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Thank you for making it possible for me to subscribe to the Lookjed list.
Each time I read it, I feel as if I'm attending a convention of seasoned,
professional educators.
I am responding to Dr. Moshe Sokolow who responded to Tzvi Pittinsky. A
serious Torah student always walks around pondering some unresolved issue
which can sometimes take years to unravel. That's what Torah study is all
about-constant refinement of knowledge. At the same time, I don't believe
that anyone of us would personally allow a student to accuse us of being
racist or sexist or representing any other similar demeaning
characteristic.
I therefore take issue with Sokolow's reference (while at the same time
agreeing with the remainder of his presentation) to the Torah being
"racist" "strictly; and literally speaking" and citing as an example the
Mitzvot to annihilate Amalake and the Shivah Amim. At the same time, Dr.
Sokolow states categorically that "we are not fundamentalists...."
Regarding this last reference, I suggest that he check with the local
reform Rabbi and he will quickly learn that all of us in the Yeshiva
community are definitely considered to be "fundamentalists".
We have to be careful with any kind of labeling and refrain from name
calling. In addition, we have to be super sensitive about Kvod HaTorah.
About ten years ago, I heard a speaker at the Siyum HaShas in Madison
Square Garden describe how when he was a Yeshiva student in Europe, his
rebbe always prefaced each reference to a Tanna and Amora with the words
"Der Hailiger". In our age of so-called political correctness, we seem to
have slipped unconsciously to the often extreme in allowing flip references
to Torah and its teachers.
I believe that sensitivity to Kvod Hatorah is a necessary and indispensable
first step in instilling a sense of ethics and boundaries within our
students.
Mordechai Spiegelman
Jerusalem</HTML>
