בס''ד
Gentlemen, you are both good Jews. Please stop arguing.
If I were q_q_, I probably would have sent Muman a private message to express my concerns.
And if I were Muman, I probably would have responded by saying, "Thank you for pointing this out to me. Maybe I was not clear enough."
If we treat each with respect, then even disagreements can lead to greater cooperation.
Chaim, I have communicated with Muman in private before on a number of occassions, and it doesn't convince him of my point any more than communicating with him in public.
So there is no point to communicating with him in private.
What the public replies achieve, is they correct bad misconceptions, or other bad flaws. There are many others that make the same error on a lesser scale, or have misconceptions that his posts encourage, and my replies in the thread are useful for them, sometimes they PM me that they weren't aware of it..
Or it's clear in the thread that they weren't aware, and became aware..
I am not out to convince muman, that will not happen, but there is a higher purpose to my debating with him. Others see the arguments, the strength of mine and it helps them.
So the option is not private debate vs public debate.
The options in a case like this. One is to let the misconception about judaism remain.. To let jews think it's intelligent behaviour to suggest to christians that judaism/we thinks it's right for them to partake in jewish festivals, or jewish rituals. To "sort of" tell them to write HaShem.. and so on .. (this of course is a big reason for how this jewish "messianic" phenomena got off the ground in the first place, and it's what keeps it going)
The other option is to reply to it, so that at least jews know that it's not right. And I can tell you that from my replies to Muman, gentiles too see that jews think jewish festivals and rituals are for jews.. and so on. I have already receieved a PM from a gentile that obviously benefited from what I pointed out.
Often my replies to him are not on such a tragically serious matter , just on a matter of style. Though they also benefit many people.
One way I could go about this, is to reply to the misconception within the thread, but without quoting Muman or mentioning him. I think that's clearly the best way, if you really want to avoid the to and fro debate that we have seen.
Even that form of response would not achieve as much as the to and fro debate acheives.
One thing the to and fro debate with muman does acheive is. For example, in the esau thread, my post that hit on muman's point directly, it helped others reply to him when he repeated the same thing. They thought "ah, I remember muman said this before, and qq responded". And you see an example of it in the thread, and these benefits are my goal.
It's true that he gets very bothered and thinks i'm picking on him and he doesn't really understand what's going on. But it can't be anything like the perils society including he, faces anyway. And there are great benefits to the discussion, as I have pointed out. And for me to have not responded to it, -especially- in this case, is leaving something dangerous to fester.
Topic: I think I must fast and pray for the next days ahead (Read 3775 times)