See here for Part 1. What follows is my response to the email and then R'Tzvi Freeman's reply
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Rabbi Freeman,
Thanks for your response, it was most thoughtful. Your answer satisfies me on one level, but still leaves with more questions.
1) I found a letter online from the Rebbe on this issue {http://www.sichosinenglish.org/books/letters-rebbe-1/53.htm}. The letter is essentially a whole list of references to books that I do not have. Is the Rebbe basically giving the same answer that you gave?
2) This is a topic that has bothered me before, below is an excerpt from a letter I wrote to someone (unfortunately I never received a response from them). If you could respond to this part of the letter I would be most appreciative. Essentially the real issue is not so much about the ideological / theological underpinnings of how we view the gentile (althought very important), but how this attitude gets manifested in our daily behaviour and in our halachic practice. If you could provide me an answer to this question, in reference to the issues raised below, I will be eternally grateful.
"The issue of the gentile and the "other" in our religion (whether ideas, philosophies, religions, "mada") strikes a very sharp painful cord in my heart. The severe contrast between the the ethical maxisms "Man is created in G-d's image'", "Love your neighbour as yourself" and as eloquently put by the Prophet Micah "He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord demands of you; but to do justice, to love loving-kindness, and to walk discreetly with your God" and the laws relating to the gentile are very very differcult to reconcile. No one put it better than Rabbi Yaakov Yechiel Weingberg "The Seridei Aish"in a letter to a friend (source Torah U Maddah article by Marc Shapiro)
"The spiritual state in all circles brings sadness and hopelessness. I have bitter thoughts about the very existence of the nation an its hope for the future. The entire world hates us. We assume that this hatred is due to the wickedness of the nations and no one stops to think that perhaps we also bear some guilt. We regard all the nations as similiar to an ass. It is forbidden to save a gentile, it is forbidden to offer him free medical treatment, it is forbidden to violate the sabbath to save his life, his sexual intercourse does not render a woman forbidden to her husband according to R. Tam because "their issue is like the issue of horses". Can the nations resign themselves to such deprivations of rights? It is permitted to deceive a gentile and cancel his debt as well as forbidden to return his lost object. What can we do? Can we uproot our torah teaching with apologetic formulae or clever deceptions. God knows that I have written this the blood of my heart, the blood of my soul.
Also:
"Does not their Talmud say, and do not their rabbis write, that it is no sin to kill if a Jew kills a heathen, but it is a sin if he kills a brother in Israel? It is no sin if he does not keep his oath to a heathen. Therefore, to steal and rob, as they do with their usury, from a heathen is a divine service. For they hold that they cannot be too hard on us nor sin against us, because they are of the noble blood and circumcised saints; we, however, are cursed goyim. And they are the masters of the world, and we are their servants, yea, their cattle…
"Should someone think that I am saying too much, I am not saying too much, but much too little. For I see in their writings how they curse us goyim and wish us all evil in their schools and their prayers.
"Martin Luther, 1543 "Von den Juden und Ihren Lugen"
(For actual sources of laws against gentiles see websites www.talkreason.org under Historical notes and counter apologetics, the website www.come-and-hear.com and Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years by Israel Shahak)
No non jew today fulfiles the criteria of the Rambam (well 99.99% at least) to be considered a bnei noach so the majority of the non jewish population is not up there (exception maybe meiri and the tiferet yisrael who would hold different). But what about the hindu, the buddist, and members of any other religion, is there no salvation for them at the end of the tunnel after all there hard years of work, faith and devotion, do they not all suffer have moments of happiness have families, etc? I think a comment by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle summarises my position in the story entitled, "The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger. It is about a woman who always wears a veil over her face because she was horribly disfigured by a lion. Upon hearing her story, Holmes exclaimed, "Poor girl! Poor girl! The ways of fate are indeed hard to understand. If there is not some compensation hereafter, then the world is a cruel jest."
Regards,
Rael Levinsohn
Sydney, Australia
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My apologies once again for taking so long. I managed to steal some time now and push this out. It may sound a little disjointed considering that I wrote it piecemeal whenever I could grab a moment. But your comments will certainly be welcomed:
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Rael,
1. Whatever I wrote, I gleaned from the Rebbe's writings, but in my own style and words. Originality of thought is not my forte.
A common theme in the Rebbe's writing on the subject is that everything that exists is vitalized by a divine spark. Nothing is inherently evil, other than the temporary form it takes on. When we say that a soul or an animal or an act receives its vitality from "the powers of tuma"–we don't mean that tuma gives life to anything. Tuma, evil and such are no more than artifacts of the concealment of the Divine life that flows into each thing.
(This idea is really inherent in the teachings of the Arizal and it is remarkable that Leibniz, who was well-acquainted with such when he wrote his Theodicy, was unable to accept this.)
2. I also read this quote from the Sridei Aish and it struck a chord with me. I believe this is a tempestuous struggle that every thinking Jew who identifies with our mesorah must face head on.
First, a few crucial quick points. I wish I had time for more, but I am forced to be terse by the restraints of time:
a. The Rambam seems to consider Moslems to be Bnei Noach. My Rosh Hakollel, Rav Izac Schwei, olov hasholom, told us clearly that we must consider the typical non-Jew in Canada/US today a BN. Which means, he said, that we are commanded to sustain his life and provide him a job and medicine if needed.
b. The educated, thinking Hindus I am familiar with are monotheists. So are many of the Buddhists, if we define the term loosely enough. Those who are not educated are not truly ovdei avodah zara—they are just blindly following traditions.
I am not a rav and Halacha is not my forte, however I have been told such by several rabbonim.
c. Luther's comment: Aside from the untruths concerning the sin of murder, etc., I am reminded of one of the vichuchim of the medieval period. After the priest proudly displayed that their Christian universal ethics were so superior to the ethics of the Jew, the Jew lashed back admonishing the Christians that, yes, perhaps your ideals are very great–but what of them do you keep? When you see a stranger, he accuses, you rob him of the shirt off his back and leave him dead in the forest. We, on the other hand, feed the starved, clothe the naked and welcome the stranger, whether he be Jew or stranger.
And this is the fact: Look at reality, not theory, and you will see that there is no people as tolerant, giving and compassionate as our own. Who fought for American Civil Rights? Who joined the Peace Corps? Who built all these hospitals in America and Canada, along with so many of the other charitable institutions?
An elderly chossid I know told of his experience in a forced labor camp in Siberia. He was wilting away in the camp's hospital, suffering malnutrition and exposure when he heard the pleas from the bed next to his. It was a "Subotnik" (I believe those are something like Dukobours) and he was pleading for water. Without a thought, the chossid gave him his ration of water.
When I heard the story, not being much of a chossid myself, I naively asked, "Is that the halacha?" The reply? "Probably not. But it's hard to do otherwise."
As they say, in theory there is no difference between theory and practice–but in practice there is. (See also my article at this site on slavery for the Rambam on this– http://www.chabad.org/ 305549). I think what concerns both of us foremost is practice, not theory.
d. We can reduce the Arizal's presentation of the matter to the following: The human being is essentially Divine. However, at present, the vast majority of humanity is stuck in a destructive modality that is completely out of synch with his purpose of being and in acrimony with the entire Creation. The exceptions are those "righteous gentiles" who are keeping the Noahide code and Jews at the time that they are not involved in acts forbidden by the Torah.
Concerning the first part of this summary, I believe I wouldn't have much trouble getting a lot of social workers, psychologists, environmentalists, etc. to immediately agree. Personally, I would like to believe that things are not as hopeless as all this sounds. That perhaps now, 500 years after the Reformation and with the universal acceptance of values of peace, equality, human dignity and social responsibility, the human race has become more liberated than in the Arizal's times–certainly more than in Talmudic times.
And perhaps they are. In his last years, the Rebbe stated often, "Esau has been purified. Even the gentile world is ready for moshiach."
But then, why is it that when you gather together the representatives of all the nations of the world into one building, their entire preoccupation is with condemning Israel? Why does the bigotry persist? Why can’t anti-Semitism go away? The Rebbe saw the big picture. Sadly, from our perspective, the Ruach haTuma still covers the earth.
Am I satisfied with this? Problem is, I am not. The struggle between the philanthropist within me and the empiricist—that I can settle with my reading of the Arizal. To some degree, it helps with my reading of chazal, as well. However, I also need a concept of progress and adaptation in Torah. I can’t accept that I should have the same attitude as we ascribe to the Tannaim who lived in the Roman era.
I addressed this issue of adaptation and change in two articles. One, the piece on slavery which I referred to above. Another is my article on “Women in the Synagogue” http://www.chabad.org/ 444101
Something I didn’t write into those articles: It strikes me that we Jews tend to think of books as more real than people. What I mean is that if the Rambam would walk into the room and start arguing with a typical rosh yeshiva, he would probably ask one of his talmidim to “bring me the Rambam.” It doesn’t matter that the Rambam is standing in front of him—the real Rambam is the book. Just as the real Moshe Rabenu is not the flesh and blood tzadik who lived 3300 years ago, but the Moshe Rabenu who appears every week in the Torah we read in shul.
What I mean to bring out from this is that, in concert with the post-moderns, to us, the word—and therefore the interpretation—is everything. And this it turns out is a very powerful mechanism to adaptation. It means that we do not have to concern ourselves with the original intent of the authors, whether they be rishonim or tannaim. Our concern is with the meaning of the text. That’s where we believe Hashem’s Divine Spirit rests, as the Beis Yosef would write, “This is the mishna speaking in my mouth.” Or as the prophet said, “The spirit of Hashem speaks within me and His words are on my tongue.”
I am saying that we are permitted to reinterpret chazal as time progresses and as the people around us begin to conform to the morals they have gleaned from our Torah. I don’t think this is heresy—I think this is what we have been doing all along.
This all deals with the apparent disgust (and worse) in chazal towards the nations.
Concerning equality: Let me reduce our question to the following: One the one hand, the concept of human equality is rooted in the Torah. On the other hand, our own chazal, not only in theology but in practical Halacha, seem to undermine that equality.
The response to this is that of R. Eliezer in the Zohar, echoed in the Kuzari: That the entirety of humanity is a single body of which the Jewish people is the heart. The heart, they both continue, is a delicate organ and must be treated differently than say the foot or the hand—or even the liver.
It seems this is an argument against Kant’s categorical imperative which implies a single universal law for all people. Torah certainly does not accept such an axiom. As often stated, equality does equal sameness. Neither does it imply an abandoning of protocol.
I’m dropping off here simply because if I don’t, I never will. I’m interested in your comments on the above. Perhaps these will help me better clarify the issue for myself.
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Let me know if this helps. Don't forget to use the link above to get back to me.
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— Rabbi Tzvi Freeman for Chabad.org
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