# Debunking orthodox Judaism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 30, 2004, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-orthodox-judaism/226802 "2004-01-30T19:14:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2004, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-orthodox-judaism/226802/101 "2004-02-13T01:34:07Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Well, I admit this much - I don’t understand your explaination about blood; There is a prohibition (mentioned here and also in Leviticus) against eating blood. Your contention is that the entire chapter is talking about sacrifices. If that is the case, why would the Torah have to issue a command against eating the blood of sacrifices when the blood of sacrifices were not available for consumption anyway, since they were thrown on the Altar? > [@](#): > > and you _still_ have not answered how an ancient Jew from Alexandria was supposed to fulfill this commandment! And I have posed the question three times. I’m not sure what commandment you are referring to. The commandment to bring sacrifices? Could only be done in the Temple, no matter where you were. > [@](#): > > As for the explaination, you assert that the first part refers to sacrifices; the second, to kosher easting; and the last, to sacrifices again! Partly on the basis of pauses in the Torah (but you don’t assert that there is a pause between the second and the third parts! Why make a big deal about the first break, if there is no second break - as would be required if the “subject was changed”?) Because verse 26 is coming back and reminding us that even though we can eat non-consecrated meats anywhere we want, we should remember that sacrifices can only be brought at the Temple (it even explicitly states that it is talking about sacrificial foods). Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2004, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-orthodox-judaism/226802/102 "2004-02-13T02:12:36Z")
Malthus: > [@](#): > > Well, I admit this much - I don’t understand your explaination about blood; His point about the blood was that if that passage was referring to sacrificial offerings, the statement “do not eat the blood” would have been superfluous. What to do with sacrificial blood (i.e., sprinkling it on the altar) is well-detailed in the descriptions of sacrifices. > [@](#): > > and you _still_ have not answered how an ancient Jew from Alexandria was supposed to fulfill this commandment! And I have posed the question three times. I only see it once, but that’s neither here nor there. The fact is, anyone with consecrated animals had to bring it to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem to sacrifice. If he couldn’t bring it to the Temple, he still couldn’t sacrifice it - he had to let it graze until it died of natural causes. This law still applies today. The commandment has two components - a positive one, to sacrifice certain animals, and a negative component, to not do so outside the designated place. Even if one is unable to fulfill the positive in a practical manner, that does not remove the negative injunction. > [@](#): > > As for the explaination, you assert that the first part refers to sacrifices; the second, to kosher eating; and the last, to sacrifices again! It’s a natural enough progression. First it speaks of the importance of bringing sacrifices only in the designated place, when a designation is made. (verses 5-14) It contrasts it to the then-current situation (in the desert) in which the Israelites routinely sacrificed by their own tents, and ate the meat in that manner (verse 8, specifically). Then, lest the people get the notion that they are not allowed to eat meat at all outside the Temple, even if they be far away, the Torah informs them that they will be allowed to slaughter animals with a non-sacrificial status in prescribed manner, which can be eaten in any state of ritual purity or impurity (verses 15-28), while emphasizing, parenthetically, that the rules in this passage apply only to non-sacrificial animals (verses 17-18 and 26-27). Chaim Mattis Keller ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2004, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-orthodox-judaism/226802/103 "2004-02-13T03:11:25Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Well, I admit this much - I don’t understand your explaination about blood; and you _still_ have not answered how an ancient Jew from Alexandria was supposed to fulfill this commandment! And I have posed the question three times. From a practical standpoint, he sacrificed at the Temple of Honio/Onias IV. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2004, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-orthodox-judaism/226802/104 "2004-02-13T15:09:03Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > From a practical standpoint, he sacrificed at the Temple of Honio/Onias IV. 🙂 If there were, from an achaeological point of view, scarificial centers outside of Jerusalem (and I have no idea whether this is true), the “commandment” that we have been arguing about would seem to have been interpreted in ancient times in the way I suggest, not in the way the Orthodox suggest. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2004, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-orthodox-judaism/226802/105 "2004-02-13T15:24:08Z")
Malthus, did you miss the “smiley” on Captain Amazing’s post? He was being facetious, because as scholars of Jewish history are aware, the “Temple of Chonyo (Onias)” dates from Hasmonean times, and is well-known historically to have been built and used purely as an act of political defiance, in protest over the succession to the high priesthood. At no time was sacrificial service there ever considered to be in accordance with Jewish law. But, practically speaking, it was a temple used for sacrifices (albeit sinfully), and it was in Alexandria, so it made for a humorous answer to your “practical” question, although Captain Amazing is aware that it never had any legitimacy in Jewish Law. Chaim Mattis Keller ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2004, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-orthodox-judaism/226802/106 "2004-02-13T15:38:52Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > If there were, from an achaeological point of view, scarificial centers outside of Jerusalem (and I have no idea whether this is true), the “commandment” that we have been arguing about would seem to have been interpreted in ancient times in the way I suggest, not in the way the Orthodox suggest. 🙂 In about 160 BCE, a priest named Onias, who was the son of a High Priest, came to Alexandria, and got permission from the king of Egypt to build a Jewish temple in Alexandria for the Alexandrines. As Josephus puts it in his “Jewish War” > [@](#): > > …and was in Egypt, which was built and had its denomination from the occasion following: Onias, the son of Simon, one of the Jewish high priests fled from Antiochus the king of Syria, when he made war with the Jews, and came to Alexandria; and as Ptolemy received him very kindly, on account of hatred to Antiochus, he assured him, that if he would comply with his proposal, he would bring all the Jews to his assistance; and when the king agreed to do it so far as he was able, he desired him to give him leave to build a temple some where in Egypt, and to worship God according to the customs of his own country; for that the Jews would then be so much readier to fight against Antiochus who had laid waste the temple at Jerusalem, and that they would then come to him with greater good-will; and that, by granting them liberty of conscience, very many of them would come over to him. > > (3)[426] So Ptolemy complied with his proposals, and gave him a place one hundred and eighty furlongs distant from Memphis. That Nomos was called the Nomos of Hellopolls, where Onias built a fortress and a temple, not like to that at Jerusalem, but such as resembled a tower. He built it of large stones to the height of sixty cubits; he made the structure of the altar in imitation of that in our own country, and in like manner adorned with gifts, excepting the make of the candlestick, for he did not make a candlestick, but had a [single] lamp hammered out of a piece of gold, which illuminated the place with its rays, and which he hung by a chain of gold; but the entire temple was encompassed with a wall of burnt brick, though it had gates of stone. The king also gave him a large country for a revenue in money, that both the priests might have a plentiful provision made for them, and that God might have great abundance of what things were necessary for his worship. Yet did not Onias do this out of a sober disposition, but he had a mind to contend with the Jews at Jerusalem, and could not forget the indignation he had for being banished thence. Accordingly, he thought that by building this temple he should draw away a great number from them to himself. There had been also a certain ancient prediction made by [a prophet] whose name was Isaiah, about six hundred years before, that this temple should be built by a man that was a Jew in Egypt. And this is the history of the building of that temple. The Temple in Egypt was condemned by the Jerusalem authorities at the time, and is also, later, condemned by the Talmud. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2004, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-orthodox-judaism/226802/107 "2004-02-13T21:58:36Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Malthus, did you miss the “smiley” on Captain Amazing’s post? > > He was being facetious, because as scholars of Jewish history are aware, the “Temple of Chonyo (Onias)” dates from Hasmonean times, and is well-known historically to have been built and used purely as an act of political defiance, in protest over the succession to the high priesthood. At no time was sacrificial service there ever considered to be in accordance with Jewish law. But, practically speaking, it was a temple used for sacrifices (albeit sinfully), and it was in Alexandria, so it made for a humorous answer to your “practical” question, although Captain Amazing is aware that it never had any legitimacy in Jewish Law. > > Chaim Mattis Keller Did you miss the fact I used the very same “smiley” in my post? ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-orthodox-judaism/226802/108 "2004-02-15T06:06:35Z")
Malthus: > [@](#): > > Did you miss the fact I used the very same “smiley” in my post? No, but the tone of your remarks was different from his. It seemed as though you took it as genuine vindication of your point of view rather than as the joke it was. If I misinterpreted, I apologize. Chaim Mattis Keller ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-orthodox-judaism/226802/109 "2004-02-15T08:41:38Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > At no time was sacrificial service there ever considered to be in accordance with Jewish law. But, practically speaking, it was a temple used for sacrifices (albeit sinfully), and it was in Alexandria, so it made for a humorous answer to your “practical” question, although Captain Amazing is aware that it never had any legitimacy in Jewish Law. In all seriousness, though, while it was built for political reasons over the sucession to the high priesthood (and also because the Ptolmeys wanted to claim to be the “protectors” of the Jews), and while you’re right, it was illegitimate under Jewish law, it did survive for over 200 years, was runthe entire time by _kohanim_, and was seen as legitimate under Jewish law by a lot of Egyptian Jews. What it comes down to (and this is the same situation with the non-Orthodox now, and for that matter the Saducees of the Hasmonean and Roman periods) is the question of who has the authority to interpret Jewish law. If you reject the Oral Law as authoritative or as the word of God, or say that the rabbis of the Talmud got it wrong, then your idea of what it means to be Jewish is different than if you accept that interpretation. If you say, “We have as much right to interpret the Bible as Rabbi Akiba, and we could be right and he could have been wrong”, you’re in a different position than the Orthodox. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-orthodox-judaism/226802/110 "2004-02-15T08:54:46Z")
Ultimately, I think this debate is hopeless, because the Orthodox and non-Orthodox can’t even agree on what it means to be a devout Jew. So what it comes down to is the following: ;j You can’t say you’re good Jews. You don’t even practice a lot of the _mitzvot_ 🙂 You can be a good Jew without doing X or Y. Those aren’t really divine commandments…they’re just reflections of ancient cultural traditions. ;j No you can’t! No they’re not! 🙂 Yes you can! Yes, they are! ;j No, you’re wrong! It’s G-d’s will! 🙂 Let’s not fight. Come on, we’ll have lunch. I’ll buy you a cheeseburger. ;j \ So I think that’s really the way the debate is preordained to go. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-orthodox-judaism/226802/111 "2004-02-15T08:56:05Z")
And for some reason the Jewish smiley isn’t working for me. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-orthodox-judaism/226802/112 "2004-02-15T18:16:44Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > And for some reason the Jewish smiley isn’t working for me. Reb Smiley hasn’t worked since the Board was revised. The Nazi hamsters! ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-orthodox-judaism/226802/113 "2004-02-15T19:19:49Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > In all seriousness, though, while it was built for political reasons over the sucession to the high priesthood (and also because the Ptolmeys wanted to claim to be the “protectors” of the Jews), and while you’re right, it was illegitimate under Jewish law, it did survive for over 200 years, was runthe entire time by _kohanim_, and was seen as legitimate under Jewish law by a lot of Egyptian Jews. > > What it comes down to (and this is the same situation with the non-Orthodox now, and for that matter the Saducees of the Hasmonean and Roman periods) is the question of who has the authority to interpret Jewish law. If you reject the Oral Law as authoritative or as the word of God, or say that the rabbis of the Talmud got it wrong, then your idea of what it means to be Jewish is different than if you accept that interpretation. If you say, “We have as much right to interpret the Bible as Rabbi Akiba, and we could be right and he could have been wrong”, you’re in a different position than the Orthodox. Well, I agree with that - and, IMHO, it is one of the institutional strengths of Judaism as an organized religion, is that it is not _very_ organized. This allows for a wide divergance of opinion and practice, which I think a good thing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-orthodox-judaism/226802.md?page=5)