Q&A: Questions about the Rabbi's article
Questions about the Rabbi's article.
Question
To my revered teacher, may he live long and well.
I read your article regarding pluralism and tolerance. You brought many examples of tolerance that are not pluralistic, and you also explained the differences very skillfully.
My questions are these:
1) You wrote that even a tolerant person has a red line where coercion is necessary, such as suicide. But perhaps for a religious person, preventing a secular person from burning in Hell is, from his perspective, like saving him from suicide—especially when this is about the struggle over the Jewish character of the state, which the religious person sees as a fateful struggle involving danger to life.
2) You wrote that a tolerant person is supposed to recognize the value of the other person's territory and way of thinking, and you brought countless examples from the Sages. The question is: why? Why am I supposed to recognize that value at all? If my friend is mistaken, I should save him. You brought five convincing reasons there for doing so, and the reason not to interfere with the other person's conclusions seems pretty weak compared to them.
3) You wrote that someone who examines his position is entitled to a tolerant attitude. Of course, this follows from the very idea that everyone has their own territory, but in any case it is not practical, because the concept of "examining the issue" is very flexible—it can range from a one-time check on Wikipedia to searching for decades. Besides, imagine they want to impose core curriculum studies in a Haredi school. Would Education Ministry inspectors have to go from principal to principal and check who examined the Haredi position and give him a tolerant attitude, and who is a fanatic? Does that seem practical or reasonable to you???
With all due respect.
Answer
- If that is his red line, then let him coerce. I did not write there what that line is. Each person should decide for himself. It is only worth remembering that if you coerce him, you will not necessarily save him from the fires of Hell, because his commandments are being performed under coercion. And even if you do not coerce him, he is under compulsion, and he will not necessarily be judged in Hell.
- I did not bring even one reason for that. On the contrary, all those reasons characterize someone who is not tolerant. The tolerant person does not interfere because of the value of tolerance (and respect for the autonomy of the other). That and nothing more. In any case, if some of this seems weak to you, then apparently we have a disagreement.
- The practical question is a separate question, and I did not deal with it there. The entire discussion was principled, not practical: who deserves respect from me and who does not. The question of whom to coerce is a completely different question (it seems to me that I noted this there).