Thursday, September 17, 2009

Enough Already on the Assimilation Thread?

Norm responds to my recent response to his response to me.

On first reading, I thought he had me. My sentiment is to disagree with his point, but he's built it so well and so logically I didn't see any clear way to refute it; indeed, he set me wondering if perhaps he's even right, and his logic should change my emotion's mind. (Can such a thing be done?)

The more I think about it, however, the more it seems we've stumbled onto a profound difference of opinion, touching upon the questions of who the Jews are, and what they're for.

But it's late in the week, tomorrow evening is the beginning of Rosh Hashana, so the discussion will wait for some other time.

In the meantime Norm, thanks for the discussion, and it's been an honour to have it with you.

Shana Tova.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am glad this thread hasn't been dropped! I promise to write what I have been mulling about after R.H.

What is sad about people not choosing to be Jews is that they are missing out on the many benefits religion can make to one's life. I will write more about this next after the hag.

In the mean time, off to last minute food shopping.

Shana tova.
Nycerbarb

Avigdor said...

What is sad about people not choosing to be Jews...

...is that they are not really making a choice. To make a decision between two choices, you need at least rudimentary understanding of what those choices constitute.

A Jew who never was taught what it means to be a Jew and filled that void with nonsense, or worse, was specifically taught lies, does not have the basic information necessary to make an educated decision.

The original Reform Jews made a real choice. Their children were never extended that privilege, and today we're dealing with their great great grandchildren.

As I mentioned to Yaacov on another post, the seeds for broad based Jewish assimilation in the West were laid long ago. What should shock us is not that those seeds are bearing fruit, but that they were laid in the first place.