[Avodah] What would a Torah government look like

[Michael Makovi]

> I wondered when learning this sugya, though, if the limitation was
> specific to an era where the leading non-halachic Jewish culture
> agreed on such mitzvos.
>
> IOW, once the thought-space isn't about us vs the Tzeduqim, can we
> really say that the authority of such mitzvos are more nispashtos and
> their rejection any more peritzas geder than any other mitzvah?
>
> SheTir'u baTov!
> -micha

This is why I asked, if the vast majority of Jews have never even
opened a chumash, can we say that
din-d'oraita-that-is-like-its-mikra-pshat is really so pshat? Tell an
average Jew that the pshat of the Torah says you can't light fire on
Shabbat, and he'll respond that Shabbat doesn't apply anymore, or that
that was only when lighting a fire was difficult (except Dayan
Grunfeld in The Sabbath ironically remarks that since the ancient
Egyptians had easily lit fires via the tinder box, our enlightened
coreligionist here is ignorant of ancient history, but I digress...),
etc.

I believe the crux is that taking Ramban that there can come a day
when it will be thought that the entire Torah no longer applies, then
if the entire Torah no longer applies, I believe it absurd to say that
a certain pasuk is obvious. The pasuk may be, but this is meaningless
when the book as a klal is obscure! It's a pasuk berur enshrouded in a
sefer balal!

Of course, this applies to nonreligious Jews only - they are tinokim
she'nishba'im anyway, so we already knew all this. But it's nice to
argue about it anyway.

Mikha'el Makovi