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11:32 am: Don't Worry About That Silly Ten Commandments Thing. Really.

So my last two posts focused on the Rambam and whether Torah morality is eternal. The vast majority of my commenters here clearly thought the rambam's principles applied to his day and time and do not apply to ours and should not be taken out of context. The consensus was that those chapters are essentially...irrelevant to modern society.

Now we have Rav Yitzchak Shapira and Toras HaMelech, a  recently-published sefer in which this Rosh Yeshiva explains that Jews are actually allowed to murder gentiles, even Chassidei Umos HaOlam, even women and children, even if they are not responsible for a threat to the Jewish people. From here.  

YWN, of course, tells us that this is all exaggrerated and silly nonsense, the book is a work of  theoretical halacha and should not be used as permission to take the law into one's own hands. Good to know.

So here are the questions for today.

1. Do you think this guy is just a crazy extremist whom we should just write off? It shouldn't matter that he's a Rosh Yeshiva of a big chabad school? We should just hide our head in the sand and pretend only Islam has problems with crazy extremists? Should we also dismiss Rav Yitzchak Ginsburg, another famous chabad rabbi associated with this whole lunacy, who goes on world-wide speaking tours?

2. Do you think these books & pamphlets are a cause of actual crimes against gentiles? If not, why not? Why should inciteful material somehow have no bearing on behavior? If they are a cause of actual crimes, how are these sefarim different than the Rambam's works? So why should we all learn Daily Rambam and his halachos of rape and murder, but we should not learn Toras Hamelech?

3. Why did Rabbi Shapira choose to give us frum yidden a heter for murder, instead of say, something more practical, like a heter for  cheeseburgers? Maybe he can write a sequel about how yidden can eat treife food on shabbos for the purpose of protecting the Holy Land or something like that. I would buy that book. Heck, I'll help him write it.

Tags: chabad, crazy, criminals, gentiles, rabbis

01:23 pm: Did the Jews Kill Jesus?

Did the Jews kill Jesus? The Gospels say yes. We say no.

Uh... who cares? 

According to the Rambam, it would have been a mitzvah if we had. 

It is a mitzvah, however, to eradicate Jewish traitors, minnim, and apikorsim, and to cause them to descend to the pit of destruction, since they cause difficulty to the Jews and sway the people away from God, {as did Jesus of Nazareth and his students, and Tzadok, Baithos, and their students. May the name of the wicked rot.} From Here. 

That whole section is great, btw. We're not allowed to save idolaters from drowning, regardless of whether it is shabbos or not. We can't offer them medicine or even rent them homes. You can't even speak about them in a kind manner or give them gifts. 

Well, okay, see, since we live in America, and are subject to secular rule and would probably get in trouble, we don't actually have to follow all this right now.

But that's part of the evil of living in Galus- we're forced to be moral and ethical, to some extent.  Hopefully Moshiach will come soon and I can start killing pagans and heretics right and left. 
 
Seriously, frum people.

How can you ever accept anything the rambam says as valid after that page of gibberish?

How can you ever accept the Torah as the true compass of morality after reading that page? 

What, exactly, is the big deal about being an idol worshipper, that you deserve death for it? How does idolatry render your life worthless more so than, say, atheism?

Why should we not kill a convicted child rapist, for example, but oh boy, once he starts praying to Zeus, off with his head. What sense does that make?

Tags: crazy, gentiles, morality

03:33 pm: Whose Fault Is It?

Say I am an average gentile woman. Maybe I'm a college student, maybe I'm a soccer mom or a physician. Anyway, I don't know anything about Jews and have no opinion of them one way or another.  For all I know, Jews are wonderful, friendly people who have contributed a lot to society. In high school, I had a Jewish boyfriend who celebrated Chanukah by having a Chanuka bush next to his Christmas tree.

One day, I'm bored at work so I'm surfing the internet and I come across False Messiah's post on how Daily Halacha would like Jews to wash their hands after touching a gentile because gentiles are all impure. This is a little unrealistic, the rabbis recognized and so, Jews are not actually required to wash hands after each and every handshake, but if they do so, they should do it surreptitiously so that enmity and ill-will is not increased between them and their gentile neighbors. Also, one lenient rabbinical opinion notes that there is probably no need to wash hands because tumah can only rest on something that has the potential for kedusha and since gentiles have no holiness in the first place, there's nothing to worry about. Yay!

Like I said, I'm just an average gentile lady and I don't know that this "halacha" is based on the Zohar and that non-chassidic Jews don't find the Zohar to be a reliable authority. In fact, I don't even know the difference between chassidic, non-chassidic and any other type of Jews and I've never heard of the Zohar before today.

So I walk away from this experience a little shaken up. Jews, it seems, are pretty bigoted and xenophobic, to say the least. They have really repugnant ideas about regular plain-vanilla folks like me, like my family. In fact, they don't seem all that different than Muslim extremists who hate infidels. Maybe consciously, maybe not, I gradually begin to generalize and stereotype about Jews and Judaism and eventually I end up espousing some pretty Anti-Semitic ideas.

So whose fault is this? Is it my own fault entirely for failing to educate myself thoroughly and adopting stereotypes?
Is it Failed Messiah's fault for bringing this Daily Halacha to us? Is it Daily Halacha's fault for not censoring themselves a bit?
All of the above? None of the above?
Or is it actually a good thing because freedom of speech is important and it's critical that Jews know "halacha" even if it might offend someone? Or is it all good because now gentiles will really know the truth of what some Jewish sects think of them?

Tags: gentiles, hashkafa, kabbalah fluff

02:03 pm: Good News, Bad News
So the good news is that The Neshei Newsletter printed a scathing letter to the editor in response to the rant against gentile babysitters. Dr. Levenstein from South Africa basically called the author of the letter a racist and compared the writing to Nazi bigotry.

The bad news is that Dr. Levenstein probably never read the Tanya  or other chassidic texts which encourage such bigotry and that the next Newsletter will contain many letters advising him to learn up on the fact that the souls of the nations of the world, however, emanate from the other, unclean kelipot which contain no good whatever,  and this is the foundation of chassidus.

On a similar note, during the sedarim, I peeked in the back of the chabad haggadah, which has many brief little divrei torah. One commentary on page 87 reads as follows : the behavior of the child and the environment around him must not be like that of the non-Jewish environment. One must be ble to recognize in the child an absolute Jewish identity and if the child does not sense the principles of "who separates between Israel and the nations" and "You have chosen us from among all the nations," then even when he will have set times for the study of Torah, when he will pray and observe mitzvot and so forth, those mitzvot and that Torah will be bereft of the proper holiness.

Think about that for a minute. Even if you are doing everything right, observing and praying and so on, if you are not aware of your separate, chosen, special status, your prayers and study are of a lower value. There's a very fine line at which national pride becomes bigotry and hatred and this is precisely where the line is. If you cannot fulfill your role as a religious person without the constant awareness of your superior status, you have turned from someone with cultural pride into a bigot. Most Lubavitchers have crossed this line a long time ago. Those who have not are typically college-campus rabbis who know how to keep a good PC face on.

Tzvi Freeman, one of the more PC chabad spokespeople, writes that quite simply, what the tzadik is to the Jew, the Jew is to the non-Jew.

Many people have explained that this is an effective strategy to ward off assimilation.
Sure, believing that goyim are scum will minimize intermarriage. At what cost, though? Do you want your children to avoid intermarriage at the risk of growing up bigoted? Is preserving the Orthodox traditions that important to you that you will risk your child actually growing up to believe in his or her own innate superiority and that everyone who is not Jewish is just a lower life-form? Is it worth it?

Tags: chabad, gentiles, neshei

09:20 pm: Neshei Newsletter

This is copied from a letter to the editor in the most recent Neshei Chabad Newsletter. This is one of the primary chabad publications in English and it is sent to shluchim all over the world. I am copying the letter directly, emphasis mine.  

Non Jewish Babysitters
Shock #1: Coming home from shul on Yom Kippur, I noticed two little children outside alone. I looked around for a parent, but saw only a lady wearing pants who didn't look Jewish. I got scared. What if she was dangerous? How shocked I was to learn that she was their babysitter.
Shock #2: On my way to shul on Shabbos, I saw a little girl crying on the sidewalk next to an apartment building. By the time I got close, a non-Jewish-looking woman had come out to look for her. When the girl saw her, she ran away and cried harder. The lady ran after and picked her up angrily and carried her back to the apartment. I tried to ask her who the child was so I could call her parents, but she made sure to leave quickly.
Shock #3: I saw two non-Jewish women strolling down the avenue, talking to each other, pushing two Jewish children in strollers. The children were snacking on some packaged snacks. Were the snacks kosher?
Dearest parents, how can you put your child in the hands of a non-Jew? Do you think that that lady you hired cares about your child? There is a halacha, "Eisav sonei es Yaakov" ( Rashi on Breishis 33:4). She will not show it to you, but how can you trust her not to poison your precious child with goyisheh lullabies, treifeh candies, callousness or malice? Young children cannot tell their parents how their day was. And if they are old enough to talk, their babysitters may have warned them to keep their mouths shut. Don't be naive! The worst Jewish babysitter will be 100% better for your Jewish child than the best non-Jew! If it's a problem of money, pool together and find a Jewish woman to watch two or more children at a time. I can assure you she'll do a better job than a non-Jewish woman watching just your child.

The next letter on this topic suggests that in the light of the gentile babysitter who saved Moshe Holtzberg, the little boy from Mumbai, perhaps it may be okay to hire a gentile, if she is significantly cheaper than a Jewish nanny. However, " in an ideal world, this person would also be Jewish and frum."

Frankly, I don't even know what to write in response. Should I tell you about my friend whose young daughter was molested by a frum babysitter and is now happily thriving a non-Jewish preschool?  Should I tell you about the hundreds of geirim who will read this and be offended beyond belief? Should I talk about how people in chabad houses will pick up this newsletter and read this crap and walk out? Should I link you to blog posts by a "shabbos goy" who writes about how she is treated by frum people? Do you want to hear about frum schools where corporal punishment is still acceptable?

Tags: chabad, chinuch, crazy, gentiles, neshei

08:48 pm: What Sense Does This Make To You?

According to the Shulchan Aruch, Jews are not allowed  within 6 feet of a church or other place of idol-worship. We are not allowed to bend down to remove a splinter if it would look like we're bowing in front of an idol. We are not allowed listen to church music or smell incense. We are forbidden by the Shulchan aruch from even mentioning the name of a church in passing, as when giving directions to someone or arranging a meeting. That chapter has some more interesting stuff, but I'll stop here.

Maybe this made sense hundreds of years ago when Jews were persecuted by the Christians and subjected to horrible pogroms and massacres on a regular basis. Maybe this made sense when the majority of the people were illiterates and perhaps could be easily swayed to convert to a more popular religion. Maybe this made sense when people still imagined that the impurity of idolatry could be catchy, like a disease.

But now? What is the point? What are we afraid of?  I'll be a little more specific.

Why was Rabbi Lookstein's attendance at an interfaith prayer service on the morning of the Inauguration such a big freakin deal? Who cares?

Why does this woman have to end her friendship over a wedding in a church? Really, why?

Why do people have to ask their rabbis about whether they can attend a memorial service for a gentile relative or friend?

Why do many frum Jews feel the need to spit when they walk or drive past a church?

Do you really think that by stepping into a church sanctuary, the wrath of the One True God will descend upon you, because He is a Jealous and Vengeful Lord?  Do you think that monotheism will crumble if you attend your friends' church weddings? Or is it temptation? Do you  think that you won't be be able to resist  and have to request an emergency baptism? Is it like an addiction, if we just step into a church, we won't be able to help ourselves and just be sucked in? If we don't follow these rules, are we just going to be easy prey for the next two Witnesses who show up at our door?

How do you understand the continued enforcement of this totally outdated  set of halachos?  


Tags: gentiles, halacha, idolatry

04:16 am: Educate me, please.

Okay, all the Orthodox folks make fun of the Conservative and Reform. They are so crazy with their watered-down Judaism and odd interpretations of Tikkun Olam. They fight for silly things like women leining and wearing talleisim. They dilute tradition and encourage intermarriage, contributing to the assimilation of the Jewish people.

That said, I'd like you to find one Orthodox person who has achieved as much for 25,000 families as this one Conservative person has. Just one frum person who has permanently helped 25,000 families or more. Thanks very much.

I'm not saying there aren't any. I'm saying I don't know of any, so please educate me.

Tags: conservative, darfur, gentiles

10:02 pm: Moshiach

After reading this, I really don't want Moshiach to come. Apparently we will all have to dress in a particular way, will no longer be able to learn anything but Torah and will have to have all our manual labor done by gentiles. It's a good thing I stopped davening a long time ago.



Tags: gentiles, moshiach

09:08 pm: The Talmud on Gentiles



So here is a Antisemitic website which tries to prove that the gemara subscribed to the doctrine of Jewish Supremacy. I am sure you have all seen these, there are so many of these on the web.

And here is an Orthodox Jewish website trying to reject these accusations and explain the gemara's statements to make them more palatable. Okay, that's to be expected as well.

Yep, and here is an Orthodox Jewish website trying to prove that the gemara ( as well as other sources) did, in fact, subscribe to the doctrine of Jewish Supremacy. Ever seen that before? No?  

 Well, then here are some highlights: 
 ( Read more... )

Tags: chabad, gemara, gentiles

09:23 pm: Am Hanivchar, again
 
There is a popular argument for the veracity of Judaism and it goes something like this. 

The Jews have survived for so long in galus. A small nation, a tiny fraction of the world's population, statistically speaking, the Jews should have long ago been assimilated or destroyed. And yet, through all the Crusades, Inquisitions, Pogroms and Holocausts, they still survive and even flourish! All the while, the nations who have persecuted them vanish into the pages of history books. Where is the great Roman Empire? Where are the mighty Greek rulers? All gone, while the Jews survive. Here is another version of the same.

 I am sure you have heard this argument in many forms over many years. It is quite appealing emotionally. The Jews are a small nation who defy all odds and survive. This somehow proves that they are indeed the Chosen Nation and that the Torah is true. Presumably because it is impossible for the Jews to have survived under these conditions if God did not will it to be so and the only reason God could will the survival of the Jews is because they are to be a beacon of light for everyone else.  Some people like to tack on something about how this also means that Orthodoxy is the way to go because the Conservatives and Reform movements will become completely assimilated over the next few decades. 

 So this past Shabbos, I was at a table where someone mentioned the Karaite moshavim in Israel. I looked it up a bit and found that the Karaite sect, the small minority who took the Torah literally and discounted the entire Talmud, managed to survive throughout the diaspora just fine and are now doing well in Israel. They apparently have 11 shuls and 30, 000 members, if this article is accurate.  

So now let us apply the logic of the previous argument to the Karaim. They are even a smaller fraction of the Jews. They were rejected by Orthodox Judaism itself.  They were persecuted right along with the other Jews. And hey,  despite all the negative press and extreme adversity, they survived! This must mean that the Karaite way is the Chosen Derech. Right?

Tags: chosen nation, gemara, gentiles, hashkafa, rabbis

09:07 am: Judeo-Christian Values

Fred Taub, the author of this article, lives in our town and emails everyone a weekly newsletter  with links to his work. 

His basic argument here is that Islam is similar to Nazism because both groups have "a mental disorder," an inferiority complex that arises from their dislike of individuals who do not belong to their group. 

Yeah. Here's what he writes:

...This brings us to traditional Islam, meaning without Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam. Throughout the Koran, there is not only degradation of non-Muslims, who are subject to the dhimmi laws prescribing persecution and special taxes, but there is also internal persecution of Muslim women to the point where they are treated as nothing more than property. In fact, Muslims will generally treat animals better than women, as Islam forbids the beating of animals. You may recall seeing a video of a Muslim cleric on Al-Jazeera television who not only advocated the beating of one’s wife, but also specified how and when it should be done according to the Koran.

Societies such as the KKK, Nazis and Islam, which have the degradation of others at the root of their dogma, are inherently incapable of achieving peace, because the hate which permeates the psyche of the followers debases the trust and cooperation needed to sustain peace with others. These hate values are also diametrically opposed to the Judea-Christian values which prescribe respect for all others, despite distortion of the Bible by groups such as the KKK.

Tags: gentiles, islam, israel, parshah

03:08 pm: A Heartfelt Plea
Dear People From New York And Israel Who Are Calling About Buying My Home, 

God knows I want to sell this house. God knows the market is so bad. And so I really and truly do appreciate each and every one of your phone-calls as it gives me a ray of hope in my bleak day. Having dispensed thus with the pleasantries, listen up now, all you gals and guys:

Stop. Asking. 
Stop asking me about my damn neighbors. As I have explained, my immediate neighbors to either side of me are not members of the Chosen nation. That is okay. They probably cry every night about it.  One neighbor is of a different skin color than you are, guessing by the derogatory language you used during our conversation. Even that is okay. This is a middle-class professional neighborhood. People are professors, students, teachers, bankers. Those who make the most noise are the frummies during Succos as they stay up and party and farbreng till the wee hours of the drunken morning. Your children will be able to handle it, I am guessing. Even if, as you say, they have never seen a goy before and would not know what to do upon meeting one.

A Special Note to the Woman Who Called Today: 
You were the inspiration for this post and so I thank you. But no, sadly, I do not know the exact percentage of shvartzes and other goyim on my block compared to other blocks on my street and  in my neighborhood. My statistical research interests lie elsewhere and I do not plan on conducting this type of demographic survey anytime soon. Really, you are barking up the wrong tree. 

If this little request turns out to be insufficient, I may have to take further measures. This means that my showing of the house to you may possibly coincide with the Multi-Cultural Community-Wide Greek Orgy Festival that we our hosting this year. Or perhaps we will have to schedule our Annual Wicca Initiation Ceremony during the open house.  

Here, listen to some nice music instead.

Tags: gentiles, racism

09:15 am: Ethics of the Talmud
 
The Jewish Learning Institute (JLI) people came out with another class, Ethics of the Talmud. 

It is an excellent example of what bothers people most about kiruv & shlichus classes.  Over six weeks, the not-yet-frum Jew, who has never studied gemara in depth, will be exposed some of the ethical dillemmas the Talmud discusses. Abortion, euthanasia, honesty and so on. The goal of the class is to demonstrate how Judaism and the Talmud offer "a moral compass to guide you through the labyrinth of life."  JLI managed to secure endorsements from several prominent attorneys and professors, including Harvard's Alan Dershowitz and Columbia's Thomas Zweifel. Interestingly, this course somehow received accreditation for continuing education credits for attorneys (CLE) and physicians (AMA) as well. 

I don't know how to tell you this, Professors Dershowitz and Zweifel. But out of all the texts in Judaism, the talmud is the one I would use last for my moral compass. True, it may have been pretty progressive for 500 C.E., but to use the gemara for ethical guidance in 2008 could really get you into hot water. 

I'm gonna guess that the JLI course does not mention some of these halachik points: 

* You are not allowed to save a gentile's life on shabbos, unless you fear reprisals against Jews for failing to do so. 
* When you see a man and a woman drowning, all other things being equal, you must save the man first, because he has more commandments to fulfill. 
* Abortions may be assur for you and me, but the sanhedrin was allowed to beat a pregnant woman until her fetus was aborted if she committed a capital crime. This was done to save her the embarrassment of giving birth posthumously. 
* The laws of honesty are different for Jews and gentiles. If  a Jew overpays you, you are obligated to return the money. If the same happens with a gentile, you are not. 
* In general, many punishment laws are much stricter for  gentiles than for Jews. A gentile is allowed to be put to death with circumstancial evidence only, a Jew must be admonished by two witnesses during the act itself. A gentile is executed for stealing whereas a Jew is not.
* Women, for the most part, are not allowed to serve as witnesses or judges in a court of law.

And so on, there are plenty of other examples that I have discussed at some point or another in this blog.

So, Dr. Zweifel, when you said that this course offers "21st century leaders of all stripes a crucial lighthouse in the sea of ethical uncertainty", were you aware of these talmudic conclusions? Do you think the American system of justice in 2008 has much to learn from the conclusions of the gemara about women or goyim?  

Now, to be clear, I am not positing that the Judaic system of ethics is completely antiquated. There are  texts which would appropriate for the study of ethics and morality as an introductory course in Judaism. Pirkei Avos, for example, or later shailos u'teshuvos about medical ethics. But If you are going to teach unaffiliated Jews about the ethical system proposed by the rabbis in the talmud, please be sure and teach them that the gemara is not all sweet roses and moral lighthouses. 

Otherwise, you are no better than a used carsalesman who only points out the new coat of paint and the shiny exterior, while forgetting to mention the need for new brakes and the recent trouble with the engine. I wonder what the Talmud would say about the ethics of used carsalesmen. 



Tags: gemara, gentiles, kiruv, women

10:52 am:
This is apparently part of a transcription of a speech which was said and/or edited by the Rebbe on the topic of secular books for Jewish schools.
 

 

So I fail to understand what we can expect from Lubavitcher chassidim if the Rebbe came out and openly stated that racial equality is against the Torah. Of course they are all going to be racist and ethnocentric bigots and those who are not are simply either not aware of what the Rebbe said or work in kiruv or shlichus and are very adept at hiding the dark side of frumkeit and Lubavitch. 

At the same time, is there really any way to explain ata bechartanu and also believe in the equality of all people, regardless of race or religion? The yeshivish and Modern Orthodox world tries to couch  all of this in the language of "everyone is equal, but we just have more responsibility". Then the analogy of trash collectors is given. Everyone is important in a society, doctors and garbage collectors, but what can you do? Doctors just have more responsiblities. In my view, this is pretty much the same as what chabad states, just phrased more subtly and delicately. We are all equal before God, but somehow Jews have more important work to do. I think the problem is that if you really, really believe that Gentiles are just as close and equal to God as Jews are, the question of why keep the other 606 mitzvos becomes very difficult to answer.


  

Tags: chabad, gentiles, rebbe

06:25 am: Movie Review
 
I saw Hiding and Seeking a few days ago. It is a documentary about this frum guy, Menachem Daum, who wants to show his two grown sons that not all "goyim" are bad, like they were taught in school. So he travels with them to Poland and seeks out the remnants of the Polish family that hid their three relatives during the Holocaust.  Overall the movie was good and had some very poignant moments. It was thought provoking and raising some obvious questions: 

1. Say there were no remnants of the  Polish family that hid the children. What would Menachem Daum have done? Let his children grow up to be bigots? 

2. Why raise your children in a way that indoctrinates hate and then try and travel across the world to mitigate it? 

3. What if the Polish family did not, actually, save the Jews? Would that make it okay to hate goyim? Is all animosity by us based on anti-semitic treatment by them? And if history was different, the gemara would not say the negative things that it does about them? If so, are these sources largely irrelevant today? Even the most Ultra-Ultra people can agree that there are the Hasidei Umos Haolam that deserve our gratitude. So what? Everyone else is beneath us because their ancestors did not hide Jews in the cellar? I am not going to hide Darfur refugees in my cellar if there is a danger to my family because of it. Should all Darfur people now see me as wicked? 

4. At some point, one of the yeshiva guys realizes that had he been in the same position, had he been asked to risk his life and the lives of his family, he would not have hid three strangers for two years. This is a very honest admission. What does that mean according to all those chassidus hierarchies? Theoretically, even chasidei umos haolam are only just as high as kelipas nogah, the neutral level. They do not readch the kedusha level of a Jew. 

5. Menachem Daum was clearly very influenced by Shlomo Carlbach. How many of the people who need to hear his message are going to be turned off by the fact that his mashpia eventually went off the derech? How many of those people don't have a TV in the first place and think any kind of movies are treife? 

6. Is the hatred being taught today in yeshivos really a legacy of the Holocaust or is it a weak attempt at preventing intermarriage by teaching that "they" are beneath "us" ? How many young teachers are spewing forth  bigotry in their classrooms? Have they had personal experience with anti-Semitism or are they just teaching what they have been indoctrinated with themselves? 

Here is an interesting imamother thread on this topic : When Hebrew Teachers Make All Goyim Look Bad 
In this discussion, a parent wants to know what to do when her children's frum teachers portray all goyim as evil.  Some interesting answers include: 

When I was teaching at a Cheder a few years ago one of the limudei chol teachers was a goya. One of her students asked her in class if she was going to be his slave in Olam HaBa! I was shocked out of my mind. I had never heard of such a thing. She of course did not return the following year. I was shocked she made it through that entire first year. 

I am jumping into this conversation my third grade teacher made all goyin seem bad .she taught us to _________ when u pass a church , she said just when you mix oil to water it rises to the top , jews will always be on top , 

(From the  moderator): Nope. Kuzari explains that there are four levels in creation: inanimate, plant, vegetation, and human and above that, in a category all their own, are Jews. For the mystically inclined among us - gentiles are from the three impure kelipos like all forbidden things....Gemara Bava Basra 10b

Rabban Yochonon ben Zakai asked his disciples to explain the verse in Mishlei, "tzedaka teromem goy, v'chesed l'umim chatas." R' Eliezer said, "tzedaka teromem goy" refers to the Jews as it says, "who is like Your people Yisrael, one nation on earth," and "chesed l'umim chatas" means all the tzedaka and chesed that the goyim do is a cheit for them because they do it only to aggrandize themselves as it says [it brings a verse] ... R' Yehoshua said, "tzedaka meromem goy" refers to the Jews .. and "v'chesed l'umim chatas" means all the tzedaka and chesed that the goyim do is a cheit for them because they do it only to prolong their rule as it says [verse in Daniel] ... Raban Gamliel said "tzedaka meromem goy" refers to the Jews ... and "v'chesed l'umim chatas" means that all the tzedeka and chesed that goyim do is a cheit, because they do it only to boast about it and all who boast fall into gehinnom as it says [verse] ... "v'chesed l'umim chatas" means all the tzedaka and chesed that goyim do is a cheit because they do it only to make us look bad ... R' Nechunya read the verse different. He said, "tzedaka teromem goy v'chesed l'Yisrael" and "l'umim chatas". Raban Yochonon ben Zakai said to his talmidim that R' Nechunya's explanation was the best since he attributed tzedaka and chesed to Yisrael and chatas to the goyim. 


Tags: gentiles, moview review