So far, with some few exceptions, everyone who reacted to my posts wants to make them an ethnic thing, and thus avoid the problem. Maybe they all find it A-Okay to send their children to school where they are told incomprehensible stories about great rabbis (e.g., the chofetz chayim reciting kabbalah and producing a ring of fire in the shul late at night, leaving your panties at Amuka and reciting some words gets you a husband, the whole Golem folklore that comes right out of Frankenstein land, Talmudic metaphors interpreted literally, etc.) and not told much of anything about 95% of the Bible. One reference to Old Sepharad seemed to particularly touch a nerve. But anybody who ever studied the history and literature of the Golden Age knows well that a Lebanese shul in Brooklyn has little to do with the culture of Cordoba. See any revival of Biblical Hebrew on E. 8 St.? Wonderful gifted poets? Masters of Comparative Semitics? I bet not one single sefer Torah in Brooklyn is written according to the detailed rules Maimonides sets forth. It seems Maimonides is just some genius who we dont pasken by. But one never sees the scholars of Cordoba, Kairaouan or Fostat championed as heroes. Never see their faces on placards in a parade. Actually, rarely hear their names, even though they *founded* Sephardic Judaism. You all pit Rashi against Maimonides but in doing that you already buy into the gedolim assumption and have totally biased the discussion. It is not about individuals. It is not about one ethnicity of Jews having a more powerful infallible hero than the other ethnicity. It is about a clash of cultures. One likes mythology, and tried and continues to try, rather successfully, to make all things Jewish into a regular mythological based religion. So rabbis have supernatural powers and are infallible, being first and foremost masters of secret lore. That means the people are naturally on a lower rung, and must obey their superiors. The people should smile and nod, and when they do not they are told, sometimes subtly, sometimes, not so subtly, to just shut up. This is why the best and brightest European Jews simply abandoned all of this. Ever see Einstein in a shul? Frued? Anelia Jaffee? Richard Feynman? What percent of Jewish Nobel Prize winners want or have *anything* to do with *any * of this mythology? So whats your answer folks? They are also stupid? They need Kiruv with fantastical Aish stories that defy reality? They need to learn more Torah? I do not think any of you who have posted here have even an idea how to explain to a single Nobel Prize winner why he should adopt this life. - Profiat Duran (edited)
Posted on: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 17:22:57 +0000