and tag machir, ofcourse I would keep fighting. Indeed I would feel a little umcorfatable in the future if i had a wife who was behind closed dooors with anotherman while nobody else present. And on the issue of karet, How can any jew be karet if inside his/her neshama is a peice of hashem?
Here is a discussion of the concept of Karet...
http://www.torah.org/advanced/mikra/5757/br/dt.58.1.03.htmlI
KARET: "INTERVENTION" OR "INHERENCE"? This is My covenant that you shall keep...circumcise all of your males. The male that does not circumcise his flesh, that soul shall be cut off from its nation... (B'resheet 17:10,14). For the first time, the Torah introduces us to the punishment known as Karet -excision from the nation.
Last week, in discussing the Flood, Inherence was introduced: the idea that God's rewards and punishments are "built in" to the scheme of this world and are not a suspension of the natural order. We found that to be an acceptable approach to the Flood; can we go one step further and apply Inherence to prescribed punishments, such as Karet? I believe that we can.
The punishment of Karet (the meaning of which is the source of dispute both in the Gemara and among the Rishonim) can be found later on in the Torah as the consequence of violating any one of a number of prohibitions (notably in the areas of Mikdash and Arayot [sexual taboos]); however, there is something almost unique about its application in the case of B'rit Milah - and therein may lie the solution to the Inherence perspective here.
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IV
THE PRICE OF MEMBERSHIP
Membership in any group provides companionship and a sense of shared purpose. In return, the members occasionally must sacrifice their individual desires and needs. There is invariably an equation between the extent to which one negates one's self towards the group and the sense of sharedness with that group.
The Torah makes demands upon the individual in his daily life: a multitude of restrictions, a higher business ethic and a theocentric sensitivity. In order to claim membership in 'Am Yisra'el, however, it is not sufficient to be an ethically aware and theologically oriented individual. To be a Jew means joining the Jewish Nation. That means sharing the goals, dreams, joys and sorrows of an age-old and forever-young people. It means a shared history and a common destiny. Imagine someone living a life of Halakha today, insensitive, on the one hand, to the glorious rebirth of the State of Israel; while apathetic to the high rate of assimilation right here in America. They would be missing the central, crowning feature of Am Yisrael: Community. Note Rambam's formulation regarding someone who is not involved in communal concerns:
Someone who separates himself from the community (even though he does not transgress any violations), who isolates himself from the congregation of Yisra'el, not fulfilling Mitzvot among them, not involving himself in their troubles and not fasting during their fast days; rather, he goes his merry way like one of the non-Jews, as if he were not one of them - has no portion in the World to Come (MT T'shuvah 3:11)Indeed, all of our fixed liturgical petitions are in the plural number, indicating a communal request:
Grant us knowledge, redeem us, heal us...Until we are all healed, no one of us is truly healed; a member of our groups suffers and we suffer along with him. A friend is bereaved, we are sad; not just for his loss, for it is our loss too (and therein lies his greatest comfort.)
(According to the Ran in Rosh haShanah, this same reasoning may be applied to the justification for reciting B'rakhot on behalf of others - see the sugya there at 29a).
One who refuses to participate in the rituals that define one as a member of the group, is surely "cut off" from the group. This is the natural result of his actions: non-participation in the most fundamental group rite is active denial of membership.