be that as it may, Gregor chose to belong to the Jewish nation—either for psychological reasons or because he viewed it as an unavoidable fact not under his control (cf. the previous column that dealt with a person’s ability to define himself as male or female, black, brilliant, handsome, belonging to this or that nation and religion).
The conclusion that follows from the Principle of Charity (again, see the previous column and column 440. I stress that this has nothing to do with performing acts of kindness for anyone but oneself) is that Gregor thought he belonged to the Jewish nation because this is a fact and perhaps also felt solidarity with the Jewish people, but as far as his religious belief he believed in Christianity. Accordingly, his request to be buried in a Jewish cemetery and to have Kaddish recited for him in a quorum stemmed from national identity and not religious faith—similar to many secular Jews. I’m not sure he was aware of these distinctions, but this is probably what underlies his views.
The Relationship Between Nation and Religion
So far I have dealt with the motivations and rationales for adopting a religious and a national identity. I now move on to discuss the substantive link between them. It is commonly thought that Judaism is both a religion and a nation and that the two cannot be separated. If that is indeed the case, there is, ostensibly, something inconsistent in Gregor’s views as described above. But this linkage between nation and religion in Judaism can be interpreted in several ways.
One can interpret it to mean that there is no content to the Jewish nation beyond religious obligation. I fully identify with this statement and have written about it more than once. Of course, there are not a few Jews who feel Jewish but are not committed to halakha. That is certainly a fact, except that in my view their feeling lacks any real basis. This brings us back to the previous column about a person’s freedom to define himself. If you are not Jewish in any substantive sense (apart from your mother), you cannot define yourself as Jewish. You can, of course, utter the words “I am Jewish,” but that is only because lip movement is not constrained by the truthfulness of the content. The mouth tolerates everything.
One can, of course, soften this definition and say that there is no content to the Jewish nation beyond religious obligation, but that doesn’t mean one must actually observe it. According to this proposal, a Jew is someone obligated in the commandments, even if he himself does not recognize that. This is, of course, the meaning of the first definition I suggested here.
But we must distinguish here between Jewish culture and the Jewish nation. Nationhood is a genealogical matter—that is, a question of lineage. Therefore, national belonging does not concern a person’s culture. He may belong to the Jewish people while his culture is entirely foreign. My comments above addressed the question of Jewish culture, not the question of nationhood. There is no content to Jewish culture apart from halakha and commitment to it. Belonging to the Jewish nation is a matter of fact.
Of course, one can dispute this as well and argue that defining a national culture—that is, a people—is very amorphous, and therefore it is hard to determine or to dispute it. From here one arrives at the Principle of Charity from the previous column: if a person feels Jewish, then he is Jewish. Despite the circularity and emptiness of this definition, it expresses an intuitive feeling about the existence of the concept “the Jewish people” or “Jewish culture.” In principle this is possible, but it seems to me very unlikely in general and in this context in particular. Again, I don’t see any feature or set of features that could help us define Jewish culture unless we adopt something as constitutive: speaking Hebrew, serving in the army, paying taxes, consuming Jewish culture, eating cholent on Shabbat, celebrating in various ways the holidays of Israel (bringing first fruits at a kibbutz, dancing at sundown on Tu B’Av, tormented discussion circles on the day of Rabin’s assassination, on Tisha B’Av and the Fast of Gedaliah, and so on). Gentiles can also participate in all of these, but one could say these are gentiles who possess a Jewish culture. There is no logical problem with that; it just makes the matter not truly related to Judaism and the Jewish people.
Put differently, one could say that Jewish culture is the culture that characterizes Jews. And who are “Jews” for this purpose? Here we would have to adopt a non-cultural definition—either national or religious. Again, this somewhat empties the definition of content.
Certainly one cannot claim that belief in the Jewish religion depends on belonging to the nation in any other sense (apart from the religious obligation itself). In this sense, Judaism depends on religion but not vice versa. In fact, the most reasonable thing is that we are speaking of identity, which drains the notion of “Jewish culture” of any firm content.
Bottom line, it is clear that there is no value in belonging to the Jewish people or to its culture. It is a matter of fact—or at most folklore—that you choose to belong to. Therefore there is no problem defining whatever you like as the Jewish nation or Jewish culture, as long as you ascribe no value to belonging to one or the other. Instead of speaking Swahili you choose to speak Hebrew. Instead of reading in English you choose to read in Hebrew. Instead of eating bacon you choose to eat cholent every third Shabbat of an odd month. Be my guest; just don’t tell me there is any value in it. A “Jewish value” is a synonym for halakha. Anything beyond that is a universal value—that is, a value for every human being—and therefore it has no connection whatsoever to Judaism.
The Attitude Toward Conversion to Christianity
A Jew’s conversion to Christianity arouses our antibodies. When we hear of such an act, it is accompanied by a feeling of betrayal—of human and national baseness. I see no reason for such thinking. The psychological reasons are very clear: Christianity tormented us not a little, and this is a natural reaction. But essentially, this is a person who made his choice. If he believes in the Christian religion and not in Judaism, I would expect him to take the necessary step and convert. If he does not do that, then he is not worthy of esteem. He is simply allowing his psychological sense of belonging to dictate his beliefs and ways of conduct in the world. But as I explained above, there should be no connection between belonging—which is a psychological fact or arbitrary decision—and our beliefs and values. Both because beliefs and religious obligations are a normative choice while belonging is a fact, and also because there is no value in culture and national belonging, so there is no flaw in abandoning them either.
Gregor’s situation—belonging to the Jewish nation (and perhaps also to Jewish culture, depending on how you define it; Kaddish and burial, for example) together with Christian belief—is actually the inevitable result of the dichotomy in which he lived. My amazement goes the other way: why are there so few like him? Anyone who belongs to the Jewish nation but does not believe in the Jewish religion—I would expect him to estrange himself from it and seek another alternative. By the way, this should also apply to secular Jews: the fact that they do not believe in the Jewish religion does not exempt them from examining other religious alternatives (for some reason it is always the religious who are accused of this; see, for example, the amusing back-and-forth with Yossi here and onward).
The Ban on Missionary Activity
I have often written here that the ban on religious (or other) proselytizing outrages me. In general, any infringement on freedom of speech and argument should outrage everyone (see column 6 and column 118). If someone believes in the Christian religion and tries to persuade a person of Jewish origin to convert, how can one forbid him to do so? He isn’t forcing anyone; he is presenting arguments. The listener will weigh them—adopt if he wishes and reject if he wishes. The same goes for Holocaust denial. This ban, too, is outrageous in my eyes. If someone has good arguments for the claim that there was no Holocaust or that six million Jews did not die there—let him present them for the examination of anyone who wishes. If we are convinced—then fine; if not—also fine. Why on earth should decisions about what happened historically or what is religiously proper be handed to political hacks who will decide for me what is true and what is right?! This is absolutely intolerable to me. A collection of fools and interested parties sitting in the Knesset decides for all of us which arguments we may hear and which not, what happened in history and what did not, and how one ought to behave in the religious sphere and how not. This is simply inconceivable to me. It is no different from the culture of political correctness that forbids the expression of ideas and opinions that do not please it. For some reason, there one tends to be outraged, but that does not stop us from forbidding others to express their opinion and present reasons for it.
A General View
In sum, I do not understand why gratitude is a reason to adopt a religious belief and practice. But if a person reaches the conclusion—whether for the right reasons or the wrong ones, but on the right plane, the intellectual one—that this is his belief, I certainly expect him to take the necessary step: to abandon his current faith and commit to the one he believes in. Of course this does not contradict feelings of national and cultural belonging, which should not in any way depend on his religious belief. Gregor’s case—feeling belonging to Judaism while believing in Christianity—is unusual but, in my eyes, very natural, and it is a wonder that we do not find many like him. The rabbi mentioned in the article assumes that he wanted to return to Judaism as a religion. I understand that he knew him while I did not, but at first glance it seems to me that he erred and conflated these two planes.
It turns out that psychology still moves us even in domains where it shouldn’t. This brings me to the main conclusion from the points raised here: we must overcome this weakness. Our attitude toward people and differing beliefs—and even the adoption of religious and other beliefs—should not draw from our psychology or even our history, but from substantive discussion. We are all, of course, human beings, and therefore we all have psychology; no one is perfect. But this is a weakness we must strive to overcome (see, for example, column 218).
In the Christian world the heart is given a very central place. Among us as well there are those who cite “Rachmana liba ba’i” (“The Merciful One desires the heart,” which in my view means something very different). See here, on a page connected somehow to the “Liba” organization, an example of the base use of this phrase by Yechiel Harari. It seems these are people who want to turn us all into atheists (that is, believers in feeling instead of intellect). The sub-heading of that heart-warming (in both senses) organization is that one can arouse interest online without cynicism and without critical thinking. Well, without critical thinking one can perhaps arouse our interest, but we will have no control over whether our interest is in the right thing. As for myself, I wouldn’t dismiss cynicism so lightly either, but without critical thinking we will all become a flock of sheep. We will follow the Pied Piper who tells us what to feel (indeed, the piper is our own heart), and he will lead us into the depths of hell.
So after the appreciation and concern for the rights of Christians and converts to Christianity, allow me to recommend deviating from their path (of the Christians and their Jewish successors) and to understand that emotion should have no part in our values and beliefs. Intellectual critical thinking is the basic tool for these matters, and a bit of cynicism never hurts. After all, without it we will all fall asleep from lack of interest and lack of critique. The aversion to cynicism is itself following the heart. People who encounter arguments to which they have no reasonable answer cling to the fact that they were voiced cynically and thereby exempt themselves from addressing them. Therefore, precisely if we equip ourselves with some healthy cynicism and critical thinking, we will be able to address arguments on their merits and suspend our feelings and psychology—so they won’t interfere in the grown-ups’ arena.
Discussion
I don’t know who “we as a society” are. I’m not a society but a private individual, and I don’t want anyone looking after me and my education and my values. Certainly not our government officials. A charismatic person can also mislead people and sell them the idea that there was a Holocaust even though there wasn’t. Let me decide who is telling the truth and who is not, and don’t decide for me. There is no need to fight over any public consciousness. There is no concern whatsoever that Holocaust denial will arise in Israel, and if there are historical challenges then they should be dealt with substantively or accepted. Just as anti- or post-Zionist views are not banned from publication, and unlike with the Holocaust there actually is reason to fear people may be taken in by them.
Since reality is not a laboratory, and I am thinking of one very specific apostate from the 14th century who went from rabbi to bishop, there is no escape from determining that sometimes this is simply betrayal of your community, joining the murderers of your people.”
Michi.
I think the aversion to conversion to Christianity is because Jews who worship idols are already, in the eyes of Hazal, far more severe than heretics or tinokot she-nishbu. The former do not acknowledge their Creator; the latter violate the prohibition of idolatry, a very basic prohibition that according to some interpretations is forbidden even to gentiles. From a religious point of view, this is seen as stupid: why would someone who grew up on Jewish wisdom, absorbed and imbibed fear of Heaven, be drawn to a vain faith and worship false idols?
I’m not talking about this case. In my opinion, incidentally, he specifically would fit the criterion of a tinok she-nishba. Many, perhaps most, of the converts to Christianity in our history were also people who hated their religion, their people, and perhaps also their God emotionally, and they acted to inform to the authorities and to publish passages from the Talmud in order to arouse anger and cause harm to the Jewish community.
That is, there were people whose motivation was to abandon their people, a weak people, join the enemies of Israel, and themselves become antisemites, while along the way justifying to themselves that they were doing so for religious reasons.
Even today, conversion to Christianity as a result of intermarriage, falling in love with a Christian spouse, growing up in a Christian society without a Jewish environment, growing up in a mixed family where you are not even aware that you are considered Jewish—this is very common. And I think the attitude toward these people too—who are perhaps most American Jews, for example—is forgiving. They are similar to Jews who grew up secular and never heard about Judaism. We are not talking about informers, heretics, or slanderers, nor about people who exploited their intellectual ability in order to help the haters of Israel and justify to themselves joining a hostile religion.
And despite this, it is still perceived as sadder and more severe. Because Jews who converted to Christianity in a gentile society—their children were already gentiles in every respect. Women who converted to Christianity in a gentile society—their grandchildren were already gentiles. And even the converts themselves no longer had a high chance of returning, unlike secular Jews, for whom there is always a high chance that they will find the truth and return in repentance.
If your community is not right, and you have reached the conclusion that your enemies are the ones who are right in their actions, then you should join them. Loyalty in that sense has no value whatsoever. At most, if someone finds it difficult to “betray” his brothers, that is understandable. But it is certainly not the correct course.
Different people have different motives, both those who convert to Christianity and those who remain Jewish. Therefore I do not deal in analytic profiling of characteristics but in the actions and views that are expressed. If a person reaches some conclusion, he is supposed to act accordingly.
True, one should not put every person on the psychologist’s couch.
But a person who does something despicable from an ethical-moral point of view (abandons his community and assists its persecutors), not out of innocent error but out of a desire for material gain, and along the way also engages in acts of idolatrous worship, under the hypocrisy of pure faith…
One can relate to him substantively, but there is also room to hate him, pray for his death, and despise him. I do not see that as a bad trait, or as immature.
That is if you know those are his motives. My claim is that usually you do not know.
With God’s help, 22 Av 5782
It is a bit hard to come with complaints about “lack of coherence” to someone who grew up as a child like a hunted animal after losing his family, and adopted the identity of the people who first gave him a sense of home. He is not the first adopted child tossed between his adoptive parents and his biological parents, and the tragic fate of his parents did not exactly allow him to forget them. Thank God we did not end up in his place, so that we could judge him.
Regards, K. HaKela
It should be noted that after his death, a will of his was submitted in 2018 in which he left his property to a woman in Poland whom he claimed was his daughter—which of course he was forbidden to have as a Catholic priest. That raises the thought that the rediscovery of his Judaism and his immigration to the Land of Israel stemmed from complications in an illicit love affair in his native land, which forced him to go into exile to “a place where no one knows him”…
And regarding the post author’s outrage at opposition to the right of Christian propagandists to offer their “wares”:
After begging forgiveness from the sanctity of liberalism and kissing the dust of its feet—“a people escaped from the sword” that has gathered together wants to calm down and recover from the trauma of thousands of years of persecution and humiliation by believers in the “religion of love and grace.” We, as “post-trauma victims,” are allowed to demand that they leave us in peace…
All the more so since this is generally not just a matter of a pure “theological discussion,” but of exploiting the economic or emotional distress of Jews in order to make them abandon their religion. Let them go to India or Africa to impart their “pure faith” to the idol worshipers 🙂
Regards, Noam Shaaltiel Manuchin
I read the following page:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%9E%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%90%D7%A4%D7%9C%D7%98%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%AA-%D7%9C%D7%A8%D7%92%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%91%D7%94%D7%9C%D7%9B%D7%94
There is something to be said for connecting to the Holy One, blessed be He, as it says there: “The joy required of us is not spontaneous, but joy that has a purpose and is created by deliberation.”
On the other hand, in my opinion there is no problem with spontaneous joy if it is connected to the Creator of the world.
For me, for example, a very strong emotion arises on Shabbat and festivals when I see all the delicacies, and then I connect it to divinity (I become more godly), and not merely to some craving for excessive eating that arouses joy. Rather, for example, I actually thank the Creator of the world for all the abundance (I become more godly in that I give thanks for the food that exists).
Of course there are other examples of spontaneous joy in which I become more godly.
It was actually Christianity that sanctified Platonism, demanding that a person completely neutralize his stormy emotions. A person who was hurt was told to “turn the other cheek,” and the clergyman was required not to love a wife and children, so that his love for his God and for humanity would be “pure Platonic love.”
Judaism did not demand that a person erase his emotions, but rather shape and refine them. Were you hurt?—Do not go wild with rage; do not hate your brother in your heart, and do not take revenge or bear a grudge, but rebuke your fellow; explain to him patiently and respectfully how hurt you are by his actions, and then there is a chance that the refined expression of pain will calm the spirits.
And your love of your God can be full of emotion: serve Him with “joy and gladness of heart,” but also with caution and gravity—“and rejoice with trembling,” so that the joy does not spill over into revelry. And in your joy, do not forget to thank your God humbly, who gave you the strength to succeed.
And your love of your God will also expand to other human beings in ever-widening circles. Gladden your wife and your children, and together with them also the downtrodden in society, your male and female servant, and also the stranger, the orphan, and the widow within your gates. And from your affection for your brothers, who are called “children of the Omnipresent,” your love will expand to every “human being created in the image.” When love is cultivated, it keeps expanding.
Perhaps when “Father Grzegorz” got entangled and became the father of a real daughter, he suddenly found himself identifying with his father and mother, his brothers and sisters—who had wrapped him in love and warmth in his childhood—and suddenly felt again the power and purity of parents’ love for their children. The shriveled-up “Grzegorz” returned to identifying with “Jacob,” the devoted and loving father of his 12 sons and 70 grandchildren, founder of the large Jewish family that radiates love and light to its surroundings.
Regards,, Amioz Yaron Schnitzler
Paragraph 3, line 1
And your love of your God can and should be full of emotion. Serve Him with joy…
With God’s help, on the eve of the holy Sabbath, “And you shall eat and be satisfied and bless,” 5782
Feeling good is also a “value.” Just as it is clear that giving another person a good feeling is a “value,” since in this one follows the path of the Creator, who desires to do good to His creatures—so too, when a person cultivates his emotional world, he thereby fulfills his Maker’s will to do good to His creatures.
With blessings for a good Sabbath, Noam Shaaltiel Manuchin Halevi
Obviously there must be “the mind ruling over the heart,” and the intellect must stand guard so that emotion does not run wild and exceed what is proper. But within the proper bounds, emotion is blessed.
Don’t you think there is room to prohibit missionary activity in the context of persuasion by means of gifts and needy people and the like?
And what about age restrictions?
These are both things that Christians tend to do.
Likewise, isn’t it reasonable that in a state persecuted by Christians for 2,000 years, with myriads thrown into the fiery furnaces, they should be forbidden (specifically) from presenting their doctrine?
I said that as long as it is persuasion, it should not be prohibited. Even enticement cannot be prohibited, even if it is not proper to do so. All this applies to adults.
By the way, Jews do all this too (enticements, and with children), and nobody says a word.
Chayota wrote:
There are vulnerable adults, economically or educationally. Shouldn’t the state set boundaries to protect them?
My answer:
First, you probably mean weak people, not specifically weakened ones. For some reason the expression “weak” has become politically incorrect, and the assumption is that the strong are always to blame. If there is someone weak, then necessarily someone weakened him. Absolutely not.
But this terminological paternalism continues from the terminology into the assumption underlying the question. If a person is economically or educationally weak, that is his problem. You can strengthen his economic condition or his education, and it is proper to do so, but not to take over his mind. What you call “protection” means dictating to him a mode of thought that you want, or thinking in his place. You decide that the Christians are deceiving him and therefore prevent them from presenting arguments. But they do not think so, and perhaps your vulnerable person will not think so either (after all, that is what worries you). Adult human beings are supposed to make decisions for themselves, and that entails hearing various arguments and positions. Even if they are weak or weakened or whatever the devil you want to call it, the decision is theirs alone and not that of any paternalist. To balance things, present your own arguments to them, or improve their education and their economic condition. That is the only legitimate and proper thing to do.
And again I say that Jews do this without anyone uttering a peep (see Shas and its educational system, seminars and lectures on Judaism in which positions are presented in a demagogic and misleading way, sometimes in exchange for scholarships, and so on and so forth). I am against paternalism of any kind.
The distinction between weak and weakened is correct as usual in theory. In the jungle of life there are predatory animals, and it is highly advisable that the state protect against them—whether they are offering a new religion, fake work, or an apartment at a bargain price. At the same time, of course, it is desirable to educate.
Protect against scams, not against arguments. Arguments may seem problematic, false, and demagogic to you, and not to others. This approach is a mechanism whose purpose is to ensure that positions someone in power does not like will not be presented. Gagging and censorship of views the authorities do not want aired.
Here is a truly foolish example from these very days: https://www.mako.co.il/news-world/2022_q3/Article-280b470f435b281027.htm
The German police are opening an investigation (yeah, right. He has immunity) against Abu Mazen, because he said that Israel committed 50 holocausts against the Palestinians. That is an entirely legitimate statement, and it does not contain even a shred of Holocaust denial (although in his doctoral dissertation he did deny effects of the Holocaust. If anything, they should have tried him for what he said there). Here he is using the term “holocaust” as a metaphor for the killing of many civilians who had done no wrong, and he said that Israel does this all the time. Entirely legitimate (although in my opinion too this is tendentious falsehood). What does that have to do with Holocaust denial? Why should such a statement be forbidden?
So there you have it: Holocaust denial laws in the hands of the people of political correctness. A device for gagging views I do not like. If I think he is lying, then I should present arguments and facts to substantiate that, not shut his mouth. In our case, beyond the utterly excessive sensitivity about it, the Holocaust serves as a tool for gagging and a substitute for arguments, both outwardly and inwardly.
At the next stage we will have an ultra-Orthodox government that forbids talking about evolution and the Big Bang (as in America; see column 489), or a secular government that forbids talking about faith, the Bible, and creation. I do not want governments and courts deciding what may and may not be said. Certainly not in light of the very limited intelligence of those serving there.
And if in a poor neighborhood a children’s club is opened that is actually a missionary operation? They hand out sandwiches, sweets, and games, and in between teach them to cross themselves and say Ave Maria. Is that fine in your eyes? Shall we leave it to their learned discretion?
Did you read what I wrote? I said adults. By the way, Jews do this all the time, and Muslims do it with their children too.
Is there no room for paternalism at all? Suppose there is a Nazi propaganda organization (and perhaps “weak” people have a tendency to be drawn to such things); should the state not protect those weak people from such views?
No, unless there is an imminent concern of violence and harm to others.
As someone who has more than once expressed sympathy here for Christianity, I can testify that a serious thought of converting has never occurred to me. Ostensibly the reasons are emotional, since I feel comfortable in my distorted Judaism (ethnic only) and do not see what I would gain from such a dramatic change in my way of life. Ostensibly one could complain that I am not faithful to my truth and to the values derived from it, which supposedly obligate me to convert to Christianity.
But on further thought, I think the main explanation is rational: since in my view the source of our cognition and knowledge derives from intuitive capacity and its interpretation by the intellect, then in my view organized religion—any organized religion—cannot pretend to present to us the whole truth (because the truth belongs mainly to the individual, and therefore placing it on the interpersonal level necessarily dilutes it).
So that does not mean there is no theological truth at all in organized religions; there certainly is. But it rests on what is called “natural religion,” which stands at their center. Therefore, in my opinion, the primary purpose of organized religions is not theological truth pure and simple, but to serve as a hyphen (a connecting line) between the truths they carry and human life and well-being. In that sense they have, and must have, an instrumental side. Such an approach makes it possible to be very tolerant of any conversion, since the test is to a large extent the well-being of the person changing his religion, without compromising commitment to truth and rationality.
“Anyone who belongs to the Jewish nation but does not believe in the Jewish religion—I would expect him to become alienated from it and look for another alternative. Incidentally, this also applies to secular people: the fact that they do not believe in the Jewish religion does not exempt them from examining the other religious alternatives.”
Many people who do not believe in the Jewish religion or in any other religion do seek and find other alternatives. They are not necessarily religious. People look for a system of values / principles by which to conduct themselves. That collection of values/principles can come from a variety of sources and not necessarily from one religion or another, but also from a selection of universal values with which they identify, some taken from one religion or another and some a product of the person’s own moral outlook, whose source may not even be known to him himself. Preventing suffering to animals, for example, is a value that I hold and observe as much as I can, and many of my religious friends—even though according to them they are commanded in it—do not observe it and continue to finance with their money every day the horror euphemistically called “animal agriculture.”
And another point: “The fact that they do not believe in the Jewish religion does not exempt them from examining the other religious alternatives.” In my opinion, even someone who does believe in the Jewish religion is not exempt from examining other alternatives. Most believers in the Jewish religion have not examined in depth the principles of Tibetan Buddhism or any other religion. They were born into this religion, and if they had been born in Tibet they would probably believe what people believe there.
Why, in general, should a person who does not believe take a religion as a package deal? Why not gather the good things found in every religion or secular worldview and reject the things he considers unworthy?
The reason one person imposes his view on his fellow and prevents him from being exposed to arguments for another opinion seems very logical to me: if the one doing the imposing has examined the matter and knows with certainty that he is right, and he is aware of the weakness of the human species to err through fallacious arguments, then out of concern for his fellow he imposes his opinion on him because he knows he is right, and thus saves his fellow from error. Even though this is against the other’s will, in significant matters the benefit outweighs the distress felt by the person being coerced.
Of course that is the conception, but I do not agree with it. First, perhaps you are mistaken, even if you think you are not. Second, a person must arrive at his positions and formulate them on his own, not have someone else do it for him. And certainly not when the state decides for us. Many secular people are sure they examined things properly and that religious faith is childish nonsense. Would you accept their secular coercion over you or over me (such as forbidding the study and teaching of Torah)?
With God’s help, 25 Av 5782
On Shabbat I read in Natan Sharansky’s book Fear No Evil. He mentions the saying of the Polish-Jewish writer Julian Tuwim: “According to the blood flowing in my veins—I am Polish. According to the blood dripping from my veins—I am Jewish.”
And he explains Tuwim’s intention regarding “the blood in my veins” in the cultural sense, in that he was immersed in and identified with Polish culture, but identified with his Jewish brothers because they were persecuted. This was also Sharansky’s feeling at the first stage, when he was fully immersed in Russian culture, but identified with his Jewish brothers because they were persecuted.
And perhaps that too was the feeling of Griner-Pavlovsky: culturally and religiously identified as a Polish Christian, but identifying with the fate of his persecuted brothers.
Regards, Nishmah
I once saw in the name of “Manitou,” who explained what is said about Moses, “And he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand”: until then Moses had wavered between his Egyptian identity and his Hebrew identity, and then he finally decided to “lock in” on his Hebrew identity.
But Moses’ abandonment of the universal human identity is not absolute; rather, it is “hidden in the sand” until the time arrives when there will no longer be a contradiction between the Hebrew identity and the universal identity.
Regards, Noam Shaaltiel Manuchin Halevi
Many thanks to “Lihak” for finding the source of the statement, which is “Shoshani” (and not his student “Manitou”).
Regards, Nishmah
Even if we assume that this is logical according to their view (that is, that if religion were nonsense it would be fitting to forbid Torah study), there is still no reason for someone who does not think as they do to accept it.
In the end, it is very easy for a charismatic person to mislead people who are not sufficiently skeptical and present distorted information. And there is no shortage of people with such an interest.
As a society that wants to preserve the memory of the Holocaust, we need to find a way to fight for public consciousness, and I do not see any other way to do that.