From: MASH@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL (Michael Shimshoni)
Subject: Re: On Orthodox Monopoly
Organization: Mail to News Gateway at Wang Labs
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 92 14:57:45 +0200

In: <mannj.715885532@acf9>
mannj@acf9.nyu.edu (Jordan Mann) replies to an article of mine:

>MASH@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL (Michael Shimshoni) writes:
>>gertler@ptms_dev.sbi.com (User - Don Gertler):

I will  skip that part in  which Jordan attempts to  show that today's
Reform and Conservative denominations are different from all the sects
during and after  the second temple.  I agree with  that.  A couple of
thousands years have passed and thus people may develop different ways
of  approaching texts,  taking them  perhaps less  literally.  If  the
Rambam could  have said  that, say, the  sacrifices were  a compromise
with the  mores of the  time the Torah  was written, then  more modern
Jewish theologians  may deduce from  the change of times  that certain
rituals written in the Torah are no longer binding.

I am not a spokesman for either the Conservative or the Reform groups,
belonging to neither, but the  question was if deviations from Halakha
practices  and  interpretations  as developed  into  today's  Orthodox
practices, needed  justification It is  also irrelevant if  the Rambam
advocated giving up  sacrifices after the Temple gets  rebuilt (as one
could deduce from his More Nevukhim),  or that in spite of these views
he would not  change these practices as is stated  in his earlier opus
Mishne Torah.  Even  if one does not accept that  the More Nevukhim is
the more final, perhaps more mature, view of Rambam, one can say, that
there is  no need to follow  the Rambam in his  practical conclusions,
but once it is realized that the rules of the Torah were influenced by
the time they were written,  changes in circumstances should encourage
people to change some of these rituals.

As  said,  it  is  not  for  me  to  defend  the  conclusions  of  the
Conservative or Reform, all I tried to  show was that no group has the
right to say that their interpretation is the only valid one.

While it is  essentially correct what Jordan stated,  that the earlier
sects accepted the "Written Law" as it  is in the Torah, the fact that
they rejected  the Rabbinic interpretations and  extensions, serves to
show that these Rabbinic views were  not likely something known to all
Jews of  that period  as ancient (Sinaic?)  tradition, but  just, what
they  actually   are,  something   the  Rabbis  considered   a  proper
interpretation, which they called Oral Law from Sinai to give it extra
weight.

But I  wish mainly to  reply to  Jordan's remarks about  the Ethiopian
Jews and their form of Jewish religion.  I had written:

>>I  mentioned before  a couple  of times  "see below",  so here  we are
>>"below".  These days the religious  leaders of the Ethiopian Jews, the
>>"Keisim"  (sp?) are  demonstrating against  the Orthodox  Rabbinate in
>>Israel which refuses  to recognize them as Rabbis, i.e.  as people who
>>are allowed to perform weddings, divorces etc. for the Ethiopian Jews.
>>The Orthodox  leadership in  Israel (which, as  is well  known, denies
>>such   rights  also   to  Conservative   and  Reform   Rabbis)  claims
>>(correctly!) that  the Keisim  cannot be  recognized because  they are
>>ignorant of the  Halakha.  While this claim is correct,  it only shows
>>that a group of Jews which were cut off from the rest of the Jews, are
>>quite naturally unaware  of all the additions and/or  changes (or some
>>may call it  even distortions) of the Jewish religion  during the last
>>2000  or  so years.   Does  Don  wish from  now  on  to be  called  an
>>Orthojudaist,  returning  the  term  Judaism and  Jewish  Law  to  the
>>Ethiopians?

To that Jordan reacted:

>Surely Michael cannot be confident that Judaism as practiced in Ethiopia
>is an accurate representation of Judaism as practiced 3000 years ago.

Correct, I am  not confident at all on that.   Everything changes over
the years,  and so has the  practice of the Jewish  religion, thus the
same argument applies to present day Orthodox Jews.

>After all, there is a body of opinion that they are descended from people
>who never actually converted to Judaism, but just adopted many of its
>customs.

There may be such  a body of opinion, I do not know  if it was so.  It
seems that  the (Orthodox) Chief  Rabbis of  Israel do not  share that
view,  otherwise they  would not  ask of  the Ethiopian  Jews just  to
undergo a symbolic conversion (giyur lehumra), which is a far cry from
what would have been asked of people who "never actually converted".

>          And even if they originally practiced Judaism as it was
>practiced at the time, their isolation and persecution could have caused
>them to forget and/or distort their practice considerably.

We agree  on more and more.   One should also realize  that other Jews
were not enjoying a persecution free  life in the last 2000 years.  As
it happened, there were many groups  of Jews isolated for quite a long
time  from  other groups.   When  two  Jewish  groups met,  one  often
accepted the other's views and thus  we reached a form of unity.  This
does not  show that the  prevailing opinion was more  "authentic", and
less distorted.   The Talmud  reached the  European Jews  rather late,
eventually they  accepted it, and  unity was achieved, this  in itself
only proves that those who brought the Talmud were intellectually more
powerful,  not that  they  were more  authentic, if  by  that we  mean
carrier of the "true" and continuous tradition.

>>>-Don Gertler
>
>>  Michael Shimshoni
>
>Jordan Mann at NYU      (mannj@cims.nyu.edu)

 Michael Shimshoni
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish