"The Left Hand of God" no longer has a place here
Received Friday via e-mail from Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God:
"We at Tikkun feel equally grieving for the people killed by vicious and immoral terrorists at the Yeshiva Mercaz HaRav (the ultra-nationalist religious center that developed the ideology which inspired religious Zionists to believe that they had a God-given right to settle and hold on to the territories without regard to the consequences for the Palestinian people already living there) as we do for the victims of Israeli terror (which in the past week killed 120 people, many of them children, many of them sitting in their homes when Israeli troops randomly fire-bombed and murdered them, as documented by the same international human rights organizations that today condemned the attack in Jerusalem by terrorists)."
"Israeli terror"??? If you wish to say that you disagree with the settler philosophy, that's one thing. But once you describe as terrorists those defending their fellow citizens against terrorists, you've gone beyond the pale. I've heard that the Talmud says, "If someone comes to kill you, kill him first."*
I have just unsubscribed from Tikkun Magazine's Network of Spiritual Progressives.
I've also removed The Left Hand of God from our book shelves. We'll probably just give it to our local library.
*I really want to know where there this quote comes from, so, if you can supply chapter and verse, kindly do so in the comments.
Mich said...
It's in Sanhedrin, 8th chapter (ben sorer u'moreh), daf ayin-bet, amud alef. The context is the discussion of the ganav ba'machteret. Rashi makes mention of it in his commentary to Shemot 22:1, dibbur hamatchil ein lo damim.
Sun Mar 09, 09:31:00 PM 2008
Thanks, Mich!
"We at Tikkun feel equally grieving for the people killed by vicious and immoral terrorists at the Yeshiva Mercaz HaRav (the ultra-nationalist religious center that developed the ideology which inspired religious Zionists to believe that they had a God-given right to settle and hold on to the territories without regard to the consequences for the Palestinian people already living there) as we do for the victims of Israeli terror (which in the past week killed 120 people, many of them children, many of them sitting in their homes when Israeli troops randomly fire-bombed and murdered them, as documented by the same international human rights organizations that today condemned the attack in Jerusalem by terrorists)."
"Israeli terror"??? If you wish to say that you disagree with the settler philosophy, that's one thing. But once you describe as terrorists those defending their fellow citizens against terrorists, you've gone beyond the pale. I've heard that the Talmud says, "If someone comes to kill you, kill him first."*
I have just unsubscribed from Tikkun Magazine's Network of Spiritual Progressives.
I've also removed The Left Hand of God from our book shelves. We'll probably just give it to our local library.
*I really want to know where there this quote comes from, so, if you can supply chapter and verse, kindly do so in the comments.
Mich said...
It's in Sanhedrin, 8th chapter (ben sorer u'moreh), daf ayin-bet, amud alef. The context is the discussion of the ganav ba'machteret. Rashi makes mention of it in his commentary to Shemot 22:1, dibbur hamatchil ein lo damim.
Sun Mar 09, 09:31:00 PM 2008
Thanks, Mich!
posted by Shira Salamone at 6:36 PM
8 Comments:
It's in Sanhedrin, 8th chapter (ben sorer u'moreh), daf ayin-bet, amud alef.
The context is the discussion of the ganav ba'machteret.
Rashi makes mention of it in his commentary to Shemot 22:1, dibbur hamatchil ein lo damim.
Thanks, Mich! I've copied your respond into the post.
Shira - better late than never.
There's another great quote from the Talmud (I don't remember where it is, but I definitely learned it). It says: "He who is merciful to the cruel will someday be cruel to the merciful."
Lerner has been one of the radical Muslims' "useful idiots" for years. It's nice to know that folks on the liberal side of the spectrum are calling him on it. Kudos!
Psacman, I've heard that quote before. It's a painful thought. I was in favor of the hitnatkut, the withdrawal from Gaza. I truly believed that it would help bring peace. The Summer 2006 War proved me wrong. I no longer believe that I will live to see peace in Israel. How can anyway negotiate with people who go out of their way to target schoolchildren, and then celebrate their deaths? It's sad, that my Israeli nieces and nephew almost certainly face a lifetime of some form or another of war.
I've just started a Torah study group. We've been discussing various things but my stance on trying to keep Shomer Shabbos and kashrut led one in the group to bring me copies he had of Tikkun.
I told him I would read them on days when I was in a good mood. That way, my blood pressure wouldn't rise too much.
I have only been able to read one article.
I guess all the bloodshed in Israel has cured me of being a bleeding-heart liberal when it comes to the matzav, and made me a broken-hearted liberal, instead. I would have loved to see a two-state solution, but I no longer believe that the Palestinians really want their *own* state, and not Israel's.
Re: merciful/cruel.
I just ran across this in R' Yaakov Medan's commentary on Amalek at the VBM.
He's got the source as Midrash Kohelet Zuta, parasha 7:
"Reish Lakish said: Anyone who becomes merciful towards the cruel, ends up being cruel towards the merciful. From where do we learn this? From Shaul, as it is written, "He smote Nov, the city of the priests...." First, we read, "'Shaul and the nation had pity...,'and ultimately - concerning Nov, the city of the kohanim - he did not have pity on the merciful ones."
Mich, thanks for the source and the link.
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