But I do want to add a different perspective.
Some bloggers have tried to claim that the fact that the Torah calls this act toeivah, an abomination, doesn't serve as a reason for us to hate the said person.
They point to other instances in the Torah where such language is used, yet we find little hate for these kind of people.
Now, I think its obvious that we should not have any issue at all with a non-Jew committing these act described as such, since they aren't bound to them.
Religious Jews generally don't commit these transgressions. The only one that some try to jump on is this:
15. [Rather,] you shall have a full and honest weight, [and] a full and honest ephah measure, in order that your days will be prolonged on the land which the Lord, your God, gives you.
16. For whoever does these things, whoever perpetrates such injustice, is an abomination to the Lord, your God.How many Jews do any of you know who commit this very crime?
Now, its quite possible that if such things would indeed happen, we would not react to it the way we react to the subject matter.
This is not an excuse to temper our reaction here. On the contrary, we should try to raise our level of sensitivity to all these other abominations to garner a similar, disgusted reaction.
Still, the fact that we should be disgusted by such behavior doesn't mean that we should publicly shame these people. How to relate to these people is for another post.
2 comments:
The difference between weights 'n' measures and ssexuality is that the latter evinces a far more primal response in people than the former. Fishel cheating his business partners might annoy us, but Fishel cheating on his wife with his partner's dog? Oy, what a menuval.
However, like everywhere else in life, the Torah asks us to rise above our primal responses and inner animal sense of what is right and wrong and feel the way the Torah would have us feel instead.
Thus another blogger already noted that the same people who were disgusted with the YU conference have no problem shaking the hand of a prominent Chasidic rebbe being jailed for monetary fraud, despite his also committing a toevah.
You are therefore correct that we should be as disgusted with other toevahs as with the sexual one.
My point exactly.
Some tried to twist this into saying that we should behave towards individuals who commit this depravity like we behave towards the ganef.
Although I'm not sure its *wrong* to shake hand, you could still wince.
Post a Comment