Torah and Jewish Idea > Torah and Jewish Idea

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muman613:

--- Quote from: her majesty on November 30, 2012, 02:30:48 PM ---I'm not, not posting any longer because i don't like or believe that this is from the  oral law......i did not know that and asked previously many times if it was from the Talmud.  The reason i won't post again or have regard for what any of you have said is i don't appreciate being called a reform jew or that i'm not practicing judaism. There is a way to speak and a way not to speak to someone and apparantly none of you have mastered the art of gentleness which is apparantly because you're all too full of yourselves which is funny because you're so far beneath me.   You are nothing more than a bunch of arrogant [censored] with the ability to read and recite Torah. You apparantly have mistaken my kindness for weakness which i can assure you it is not and i would never speak that way to anyone i was trying to teach Torah to.  do not address me again.

--- End quote ---

You seem to have a chip on your shoulder. Your hatred for rabbis has blinded you to what Jewish observance is. You cannot just pick and choose which commandments to keep. There are many commandments and many customs associated with them. If you want to practice Orthodox Judaism you should learn first before making statements like you made (which indicate you have never learned from an authentic Jewish source, rather you found commands that suit your life and only keep those).

The Oral law is the Talmud. The talmud is the recording of the Rabbis views and conversations. It is from these Rabbis which we learn the Halachas. Without the Oral law we would not be able to keep the Torah. For instance you should know that there is a commandment to put a mezuzah on your door. This is a TORAH commandment, but the Torah does not say what a mezuzah should contain or how to put in on the door. The oral law compliments the Written law. Other commandments such as how to observe Shabbat which the Torah mentions many times, but never explains what observing and keeping Shabbat means, are only explained by the Talmud. What does WORK mean? The Melachot (39 categories of forbidden labor) are derived through scriptural exegesis are expounded by the Rabbis of the Talmud. Do you just make up what is convenient to you to keep Shabbat? The Torah, when discussing Shabbat, mentions that the Israelites should not build the Mishkan on Shabbat and thus it is derived that all the labors involved in building the Mishkan are prohibited on Shabbat. Would you, by your own logic, have derived what it means to keep and observe Shabbat? I don't think you would.

You don't study the Talmud because if you did you would know some of these things..

I don't understand why you act so self-important. If you were truly Jewish you would try to learn instead of insisting your version of Judaism is correct. We Jews have keep these commandments for 1000s of years and you expect us to suddenly accept your watered down interpretation? I think you are the rude one who has turned away all those who try to supply you with answers to your questions. But maybe they were not questions to begin with, and you are set in your incorrect ways and attempting to justify your errors.

I wish you well on your journey... Please seek the truth and maybe someday you will really understand what it means to be a religious Jew.

muman613:
I feel bad that this turned out the way it did. I really had hope that we could work together and learn out the laws according to our sages. But her majesty seems to reject all the Jewish sages and Rabbis and wants to decide if the laws make sense to her, and if not they are discarded. It is good to try to understand why we do commandments but there are some commandments which we will never fully understand. We should try our best to understand why the command was given by Hashem but even if we don't we should keep it because it is what Hashem commanded, either directly or through the power given to the Torah sages. When one rejects the sages he rejects the Torah, as according to Rambam a person who rejects the wisdom of the sages of the Talmud is called a heretic.

I do not take any pleasure in this. Without understanding the importance of those who codified and expounded on the commandments we would not be able to keep the Jewish religion. If everyone interpreted the Torah according to their own understanding we would not have Jewish communities, but a fragmented and divisive people. For thousands of years we have kept the Torah and Talmud and they are the force which keeps the blood of the Jewish people pumping. When Jews reject their heritage they are actively destroying their people.

muman613:
I am sorry if this sounds blunt, but according to some definitions the denial of the sages is a trait of an apikoros.


http://www.oztorah.com/2007/04/an-apikoros-ask-the-rabbi/

A. It means “unbeliever”. Using this epithet is an insult only if you intend it to be such. But though an apikoros is missing out on the inspiration that comes from being a believer, no-one can be forced to believe, and you cannot argue them into belief.

Homiletically, the word derives from pakar, “to break forth”, and hence it is someone who rebels against traditional religion; an associated word, hefker, means free or abandoned. Historically, the name is from the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BCE), who believed that with the correct philosophy of life a person could reach “quietude of mind and steadfast faith”. Associated with his name is the view that though the universe is eternal and infinite, nothing is created out of nothing and nothing passes into nothing. The soul is destructible; pleasure is the beginning and end of the good life. The existence of God or the gods is not denied, but God (or the gods) do not control the world or feel concern for man. (See Josephus, Antiquities 10:11:7; cf. Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed 3:17).

Judaism found this problematical. It preferred seriousness and moral strictness to pleasure and indulgence. It believed not only that God was the Creator but that His Providence continued to rule the creation. It could not accept that God had abandoned His world and left it hefker, ownerless. It developed a firm doctrine of the two worlds – this world and the World to Come. It applied the term apikoros to anyone who rejected these basic Jewish doctrines and warned that the apikoros had no share in the World to Come (Mishnah Sanh. 10:1).

In due course it extended the meaning of the term very widely to anyone who did not show respect to the sages. Me’iri (13th cent.)
defines an apikoros as one who despises a learned person and his learning and thus denies the things he should believe in (commentary to Sanh. 90a).

To Maimonides (Hilchot T’shuvah, chapter 3), an apikoros rejects prophecy and the prophetic status of Moses, and denies that God knows the deeds of human beings. The Shulchan Aruch adds that the apikoros not only lacks belief but transgresses the law on purpose, e.g. by eating forbidden food or wearing sha’atnez, a prohibited mixture of textiles (CH.M. 425:5).

There is a distinction between an apikoros and an am ha’aretz, an ignoramus. An unbeliever who is also an ignoramus is a major problem, because he does not know what it is that he does not believe in. Hence when the Mishnah says that one must know what to answer an apikoros (Avot 2:14), it may be saying that he must not be allowed to remain uninformed.

Ephraim Ben Noach:
@Her Majesty, I can relate to you. I married before I was really religious, I married a Lutheran, which is something that my grandmother is against. My grandmother was a gnostic or a Czech Unitarian, something like that. Which is what lead me to the root of religion, which is Judiasm. So I am A Nochide now, which is very difficult at times and frustrating, beings there are no Jews around me, let alone does anyone know what the heck a Noachide is.

 I hope you don't leave!

Ephraim Ben Noach:

--- Quote from: LKZ on November 30, 2012, 08:24:17 PM ---I think some people here hardened by fighting traitors... and muslims... most men can't handle fighting while being stabbed in the back by their brothers.

--- End quote ---
Good point LKZ!

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