[Avodah] TIDE and Austritt

[T613K at aol.com]

RMB wrote:
 
>>It's not "chokhmah bagoyim ta'amin" that distinguishes them, as  the notion
that anyone can have chokhmah (that isn't Torah) would include R  as well.

And so, I would still argue the ukimta that Austritt has no  target
bizman hazeh.<<




>>>>>
"Chachma bagoyim ta'amin" with regard to Reform and Conservative means that  
you can use a secular textbook that happens to have been written by a  Reform 
Jew, or you can go to a doctor who is a Reform Jew.  
 
It most certainly does NOT mean that on anything in which the fact of their  
being R or C is relevant -- that you can read or use the "wisdom" of Reform 
and  Conservative Jews.
 
As for your "no target bezman hazeh" I am having trouble even grasping what  
you mean to say, but I suspect that you have been influenced by RRW's many 
posts  decrying austritt and defining austritt as the shunning of some O rabbis 
by  other O rabbis.   However, R' Gershon Seif addressed this  question 
absolutely correctly when he wrote, >>I think Hirsch's insistence  on separating his 
Kehilla from the WR etc. wasn't the Austritt he was really  trying to make 
happen. That was a bitter and unfortunate result of "stuff that  happened." He 
stuck to his guns because of the other Austritt from the Graetz's  and the 
Geigers. He felt without a clean separation from R & C, Orthodoxy's  mission would 
be diluted. That was all a side fight that was a distraction from  the real 
fight. I have a hunch that was RNB's understanding too.<<
 
The intra-Orthodox struggles, IOW, are a side-show -- NOT the main  show.
 
The "target bizman hazeh" remains what it always was, the Reform and  
Conservative movements and any body or program in which Conform clergy  share a 
platform with Orthodox rabbis on a basis of collegiality and equal  status.   
 
There is no reason people can't be friendly on a private, personal basis  
with R and C Jews and even with some R and C rabbis -- depending on the  
circumstances.  A private "friendship" with, say, a Reform rabbi who had  Orthodox 
smicha and who had made a public career of denouncing Orthodoxy would  still be 
inappropriate.  But the main "target" of austritt is communal,  official, 
public Heterodoxy.
 
No one has ever showed me why the same policy we follow with regard to Jews  
for Jesus should not apply equally to the Conform movements.



--Toby  Katz
=============






**************Get the scoop on last night's hottest shows and the live music 
scene in your area - Check out TourTracker.com!      
(http://www.tourtracker.com?NCID=aolmus00050000000112)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20080715/eea36eae/attachment-0001.htm>