From: rivk@ellis.uchicago.edu (nora gayle rivkis)
Subject: Re: Anti-Orthodoxy (was Re: O-C-R debate)
Reply-To: rivk@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1992 09:06:29 GMT

In article <1992Jul26.043801.24901@wam.umd.edu> aap@wam.umd.edu (Alberto Adolfo Pinkas) writes:
>In article <1992Jul26.031539.16521@midway.uchicago.edu> rivk@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>>
>>I do not advocate that other people violate the halachic code; that's
>>up to them and I don't approve of my, your, the local rabbi's, or any-
>>one else's attempting to sway the decision either way.
>
>This is bad. If you think that halacha is wrong, then, people following the 
>halacha on that point are not following God's given law.

You try telling me things like "this is bad" about my decision to
stay out of other people's business and then you call *me* judgemental?

>You should make them realize their mistake. After all, there should be a 
>reson for God giving the Jews his law.
>Religion is not a personal matter, it includes God, the religious person and 
>his/her community. 

There's the difference between us, Alberto -- you're willing to tell
me and other people what they 'should' do even though you don't believe
in any of it yourself. I accept individual decisions, and make them.

>>>So, are you violating halacha or what?
>>
>>In some cases, yes. Those are the cases where I think it is an incorrect
>>assessment of what Torah means. But I don't push others to do so.
>
>Well, I believe that the current law about intermarriage is not what the 
>Torah means. 

Your privilege; I think you're in error, of course, but I don't take
that as relevant to what you choose to do. I just wish you wouldn't
go around telling other people it's the only way to go, or wahtever.

>I have never made anybody marry anybody else. 

No, but you've told them outright that they should.

>Actally, I oppose marriage as an institution. 

This is not particularly relevant to the situation, and again comes
under the heading of pushing your views on the universe. If you don't
approve of marriage, then don't get married. But quit bugging other
people about it.

>However, I hate when people come and say that
>intermarriage is killing my culture or something like that. 

I'm not thrilled with it when you oppose every element of a culture that
comes up and then get high and mighty about 'your' culture, either, so
we're even.

>>>I guess you do not know.
>>
>>You guess wrong, as usual.
>
>Oh, no. I did not. I still believe that one, if one is religious, should not
>play it to justify his/her sins.

Now what the heck do you know about what I do and don't justify, and
why should I justify it to you in the first place? Get a clue, Alberto:
religious does not necessarily equal identical in one's beliefs to
everybody else. I don't base my judgement on what I want, which would
be about the only way to skew a position like mine into a way to justify
anything; I base it on legal reasoning taken from seventeen years of
American and British judicial history along with a heavy dose of math-
ematical logic. To suggest that this is 'playing it to justify... sins'
is to admit to knowing absolutely zerio about the law. Take a third-grade
civics course; then come back and make sense.

>>	-Nora

>AAP

Note: say what you like in return; I've never known you to shut up
until you choke on your own feet; but I'm sick of arguing with you
and this is the last I am going to say on the subject. This may not
be interpreted to mean that you've won your point except in the sense 
that a baby will win most arguments by squalling loudly enough that
everyone will give it what it wants just to be done with its fussing.

	-Nora
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish