I definitely agree with this. I grew up Catholic (both sides of my family, went to Catholic schools, etc.). I have definitely internalized the “it’s the spirit of the law!” mindset, buuuuut… the first time I read a thread about this same topic, it made perfect sense to me. The letter of the law IS the “spirit” of the law, and thus they aren’t loopholes.
Just because it’s a different cultural mindset didn’t mean I couldn’t understand it. In a way, it’s sort of an intellectual empathy. Can you set aside your assumptions and preconceived notions and examine an explanation from a different perspective, or do you have to reframe the explanation to fit your perspective (thus likely thinking the explanation doesn’t make sense or is bad reasoning)?
IMO, if you want to have an intellectually honest debate about the merits of a particular belief (such as Jewish “loopholes”), you must first understand the logical framework that underlies that belief and your own. By that, I mean examining both positions and being able to say, “okay, if you look at XYZ with the philosophy/beliefs/mindset ABC, it does make total sense that you reach that conclusion/consensus.” It doesn’t matter whether you agree with said philosophy, just that you see how one can reach such conclusions from it. Too many times, people will begin debating the merits before understanding the framework.
Sorry for the misunderstanding. Most Christians have no problem working on Sunday, but I believe that most, if faced with such a “no work” rule, would interpret in a spirit of the rules mindset and wouldn’t try to claim, "Software Development isn’t work within the meaning of this church discipline rule because it isn’t listed in the 1866 “Catalog of Professions, Trades, and Other Useful Jobs” catalog which Bishop Jones declared authoritative in 1890.
I’m not trying to be a dick, but they are faced with a “no work” rule, right there in the same Ten Commandments that many of them want posted in our schools and courthouses. And if they read a bit further, they find a pretty unambiguous interpretation – God tells Moses to execute a man for gathering sticks for a fire.
What are the legal ways which are found around:
Numbers 15:32 Now while the sons of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering wood on the sabbath day. 33And those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron, and to all the congregation; 34and they put him in custody because it had not been declared what should be done to him. 35Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.” 36So all the congregation brought him outside the camp, and stoned him to death with stones, just as the Lord had commanded Moses."
and
Exodus 31:14 Therefore you are to observe the Sabbath, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people.
If one can find legal ways around that then the rabbinical rules have less to do with what was revealed than what the rabbis wanted to find ways around.
Heck if I know. I’ve not been to Rabbinical school.
An example would be that his wife or daughter was ill, and must be kept warm or fed. To save a life, you may break any mitzvoh save the ones against murder and incest.
Pikuach nefesh absolutely makes sense as an exception to capital punishment for work on the shabbath. One can allow for priority in following rules. Secular laws often allow for a necessity defence.
Still, if a rule clearly says: “If someone works on the shabbath, kill him” and you end up with an interpretation where pretty much nobody would be killed for working on the shabbath, you just rationalized your preconceived conclusion rather than earnestly tried to interpret the rule.
That concept of literal interpretation is one that gets used and misused when it comes to the Bible. There are times where it’s used in contradistinction with a metaphorical or allegorical interpretation (e.g.: the creation of the world in 6 days) where it can make sense. When the Bible speaks of “having commerce” one can understand that it’s a euphemism and has nothing to do with trade but rather sex. There can be reasonable disagreements on when something should be taken literally, especially when it comes to miracles. There are times, however, when “it’s not meant to be taken literally” is not used in the same sense that one would say Plato’s Allegory of the cave is not meant literally but more as a way to sweep the parts one dislikes under the carpet.
With Numbers 15:32-36 and Exodus 31:14. You say it’s not to be taken literally. What is the metaphorical/allegorical meaning then and why should someone favor it, apart from wishing it to be non-literal? If the gist of it is “don’t work on the shabbath or die” what coherent reason is there that the “don’t work on the shabbath” part be taken literally but the “or die” part not be taken literally?
If one can just declare “don’t be a literalist” when encountering an inconvenient section of the Bible then any inconvenient part may be thrown out as non-literal. Genesis 9:4? Doesn’t literally forbid consumption of bloody meat. Genesis 17:12? Doesn’t literally require circumcision.
I think it’s you who spoke of the Torah as a legal and ethical text earlier. I don’t think any non-religious legal and ethical text would be interpreted with so much special pleading. Highly selective literalness seems the province of religious texts.
First to clarify- the ‘you’ in my post meant Rabbinical scholars, not any poster here. That was vague, sorry.
I’m no Torah expert by any stretch of the imagination. My experience,which is incomplete and flawed, is that rabbinical law is all interpretation of the words of the Torah. Very little (any?) law is taken directly from literal reading Torah, but it is all interpretation of the intent of the passage. Letter of the Law doesn’t come from Torah passages, but from human interpretation in the creating of the Talmud and the continued interpretation and re-creation of interpretive guidelines today. It’s always been about interpretation.
For the record, my POV is from an educated but secular but observant atheist Conservative, but really Reconstructionist, Jew.
Eta: it’s not Torah that a legal code but Jewish “rules” in general, as derived from Torah in the Talmud. It’s possible my language was sloppy.
In that particular case, there was none, they did stone him (as per the last verse in your quote).
The sort of “legal ways around” in question would be those generically applied to all death-penalty cases: questioning the validity of the witnesses, is it possible that what the witnesses saw was permitted action X rather than the forbidden action, was the suspect warned properly of the consequences of his action, are there witnesses to the warning, etc. Court-administered punishments required a lot of technicalities in Jewish law - all of which are derived from verses in the Torah.
In Japan, one chicken-and-egg dish is called oyako-don, literally “parent-child rice bowl.” I’ve never gotten a satisfactory explanation from a Rabbi as to why that is kosher.
What is your argument that chicken should not be eaten with dairy?
How does chicken and egg enter into this discussion, since neither are dairy?
(Despite the location of eggs in your supermarket, eggs are not actually dairy products. Stores keep eggs near dairy so that all the refrigerated products can be kept in a proximate location and, since both eggs and many dairy products are used for the same meals, particularly breakfast, they tend to wind up near each other. Biscuits and croissants are also not dairy, even if they, too, are in the same coolers.)
I believe that it was in this thread that someone said fowl was to be considered meat.
Mr. Keller had an excellent argument against that, but he won’t be able to respond until Saturday night, as he is observant, and I am not.
I think you have it backwards. Someone else insisted that fowl may not be eaten with dairy; I took the opposing view. Mr. Kellner explained the misunderstanding some time ago.
