Wednesday 13 August 2014

Debate with a Rabbi - ctd.

  1. 1) The stick gatherer proves my point. If the written torah is the be all and end all, why is everything so vague? Why no definitions? Shouldn't there be some explanation as to why the stick gatherer was punished? Shouldn't we have some guidance here if we are going to get THE DEATH PENALTY? We need more to go on than Ami Hertz pulling interpretation out of his tuchus. Moses didn't receive the written or oral law all at once, as is evidence by the laws given to him throughout the 40 years in the desert.
  2. the Torah is not vague. It says "kol melacha" All Work - you shall not do. In my back garden there are some branches of trees that were cut down. Now even on a weekday it is quite heavy work to move that wood into one place, or to set up a fire. That should be self evident. However, this is how the rabbinic mind works. There is a statement somewhere that a Talmudic rabbi has to be able to interpret something 50 ways one way, and 50 ways another. So there is no real search for the truth, but it is all a charade to entrap people as their slaves.
    You still have no concept of what work means.

    As for Ami Hertz, no he did not bring interpretation, but cited the different types of work which are explicitly forbidden in the torah.

    Here is from Devarim 5 what it says about work:

    13 but the seventh day is a sabbath unto the LORD thy God, in it thou shalt not do any manner of work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou.

    Now let us just focus on one of these subjects - חֲמֹרְךָ

    Your donkey, can do all sorts of work. It can pull a cart; can pull wood; can pull a millstone; and pull a plough. Have you not heard of the phrase donkeywork? So would you need a list of types of work that a donkey might do before you can accept the Torah? Your position is quit ridiculous.

    But your argument is not based on logic but on your own mental exercises. What in actual fact you are doing (I do not blame you personally, as you are tinok she'nishba) is deconstructing the Torah, and then adding a new testament narrative to it. This had me fooled for quite a few years and i am ashamed at myself for being fooled. But this is your new testament. BTW, Yashke used similar twists and turns and convoluted logic to change the Torah.

    We could go on. I once saw a choshuver Rav who had a private security guard , even on Shabbat. He gave his tallit to the (non Jewish) guard to carry for him on shabbat! This was despite there being an eruv. The 10 commandments say "that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou. " Yet orthodoxy have no problem employing servants to work for them on shabbat, as long as they use a loophole.
  3. But in any case, you have not shown why Nechemiah kept Sukkot differently from the rabbis. This shows that there was no Oral law at the beginning of the 2nd temple period. The Anshe knesses gedolah is a myth at best. Even if there was such an organization, they were Torah Sh'bikhtavniks.

    Same goes with so many other violations of the torah by your people; the Red heifer; the Ketoret; Heleve Olya; shaatnez (Beged Kehuna). etc etc

    You WANT there to be an oral law, just like your Christians want the NT to be referenced in the OT. But the evidence disproves the presence of an oral, and that changes to the Torah are in fact Giddoof - blasphemy.
  4. So lets say I want my donkey to take me to a party, is that work? Lets say I am a congregational Rabbi and most of my job is to give classes to the congregation on Shabbos, is that work? What you're saying is the Torah proscribes the death penalty for work on Shabbos yet kept the definition vague. Same with Yom Kippur and Inui Nefesh. Sorry, you are just wrong
  5. In what way did Nechemia change anything from the oral law? He was telling them what type of schach to use
  6. The Torah explicitly says that your donkey should rest on Shabbat. So if you sit on your donley or get him to pull your chariot, then the donkey is working for you.
    You can give divrei Torah on Shabbat. If you earn money for it, or if it is part of your contract, it seems to me that it would be work. similarly, if your contract says you shall be the Shalaich tzibbur, and it is part of your responsibilities as a paid rabbi, then you have serious problems, according to the Torah.

    YK /Inui Nefesh - it is a good argument. the use of the term in Isaiah is juxtaposed with fasting. So then you can ask what about prior to Isaiah? There are several approaches to answering this today.

    1) That the term was understood in hebrew of its time as meaning to fast.
    2) That the Neviim of teh earleir generations also udnerstood it the same way.
    3) That Inui nefesh is a relative term. Can /should a 5 year old; a pregnant woman; and elderly person or a sick person do the same level of inui as a strong 25 year old gibbor?

    My personal view is the 3rd. And that might answer your question about definitions. Certain things may be slightly vague , so that strict judgement isn't brought in every case. That would be for the judges to decide,and that is why the judges were prompted to be righteous and to do tzedek.

    The verse in Neh 8 says:
    15 and that they should publish and proclaim in all their cities, and in Jerusalem, saying: 'Go forth unto the mount, and fetch olive branches, and branches of wild olive, and myrtle branches, and palm branches, and branches of thick trees, to make booths, as it is written
    But you do not interpret this as it it written of the torah as referring to scach, you understand it to be referring to the 4 species. You identify the good fruit as being citron (which did not exist in Israel in the first temple days). But nehemiah interprets the verse from leviticus as being a different good fruit.
    So the points of difference between Nehemiah and the oral testament are a) the type of species and b) what to do with it. The Torah does not command us to shake 4 species, only to take it and build a sukka with it.
  7. So what you are saying is that the Torah gave a bunch of laws with no precise definition and if the judge decides to, he can give you the death penalty, even though you had no way of knowing for sure that your act was punishable by death. Do you realize how ridiculous this sounds? Please, enough already. This is beyond stupid.
  8. That is my personal theory and not a mainstream karaite view, so ridicule it as you please. Did not rabbi Akiva say that if he had a sanhedrin, there would be no executions?
    The judges have to keep to the law, but they have also the Torah obligation to do mishpat tsedek. What i am saying is that some laws which apply to all people may have some degree of tolerance for the peoples' needs. My argument (which is not mainstream karaite) is that inui nefesh may be precisely that kind of law. How can all people have the same physical requirements placed on them if they are not of the same physical build? What f someone has type 2 diabetes or type 1 diabetes? You would simply say they shouldn't fast, so where is the inui nefesh? Maybe the injections they need to take?
  9. If you want a more literalist approach, there is psalm 35;13
    יג וַאֲנִי, בַּחֲלוֹתָם לְבוּשִׁי שָׂק-- עִנֵּיתִי בַצּוֹם נַפְשִׁי;
    וּתְפִלָּתִי, עַל-חֵיקִי תָשׁוּב.

    Thus the phrase, to afflict one's soul is given to mean to fast.
  10. In Exodus 30 it says:
    כג וְאַתָּה קַח-לְךָ, בְּשָׂמִים רֹאשׁ, מָר-דְּרוֹר חֲמֵשׁ מֵאוֹת, וְקִנְּמָן-בֶּשֶׂם מַחֲצִיתוֹ חֲמִשִּׁים וּמָאתָיִם; וּקְנֵה-בֹשֶׂם, חֲמִשִּׁים וּמָאתָיִם. 23 'Take thou also unto thee the chief spices, of flowing myrrh five hundred shekels, and of sweet cinnamon half so much, even two hundred and fifty, and of sweet calamus two hundred and fifty,

    The problem is, that the rabbis claim the measure of cinnamon is 500, instead of the stated 250! That is deliberate tampering with the Law!
  11. from Amos 8: 5 Saying: 'When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell grain? and the sabbath, that we may set forth corn? making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances of deceit;

    Now this refers to the business that was not done on Shabbat. But the critique is aimed at those who cheat the people, by falsifying balances.

    It was your mentors, the Rabbis who brought this to every aspect of jewish life. Weather falsifying the balances / weights of the holy spices of the temple; falsifying time, eg the mis-counting of the Omer; imposing harsher laws and adding to the Torah, thus diminishing the freedom of Israel. Adding thousands of restrictions on everything from food to menstruation.
  12. I actually thought of a good stira to your claims. You ask for "definitions" of work. The torah gives definitions, in general, e.g. the work that people do 6 days a week. The Torah is not the dept of Employment to list 100K types of labor. The rabbis made up 39 types of physical actions. But according to your rabbis, writing is not forbidden by the Torah, and is only d'rabbanan. So any kind of labor hat entails writing, eg accounting, office work, and even architectural drawings, are - according to your chaps, permitted d'oraita! This is despite the torah clearly forbidding us to carry out our weekly labors on shabbat! what an ironic joke about your so-called "melachos".
  13. Joshua 1:

    7 Only be strong and very courageous, to observe to do according to all the law, which Moses My servant commanded thee; turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest have good success whithersoever thou goest.
    8 This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein; for then thou shalt make thy ways prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.
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