[Avodah] Religious tolerance

[Michael Makovi]

I was just musing, apropos of nothing**, about the following:

In theory, we say that anyone who doesn't follow the Noachide laws is
a heretic or infidel or whatever, end of story. And of course, were we
to have a religious state, there'd be practical implications (accept
the laws or leave the country). But in practice, we don't go around
criticizing any gentiles of being apikorsim for believing in a
three-for-one special, and on the contrary, many (at least in the
MOish community) have quite positive relationships with gentiles. I'm
sure we all know that he believes in 3-in-1 and that he's surely
stolen *something* from *someone* ( = violate Noachide laws) sometime
in his life, and yet we don't seem to hold it against him, at least
not publicly. I am thinking that perhaps it is a gap between theory
and practice.

In theory, it is all well and good to say certain things. But in
practice, how do you draw the line between what is kosher and what is
treif? Moreover, it isn't very "Jewish" to go on witchhunts, IMHO;
that's just not the kind of people we are. And notice how the nevi'im
criticized the nations for their evil practices (human sacrifice,
etc.) and not for their theology per se. Similarly, Chazal said that
the nations of their time were simply following the minhagim of their
forefathers as regards idolatry, and only their evil practices were
basis to discriminate. And even so, we find Chazal still had extensive
relationships with gentiles, and did not make a ghetto wall in Bavel.
So it would also seem that we aren't very willing to put our own
theory into practice.

It is to be noted that we don't destroy idols in gentile lands, but we
certainly do destroy idols in Israel. So apparently, much of the gap
between theory and practice is a simple factor of galut. But I wonder,
even in a religious state in Israel, to what extent would we let
things by (he says he worships one god, so we'll take his word for
it), and to what extent would we go on heresy-hunts, so to speak (i.e.
really investigate his beliefs, etc.)? How much of this gap is due to
galut, and how much of it is OTOH an intrinsic Jewish discomfort with
confrontation and conflict, and a fundamental appreciation for the
humanity of man irrespective of what he does, an appreciation for the
fact that much of it is shogeg, etc.?

I apologize for the disorganized flow of ideas here; as I said, it is
my own musings, and I'm still sorting them through. I figure that an
Avodah conversation would help.

Mikha'el Makovi

** To say it is apropos of nothing isn't quite accurate. I often have
monologues with myself, with some imaginary party that I'm talking to;
in fact, I learn a lot about myself and what I know, this way. In this
case, the monologue was sparked by imagining a conversation between
myself and a certain philosemitic Iranian (she actually lives in Iran)
ex-Muslim I recently met.