From: shimoff@umbc4.umbc.edu (Eliot Shimoff)
Subject: Re: PLEASE!  I need your help!  Help me keep this love alive!
Organization: Univ. of MD, Baltimore County
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 19:33:45 GMT

In article <1992Oct5.153820.28926@wam.umd.edu> aap@wam.umd.edu (Alberto Adolfo Pinkas) writes:
>In article <1992Oct5.092457.16485@umbc3.umbc.edu> shimoff@umbc4.umbc.edu (Eliot Shimoff) writes:
>>
>>
>>   By analogy, if there is one important feature of a successful
>>   (that is, surviving) religion (or any other social movement),
>>   it is its ability to ensure its own reproduction.
>
>This implies that there is a reason why Religion has to survive. And, so
>far, there is no proof of that. If, at some point, God decides to end it
>there will not be any more religion. And, as far as I know, we have no way
>to know what God wants right now.

No, my statement only implies that a religion that does not take steps
to ensure its survival will ultimately not survive.

Perhaps you have no way of knowing what G-d demands of you. I know what
G-d demands of me.

>Also, here, there is a confusion between religion, that might be lost due to
>intermarriage, and traditions and culture.
>I might agree that intermarriage might have result in the loss of the 
>traditions before 1948. Up to then, religion tradition was passed through the
>religious practice from generation to generation.
>However, since 1948 there is Israel. And, because of that, religion and 
>traditions have become two different things, even if correlated. 

Israeli and Jewish culture are two very different things.  Ask any
Israeli non-Jew.  Or compare the cultures of observant and non-observant
Israeli Jews.  

>I am Argentinian. Even if I try to keep my culture, the "current" Argentinian
>culture is that of the people living in Argentina. The same
>with the Jewish culture: The culture of the Jewish people will be that of 
>people living in Isreal, and not of those Jews living anywhere else, anymore.

If I were to travel to France, a Frenchman would be able to identify me
as a Jew far more readily than as an American.  Your suggestion that
Judaism will disappear is correct only if Jews intermarry and assimilate;
some of us won't.

>In the last election in Israel, we saw how non-religious Jews voted. 
>I saw a documentary in PBS where some member of the Labor Party explained 
>who secular Judaism was gaining more and more space (until they finaly won).

You fail to distinguish between voting patterns and religious commitment.



>Jewish culture does not need the Jewish religion anymore to stay alive.

I do not intend to be nasty, but tell me:  Having rejected Jewish religion,
what are you doing to ensure the survival of Jewish culture (as _Jewish_,
not universalistic principles) survive?

>
>
>
>>
>>There is no claim for morality, either explicit or implicit.  But it
>>does answer the  question of why Judaism opposes intermarriage; if
>>Judaism didn't, there would be no Judaism.
>
>
>Actually there is one claim for morality: That that says that if one 
>intermarriages is doing something like killing of stealing. 
>Saying that intermarriage is wrong is like claiming for morality.

No.  From a purely secular perspective, I am only suggesting that
permitting intermarriage is equivalent to abandoning Judaism.  If
you value Judaism,  this is bad.  If you do not value Judaism, then
there is nothing wrong with intermarriage.  (Again, just to make sure
I am not misunderstood:  I reject intermarriage on both secular grounds
[it compromises the survival of Judaism as an indentifiable movement]
and on halakhic grounds.)



-- 
Eliot Shimoff                  |    n   n   n
   shimoff@umbc3.umbc.edu      |   X + Y = Z .  Easy to prove no solutions
Ashamnu, bagadnu, gazalnu ...  |   for n greater than 2.  Darn.  Can't fit
Better luck next year!         |   it into this little .sig file.  Oh well.