JTF.ORG Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: takebackourtemple on February 19, 2011, 08:02:46 PM
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Ok. I’m not a perfect Jew so excuse me for going to the gym today, but what happened today confuses me. After services and a long Shabbat meal I decided I really needed the exercise and went to the gym because they have classrooms with space that I can use for exercise.
Someone who was born Jewish but intermarried and does not consider himself Jewish was finishing a class that he was teaching and asked why I did not go.
My answer was that I was in Shabbat services. He then started to argue that services are not on Saturday. Apparently some deformed(reformed) temples have services on Sunday instead of Saturday.
He then asked me if I was Orthodox. Since I’m clearly not, I explained that I’m not observant but that I go to traditional services. He then asked me what denomination I was. I explained that there is no such thing as denominations in Judaism and that people created the conservative and deformed(reformed) movements as fakes. This upset him and he disagreed with me again saying he used to be a cantor of a deformed temple. He then walked out upset about what I told him.
My big question is why someone who does not consider himself to be Jewish can get so offended when I expose the fake movement that he does not associate himself with?
I don’t know his political views but he is still Jewish and apparently does not know much about it. While improbable, it must be possible to save a Jewish Neshama once the individual has intermarried. How to address the faith of the non-Jewish spouse and children is a different question? What could I tell him that might be able to convince him to pursue knowledge in the real thing?
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It depends on how you know this man, and how close you are to him.
Many liberal Jews choose to see only what they want to see. Why do you think they voted for Obama despite his association with Muslim terror supporters?
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What an amazing story. Some people will cling to delusion all the way to the bitter end.
Its not even as if u told him liberal jews are phonies or whatever you just said the movements are illegitimate and you're not completely observant but you want to go real services. What is he so threatened about?
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I suspect that deep down he knows in some way that you're right and that's why it bothers him so much.
Also when you point out that "reformism" is not legitimate, it also calls into question his intermarriage and makes him self-conscious of his guilt regarding it because obviously no one but reform "sanctions" intermarriage (and even in reform there are individual rabbis who refuse to minister at intermarriage ceremonies!)
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Very interesting...
I agree with KWRBT on this... He probably has some guilty feelings and deformed judaism sanctions his relationships.
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He is a jerk and if he got upset then all the better.