[Avodah] tenet of belief

Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org
Fri Sep 20 12:45:22 PDT 2019


On Wed, Sep 18, 2019 at 05:51:40AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
> From someone's post elsewhere:
>> A tenet of our belief is that the Torah is unchanging; the oft-repeated
>> adage, 'we do not adapt the Torah to the times, we adapt the times to
>> the Torah' is our creed.

> Perhaps your next piece might be on how this tenet is being reflected in
> an age of rampant materialism and focus on the rights of the individual
> (vs. communal obligation)

Not sure where rampant materialism comes in. But we've seen a lot of
attempts at adaptation to the current emphasis placed on personal
autonomy, rights, self-expression, rather than communal or covenental
obligation.

As for the "someone's post elsewhere":

Not 100%. The Torah's principles have to address the facts on the ground.
Whether we call the change in how we treat deaf mutes in halakhah an
adaptation of the Torah to the times or not, something did change as
the times did.

I saw a feminist argument for halachic change by claiming that perhaps
"nashim" is also not about an innate feature of women, but something
that was sociologically true about them in the past, but is no long.

Thereby attempting to avoid the kind of "adapting the Torah to the times"
most of us would find objectionable by creating a parallel argument
to that of cheiresh.

Somehow, it seems obvious to me it fails. What I can't say is "why".
Maybe it's just my suspicion that his motive had more to do with
adapting values to those of the times, and this is just a means to
jump through the hoop?

And who am I to guess someone else's motives?

So, whlie the cheireish case seems a clearcut avoidance of the problem,
if you think about it more, it's not so clear where the line is.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 "Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   exactly the right measure of himself,  and
Author: Widen Your Tent      holds a just balance between what he can
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF    acquire and what he can use." - Peter Latham


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