[Avodah] Hypocrisy in halakhah

[Michael Makovi]

I'm wondering how others would respond to the following sentiments of mine:

B'kedem: biglal chipusim b'Google, hittzarachti l'shanot jen tile
(zara b'anglit) l'milah acheret. B'hishtamshut b'Google translator,
hishtamashti b'safot rabot. Im tireh milah asher atah lo makir oto,
b'kol ofen ha'mashama'ut mishehu asher hu lo yehudi. B'kegon, "hindi
hudyo", ze "lo yehudi" b'filipino.

I'm sure there are other areas in which this concern would be raised,
but Jewish-nicht-Jude relations seems to bring it up the most, namely:
to what extent can hypocrisy be tolerated?

An example: traditionally-understood halakhah says that we aren't
responsible for our ox goring a nicht-jude's, we don't execute a Jew
who's murdered a nicht-jude, we don't save a nicht-jude on Shabbat,
etc. But what would be your response to the following hypothetical
	nicht-jude laws:
1) If a nicht-jude's ox gores a Jew, the nicht-jude is not responsible
2) A 	nicht-jude who murders a Jew will not be found culpable in court
(though G-d will give him his cumupins (sp?), it should be noted)
3) A  nicht-jude cannot save a Jew's life on a nicht-jude holiday

How would we respond? Would we sit content and satisfied, saying that
the no-Judio's laws are perfectly righteous, seeing as how we do the
same? Or would we accuse them of racism and moral evil? If the latter,
are we not being hypocrites?

I believe this is what Rabbi Eliezer Samson Rosenthal intended; he
said that for centuries, we implored the no-Judios (Spanish) to see us
as fellow humans. Therefore, he asks, can we possibly not save them on
Shabbat??!! How can be demand they see us as equals, but fail to
accord them the same??!! Halakhic justifications aside, then, he
says,we must accept the Enlightenment's declaration that everyone must
be treated equally. For even if halakhah says otherwise, the sevara of
consistency versus hypocrisy demands it. A source? It is logical!

Similarly, Rabbi Dr. David Berger in an essay on the Egalitarian
Ethos, suggests that at the Christian Disputations, we realized that
even though the Christians were certainly racist, we were not entirely
innocent of that charge ourselves. We realized we had to look at our
own texts in their eyes, and ask ourselves how we'd feel had their
laws said the equivalent of what ours say. Therefore, starting with
Meiri, and culminating with his supporters (whom Berger lists as
Rabbis Hirsch, Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg, Ahron Soloveichik, Yitzhak
Herzog, and Kook), we looked for new ways to read an egalitarian ethos
(which we believed could be found in the Torah itself, especially with
Ben Azzai/tzelem elokim), and we realized we had to rewrite the
halakhah within its own parameters according to the values which we
found in the Torah itself.

Thus, I've seen, for example, Rabbi Nahum Eliezer Rabinovitch using
Ramban and Meiri to justify saving a non-Juif (French) on Shabbat
l'hatchila, without his even mentioning that anyone disagrees with
their opinion. We cannot simply overturn the halakhah, but we can
creatively tweak it to suite our interests according to our own
understanding of the Torah's ethos. (My question is on the hypocrisy
on the prior halakhah, and not on the exact dynamics of how we change
it, however.)

Another example comes to my mind: we say that the non-Juifs in galut
ought to have (notice my past tense - I am Zionist, after all...)
accorded Jews equal rights, yes? But I myself firmly believe that
while we may accord the Yishmaelites full socio-economic rights, it is
unconscionable to grant them political rights, even in a democracy.

(Moshe Feiglin notes that democracy really means to accord full rights
to "citizens" in a manner suiting to the regime; thus the Athenian
democracy limited "citizens" to "land-holding males"; why cannot we,
he asks, limit citizens to "Jews", and thus preserve Israel as a
democracy even as benei Yishmael are excluded therefrom? Obviously,
non-Juifs could still avail themselves of the status of ger toshav.)

I believe that the law of the ger toshav says the same, viz. he has
full rights to livelihood, but cannot hold a communal position. I'd
personally want to extend the prohibition to his even voting for who
will hold the communal position, while at the same time I'd find a way
to say that the non-Juif can in fact hold/vote-for a communal position
of non-political significance, but the point remains the same -
socioeconomically he is equal, but politically he is not; the precise
halakhic details are a separate issue, and not our point here. Now
then, we cannot be hypocrites, yes? So personally, I feel that if a
hindi-Hudyo (Filipino) country announced that Jews may have full
socioeconomic rights, but that as foreigners they cannot vote or hold
office, I do not feel we'd have the right to complain.

(America is a unique case, since the American definition of self
includes all who wish to become Americans, since America is explicitly
a nation of immigrants. So if America made this announcement against
Jews, perhaps we could in fact complain. But let us suppose a nation
with a more entrenched and static definition of self. For example, if
Germany or China announced that all non-ethnic-natives had
socioeconomic but not political rights, how would we feel?)

Obviously, I'd also insist (that in this hypothetical hindi-Hudyo
country granting us socioeconomic but not political rights) that Jews
be treated completely equally in civil and criminal law - this brings
us back to our first question, viz. discrimination of non-Ebreos
(Italian) in civil and criminal halakhah - is this hypocritical?

Mikha'el Makovi