[Avodah] ger toshav/azarah; b'ey; bizman hamashiach???

[Zev Sero]

kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
> R' Zev Sero asked:
>> Where is this Ramo that says Xianity (i.e. the RC that was
>>  dominant in Poland) is shituf not AZ for goyim?
> 
> Rav Aryeh Kaplan, in The Handbook Of Jewish Thought 1:20, cites a
> long list of sources for this. among them the Hagah on Orach Chayim
> 156:1.

That Ramo is not about their worship but about the oaths that they
would commonly make in the days of the Rishonim (Tosfos Sanhedrin 63b).  
Now I don't know what exactly Tosfos means by "they swear by their
holy things but don't attribute godhood to them"; what exactly was it
that they were swearing by?  Evidently not their god's blood, wounds,
or body, which is what Englishmen used to swear by, all of which are
the AZ himself, not "joining Hashem's name to something else".  Nor
can they have been swearing by the bread and wine of their sacrament,
since they absolutely *did* regard these as gods.  So what were these
"kodshim" on which 12th-century Frenchmen would swear? 

At any rate, one cannot use this Tosfos, or the Ramo who quotes it,
to claim that RC worship itself is mutar for goyim.


 
> R' Harvey Benton asked:
>> Does that mean that all churches would have to be closed
>> down and all xians expelled from EY unless they abandoned
>> their azara/trinity beliefs?

Of course, but even more than that: even Islam must be suppressed,
when we have the power to do so.  "We must not allow them to invent
a new religion or to make up mitzvos for themselves".  (Rambam,
Melachim 10:9)


-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher