Rabbi Reuven Hammer in his reply to his critics says something very important and profound and I was hoping he would elaborate on it. He states simply "Not everything that appears in our literature comes under the rhetoric of “both these and those are words of the Living Godâ€.
I was hoping that he would share with us how he decides what is is and what is not part of elu ve'elu? This would be very valuable. Is this a historical claim? A normative claim? A judgmental claim? A contemporary ethical claim that anything we find repugnant now is no longer evern under elu ve'elu? I am looking for both tools and examples, and help in understanding why Rabbi Hammer thinks that diverse attitudes to Gentiles is outside the rubric of rabbinic pluralism?
[Particularly in the area of Jew and Gentile relations (the subject of his Rabbinical Assembly teshuva at hand) I would have, I think, made a much lesser claim, I think I would have said that all of these views are deeply part of the rabbinic tradition and certainly part of elu ve'elu but certain doctrines are applicable in certain times only. Given the needs of our times and place, secondary doctrines (like aivah, dina demalchuta, and darchai shalom) as well as other common sense and very important doctrines that are always present in practical rabbinic decision making (such as pekuach nephesh and hatzalat yisrael) we should emphasize in our contemporary writing the more universal component of the Jewish tradition even as we recognize that some distinctions between Jew and other are valuable in preventing intermarriage and reinforcing observance of halacha. I also would have emphasized the difference between ethical monotheists and pagans from the Jewish view as well as Gentiles who are barbarians and those who are not, something the teshuva did somewhat but incompletely and without playing out its full consequences.]
It is also astonishing to me that Rabbi Hammer thinks that prohibitions such as stam yayin are not only not to be observed lehalacha, but are outside the rubric of even elu ve'elu in total.
Michael J. Broyde
Professor of Law
Emory University School of Law
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/09/2016 02:59PM by mlb.
