Because, first of all, saving a life is a commandment, so you are “living by the rules”. More generally, it’s because the Torah is for the living, not for the dead. It’s intended to teach you how to live, not to kill you.
Well, yeah, Judaism adapts to new situations. It’s always been that way…what’s your point? 
Saving your own life counts?
How convenient. 
More to the point, a set of rules that describe how to live will necessarily get you killed in certain circumstances, as external influences force you to choose between obeying the rules and surviving.
There’s a massive cognitive disconnect here. On one hand, the idea that death is a better option than betraying the Law is a very real one. There’s a reason that the group of Jews who committed suicide rather than submit to forced conversion is used as an example. On the other hand, no one seems to be willing to acknowledge the logical contradiction involved with disregarding the rules when they conflict with survival. People won’t necessarily say that they approve of the mass suicide, but it makes a great example to emphasize the importance of “ideological purity”.
The Torah teaches that Jews should eat non-kosher to save their lives for the same reason that the early Christian church taught that seeking matyrdom was a sin: it keeps the believers alive.
My point is that sometimes, it adapts by changing what it teaches and then ignoring the logical problems this produces.
Heck, it makes Roman Catholicism seem like a melting pot of rationality and consistency sometimes.
It’s not a cognitive disconnect…it’s a matter of priority…saving a life, whether it’s yours or somebody else’s, Jew or non-Jew, is more important than not eating pork. Saving a life is less important than not worshiping false gods.
It is not necessary to command someone to do something they wish to do anyway.
Thus, I conclude that the commandment to save life does not imply self-preservation. Humans don’t need to be told to continue to live any more than they need to be told to breathe, or eat. Indeed, it’s necessary to order them not to eat… hence the dietary prohibitions.
If no one wanted to eat pork, it wouldn’t be necessary to ban it.
Therefore, there is a profound cognitive disconnect: in the absence of a logically required commandment, the “interpretation” creates one, yet denies that it does so.
It’s the same with the “do not kill” commandment. Saying that the word denotes ‘murder’, not mere killing, means that the Commandments are NOT the laws by which men shall live. Extraneous laws are necessary to define what ‘murder’ is.
First of all, this commandment doesn’t just mandate self-preservation, but also the preservation of other people’s lives, as Captain Amazing pointed out.
And is it necessarily the case, as a universal statement, that “humans don’t need to be told to continue to live” as a blanket statement? If that’s the case, then why were there close to 30,000 suicides in the United States alone in 2000 (cite); and how would you account for suicide bombers or Sept. 11-style hijackers?
So? What branch of Judaism has ever claimed the Ten Commandments to be the be-all and end-all of religion and law?
I’m sure there are some people who really, really dislike pork.
Nevertheless, the commandment is necessary because most people do like pork. A lot. And they’d eat it if it’s available.
I’m sure there are some people who really, really don’t want to live. They’re the exception, not the rule. Additionally, these people do this even though there are plenty of religions that forbid it… so that commandment isn’t very effective, is it?
Now, how does a commandment to “save a life” involve preserving your own? That phrase is not generally used to indicate self-preservation in English. It implies saving another. Taking steps to protect and preserve yourself are not implied.
How can this commandment be reasonably interpreted as advocating self-preservation? Note: I said reasonably, not “my rabbi said thirty generations of Jews believed this so that’s how it should be interpret”.
There are more commandments than the Ten, y’know. There’s several hundred. That’s the Law.
Why would there be a distinction? If I should, for example, violate the Sabbath to save someone else’s life, why shouldn’t I also violate the Sabbath to save my own life? Is my life worth less than someone else’s? If his life is more valuable than keeping the Sabbath, then my life is also more valuable than keeping the Sabbath, because the princple is that all human life is more valuable than keeping the Sabbath. Mine, yours, the guy down the street…everyone’s.
What does the perceived “value” have anything to do with it?
And what determines the order of operations for commandments?
Does “honor thy father and mother” take precedence over saving human life?
TVAA:
The approbation of their predecessors/teachers/mentors. It is they who I rely on for judging the success level of their students…who, in turn, became my teachers. And so forth up the line of generations.
First of all, “predecessors” are any who came before me at all. If I meant only the generation immediately prior to mine, I would have said immediate predecessors.
Secondly, what you say is true for any historical event that predates the oldest living person. The only evidence that remains once its last witnesses have died is the testimony, either written or oral, that those witnesses have left behind. You can choose to believe it or to disbelieve it, but your historical scope will be extremely limited if you disbelieve anything merely based on the fact that you can’t speak to a direct witness.
I did not cite those claims as evidence. I merely cited them because you flatly stated…also without evidence…that my predecessors had not heard words directly spoken by G-d, and therefore, their judgement in the correctness of the Bible was just as humanly qualified as yours. However, that is what I believe happened, so the premise of that argument of yours falls.
Shall I assume that by “elementary logic” you mean to dismiss the claims of miraculous occurrences?
As for the archaeology…evidence of absence is not absence of evidence. And on top of that, traditional Jewish chronology of the Biblical period (basically, everything preceding the rise of Alexander the Great) differs considerably from accepted secular chronology, and is much more consistent with archaeological evidence than Biblical events as interpreted through the lens of secular chronology.
I don’t expect them to impress you.
No, because using an “equal human qualification to judge” argument completely ignores the genuine basis for Judaic belief. No one can ignore that and claim to be discussing Judaism.
Then I stand corrected; strike the “Western civilization” portion of my comment.
No, the Bible (according to Jewish belief) conveys G-d’s will; their diversion from it by adapting it to Hellenistic values and practices separates them from prior tradition regardless of whether or not they would have survived. I merely find it strange to hear someone, with the hindsight of history, proclaim a preference for a proven non-surviving social structure over a surviving one.
Then you couldn’t have been looking too hard. I do believe you when you say you’ve spoken to people of meny religions and found their sense of self-analysis lacking. But texts such as Maimonides’s “Guide to the Perplexed” and the “Kuzari” are well-learned amongst scholars of Judaism and are very much (unless I misunderstand just what sort of analysis you’re seeking) theologically analytical. In more modern times, the organization Aish Hatorah has been publishing works relating to logical analysis of the tenets of Judaism.
Not true. That very verse that you cited “And you shall live by them” (Leviticus 18:5) is learned, by Jewish tradition, to imply “live by them, do not die by them.” So the right to place saving of a life over performance of most commandments (including “honor the mother and father”, which for some odd reason you single out in your last post) is specifically granted by scripture.
On the other hand, three sins are excepted from this general rule also by direct Biblical exception. One of those is idolatry…that’s why Jews would commit suicide or submit to martyrdom rather than convert to another religion. The scriptural passage responsible for that is Deuteronomy 6:5, “Love G-d…with all your soul,” the traditional interpretation of which is that one must steadfastly maintain his love for (and, by implication, belief in) G-d, even if that will cause his or her soul to depart.
So, contrary to your misconceptions, Judaism is not inconsistently interested in self-preservation, but instead derives from Scripture when the self is to be preserved and when it is not.
Scripture. If you’re interested in ever opening a traditional Jewish book of learning, the Talmud, tractate Yebamos, in the first chapter, delves into Scriptural precedent to determine which commandments take priority over which others when performance of one would require violation of another. It’s quite a fascinating exercise in logic…and may give you more insight into the degree to which “convenience” is ignored, and Scriptural interpretaion valued in making said judgments.
Chaim Mattis Keller
** Error: a standard above and beyond the commandments themselves has been identified. Violation of previous assertion.
** You haven’t spoken with the people who came before your immediate predecessors. Your beliefs about those ancestors necessarily comes from those in the generation before yours.
** On the contrary, many historical events leave evidence which may be examined directly. Recorded history alone is a poor guide to past events, as archeology demonstrates.
** It would be incredibly difficult to convince a large group of people that an event occurred when it didn’t. Like, say, the destruction of a series of cities and the slaughter of their inhabitants?
Pretty impressive of the Jews, to destroy cities centuries after they’d already fallen and been abandoned.
** I mean to dismiss claims that such and such a miraculous event must have taken place, because there’s no way a large group of people could have been hoodwinked.
** Um, no. Traditional Jewish chronology of the Biblical period is much less consistent with archeological evidence than elementary conclusions gained from studying that evidence. Not surprisingly.
Secular chronology does not recognize most Biblical events at all. Even events which tradition and science agree occurred different significantly in their detail and placement in time.
** Error: appeal to an unexaminable standard. Invalid reasoning. Error: ignores the human judgments which are known to be part of Judaic tradition. Invalid logic.
** Let’s strike the whole thing. I dislike error.
** You’ve already adapted to Hellenistic values and practices. Where do you think the source of Talmudic logic is? It resulted from cultural exposure to ancient Greece. It’s a distorted and biased form of formal logic, but the kinship is there.
** Yes. They are not particularly impressive.
** Explain the justification for this judgment. It contradicts the simple meaning of the words. It is possible that this is a fault of translation, but this is doubtful, as everyone uses essentially the same phrases to discuss the matter.
** Error. Describes sincerity and totality of ordered love, not form of its expression.
** Preserve the followers, except where said preservation threatens the system; in which case, sacrifice them.
It’s a very basic and common principle.
** Error. Inconsistency in value judgments.
I take it you don’t count yourself a Christian.
There are religious beliefs that say ….
The sky is a dead giant’s skull raised up. You only go to heaven if you kill your neighbour in virtuous battle. You should keep muttering the stupid litany Hare Krishna 4096 times a day. If you blow up bus full of schoolchildren you get to bugger 72 virgins in eternity. Gods build the pyramids, Stonehenge and much of everything worth of notice to show us the proper path to redemption. Aliens slobber around in cornfield when respectable people are at sleep in their beds. People were transported from all other the galaxy and blow to smithereens in volcanoes on Earth. Everybody should all strive for the wondrous nothingness by a life dedicated to doing nothing freezing the butt off in a cave on a cold mountainside. Some dude called Cecil and his cult of cites should be worshipped. All life’s mysteries are contained in a single stupid sentence of how to clap with one hand. Who gave birth to you should decide what you get to work with and marry for the rest of your life. Etc. etc. etc.
What the fuck do I care, those are not my beliefs. If you’re not a Christian why this obsession with what the bible say or doesn’t say?
- Rune
Hey! Is this blasphemy really necessary? There are some lines which simply shouldn’t be crossed…
Error: condescending sentence fragments assuming a privileged authority in determining validity. Error: insulting comments posted in wrong forum. Error: refutations of assertions dismissed by weaseling.
Error: inability to grasp basic logic causes poster to react negatively.
“Authority” does not determine validity. If validity could be chosen, any conclusion could be justified.
The arguments presented are circular. They beg the question of whether the Judaic tradition is valuable. They do not examine whether its precepts are logically inconsistent, and they ignore the contradictions in drawing conclusions about what the Law should say from other sources.
When I say that these claims are illogical, unreasonable, and lacking in insight, I am not insulting those who make them: I am making statements of fact.