Wednesday 20 October 2010

Note About "Torah in the News"

Please note:

Our "Torah in the News" section is generated by Google and is offered as a service to our readers. We have no say about the entries.

At the present time, it has been brought to our attention that there is an article being presented that, we expect, our readership would find offensive. Please do not associate this article with
Nishma. We still do believe that the benefits of offering this section outweigh the occasional time that such an article is found on it.

5 comments:

micha berger said...

The problem is, you're not being specific enough. What is more offensive:

... antisemites discussing R' Ovadia's opinion of non-Jews? And are they being factually inaccurate?
... the Jewish Week, whose editor is O, giving people a hard time for saying that a Jewish institution (another newspaper) shouldn't be celebrating gay unions?
... an press release about yet another erosion of traditional gender roles?

The whole litany makes me fear for our future.

-micha

Bob Miller said...

This section adds very little to our actual knowledge, so why bother to keep it?

Rabbi Ben Hecht said...

Micha's point is well taken. The fact is that many of the articles that come up are offensive to Orthodox sensibilities in different ways, some more, some less. The point is, though, that, I believe, it is important to know what is going on around us. These articles open us to perceptions and opinions that we, otherwise, may never encounter -- and these perceptions and opinions may actually dominate both the Jewish world and the general world. To function in either of these worlds demands of us that we know this.

Rabbi Ben Hecht

Bob Miller said...

If we had to worry about everyone's perceptions, we'd go nuts. We are exposed to these anyway through other channels.

Anonymous said...

Re: http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2010/10/18/major-rabbi-says-non-jews-are-donkeys-cr

Was Adam Jewish? If not, which Jews was Adam supposed to serve? Because the Torah tells us that he was created Btzelem Elokim, in the image of God. The Torah tells us that every man, not every Jew, is a human being created in God's image.

You think the Zohar says something different? Every scholar knows that the Zohar was written in 13th century Spain by Moses De Leon, who attributed his work to the Tanna Shimon Bar Yochai. Shimon Bar Yochai is no more the author of the Zohar than I am. Are there wonderful insights in the Zohar? Probably, but when it contradicts the simple statement of the Tanach, the Tanakh takes precedence over the Zohar, which even according to its adherents is not meant to be taken literally.

The Torah tells us to love the Egyptian, because we were strangers in his land. It quotes God as saying "you,(the Jewish people) are like the kushim to me. We Jews are considered by God the same as the Kushim, the same as the Schvartze. The Torah stresses man's dignity and equality. To say anything else is offensive to the core beliefs of Judaism.