[Avodah] Gentiles in Torah

[Yaakov Weiner]

I'm sorry that I do not have the scholarship or insight to answer your
questions or comment with profound intelligence on your essay and its
sources at this time, but I wanted to thank you for addressing this issue.
I have personally struggled with it for years, coming across the Meiri
almost by accident (well, its quoted in the Kehati Mishnayot on Bava Kamma,
but I don't learn Mishnayot regularly unfortunately).  Jewish-Gentile
relations and definitions are not dealt with academically very often because
of their sensitive nature, like so many other worthy topics, and this is an
obvious shame.  This lack of clarity serves as a powerful tool in the hands
of the detractors of Torah, because they cite it as an example of "the
culturally developmental origin" of Jewish belief and practice, following
the historical "trend" of societies becoming more universal and more
pluralistic as they come into contact with and become dependent on foreign
societies.  Every nation on earth began with the idea of their moral or
religious or physical or otherwise superior status over everyone else.

BTW, philosophically speaking, its hard to dismiss a the notion of a
recognized sense of greater worth or at least a greater sense of affection
by G-d and humanity for the Jews, based on a moral superiority (which of
course is the clear attitude in Jewish thought, regardless of dismissal of
other notions of superiority).  The equality of man may refer to basic
rights, to aspirations of equal reward, and the equality of core value, but
cannot refer to equal judgment or equality of approval, unless standards of
instrumental value and righteousness and goodness are lowered to the point
of disintegration.  This makes the dilemma more complicated.  Does this mean
that the Jews are better or more special, or does it not?  Can we make the
sophisticated distinction between various meanings of equality and
evaluation of the rights and dignity of man, without collapsing into one
absurd extreme or the other?  Are "all equal, but some are more equal than
others"?  Very interesting, emotionally charged, and difficult subject.
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