Blind Acceptance of old Rabbinic Law

[baseball guy]

Unless I am terribly mistaken, many Rabbinic laws were made centuries ago by Rabbis addressing the needs of their followers in their time periods. Therefore, would it not make sense to think about the possiblility that those laws should be modified today? We live in a different world! Obviously some laws would remain the same, but others would be outdated. Why should we use a 16th century document (the Shulchan Aruch) as our main guide? Why aren't we encouraged to think for ourselves about the validity of some Rabbinic halachos? They are man made and therefore could be wrong and definately could be outdated.

By the way, another problem I see is many students blindly listen to their Rebbe's in school without thinking first. What's worse is that is encouraged.

[taon]

the things they said arent outdated. look at the reasonings behind them, they still apply and even if they didnt you cant say i wont follow these they dont apply to me, you can find reasons other things wont apply, and then whats left?

[baseball guy]

There are many things outdated. Here is a prime example: 1) You can't swim on Shabbos because you might build a raft. When this was made no one had pools; everyone swam in dangerous open water. Also, raft-building was a basic survival skill. Nowadays building a raft is totally impractical. (I have other examples as well.)

By the way, many halachos that were outdated were changed to become more stringent. For example: electricity on Shabbos. There was no electricity in the 16th century. Nonetheless, it is now assur to turn on a light on shabbos.

You will not eradicate all halacha. Instead, you will modify laws that were made in very different time periods and very different worlds. New Rabbinic laws should also be made for new circumstances.

Another important point is we live in a society today where Jews are accpeted among the larger America. That was very different when the Shulchan Aruch was written. Jews were at best ignored and left ot make their own rules in their own small villages. American historians often note that the reason the Constitution has survived until now is that it can be amended when some laws become outdated. Shouldn't the same be true with Rabbinic law? Will we not realize things and times change?

[PrUnE]

Well i have a question lets say ur diggin a whole before shabbos, u cant keep diggin that hole once shabbos starts because ur doin work, then again why can u have lights on? cause ur makin the eletricty do work or the candles on cause he11 the flames are doin work durin shabbos.

[2face78]

baseball dude-to put in simply-UR WRONG
we are totally not pushed to blindly follow the rebbe. thats christianity-in judaism ur supposed to ask questions. true there is a time and place for everything but i garuntee that a rebbe in skool will be willing to answer ur questions about G-d sex other stuff. just some are uncomfortable and very frum and have trouble understanding why someone else would not follow the rules or understand them. u just need to find the right rebbe
IM OUT

[baseball guy]

Prune - I'm sorry but I read it about 3 times and i just dont get what you are asking. Could you please clarify?

2face: My problem is not that my Rabbis in schol wont answer questions, it is that other students don't ask. We have a wonderful Rabbi in my school anyone can talk to about pretty much anything. Sometimes he convinces me of his opinions and other times I think he is wrong and we agree to disagree. Which is fine with both of us. I have the utmost respect for the man. My problem is other students (my friends) look at that as a problem. "If Rabbi X says something is right, then it is" is the attitude I dislike. With luck they might think of reasons to agree, but never consider disagreeing. I have a friend (lets call him Bob) who was (pardon my use of the word, but) normal 2 years ago. Now he is a total follower of his "Rebbes" in school. My other friend (lets sat Sam) learns more and I would say is more religious than Bob but definately does question his teachers. Though when we discuss things we dont always agree, we are always open minded to each other and to different ideas. Sam however is in the small minority. What's happening here? Why are students so ready to accept ideas without thinking first? It's not like they lack a brain either. They are in the top class!

By the way, please don't forget my question about adapting rabbinic law to our world and our time (see beginning of thread). I am really curious to hear answers on that.

[2face78]

its called reform judaism...
IM OUT

[PrUnE]

Prune - I'm sorry but I read it about 3 times and i just dont get what you are asking. Could you please clarify?The law for shabbos from the old rabbis, sayin u can not do work on shabbos, my question was why can a human not do work but a candle can? whether ur alive or not ur still doin work.

[baseball guy]

Reform judaism rejects all laws, Biblical or Rabbinic, that in any way separate us from society. I am just saying adapt Rabbinic law - keep the concept of the law but not the exact definition. Let's use the example above - not swimming on shabbos. Say you cant swim in a river on Shabbos.
The reason a candle can do work is there is no prohibition for it to do work on Shabbos. You cannot turn it on, because that is an action you are taking and you have a prohibition. The candle/light can do work on Shabbos as it "wishes" as long as YOU are not involved. Or at least that is what i vaugely remember. I could be wrong.

[J&B]

baseb. guy, you r right! Many things should definitely change!!!
Bad news: we lost the proper institutions to make changes to our law some 1500 years ago....
It would be indeed great to have again a jewish supreme court that could make our legl system progress. the problem is... who would form that court (obviously, they need to be unanimously accepted). Well, we need 70 justices. Could you name ONE that would be accepted by most Jews? If he wore black hat, would the "kipa srugah" accept him? if he were sephardic, would ashkenazim accept him? We are too divided to deserve it...

Blind faith is always wrong. Not only with rabbies... Rabbies have no right whatsoever to tell anyone what to do. I mean, Jewish-law-wise. Being a rabbi doesn't mean that whatever they say is now the Jewish law...

[baseball guy]

J&B - I have heard that reason before, but it still does not solve the problem. We have outdated laws that need to be changed if we dont want an outdated religion. I feel it is better to have different people following different levels of rabbinic law than to have everyone following laws that are bad nowadays. We already have division in halacha. Some say we should support Israel, some say we shouldnt. Some say we should go to college, some say we should go to yu, others say we should go to the best college we can get into. Some say women should cover their ankles, others say their knees. Some daven ashkenaz some daven sfardi. Why cant we have the same divisions by changing old rabbinic law?

Thank you very much for keeping this thread alive. I am really struggling with this.

[J&B]

bg: I know it doesn't sound so good... What can we do. It is the sad reality.
Off course, we shouldn't be divided over insignificant details as how to daven, or how should our skirts be designed. Forget about those. Just do whatever pleases you on that small matters.

There are some other things that should be changed but til they are we need to just follow them. For ex. non kosher cheese. Eventhough today all it is used for nonkosher cheese is chemicals, we are still bound to our law.
I would also change some more serious things like the right of a woman to divorce from her husband without his consent, etc.

Just to ilustrate. Imagine we are in the year 1910. Women in the US aren'yt allowed to vote. Now, suddenly, all justices and all senators die in a tragic accident. We are right now without any formal institution for law making. Most of the country thinks that women should vote. Could we take the law in our hands and just ammend thye constitution? NO!!! We should make changes just through the right process...

Our sad reality is that our last supreme justices lived some 1500 years ago... the only thing we can do is to try to unite our nation to make a supreme court available again!!! I'm with you on that task http://www.thelockers.net/forum/images/smilies/wink.gif !!!

[baseball guy]

When a country is without an institution for law-making it drafts a new one. In your illustrated case, the contitution would still be in effect, meaning there still is a way to amend it - 2/3 vote of congress, 3/4 states ratifying it. (The governors would appoint senators, the president would appoint supreme court justices & the new senators owuld confirm them.)
When Iraq makes its new government, they are going to adopt a new constitution becuase there old one was outdated.
Should there be a process to go to, I would be all for going through the process to amend the laws. However, There is no longer a process to go through!
Since different Jews already legitimately practice Judaism differently - waiting 1 hour, 3, 5, or 6; different laws of taharat hamishpacha for ashkenazim and sefardim; the examples i mentioned last time; and we have no mechanism to make a "nationwide" change (If you consider the Jews a nation, but thats another story) then why not have different rabbis in different communities come up with their own opinions and have people consult their "local orthodox rabbi" or even learn the halachos and decide for themselves?

[J&B]

you r right! but the reason we didn't draft any new constitution was because besides having lost our legal system we were scattered all around the world (remember that back then we didn't have emails or phones, not even AOL!!!) So, unfortunatelly, we started separating more and more, to follow different customs, and here we are now! We could today join all of the Jewish nation and ammend our constitution after reestablishing our legal system. "Im tirzu, Ein zo Agadah!" (-Hertzl)
We should definitely come up with some plan to unite our nation (yes! Judaism is a nationality...) and forge a sanhedrin. It only takes unity, and who doesn't want it? btw, when the state of israel was established, two rabbies saw that to be the right moment for renewing our legal system: R BenTzion 'Uziel, and R Goren. Unfortunately, they failed. Maybe this time it's up to us!

[baseball guy]

Half or more of the Jews problems in the world today come about because of infighting, but thats another story.
Unfortunately, uniting Jews in the next decade or so seems unlikely at best barring some disaster. So, each group of Jews should amend things they see fit. It can go by shul or by community or whatever. But lets be realistic here.

[J&B]

Half or more of the Jews problems in the world today come about because of infighting, but thats another story.
Unfortunately, uniting Jews in the next decade or so seems unlikely at best barring some disaster. So, each group of Jews should amend things they see fit. It can go by shul or by community or whatever. But lets be realistic here. The problem is that the realistic view doesn't suit you... realisticly, we are bound to the old outdated laws as well!

unity is not impossible. and it's extremely important. and it's urgent for our nation. what you suggest of following every group their own laws would create a thousand religions out of judaism. btw, that's kinda what happened with jesus and christianity...

now that i think of it, controversies in Judaism are meant for unity!!! sounds crazy, right? let me explain what i mean.

if instead of keeping argueing with each other regarding what should everybody follow, we would start following each one of us something different...

[baseball guy]

Realistically, if we go on without changing anything we are a dead religion. How to fix this? Well, realistically we have to have people doing different things b/c we cant unify.

Let me tell you, I am a strong supporter for unity, but if you are going to tell me reform, conservative, traditional, conservadox, modern-orthodox, yeshivish, chariedi, chassidish, misnagdish, askkenazi, sefardi, etc. - If you are going to tell me that all these different groups (who fight with each other and have subgroups) are going to come together and agree on a sanhedrin or something, then I'm sorry, but you unfortunately are in a galaxy far, far away. If you can think of a way to unite Jews, please let me know I will work on it gladly. Yet I dont see that happening very soon - again, barring some calamity or mashiach or whatever.

We argue for truth, not unity. We argue what everyone should follow b/c each opinion thinks he or she is right. If person A is right, then everyone should follow A. Sometimes A convinces B that he is right. If yes, then both should follow A, as is what happens. Otherwise, we follow different positions, like the ones i mentioned in previous posts.

[J&B]

`Realistically, if we go on without changing anything we are a dead religion. How to fix this? Well, realistically we have to have people doing different things b/c we cant unify.

Let me tell you, I am a strong supporter for unity, but if you are going to tell me reform, conservative, traditional, conservadox, modern-orthodox, yeshivish, chariedi, chassidish, misnagdish, askkenazi, sefardi, etc. - If you are going to tell me that all these different groups (who fight with each other and have subgroups) are going to come together and agree on a sanhedrin or something, then I'm sorry, but you unfortunately are in a galaxy far, far away. If you can think of a way to unite Jews, please let me know I will work on it gladly. Yet I dont see that happening very soon - again, barring some calamity or mashiach or whatever.

We argue for truth, not unity. We argue what everyone should follow b/c each opinion thinks he or she is right. If person A is right, then everyone should follow A. Sometimes A convinces B that he is right. If yes, then both should follow A, as is what happens. Otherwise, we follow different positions, like the ones i mentioned in previous posts.Look. My point was that you were blaming the Jewish system for our stagnation in old laws (at least i understood it that way). So I proved that the responsible for that is not the Jewish legal system, that in fact allows progress, but us. It's our fault that we aren't united.
So the only thing we can do is doing what our forefathers did for 1,500 years: to keep also the old laws.
B"H, we will eventually improve and unite. I truely believe so. How? When? I dk. Maybe if we start doing those small things, it might change faster! Cuz, u have to accept that part of the fault is ours (me and you). We also do small things that contribute to the division in our people.

Tolerance, understanding and pacience!!!

[baseball guy]

I am a strong proponent of interdenominational relations and pretty much any productive discussions and events with Jews with different observance levels. However, whose ever fault it is, we are not united and must proceed acordingly - update laws ourselves without the entire Jewish communities approval.

[lost33]

look bg ur ideas about pdating diff laws but what we have now has worked for thousands of years! domnt tell me we are in a modern age things are different bec u know what things were diff wen the jews left babylonia to europe, things were diff hwne the jews got kicked out of spaina dn had to go elswere, things were different after napolean, jews awere coisedred citizens ect, things were diff after the so called "enlightnement", yet throughout all these changes our laws have sustained us and enabled us to be able to survive as jews.

[J&B]

.... However, whose ever fault it is, we are not united and must proceed acordingly - update laws ourselves without the entire Jewish communities approval."Ourselves"??? Who would it be??? I mean, when I think in 'we' terms, I try to think in the widest sense of the Jewish people...
Lemme tell'ya why "we" aren't entitled to change anything without the consent of the rest of our nation.
What binds us to the Jewish Law is the covenant we did with Hashem at Sinai. The Jewish Nation accepted the terms of a bilateral covenant (bilateral cuz in turn, we are the chosens...), willingly. Btw, the terms can be found written in some scrolls commonly located in synagogues, whose popular name is "Torah" - Law:D .
Now, obviously the next question anyone would ask is "but... I don't remember having been at Sinai!!!" ...valid point. Although we didn't commit to the Torah individually, we did as a Nation. So my own commitment to the Torah nowadays, is not as an individual per se, but as a member of the entity called Jewish Nation.
U see then, that it's quite senseless to want to reinterpret some details on the terms of that covenant without the consent of the entity that actually made this pact with G-d!!!http://www.thelockers.net/forum/images/smilies/smile.gif

[lost33]

good point J&B not its my turn to say u said evrything i wanted to say hhahah

[baseball guy]

Lost - These laws have sustained us up until the era of enlightenment because we stayed in the same predicament - persecution. Once we had the chance to be accepted by outside society, the Jewish people had a huge dillema - do we want to be accepted, and if so, at what cost. I am taking modern jewish history now and could go into details, but lets just say there were different approaches ranging from leaving judaism altogether to what i propose to ignoring outside society completely. I do not believe the older halachos are sustaining us well. In fact, J&B, they are leading to infighting! Orthodox Jews control marriage and divorce in Israel. Women cannot testify in divorce proceedings and often get messed over because of this. They then, in turn, hate Orthodox Jews. Meanwhile, I would propose that right now women should be allowed to testify ina bes din. Men are no longer embarrassed about women testifying in court. Society has changed! (I would also propose that orthodox rabbis only dela with the get itself and not the court stuff, but thats another matter for another time.) Fact is, old laws are not keeping us ok anymore, they are harming us. It is up to us to realize this.
J&B - I would love to have all of Bnai Yisrael agree to these terms, but until that happens, each individual should take decide on how to apply halacha for themselves. I would strongly suggest discussing your conclusins with others, because 2 minds are always better than one (and 3 are better than 2 and so on). Obviously divorce court is not a good example for this, but you get the point.

[lost33]

look i agree baseball guy that certain halachot may seem outdated now but once u statr taking some away, first who are we to end halachot that have sustained us for so long and two even if we do whihc ones can we take awya and once we start whose to say we wont stop i mean look at the reform and conservative moevments thyev been cutting back on halachot for generations eventually theyll hvae nothing left! we cant just start ending the practice of certain halchot bec they may seem extarnoues to us or they are a little annoying, these laws and customs are who we are, u cant just stop them

[J&B]

Lost - These laws have sustained us up until the era of enlightenment because we stayed in the same predicament - persecution. Once we had the chance to be accepted by outside society, the Jewish people had a huge dillema - do we want to be accepted, and if so, at what cost. I am taking modern jewish history now and could go into details, but lets just say there were different approaches ranging from leaving judaism altogether to what i propose to ignoring outside society completely. I do not believe the older halachos are sustaining us well. In fact, J&B, they are leading to infighting! Orthodox Jews control marriage and divorce in Israel. Women cannot testify in divorce proceedings and often get messed over because of this. They then, in turn, hate Orthodox Jews. Meanwhile, I would propose that right now women should be allowed to testify ina bes din. Men are no longer embarrassed about women testifying in court. Society has changed! (I would also propose that orthodox rabbis only dela with the get itself and not the court stuff, but thats another matter for another time.) Fact is, old laws are not keeping us ok anymore, they are harming us. It is up to us to realize this.
J&B - I would love to have all of Bnai Yisrael agree to these terms, but until that happens, each individual should take decide on how to apply halacha for themselves. I would strongly suggest discussing your conclusins with others, because 2 minds are always better than one (and 3 are better than 2 and so on). Obviously divorce court is not a good example for this, but you get the point.u r saying that:
1- persecution is what led to spiritual growth; tolleration should lead us to "modernization"
2- nowadays, halacha brings more fighting than unification
3- women should be allowed to testify in a Jewish court
4- "each individual should take decide how to apply halacha for themselves"
5- that i should be discussing this issue with others

i say:
1- the greatest spiritual growth often called as "the Jewsih golden age" happened both during the start of the Islam (~950-1200), and with the Jews of Italy and Amsterdam (~1650-1800). We had never in history (of the diaspora) been in better conditions than then...
2- Obviously, the split we see today in Judaism is a clear flaw. The mistake though is in blaming the Jewish Legal System (which is perfect) instead of blaming ourselves.
3- The reason why women aren't allowed to testify is to avoid both their physical and mental abuse. Women are by far more emotional and, sensitive-wise, fragile than men. It's a fact. Today's criminal interrogation is a form of torture that the Torah did not want for women. It can end up distorting the objective truth of the case. You would be surprised of learning about the numerous cases where women end up falsely testifying upon giving up to psychological torture (which is legally fine in the US).
4- Never! What you r asking 4 is the anihilation of Judaism, and consequently, of the Jewish people!!! btw, that might actually be the reason of today's so many controversies: that rabbies take ilegitimately the law on their hands, and decide whatever they wish. Also rabbies can't do it if it's not through the corresponding system.
5- That's what I'm doing right now!http://www.thelockers.net/forum/images/smilies/wink.gif