Q&A: Attitude Toward Gentiles
Attitude Toward Gentiles
Question
Attached is a post by Rabbi Elai Ofiran (the grandson of Yeshayahu Leibowitz).
Like Rabbi Ofiran, my worldview is far from that of the Chief Rabbi, but truth is truth.
Elai Ofiran
March 29 at 21:41 ·
To say clearly and out loud: the group of journalists who make their living by constantly ambushing rabbis’ sermons, taking fragments of sentences out of context and publishing them under screaming headlines, are doing something improper, nothing more than stirring up quarrels, inflaming hatred, and above all causing great injustice to the rabbi.
Today I took advantage of a long drive and listened to the full lecture from which the quote was taken, which dealt with preparations for the Passover holiday. The sentence in question was said in the course of a long discussion of the halakhic question: how can someone who has become religious hold a Passover Seder together with his family in his secular parents’ home, even though there is leavened food in their house. Notice: the lecture dealt with how to unify and connect families over the holiday, without forcing the secular family members to clean the house against their will and without the religious family members giving up even the slightest bit on observance of Jewish law (too bad no journalist chose to make that the headline). The rabbi spoke about the law of selling leavened food to a gentile, and in passing mentioned the halakhic requirement for gentiles to observe the Seven Noahide Commandments, that universal human moral basis (such as the prohibitions of murder, sexual immorality, and eating a limb from a living animal). He noted that theoretically, and in a way that is not applicable today, Jewish law does not allow someone who does not observe that moral threshold to live in the Land, and he stressed that this has no practical implication nowadays. We are talking about 15 seconds, a parenthetical remark, in a lecture of an hour and a quarter.
A few months ago I heard a lecture by Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef in a neighborhood synagogue in Jerusalem. The rabbi spoke about the difficult situation in the country and said that we need to strengthen ourselves in Torah and good deeds. As an example of good deeds in which we should strengthen ourselves, the rabbi quoted the midrash about Shimon ben Shetach, who bought a donkey from an Ishmaelite and found a precious stone hanging from its neck, and returned the stone to the Ishmaelite, thereby performing an act of kindness involving a great sanctification of God’s name. You heard correctly — the Chief Rabbi’s recommendation for “strengthening ourselves” during a wave of rising terror is, among other things, to increase acts of kindness toward “Ishmaelites.”
I am not among Rabbi Yosef’s disciples, and my world is as far from his as east is from west, but presenting him as the worst of racists is a great injustice, meant to inflame hatred, especially in the hearts of those who already hate anyway.
This is shallow and simplistic discourse, and it is impossible to defend oneself against it. True, sages should be careful with their words, but in every lecture by every teacher there are a few sentences that an experienced journalist can easily take out of context and distort as he wishes. No need to worry — most of the thousands of people who will share the item online will not bother listening to the lecture.
Journalism like this is not the watchdog of democracy, just a dog…
Answer
I have to say that this is nonsense. Or, less politely: stupidity and drivel.
After all, every report focuses on the points that seem relevant to the reporter. What did he expect — that the newspaper would praise the rabbi’s Torah novelties or challenge him with a question from Pnei Yehoshua? If he did in fact say that a gentile should not be allowed to live in the Land, then that is the sensation the reporter found in his words, and that is the point he reported. From what I understood, this was indeed said in the talk, so what exactly is the problem? Did anyone expect a full review of the entire lecture? When a prime minister or president gives a speech, do they provide a complete report of the whole speech, or there too do they pick out the interesting new points and mainly publish those? Obviously they focus on what is interesting and sensational, and that is completely legitimate. A newspaper built the way Rabbi Ofiran proposes — that is, one that reviews the entire talk — would be tedious and annoying. He himself (and I, and you) would not read it. Imagine a report on the rabbi’s lecture that looked like a summary of everything he said (with a few notes from the approach of Pnei Yehoshua and objections from Rashba), and somewhere inside a small note about “do not show them favor.” Seriously? Who would read it, and who would even notice it? The newspaper would not sell, and quite rightly.
The fact that a certain topic is marginal within the overall lecture is irrelevant to the report. The report is not dealing with or surveying the rabbi’s overall personality; it is reporting a position or a statement of his. Completely legitimate.
In addition, one should remember that rabbis are anyway careful not to say outside what they say inside, especially regarding attitudes toward gentiles and the like, and therefore if you want to know what they think, you have to gather it from what slips out between the lines.
Rabbi Ofiran’s apologetics about the Seven Noahide Commandments are also really not accurate. This also includes idol worshipers — idolatry too is one of the seven commandments — and for some reason Rabbi Ofiran chooses to focus on murder, sexual immorality, and eating a limb from a living animal. Does it sound so moral not to let a black man from Africa who worships stones live among us in the Land?
I am also not impressed by the example about strengthening oneself in relation to gentiles, and from my familiarity with the people involved I very much doubt whether that is really what he meant. After all, it is obvious that Rabbi Yosef’s outlook, like that of most rabbis (and certainly the Haredi ones), is racist. Can anyone deny that? These are our sources, and anyone who does not give them a creative interpretation is by definition a racist. In order to show this, you have to gather gems from between the lines, because these things are usually not said in public, as noted.
As for Rabbi Ofiran’s praise for the fact that the rabbi’s talk tried to find a way to be together on Seder night — it seems embarrassing to me that he considers such a thing worthy of praise at all. That says something very sad about rabbinic thinking in general. Besides, one would have to hear the talk in order to understand whether it really was such an attempt, or merely a halakhic answer to a halakhic problem that arose (posed by someone who wants to be with non-religious family on Seder night). The tone is what determines it, and I did not hear the talk, so I cannot express an opinion.
In summary, I do not agree with Rabbi Ofiran’s words at all. Not at all. I too am far from Rabbi Yosef’s world, and among other reasons, because of these things.