[Avodah] TIDE and Austritt

[T613K at aol.com]

In a message dated 7/11/2008, rabbirichwolpoe at gmail.com writes:







 

below]  The Red Sox come to Yankee  Stadium, does any Yankee Fan have

any desire to  Ausrtitt   the hated enemy by not letting him to play in   the
very Holy of Holies that is Yankee Stadium!   << [--RRW]
 
This is a particularly ill-chosen analogy since it does imply that O  and C 
are just two different home teams, eilu ve'elu.  How about having  Yankee 
Stadium host a game between the Yankees and the Nuclear Weapons  Engineers of Iran? 
 That would be a better analogy. [TK]




>>So R & C jews are as evil as Iranians  Islamo-Fasicists.
that puts a different spin on the Holocaust. This implies  that mostly 
resh'a'im got killed and we should be celebrating not  mourning

this is a good reason to show how Austritt  demonizes fellow Jews. It's a 
GREAT  illustration.<<



RabbiRichWolpoe at Gmail.com


>>>>>>
It's unfortunate that you don't read Areivim  because I have addressed this 
very point literally dozens of times.  I  believe that I have addressed it on 
Avodah as well but will try again  anyway.  Namely, there is a HUGE difference 
between the average C/R layman  and the R/C leadership.  Almost all of the 
laity are tinokos shenishbu and  by now, that is also true of many of their 
rabbis -- young women who have grown  up in almost total ignorance of Judaism.
 
 
The people of Iran are not the leaders of Iran.  I am astonished that  this 
distinction is so hard for you to grasp.

 
I grew up in a household that was dedicated to kiruv and in which non-frum  
Jews were regular guests.  I've been married for 30 years to a kiruv  
professional and throughout all those years, again, non-frum Jews have been  regular 
guests in our home.  My father zt'l would never have walked  into a C or T 
temple, would never have shared a platform with "fellow rabbis"  and "colleagues" 
in any public forum and would never shake the hands of their  rabbis in public. 
 But he was kind and hospitable to thousands  of  non-frum Jews.  How on 
earth do you suppose anyone can do kiruv if they  hate non-frum Jews and won't 
even talk to them?
 
 
You have to understand that it is WE who give C/R rabbis smicha,  by shaking 
hands with them and by acknowledging them as colleagues in public  fora -- 
such as  Federation meetings, Yom Hashoa programs, Israel Day  parades and the 
like.  In the eyes of their own congregants, the  legitimacy and authority of 
their own rabbis is always slightly suspect, but  when an Orthodox rabbi 
publicly shakes the hand of their rabbi and calls him  "colleague," by that act he 
ordains the C/R rabbi.  
 
It doesn't matter that you don't personally think so -- you don't think you  
are granting the guy legitimacy in your own mind.  I can tell you from  
first-hand experience that it IS so -- that C and R laymen look to see what we O  
do.  It doesn't take a lot of O rabbis to break ranks.  You only need  the 
occasional one here and there, and that is enough to extinguish in the eyes  of the 
C/R laity the clear knowledge that C and R are NOT-JUDAISM.  One  rotten 
apple spoils the barrel.  This confusion does not exist with regard  to "Jews for 
Jesus" or "Messianic Judaism" because there, the entire Orthodox  rabbinate 
speaks with one voice and no one breaks ranks.
 
You keep defining austritt with reference to 19th c Frankfurt, where bitter  
battles were fought between Hirsch's kehilla and the gemeinde Orthodox.   And 
btw  the latter would have had no shuls, no schools, no kosher food and  no 
mikva if not for Hirsch's establishment of austritt -- which gave the  Gemeinde 
leverage against the R reshaim they had previously lacked.   The Gemeinde 
attitude was "OK your tactics worked, they will agree to give  us what we want, we 
don't need austritt anymore, we won, let's  surrender." Great principle.  As 
if the R couldn't stop up the mikva  again the minute the O laid down their 
weapons.
 
But that fight is OVER.  It's over.
 
If you don't like the very word "austritt" because it dredges up painful  
memories for you -- fine.  Come up with another word.  We -- TIDE, RW  Jews -- 
believe in a policy of NON-RECOGNITION of C and R.  Give that  policy another 
name, please, or I will just keep on calling it austritt.   You've been warned. 
 

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

President Reagan talked with the Soviets while pushing ahead  with the 
deployment of Cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe. He spoke softly —  after 
getting himself a bigger stick.  --Mark Steyn




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